You moved to France years ago, built a life near Bordeaux or in Paris, paid into a British workplace pension the whole time, and now the marriage is ending. Two legal systems immediately claim a piece of your future: the French judge who will pronounce the divorce, and the English pension scheme that holds the money. Neither works the way the other expects. A French court cannot split a British pension pot the way an English court can, and an English order dividing a pension does not automatically produce effects in France. Between the two sits a double tax treaty that decides which country taxes the pension once it is paid, and a set of European rules that decide which court hears the case and which law divides the assets, even though the United Kingdom has left the European Union. This article explains, for a British reader living in France, how those pieces fit together: where to file for divorce after Brexit, how French law values a pension that has not yet been paid, what an English pension sharing order does and how to give it effect in France, and how the resulting pension income is taxed. French terms are explained as they appear. The companion guide on divorcing in France after Brexit, which covers the choice of court, the applicable law, children and the family home, is worth reading alongside this article: how a British couple divorces in France after Brexit.

I. Which court hears the divorce and which law divides the money

A. Where to file for divorce when one life spans France and England

If you both live in France, the French court is the natural forum, and European law confirms it. Regulation 2019/1111, known as Brussels II ter, provides that the courts of a Member State have jurisdiction over divorce, and it lists as the first ground the territory where the habitual residence of the spouses is found: “Sont compétentes pour statuer sur les questions relatives au divorce, à la séparation de corps et à l’annulation du mariage des époux, les juridictions de l’État membre: a) sur le territoire duquel se trouve: i) la résidence habituelle des époux, ii) la dernière résidence habituelle des époux dans la mesure où l’un d’eux y réside encore, iii) la résidence habituelle du défendeur, iv) en cas de demande conjointe, la résidence habituelle de l’un ou l’autre époux, v) la résidence habituelle du demandeur s’il y a résidé depuis au moins une année immédiatement avant l’introduction de la demande” (Regulation (EU) 2019/1111, Article 3, on EUR-Lex). In plain English: a couple habitually resident in France divorces in France, and even one spouse left behind in France can file there alone. Note the last branch of that list, which carries a time condition expressed by the text itself: a spouse who files alone in the country where he or she lives must have lived there for at least the year immediately before filing. Within France, the case then goes to the family judge (juge aux affaires familiales) of the place where the family home is: “Le juge aux affaires familiales territorialement compétent est : – le juge du lieu où se trouve la résidence de la famille” (Code of Civil Procedure, Article 1070, on Légifrance).

Brexit changed only one side of that picture. These European jurisdiction rules still bind the French judge, because France is still a Member State. But an English court no longer applies them: since the end of the transition period, England and Wales decide divorce jurisdiction under their own domestic rules, centred on domicile, which for many British expatriates survives years of living abroad. The practical result is that two courts in two countries can each consider themselves competent at the same time, and the old European mechanism that forced the second court seised to stand back no longer operates between France and England. Whoever files first, and where, now matters more than it did before 2021, because parallel divorces in Lyon and London are no longer a theoretical risk but a procedural trap that doubles costs and can produce contradictory financial orders.

A recent decision of the Court of Cassation shows how seriously French courts take the race to file. On 25 March 2026 the First Civil Chamber dealt with a husband seeking exequatur, meaning enforcement in France, of a Moroccan divorce judgment, while his wife relied on a divorce petition she had filed earlier before a French court: the facts record that she had seised a French court before he seised the Moroccan judge, and she opposed recognition of the later foreign judgment on that ground (Cass. civ. 1re, 25 March 2026, no. 24-13.011, on Légifrance). The configuration is Moroccan, not British, but the lesson travels directly: when two countries are in play, filing first in the forum you prefer is a strategic act, and the spouse who waits may spend years arguing about which judgment counts.

One specifically French route deserves an explanation, because it looks tempting and is often the wrong choice for a British couple. Since 2017, spouses who agree on everything can divorce in France without ever seeing a judge, by a private deed countersigned by their two solicitors and filed with a notaire: “Les époux peuvent consentir mutuellement à leur divorce par acte sous signature privée contresigné par avocats, déposé au rang des minutes d’un notaire” (Civil Code, Article 229, on Légifrance). This divorce by mutual consent without a judge is quick, private and cheap, and it works perfectly for a couple whose whole life sits in France. But it produces no court judgment, only a private deed given enforceable form by a notaire. If England is where money may later need to be enforced, against a pension scheme in Leeds, an employer in London or a bank account left behind, a document that travels well across borders is worth more than speed. A court judgment is recognised and enforced abroad through established channels; a solicitor-signed deed may need to be explained, translated in legal effect, and sometimes re-litigated. Couples with British pensions or English assets therefore usually prefer the judicial divorce, even when they agree on everything, because the judgment is the passport their financial orders will need. One of the judicial grounds is particularly useful when only one spouse wants out: irretrievable breakdown shown by separate lives, since “L’altération définitive du lien conjugal résulte de la cessation de la communauté de vie entre les époux, lorsqu’ils vivent séparés depuis un an lors de la demande en divorce” (Civil Code, Article 238, on Légifrance).

B. How French law values a pension that has not been paid yet

Once the French court has the case, the next question is which national law divides what the marriage built. Here again Europe still governs the French side. Regulation 1259/2010, known as Rome III, lets spouses choose the law applicable to their divorce from a short closed list: “Les époux peuvent convenir de désigner la loi applicable au divorce et à la séparation de corps, pour autant qu’il s’agisse de l’une des lois suivantes” (Regulation (EU) No 1259/2010, Article 5, on EUR-Lex), a list that includes the law of their habitual residence and the law of their common nationality. A British couple in France can therefore elect English law or French law within those limits, provided the choice is in writing and made in time. If they choose nothing, which is the usual case, Article 8 supplies a cascade with its own time condition built in: “À défaut de choix conformément à l’article 5, le divorce et la séparation de corps sont soumis à la loi de l’État: a) de la résidence habituelle des époux au moment de la saisine de la juridiction; ou, à défaut, b) de la dernière résidence habituelle des époux, pour autant que cette résidence n’ait pas pris fin plus d’un an avant la saisine de la juridiction et que l’un des époux réside encore dans cet État au moment de la saisine de la juridiction; ou, à défaut, c) de la nationalité des deux époux au moment de la saisine de la juridiction; ou, à défaut, d) dont la juridiction est saisie” (Regulation (EU) No 1259/2010, Article 8, on EUR-Lex). For a British couple habitually resident in France, that cascade lands on French law in the overwhelming majority of cases: the court applies its own law to a couple living on its soil.

French divorce law then handles pensions in a way that surprises British spouses, because it refuses to divide them and compensates for them instead. The central financial tool is the prestation compensatoire, a compensatory payment owed by one spouse to the other: “L’un des époux peut être tenu de verser à l’autre une prestation destinée à compenser, autant qu’il est possible, la disparité que la rupture du mariage crée dans les conditions de vie respectives” (Civil Code, Article 270, on Légifrance). It is a lump sum fixed by the judge, forfaitaire in character, meaning it is assessed once and for all rather than paid as an open-ended pension. And among the criteria the judge must weigh, retirement rights are named expressly: the court takes into account “leur situation respective en matière de pensions de retraite en ayant estimé, autant qu’il est possible, la diminution des droits à retraite qui aura pu être causée, pour l’époux créancier de la prestation compensatoire, par les circonstances visées au sixième alinéa”, that is, by career choices made during the marriage to raise the children or to favour the other spouse’s career at the expense of one’s own (Civil Code, Article 271, on Légifrance). In everyday terms: the wife who worked part time for fifteen years so the family could follow her husband’s postings, and whose British state and workplace pensions are a fraction of his, carries that shortfall into the calculation.

The Court of Cassation reinforced that point in the strongest possible way in March 2025. A wife had been refused any compensatory payment by the Chambéry appeal court on the ground that the spouses’ current incomes were roughly equivalent, with the appeal judges treating her sacrificed career and its effect on her future pension as relevant only to the amount of a payment whose principle they had already rejected. The First Civil Chamber quashed that reasoning, holding that “pour apprécier la disparité que la rupture du mariage crée dans les conditions de vie respectives des parties, il devait être tenu compte des droits prévisibles à la retraite”, and it annulled the appeal decision precisely “en ce qu’il rejette la demande de prestation compensatoire” (Cass. civ. 1re, 5 March 2025, no. 22-24.122, on Légifrance). The message for a British spouse in France is direct: foreseeable pension rights, including rights under a foreign scheme that has not yet paid a penny, count when establishing the very existence of the disparity, not merely when fixing the cheque. Gather pension statements early, including cash equivalent transfer values from British schemes, because the French judge can only value what the file shows.

II. What happens to the British pension pot itself

A. The English pension sharing order: the only tool that truly splits the pot

Everything in Part I valued the pension without touching it. French law compensates the spouse whose retirement prospects the marriage damaged; it does not reach into the scheme and divide the fund. England does the opposite. On divorce, an English court can make a pension sharing order, a remedy created so that pension rights, which for many couples are the largest asset after the home, can actually be divided rather than merely offset. Section 24B of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 gives the court the power, when it makes a divorce or nullity order or at any later stage, to make one or more pension sharing orders on the application of a party, on the single timing condition that the sharing order takes effect only once the divorce or nullity order itself has been made final (Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, section 24B, on legislation.gov.uk). In practice the order carves a percentage off the member’s pension rights and credits it to the former spouse, who becomes a pension holder in his or her own right, with an independent pot, independent choices at retirement, and protection if the member dies first. Nothing comparable exists in the French judicial toolkit, and that asymmetry shapes every franco-British divorce strategy.

The first consequence is jurisdictional and cannot be sidestepped. Only a court of England and Wales, acting on divorce, can make a pension sharing order against a British scheme. A French judge pronouncing your divorce in Marseille or Paris has no power to order trustees in Manchester to split a fund; the remedy French law gives the disadvantaged spouse is money, through the prestation compensatoire or through the allocation of other assets, as explained above. So a British couple divorcing in France faces a genuine fork in the road. Accept the French route alone, and the pension stays whole in the member’s name while the other spouse receives compensation valued with the pension in mind. Want the pension itself divided, with each former spouse holding an independent share? Then an English court must be seised, which requires a jurisdictional link with England, typically through domicile, and an English solicitor should confirm that link before any filing in France closes the door. Domicile is a technical concept that survives long after emigration for many British nationals, but it can also be lost, and it is lost precisely by people who settled most completely in France, so this is not a question to answer by gut feeling.

The second consequence concerns the orders England used to make before sharing existed, and still occasionally makes: attachment orders, also called earmarking, under sections 25B and 25C of the same Act, which do not split the fund but redirect part of the pension payments to the former spouse when they fall due. The statute itself marks the boundary between the two techniques: attachment is no longer available for a pension arrangement that is already the subject of a pension sharing order, or has already been shared between the parties to the marriage (Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, section 25B, on legislation.gov.uk). Why does this matter in France? Because attachment leaves the former spouse dependent on the member’s choices and survival: if the member never draws the pension, draws it late, or dies, the earmarked stream may never flow. A French judge assessing future resources under Article 271 will want to know exactly which mechanism protects the creditor spouse, and a sharing order, clean and final, is far easier to value than a stream of payments contingent on an ex-spouse’s behaviour. When negotiating, prefer sharing over attachment wherever the scheme permits it, and get the scheme’s administrators to confirm in writing what each option yields.

The third consequence is practical and often discovered too late. A pension sharing order binds the scheme administrators, not the world. Trustees need a copy of the final order, they charge for implementation, and they apply their own valuation date. Meanwhile the French divorce may already have fixed a prestation compensatoire computed on the assumption that the pension would be shared, or the English order may arrive after the French judgment has become final. Coordination is therefore everything: run the two proceedings with lawyers who know about each other, sequence the applications so the French judge sees the English order before fixing compensation, or ask the French court to take the pending English proceedings into account. Two lawyers working in ignorance of each other is the most expensive configuration this situation allows.

B. Getting the English order recognised in France and paying tax on the pension afterwards

Suppose the strategy worked: an English court made the sharing order, the pension is split, and each former spouse now draws a British pension while living in France. Two further questions arise, one about recognition and one about tax, and the answers come from two different bodies of law that must not be confused.

Recognition first. Since Brexit, English judgments no longer circulate in France under European regulations; they are foreign judgments like any other, and their enforcement in France follows French private international law. The starting text is Article 509 of the Code of Civil Procedure: “Les jugements rendus par les tribunaux étrangers et les actes reçus par les officiers étrangers sont exécutoires sur le territoire de la République de la manière et dans les cas prévus par la loi” (Code of Civil Procedure, Article 509, on Légifrance). In practice, a distinction forgotten by many litigants decides everything. The divorce itself, as a matter of personal status, is generally effective in France without any enforcement proceedings once it satisfies the conditions of international regularity; but a money order, an order to pay, to transfer or to divide, produces effects against assets and persons in France only after a French court has declared it enforceable through exequatur. A Paris court applied that test in June 2026 when granting exequatur to a Canadian family order: outside any international convention, and there is no Franco-British convention on divorce judgments, the French judge verifies three conditions, namely the indirect jurisdiction of the foreign court based on a genuine link between the dispute and that court, compatibility with substantive and procedural international public policy, and the absence of fraud (Paris Judicial Court, Exequatur division, 10 June 2026, RG 25/05147). Apply that test to an English financial order: an English court that heard the divorce on a genuine domicile link satisfies indirect jurisdiction; a reasoned adversarial decision satisfies international public policy; and a forum chosen for its real connection with the parties involves no fraud. Most English pension orders therefore pass, but they pass through the exequatur door, with a French lawyer, translated documents and months of procedure, not by mere presentation at a bank counter. Budget for that step from the outset rather than discovering it when the scheme asks for a French enforcement order.

Tax second, and here the news is mostly reassuring because a treaty allocates the right to tax before either country sends a bill. The Franco-British double tax convention of 19 June 2008, published in France by the decree of 7 January 2010, provides in its Article 18 that pensions and similar remuneration paid for past employment to a resident of one of the two states are taxable only in that state of residence, subject to the government-service exception in Article 19(2) (France-United Kingdom tax convention of 19 June 2008, Articles 18 and 19, on impots.gouv.fr). A British former spouse living in France who draws a former workplace pension, including a pension credit received through a sharing order, is therefore taxable in France, not in the United Kingdom. Once France has the taxing right, the pension joins your ordinary taxable income, because “Les traitements, indemnités, émoluments, salaires, pensions et rentes viagères concourent à la formation du revenu global servant de base à l’impôt sur le revenu” (General Tax Code, Article 79, on Légifrance). Declare the pension on your French income tax return, claim the treaty position if HM Revenue and Customs continues to withhold British tax at source, and keep the English P60 and the French assessment for the file, because double charges in the first year are common and always resolved on paper.

One exception then carves back an important category, and British retirees in France meet it constantly. Pensions paid by a state for government service stay taxable in the paying state, whether paid directly or from funds set aside for that purpose, with a single exception: they are taxable only in the other state where the recipient lives there, holds its nationality and does not also hold the nationality of the paying state (France-United Kingdom tax convention of 19 June 2008, Article 19(2), on impots.gouv.fr). Teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters, civil servants and armed forces personnel: if the pension rewards service to the British state itself, the United Kingdom keeps the taxing right even when you live in Provence, unless you are a French national living in France without British nationality. Identify each pension stream separately, because a single household often mixes the two regimes, with a private workplace pension taxable in France and a National Health Service or teachers’ pension taxable in Britain. The detailed treatment of the one-off 25 percent tax-free lump sum, which France taxes even though Britain does not, and of Crown pensions is set out in the dedicated guide: how France taxes the British tax-free lump sum and Crown pensions.

A final warning belongs here because it costs real money. Pension sharing debits are calculated on valuations that move with markets, schemes charge implementation fees that can reach several thousand pounds, and the transfer value quoted at the start of negotiations may not be the value applied on the day the order is implemented. Meanwhile French social charges and income tax apply to the pension as paid, year by year, under the treaty allocation above. Model the net outcome before signing anything: a 40 percent share of a gross fund is not 40 percent of a spendable income once implementation charges, British withholding to be reclaimed, French income tax and the timing gap between the order and the first payment have all taken their cut. The spouse who insists on seeing those numbers in writing before the consent order is signed is not being difficult; that spouse is being solvent.

Conclusion

A British divorce in France with a United Kingdom pension in the background runs on two tracks that never merge by themselves. The French track pronounces the divorce, usually under French law for a couple living in France, and compensates pension disparity with a lump sum that must reflect foreseeable retirement rights, as the Court of Cassation confirmed in March 2025. The English track alone can split the pension fund itself through a pension sharing order, which takes effect only once the divorce order is final and which binds the scheme administrators directly. Between the two, an English money order needs French exequatur under the three conditions recalled by the Paris court in June 2026 before it can be enforced in France, and the resulting pension income is taxed where the treaty says: in France for ordinary employment pensions paid to a French resident, in Britain for government service pensions, each stream identified separately. File in the right forum first, value every pension early with proper statements, sequence the proceedings so each judge sees the whole picture, and model the net figures before signing. Done in that order, the divorce ends the marriage without mortgaging the retirement.