A British parent can generally transfer money to a child living in France after Brexit. The difficult question is not whether a UK bank can send the funds. It is which country can tax the transfer, whether the French recipient must declare it, how the gift will be treated if the parent dies within seven years, and whether other children could later challenge its effect on the estate. French gift-tax analysis turns on tax residence, the residence history of the recipient, the location of the asset, the amount, the date and the relationship between donor and recipient. British nationality alone does not answer those questions. In 2026, a French recipient should also pay close attention to the changed procedure for declaring a manual gift or cash gift. This article separates the immediate French tax calculation from the United Kingdom Inheritance Tax and succession consequences. It gives a practical evidence trail for a parent in the UK who wants to fund a child in France while keeping the transaction identifiable, properly declared and consistent with the family’s later estate planning. A transfer intended to finance a property purchase may raise additional conveyancing questions, but the purchase process itself is outside this British desk’s remit.

I. Can a British parent gift money to a child in France after Brexit?

A. Which French tax rules apply when the donor is in the UK and the child is in France?

Brexit did not create a special French gift-tax exemption for a transfer from a British bank account. The starting point is the French rules on transfers for no consideration, commonly called mutation à titre gratuit (a transfer without payment). A genuine gift is a transfer made with a liberal intention: the parent intends to enrich the child and does not expect repayment. A loan, a reimbursement, money held as nominee for the parent, and a gift are not interchangeable descriptions.

The civil-law definition is important. Article 894 of the French Civil Code begins: La donation entre vifs est un acte par lequel le donateur se dépouille. In English, a lifetime donation is an act by which the donor disposes of the asset for the beneficiary. The transfer must therefore be real and accepted; a parent who keeps unrestricted ownership and can demand the money back has a different evidential problem. A bank payment labelled “family gift” is useful, but the label is not by itself conclusive.

French gift tax is governed principally by the donor’s and donee’s tax residence and by the location of the asset. The donateur means the person giving the asset; the donataire means the person receiving it. Article 750 ter of the French Tax Code starts with the words Sont soumis aux droits de mutation à titre gratuit, then identifies three situations:

• if the donor is resident in France for French tax purposes when the gift is made, French gift tax can apply to the donor’s worldwide assets;
• if the donor is not French-resident, French tax can apply to assets situated in France; and
• if the recipient is resident in France and has been resident there for at least six of the previous ten years, French tax can apply to assets received from a non-resident donor, subject to the statutory conditions and any applicable international rule.

That six-out-of-ten test is often missed by British families. A child who moved to France recently may be French tax-resident today but may not yet have accumulated six years of French residence in the relevant ten-year period. Conversely, a child who studied or worked in France for several years before returning to the UK may need a careful residence-history calculation. The test is not measured simply by the address printed on a bank statement. Keep tax returns, tax-residence certificates, employment records, rental agreements and dates of departure and arrival so the calculation can be reconstructed.

The following practical matrix helps frame the first review:

Parent at the date of transfer	Child’s French residence history	Question to resolve
French tax-resident	Any status	Worldwide assets and the applicable French allowances and rates must be reviewed.
UK tax-resident and not French-resident	At least six of the previous ten years in France	The French recipient-residence rule may bring the received asset into French gift-tax analysis.
UK tax-resident and not French-resident	Less than six of the previous ten years in France	Check whether the money is French-situs, whether another rule applies, and whether a declaration is still required.

“Situs” means the legal location of an asset for tax purposes. Cash is not analysed in exactly the same way as a French flat, a French company share or a bank account held in France. A transfer from a UK account to a French account may therefore require a fact-specific review rather than a slogan such as “the money came from Britain, so France cannot tax it”. The child’s residence history, the parent’s real tax residence, the account ownership and the terms of the transfer must be considered together.

Do not confuse French income tax with French gift tax. A gift is not salary, rent or investment income simply because the child receives money. It can nevertheless have later consequences if the money generates interest, is invested, is used to acquire an asset, or is mixed with the child’s own funds. A separate tax question may arise when the child later sells an investment or receives income from it. The gift date and the later income date should be recorded separately.

The parent should also distinguish a gift from an informal loan. If repayment is genuinely expected, write down the principal, repayment date, interest position and default arrangements before the transfer. If the family calls it a loan to avoid tax but never intended repayment, that inconsistency can create a much larger dispute. If it is a gift, say so clearly in the transfer letter and retain evidence that the child accepted it. A later court may examine the parties’ intention, not only the payment reference.

The France–United Kingdom convention signed on 21 June 1963 is relevant to double taxation at death, but it should not be treated as a blanket exemption from French gift tax at the date of a lifetime transfer. The official France–UK convention on successions concerns death duties and the allocation of taxing rights over an estate. Its existence is a reason to coordinate the lifetime gift with the eventual estate, not a reason to omit the French gift analysis.

There is also a practical distinction between the direction of the transfer. A British resident in France giving money to a child in the UK raises a different residence and recipient-location pattern from a British parent in the UK giving money to a child in France. Families should not copy the conclusion of an article about the reverse direction. The existing UK-child direction article can be used as a comparison, but it does not answer the present question.

B. How much can a parent give and how must the child declare it in 2026?

Once the residence analysis indicates that French gift tax may apply, the next step is to identify the available allowances. For a gift from one parent to one child, the ordinary parent-to-child allowance is €100,000. Article 779 of the French Tax Code refers to un abattement de 100 000 €, meaning a €100,000 allowance, subject to the statutory relationship and the way earlier gifts are brought into account.

A qualifying cash gift may receive a second allowance of €31,865. Article 790 G of the French Tax Code sets the limit at dans la limite de 31 865 € tous les quinze ans. The special cash-gift allowance requires conditions including an eligible family relationship, full ownership, a donor who is under 80 on the date of the gift and a recipient who is at least 18 or emancipated. It is not a general allowance for every transfer to every relative. If the parent is 80 or older, the €31,865 allowance may not be available even though the ordinary €100,000 parent-to-child allowance may remain available.

The two allowances are cumulative when their conditions are met. On a simplified example, one parent under 80 gives €200,000 to an adult child, no relevant gift has been made in the previous fifteen years, and the gift qualifies under both provisions:

• ordinary parent-to-child allowance: €100,000;
• qualifying family cash-gift allowance: €31,865;
• combined amount left outside the taxable base: €131,865;
• amount remaining for the progressive direct-line scale: €68,135.

This does not mean that the child can simply receive €131,865 without filing anything. French administration distinguishes tax due from the obligation to declare the transfer. A declaration creates a dated record, starts the relevant administrative trail and allows the family to establish which allowances were used. A “tax-free” gift can still be a gift that must be declared.

For gifts made or revealed in 2026, the French administration has changed the filing process. The official impots.gouv.fr guidance on manual gifts states that online filing is now the ordinary route from 1 January 2026, with limited exceptions where a paper process remains available. The complementary Service-Public guidance on cash gifts explains the parent-to-child allowances and the continuing importance of declaring a gift even when no duty is payable. A don manuel means a manual gift, traditionally a direct handover or an account-to-account transfer. The recipient, not the UK parent, normally makes the declaration in the recipient’s French tax account when online filing is available.

The paper form remains relevant in an exception or where the recipient cannot use the online route. The official Form 2735 guidance concerns the declaration of manual gifts and sums of money. Read the current instructions before filing: the 2026 process depends on the recipient’s access to the French tax account, status and particular circumstances. A non-resident recipient without a usable French tax account should not improvise a filing route from an old blog post.

The statutory timing also matters. Article 635 A of the French Tax Code includes the phrase dans le délai d’un mois, within one month. In practice, the family should prepare the declaration as soon as the transfer is completed and confirm the current administrative route rather than waiting until an estate is opened. Keep the transfer date, the date on which the recipient learned of or accepted the gift, the filing date and the receipt in one file.

The recipient should declare the gross amount in euros, not leave the French form to infer the value from a sterling transfer. The bank’s exchange rate, the date used, the amount debited in pounds and the amount credited in euros should be saved. If the money arrives in several instalments, list each instalment and explain whether it forms one agreed gift or several separate gifts. A family should not artificially split a single promise into payments merely to create a misleading appearance of multiple transactions.

French tax on the taxable balance is progressive. Article 777 of the French Tax Code labels the scale Tarif des droits applicables en ligne directe, the rate applicable in the direct line. The direct-line bands are 5% up to €8,072, 10% from €8,072 to €12,109, 15% from €12,109 to €15,932, 20% from €15,932 to €552,324, then 30%, 40% and 45% in the higher bands. The rate applies by bands, not as one percentage on the whole gift.

Using the €200,000 example and a taxable balance of €68,135, the indicative calculation is approximately €11,821.35 before any issue about prior gifts, a different qualification, an applicable credit or a correction to the facts:

Slice of taxable balance	Rate	Indicative duty
€8,072	5%	€403.60
€4,037	10%	€403.70
€3,823	15%	€573.45
€52,203	20%	€10,440.60
Total		€11,821.35

The example is deliberately limited. If both parents each make a qualifying gift from their own assets, the available parent-to-child allowances may be considered separately. If the money belongs to the two parents jointly, or one parent is only acting as an agent for the other, the ownership and transfer documents should match the intended split. A payment from a joint account does not automatically prove that each parent made half of the gift.

Earlier transfers can reduce the available allowances. Article 784 of the French Tax Code excludes earlier donations only à l’exception de celles passées depuis plus de quinze ans, meaning those made more than fifteen years earlier. The dates and values of prior gifts should be listed even where the family believes they were below the tax threshold. A parent who cannot produce prior gift receipts may create uncertainty over the allowance remaining for the present transfer.

The French rules also contain a specific provision for manual gifts. Article 757 of the French Tax Code says, among other cases, La même règle s’applique lorsque le donataire révèle un don manuel. The recipient’s revelation can therefore have tax significance. A declaration is not a harmless administrative formality to postpone indefinitely; it can determine the date and value used in the tax calculation.

A filing receipt should be stored with the bank evidence. The receipt should show what was declared, by whom and when. If the administration asks for additional information, answer consistently with the gift letter and payment reference. Do not describe the transfer as a loan in one document and a gift in another unless the documents explain a genuine change of plan and the repayment position.

Finally, the child should not assume that a declaration settles the civil-law treatment among heirs. Tax filing answers one set of questions. It does not decide whether the gift is brought into account in a later succession, whether the parent intended an advance on inheritance, whether the gift must be protected from a forced-heir claim, or whether a court could requalify the transaction. Those issues need a separate family and succession file.

II. How can the family protect the gift against UK tax and future succession disputes?

A. How does UK Inheritance Tax interact with French gift tax?

French gift tax at the date of transfer and UK Inheritance Tax at the parent’s death are different charges. A British parent may have no immediate UK Inheritance Tax to pay merely because money is gifted during life, yet the gift can remain relevant if the parent dies within seven years. The UK tax analysis depends on the parent’s domicile or long-term residence position, the nature of the asset, the amount of the gift, the exemptions used and the value of the estate at death. Post-Brexit residence does not turn every British citizen into a non-UK taxpayer, and living in France does not automatically remove every United Kingdom connection.

The official GOV.UK gifts guidance explains the seven-year principle: many lifetime gifts are outside the estate if the donor survives seven years, while gifts made closer to death may be relevant to Inheritance Tax. The same guidance describes the £3,000 annual exemption and other limited exemptions, such as certain small gifts, wedding gifts and regular gifts made from normal income. These exemptions have their own conditions. The parent should not treat the £3,000 figure as a general “gift tax allowance” that automatically covers a large payment to a child.

A potentially exempt transfer, often shortened to “PET”, is a lifetime gift that can become exempt from UK Inheritance Tax if the donor survives the required period. If the donor dies within seven years, the gift may be brought into the calculation. The official GOV.UK calculation guidance should be checked against the parent’s date of gift, previous gifts, available nil-rate band and the rest of the estate. Keep a schedule of gifts with dates, recipients, amounts and the parent’s financial position.

The UK analysis must also address whether the parent retained a benefit. A transfer described as a gift but followed by the parent using the money, receiving rent, controlling the investment or treating the child as a nominee may not have the expected estate effect. The facts of a cash gift to a child are different from a transfer of a home where the parent continues living there. The evidence must show what the child owned and controlled after completion.

Currency creates a second record-keeping issue. The French declaration is prepared in euros, while the UK estate may report sterling values. Preserve the original pounds transfer, the exchange-rate source, the euro figure declared in France and any later sterling valuation used for the UK estate. A difference caused by exchange-rate movement is not necessarily a second gift. A later top-up, however, may be a new transfer and should be recorded as such.

The 1963 France–UK succession convention may help allocate taxing rights and relief at death where both countries claim tax over the same property. It does not replace the French domestic analysis of a lifetime cash gift, and it does not make the seven-year UK record unnecessary. At death, the executor or notary may need to examine the convention, the estate’s residence and asset location, French succession tax, UK Inheritance Tax and any credit mechanism. A lifetime gift should therefore be disclosed to the people who will administer the estate.

One common mistake is to ask only “will France charge gift tax?” and ignore the UK estate file. Another is to ask only “does the UK seven-year rule apply?” and ignore a French declaration that was due when the child received the money. The correct sequence is:

1. fix the date and amount of the gift;
2. identify the parent’s and child’s tax residence on that date;
3. check the six-out-of-ten French residence history;
4. calculate French allowances and prior gifts;
5. file and retain the French declaration where required;
6. record the gift for the parent’s UK estate and seven-year review; and
7. update the will and executor instructions so the transfer is not rediscovered during a family crisis.

If the parent later makes a second payment for education, rent or a deposit, the purpose and legal character should be stated. A genuine birthday present, ordinary support and a large capital transfer may be treated differently. Repeated payments from normal income may have a UK exemption analysis of their own, but that does not automatically answer the French declaration question. Each material transfer deserves its own dated record.

Where a parent is resident in the UK, a child is resident in France and the family has assets in both countries, the safest practical file contains two parallel headings: “France — gift tax and declaration” and “UK — Inheritance Tax and estate record”. That simple separation prevents a French Form 2735 receipt from being mistaken for a UK Inheritance Tax clearance, and prevents a UK solicitor’s estate note from being treated as a French tax declaration.

B. What evidence, deed and succession wording should the family prepare?

A family can reduce later uncertainty by preparing a short gift file before or immediately after the transfer. It should begin with the identity and relationship of the parties: passports, birth certificates showing the parent-child relationship, any name-change documents, and the addresses and tax-residence positions on the date of transfer. If the child has lived in France for several periods, add a ten-year residence chronology rather than a single current address.

The file should then contain the transfer instruction and a signed gift letter. The letter should state the amount, currency, date, donor, recipient, account ownership, whether the transfer is irrevocable, whether repayment is expected, whether it is intended as an advance on inheritance, and whether it is intended to be made outside the child’s future civil share. It should not use vague wording if the family has a clear intention. If the parent wants a loan, use a loan agreement; if the parent wants a gift, do not describe it as a repayable loan for convenience.

A formal gift deed has different requirements from a manual cash gift. Article 931 of the French Civil Code provides: Tous actes portant donation entre vifs seront passés devant notaires. In English, acts recording lifetime donations are to be passed before notaries in the ordinary contractual form, subject to the rules applicable to the particular transaction. A direct transfer of money may be a manual gift, but adding a formal deed, conditions, a right of return or a complex family arrangement can require notarial advice. An email from a UK solicitor is not automatically the French notarial deed contemplated by the Civil Code.

For a simple cash gift, the bank trail is central. Keep the parent’s statement showing ownership and debit, the payment order with an unambiguous reference, the child’s statement showing receipt, the exchange-rate calculation and the declaration receipt. If an account is jointly held, explain who owned the money before the transfer. If the child immediately forwards the funds to another account, preserve that next step too. The goal is to make the path of the money intelligible without relying on a later witness’s memory.

The civil treatment among children should be addressed expressly. French law uses the word rapport for bringing certain lifetime gifts into the civil accounting of a succession. Article 843 of the French Civil Code says that an heir doit rapporter à ses cohéritiers, must bring the relevant gift into account with co-heirs, unless the gift was made outside the share under the legal conditions. This civil report is not the same as the tax “fifteen-year look-back”. A parent can use all available tax allowance and still need to decide how the gift should be treated between children.

Use plain English in the family letter, then ask a French notary or lawyer to express the intended civil effect in the correct legal form. For example, the parent may intend the gift to be an advance on the child’s share, or may intend it to be outside that share to the extent legally possible. The words used should not promise more than the applicable succession law allows.

Forced-heir rules may become relevant where French succession law governs or has a material role. The réserve héréditaire is the reserved portion of an estate that protects certain descendants; the quotité disponible is the freely disposable portion. Article 912 of the French Civil Code defines the reserved portion as La réserve héréditaire est la part des biens et droits successoraux. The number of children and the survivor’s family position affect the calculation. British nationality alone does not allow a parent to disregard the rules that ultimately govern the succession. For the wider choice-of-law and notarial context, link this gift file to the existing UK will and French succession guide.

Article 913 of the French Civil Code sets the disposable portion by reference to the number of children. It also contains cross-border wording that must be read with the succession rules and the family’s actual residence and choice-of-law position. Do not assume that Brexit automatically determines the governing succession law. The parent’s will, habitual residence, an express choice of law where available, the children’s positions and the asset structure all require review.

If a gift exceeds the disposable portion, an heir may consider a reduction action. Article 921 of the French Civil Code sets a time framework tied to the opening of the succession and the heir’s knowledge, with a long-stop limit. This is why a signed gift letter and a consistent will matter. They cannot defeat a mandatory rule, but they can reduce the dispute about what was transferred and what the parent intended.

Article 922 of the French Civil Code requires a calculation that reconstructs the estate for the relevant succession analysis. The date and value of the gift, what happened to the money and the wording of the parent’s instructions may all become relevant. A child who used the money for an investment should not destroy the original bank statements when the investment later changes value.

French case law confirms that proof of a manual gift can become contentious. In Cour de cassation, First Civil Division, 31 March 1992, no. 90-17.714, the official decision states: La preuve de l’existence d’un don manuel … peut être faite par tous moyens. The point for a British family is practical: co-heirs asserting personal rights may use all forms of evidence to prove the existence of a manual gift. A missing declaration or missing bank trail does not make the gift disappear; it makes the later proof less controlled.

In Cour de cassation, First Civil Division, 8 July 2010, no. 09-12.603, the official material includes the concise proposition that la donation suppose une intention libérale, a donation requires a liberal intention. The case is a warning against treating every transfer between relatives as automatically established by its payment mechanics. The family should record why the parent transferred the money and whether the child accepted it as a gift.

In Cour de cassation, First Civil Division, 12 January 2011, no. 09-15.298, the court dealt with the civil consequences of a manual gift and the possibility of a report in kind where the deed did not exclude that consequence. In Cour de cassation, First Civil Division, 28 March 2018, no. 16-21.118, the court again addressed the report of manual gifts in relation to Article 843. These decisions do not replace a review of the parent’s will, but they show why the family should state the intended civil treatment at the time of the transfer.

A useful pre-filing checklist is:

• confirm the parent’s French and UK tax residence, and the child’s French residence history for the previous ten years;
• identify whether the payment is a gift, loan, reimbursement or support;
• confirm who owns the funds before the transfer and who will own them afterwards;
• calculate the €100,000 allowance, the €31,865 cash allowance if available, and all prior gifts within fifteen years;
• prepare the signed gift letter and a clear bank reference;
• record the pounds amount, the euro value, the date and the exchange-rate source;
• file the current French declaration route and save the acknowledgement;
• place the transaction on the UK seven-year Inheritance Tax schedule;
• tell the will-maker, executor and relevant notary about the gift; and
• state whether the gift is intended as an advance on the child’s civil share, subject to the wording that French succession law permits.

If the payment is connected with a house, do not let the urgency of the purchase erase the gift file. The house purchase itself belongs to a different legal process, but the source-of-funds trail, donor’s intention and French declaration can still matter to the child’s tax and succession position. If the child is a minor, if there are several children, if the parent is over 80, if the payment is made in stages, or if the parent retains control of the funds, obtain advice before transferring the money rather than trying to repair the evidence after a dispute.

Conclusion

A British parent can fund a child in France after Brexit, but the transaction should be treated as a cross-border legal event from its first pound and euro. The parent’s tax residence, the child’s six-out-of-ten French residence history, the asset’s legal location, the €100,000 and possible €31,865 allowances, prior gifts and the 2026 declaration route determine the French work. The UK seven-year record and the family’s succession instructions determine whether the same payment creates a later estate problem. The strongest file is not the longest one: it is the file in which the gift letter, bank trail, exchange-rate calculation, French declaration, UK estate schedule and will all describe the same transaction.

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