Selling a French flat or house from abroad looks simple on paper: sign with a notaire (public officer who authenticates the deed), receive the price, pay the tax. In practice, a non-resident seller faces a tax specifically designed for his situation, a representative to appoint, and a buyer who will scrutinise every survey annexed to the deed. This guide walks through the computation of the French real-estate gain, the exemptions that can erase it, the accredited representative without whom the deed cannot be registered, and the steps that secure the sale against later claims.
French law starts from a simple definition: the taxable gain is the difference between the sale price and the acquisition price. Article 150 V of the General Tax Code states it in one line, and the net taxable gain is then computed after the holding-period allowance described below: Article 150 V du Code général des impôts. For a person who is not domiciled in France for tax purposes, that gain falls within a dedicated levy rather than the ordinary income-tax return, as explained in Part I. Part II turns to the procedure that makes the sale possible and safe.
I. The tax bill: what a non-resident owes on the sale
A. Scope, rate and computation of the levy
Article 244 bis A of the General Tax Code provides that gains defined by Article 164 B realised by the persons listed in the text on the disposal of the assets it lists are subject to a withholding levy, subject to international tax treaties: Article 244 bis A du Code général des impôts. In plain English, France taxes the sale of French real estate even when the seller lives in London, New York, Dublin, Toronto or Sydney. The connecting factor is the location of the property, because Article 164 B treats as French-source income the gains on buildings situated in France and rights relating to them: Article 164 B du Code général des impôts.
For individuals, partners in transparent entities and individual holders of real-estate fund units, the levy is charged at 19% on the taxable gain after allowances, as the same Article 244 bis A states in its section III bis: Article 244 bis A du Code général des impôts. The official service-public.fr English page confirms the figure: gains are taxed at 19% after deduction of the allowances: service-public.fr, Income tax — Real estate capital gain (English version). Social levies apply on top of the 19%, and sellers who remain affiliated to a social-security scheme in the European Union, the European Economic Area or Switzerland owe only the solidarity levy: the impots.gouv.fr international pages give a solidarity levy at the rate of 7.5% for such income: impots.gouv.fr, Plus-values immobilières (international). Anyone outside that affiliation picture should have the exact social-levy position checked before signing, because it changes the net proceeds by several percentage points.
On top of the 19% and the social levies, large gains bear one more layer. Article 1609 nonies G of the General Tax Code creates a tax on real-estate gains realised under Articles 150 U and following and, for taxpayers not domiciled in France, under Article 244 bis A: Article 1609 nonies G du Code général des impôts. The service-public.fr English page gives the practical threshold and scale: an additional tax applies to taxable gains above €50,000 at a rate ranging from 2% to 6% according to the amount of the gain: service-public.fr, Income tax — Real estate capital gain (English version). The tax does not apply to building land, and in practice the computation is made by the notaire on form 2048-IMM-SD.
The starting point of the computation is the gross gain defined by Article 150 V: sale price minus acquisition price: Article 150 V du Code général des impôts. Each side of the subtraction can then be adjusted. The purchase price is the price actually paid as stated in the acquisition deed, and the service-public.fr English page explains that it may be increased, on proof or at a flat rate, to reflect the sums paid to the seller at purchase, the acquisition costs for their proven amount or a 7.5% flat rate of the purchase price, and works expenditure under conditions, for the proven amount or a flat rate: service-public.fr, Income tax — Real estate capital gain (English version). The works flat rate is 15% of the purchase price and is available subject to the conditions stated on that same official page, which in practice means the property must have been held for more than five years and no corresponding expenses already deducted. Keeping invoices for works and the original acquisition deed is therefore the cheapest tax planning a seller can do, years before the sale.
The decisive relief is the holding-period allowance, and its scale is published in the official tax bulletin. For income tax, the BOFiP scale grants 6% per year of ownership beyond the fifth year up to the twenty-first, plus 4% for the twenty-second year, so that full income-tax exemption is acquired after twenty-two years of ownership: BOFiP, BOI-RFPI-PVI-20-20, Détermination de la plus-value imposable. For social levies the same bulletin gives 1.65% per year from the sixth to the twenty-first year, 1.60% for the twenty-second year and 9% per year beyond, with full exemption after thirty years: BOFiP, BOI-RFPI-PVI-20-20, Détermination de la plus-value imposable. A worked example makes the mechanism concrete. A flat bought €300,000 and sold €460,000 after nine full years shows a gross gain of €160,000. Four allowance years at 6% erase 24% for income tax, leaving €121,600 taxable at 19%, or €23,104. For social levies, four years at 1.65% erase only 6.6%, leaving about €149,440 taxable. Add the 2%-to-6% surtax on the portion above €50,000, and the total approaches €50,000. The same sale after twenty-three years would owe no income tax at all, and after thirty years no social levies either. Timing the sale around these thresholds is lawful and often worth more than any negotiation on the price.
B. The three exemptions a non-resident can actually use
Three exemptions matter in practice for a seller who has left France. The first covers the former main home. Article 150 U exempts buildings that constitute the seller’s résidence principale (main home) on the day of the disposal: Article 150 U du Code général des impôts. Article 244 bis A extends the benefit to the person who has moved abroad: the disposal of the building that was the seller’s main home in France on the date of the transfer of his tax domicile outside France is exempt “à la double condition que la cession soit réalisée au plus tard le 31 décembre de l’année suivant celle du transfert par le cédant de son domicile fiscal hors de France et que l’immeuble n’ait pas été mis à la disposition de tiers, à titre gratuit ou onéreux, entre ce transfert et la cession” (in other words, the disposal must be completed no later than 31 December of the year following the departure, and the building must not have been made available to any third party in between): Article 244 bis A du Code général des impôts. An expatriate who leaves in March 2026 and lets the flat before selling in 2027 loses the exemption on both conditions at once: the deadline and the no-occupation rule. Anyone planning a departure should therefore decide before leaving whether the French home will be sold quickly, kept empty, or kept long enough for the holding-period allowances to do their work.
The second exemption concerns the first disposal of a dwelling other than the main home. Article 150 U grants it to a seller who has not owned his main home, directly or indirectly, during the four years before the sale, provided he reinvests the price within twenty-four months in the acquisition or construction of a dwelling he uses as his main home, failing which “l’exonération est remise en cause au titre de l’année du manquement” (the relief is therefore lost for the year of the breach): Article 150 U du Code général des impôts. For non-residents, the service-public.fr English page describes the adapted version: a capped exemption of €150,000 of net gain on the first disposal of a dwelling in France for a seller who is a national of an EU or EEA State and has been continuously resident in France for at least two years, where the sale must take place no later than 31 December of the tenth year following the year of the departure: service-public.fr, Income tax — Real estate capital gain (English version). This is the provision that most often helps the British, Irish or American owner who lived in France for a few years, left, and sells the former pied-à-terre within the decade. The two-year residence history and the nationality condition must be documented, not assumed.
The third exemption needs no paperwork at all: full exemption by holding period. After twenty-two years the income-tax allowance reaches 100%, and after thirty years the social-levy allowance does the same, as the BOFiP tables quoted above establish: BOFiP, BOI-RFPI-PVI-20-20, Détermination de la plus-value imposable. The impots.gouv.fr international guidance confirms the representative consequence: no accredited representative is needed where the gain is fully exempt from both income tax and social levies by reason of the ownership period. Long-held family flats in Paris, bought in the 1990s and sold today, therefore pass through the notaire‘s office with no levy and no representative, provided the computation is correctly established and stated in the deed. Between these poles — quick sale after departure, first-disposal cap, long holding — almost every non-resident file fits one strategy, and the file should be assigned to one of them before the preliminary agreement is signed, because the price, the timetable and the representative all depend on it.
II. The procedure: representative, deed and protection against later claims
A. The accredited representative, the price threshold and the deed
Under Article 244 bis A, the levy is collected when the deed is registered or, failing registration, within the month following the disposal, “sous la responsabilité d’un représentant établi en France, accrédité par l’administration fiscale” (the representative being the person legally answerable for the levy: Article 244 bis A du Code général des impôts. The représentant fiscal accrédité (accredited tax representative) is therefore not an option but the person legally answerable for the levy, and the accreditation itself is selective: neither the applicant nor its directors may have committed serious or repeated tax offences or undergone the commercial sanctions listed in the article, it must meet its own filing and payment duties, and it must offer guarantees securing the obligations of its office, failing which “Le non-respect de l’une de ces conditions entraîne le retrait de l’accréditation” (breach of any of these conditions entails withdrawal of the accreditation): Article 244 bis A du Code général des impôts. In practice the seller appoints a specialised firm weeks before the acte authentique de vente (notarial deed of sale), because without the representative’s computation and signature the deed cannot be filed and the price cannot be released.
Two dispensations narrow the obligation. First, sellers domiciled, established or constituted in a European Union or EEA State that has concluded with France both an administrative-assistance convention against fraud and evasion and a mutual-recovery convention are dispensed from appointing a representative, and for partnerships the test is applied at the level of each partner: Article 244 bis A du Code général des impôts. The BOFiP restates the rule for individuals and entities alike, whatever their legal form: a seller resident in one of those States, having concluded both conventions with France, is dispensed from appointing a representative to pay the levy: BOFiP, BOI-RFPI-PVINR-30-20, Désignation d’un représentant accrédité. Second, the BOFiP provides an automatic dispensation by amount: the automatic dispensation applies to disposals whose price is €150,000 or less, a threshold assessed per seller: BOFiP, BOI-RFPI-PVINR-30-20, Désignation d’un représentant accrédité. The threshold is assessed against the price for the building or rights as stated in the deed, per seller, so co-owners divide it by share, and joint taxation of civil partners is treated as one seller. A British seller of a €140,000 studio in year eight of ownership needs no representative; an American seller of a €600,000 flat in year eight must appoint one, even if the gain after allowances is modest, because the test turns on the price, not the gain. The service-public.fr English page summarises the position for individuals in one sentence: a non-resident must designate a tax representative as soon as the gain is taxable, and that representative must be accredited by the tax authorities and present financial guarantees: service-public.fr, Income tax — Real estate capital gain (English version).
Once the levy is paid, the matter is closed: Article 244 bis A states that “Le prélèvement mentionné au I est libératoire de l’impôt sur le revenu dû en raison des sommes qui ont supporté celui-ci” (the levy discharges the income tax on the sums taxed): Article 244 bis A du Code général des impôts. The deed itself must state the nature and legal basis of any exemption or absence of taxation, failing which filing or registration is refused. Concretely, the chain runs as follows: preliminary agreement with price and conditions, appointment of the representative if the price and residence tests require one, assembly of the acquisition deed, works invoices and diagnosis file, computation of the gain and the levy, signature of the acte authentique before the notaire, payment of the levy at registration, release of the net price. French sale law makes the notaire the pivot of that chain. The Civil Code defines the sale as “une convention par laquelle l’un s’oblige à livrer une chose, et l’autre à la payer. Elle peut être faite par acte authentique ou sous seing privé” (a sale being an agreement to deliver against payment, by notarial deed or private contract): Article 1582 du Code civil. And ownership passes as soon as the thing and the price are agreed, even before delivery or payment: “Elle est parfaite entre les parties, et la propriété est acquise de droit à l’acheteur à l’égard du vendeur, dès qu’on est convenu de la chose et du prix, quoique la chose n’ait pas encore été livrée ni le prix payé” (ownership passing as soon as thing and price are agreed, even before delivery or payment): Article 1583 du Code civil. That is why the compromis de vente (preliminary sale agreement) already binds, and why every figure and every survey must be correct before it is signed. Readers preparing the purchase side of the same operation will find the buyer’s perspective in our overview of real-estate law assistance for foreign clients in Paris.
B. Diagnostics, exclusion clauses and the price: securing the sale
The most dangerous page of a sale file is the dossier de diagnostic technique (technical survey file) annexed to the deed, and the Cour de cassation said so twice in 2025. On 30 January 2025, the Third Civil Chamber quashed an appeal judgment that had reduced the buyer’s compensation for an understated asbestos survey to a mere loss of a chance to negotiate. The Court held that the statement of presence or absence of asbestos annexed to the sale guarantees the buyer against the risk and that the surveyor’s liability is engaged where the survey was not performed in accordance with the standards: the appeal court could not cap the remedy at bargaining loss once it had found a visible, accessible asbestos-containing material missed by the surveyor: Cass. 3e civ., 30 janv. 2025, n° 23-14.029. The legal root is the general fault principle that “tout fait quelconque de l’homme, qui cause à autrui un dommage, oblige celui par la faute duquel il est arrivé à le réparer” (any faulty act causing damage must be repaired by the person at fault): Article 1240 du Code civil (ancien article 1382 cité par l’arrêt). For a non-resident seller, the lesson is direct: commission the surveys from a certified operator, verify that the operator actually visited every accessible part including outbuildings, and keep the reports, because an error in that file follows the seller into litigation years later.
Nine months later, on 23 October 2025, the same Chamber decided the mirror question: can the seller hide behind a clause excluding the warranty against hidden defects? A company had sold an office building to a real-estate investment trust with three surveys stating no asbestos; asbestos was found in 2014. The Court of Appeal had set aside the exclusion clause on the ground that the buyer lacked asbestos expertise. The Cour de cassation partially quashed, holding: “Il résulte de ce texte que la clause limitative ou exclusive de garantie des vices cachés est opposable à un acheteur professionnel de même spécialité que celui qui lui vend la chose” (such a clause being enforceable against a professional buyer sharing the seller speciality): Cass. 3e civ., 23 oct. 2025, nos 23-18.469, 23-18.508, 23-18.560. The text in question is Article 1643 of the Civil Code, which makes the seller answerable for hidden defects even unknown to him “à moins que, dans ce cas, il n’ait stipulé qu’il ne sera obligé à aucune garantie” (unless he stipulated that he would owe no warranty): Article 1643 du Code civil. Two consequences follow for a non-resident seller. Between private individuals, the exclusion clause in the notarial deed protects the seller in good faith but never a seller who knew of the defect. Between professionals of the same speciality, the clause is enforceable, and the 2025 decision shows the court must examine whether the buyer truly shares the seller’s speciality rather than assume it from the buyer’s general professionalism. A foreign fund selling a Paris office to another fund should therefore draft the clause deliberately, and a private seller should never rely on it to conceal a defect he knows about, since knowledge proven by the buyer destroys the clause and adds damages.
The price itself can also be frozen by agreement, and the notarial sequestration that holds it is fenced by strict rules. On 20 January 2021, the First Civil Chamber recalled that “L’arrêt énonce, d’abord, à bon droit, qu’au sens de ce texte, les parties intéressées incluent non seulement celles qui ont demandé ou établi le séquestre mais encore les personnes qui ont un intérêt sur la chose séquestrée” (the Court approved the reading that interested parties include anyone with an interest in the sequestered thing, not only the parties who set the arrangement up): Cass. 1re civ., 20 janv. 2021, n° 19-18.567. In that case, part of a sale price had been sequestered with the notaire to finance decontamination works, and the funds had been released to seller and buyer by mutual agreement while the remediation contractor remained unpaid; the Court let the contractor’s claim against the notarial office stand. For a non-resident seller, the message is that any retention from the price — for works, for a disputed charge, for a tax balance — must name its beneficiaries, its release triggers and its acceptances in the deed itself, because a side letter between seller and buyer does not extinguish the rights of the third party the money was meant to protect.
In Paris and the Île-de-France, where most foreign-owned flats change hands, these three vigilance points converge. Co-ownership information, the energy-performance diagnosis and, for the oldest stock, asbestos and lead surveys form the file the buyer will have inspected by counsel before the compromis; the representative’s computation fixes the net proceeds the seller will actually receive; and the deed’s exclusion and sequestration clauses allocate the risks the surveys cannot eliminate. Assembling the acquisition deed, the works invoices, the survey reports and the residence history before listing the property — rather than after accepting an offer — is what separates a sale completed on schedule from a file reopened by the buyer two years later. Our team assists foreign sellers and buyers with every stage of the Paris transaction, from the preliminary agreement to the computation of the levy, as described on our Paris real-estate law page for international clients.
Conclusion
A non-resident who sells French property pays a dedicated levy at 19% plus social levies, with a 2%-to-6% surtax above €50,000 of taxable gain — unless an exemption removes the bill entirely. The former main home sold by 31 December of the year after departure and never lent in between is exempt; the first disposal of another dwelling within a €150,000 gain cap helps the seller who lived in France for at least two years and sells within ten years of leaving; and twenty-two years of ownership erase the income tax while thirty erase the social levies. Above €150,000 of price, a seller outside the EU-EEA assistance-convention circle must act through an accredited representative established in France, whose computation conditions the registration of the deed and the release of the funds, and the levy once paid discharges the income tax. Around that fiscal core, the 2025 Cour de cassation decisions impose a single discipline: surveys that guarantee the buyer, exclusion clauses that work only as Article 1643 allows, and sequestered funds that cannot be diverted from their stated purpose. Prepared early, documented precisely and timed against the allowance thresholds, a sale from abroad closes exactly like a sale signed in Paris.