You moved from Manchester, Bristol or Edinburgh to the Dordogne, Brittany or Paris, you hold a Withdrawal Agreement residence permit (the carte de séjour Accord de retrait, universally called the WARP card), and this spring brings a first you have never faced: your first French income tax return (the déclaration des revenus). In Britain, tax was largely handled for you through PAYE on wages and simple self-assessment only when needed. In France, the rule is the opposite: every person liable for income tax must file a detailed annual return, and once you are French tax resident, that return must cover your worldwide income, including every pound earned, received or held in the United Kingdom. Miss a form, forget a British bank account or declare your UK pension on the wrong line, and you face a surcharge on the tax plus a separate fine per undeclared account. This guide walks you through the whole exercise in the order a French tax inspector sees it: first, whether France genuinely regards you as tax resident and what your first return must physically contain; second, how each category of British income is taxed in France and how the France-UK double tax treaty (the convention fiscale) stops you paying twice. Every figure, every form number and every quotation below comes from the statute book, the official tax commentary or a published court decision, so you can rely on it when you sit down with your papers.
I. Are you French tax resident and what must your first return contain
A. How to tell whether France treats you as tax resident after Brexit
Everything starts with one question, because it decides whether you declare your worldwide income or only your French-source income. Article 4 A of the French Tax Code states: “Les personnes qui ont en France leur domicile fiscal sont passibles de l’impôt sur le revenu en raison de l’ensemble de leurs revenus. Celles dont le domicile fiscal est situé hors de France sont passibles de cet impôt en raison de leurs seuls revenus de source française.” In plain English: a French tax resident pays French income tax on all of their income from everywhere, while a non-resident pays only on French-source income. The domicile fiscal (tax home) has nothing to do with nationality, with holding a British passport or with the WARP card in your drawer; it is a purely factual test, and meeting any single one of three alternative criteria is enough.
Those three criteria are listed in Article 4 B of the Tax Code: “Sont considérées comme ayant leur domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article 4 A : a. Les personnes qui ont en France leur foyer ou le lieu de leur séjour principal ; b. Celles qui exercent en France une activité professionnelle, salariée ou non, à moins qu’elles ne justifient que cette activité y est exercée à titre accessoire ;” to which is added, third, having in France the centre of your economic interests (the centre des intérêts économiques). The first test, the foyer (family and personal home), looks at where your spouse and children live and where you habitually return. The second, the séjour principal (main place of stay), is in practice a day count: spending more than 183 days of the year in France makes you resident, though shorter stays combined with the other tests can still suffice. The third test catches people whose investments, business or main income streams sit in France even if they travel constantly.
The courts apply these tests strictly on the facts, and two recent Conseil d’État (France’s supreme administrative court) decisions show how. In Conseil d’État, 9th chamber, 11 May 2022, No 450692, concerning a taxpayer living in Saudi Arabia, the court recalled that “le foyer d’un contribuable célibataire s’entend du lieu où il habite normalement et a le centre de sa vie personnelle, sans qu’il soit tenu compte des séjours effectués temporairement ailleurs en raison des nécessités de la profession ou de circonstances exceptionnelles.” For a single person, in other words, the home is where they normally live and centre their personal life, ignoring temporary stays elsewhere for work or exceptional circumstances. The lesson for a Briton is direct: if your house, your partner and your daily life are in France while you keep a flat in London for occasional trips, France is your foyer and you are French tax resident from the day you settled, even if you still spend working weeks in Britain. Conversely, in Conseil d’État, 8th and 3rd chambers, 27 June 2018, No 408609, the court examined an oil-rig worker in Angola who argued that his long absences took him out of French residence, and it confirmed that the administration may treat a taxpayer as resident where the family home and personal ties remained in France. Short-term professional absence does not move your tax home; moving your life does.
Brexit added one refinement that traps many British newcomers: residence for immigration purposes and residence for tax purposes are two different things. Your WARP card proves your right to live in France; it neither creates nor prevents French tax residence. A British early retiree living year-round near Bergerac on a visitor card (the carte de séjour visiteur) with no French earnings is fully French tax resident through the foyer and séjour principal tests and must declare worldwide income, while a London-based consultant who owns a holiday cottage in the Lot and spends six weeks a year there is not. Where both States claim you — HMRC regards you as UK resident under the Statutory Residence Test while France regards you as resident under Article 4 B — the treaty tie-breaker decides: permanent home first, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality. Our guide on how British couples prove tax residence after Brexit details the evidence inspectors expect, from utility bills to school enrolment certificates.
One practical consequence follows immediately for employees. Since 2019 France collects income tax at source during the year (the prélèvement à la source), either deducted by the payer or paid as instalments by the taxpayer, and Article 204 A of the Tax Code provides: “Le prélèvement effectué par le débiteur ou acquitté par le contribuable s’impute sur l’impôt sur le revenu dû par ce dernier au titre de l’année au cours de laquelle il a été effectué. S’il excède l’impôt dû, l’excédent est restitué.” Any amount taken at source is credited against the final bill and refunded if it exceeds it. In your first year, with no French withholding history and UK income arriving gross, expect little or no credit and a balancing payment (the solde) the following autumn — budget for it now rather than discovering it on the assessment notice (the avis d’imposition).
B. Which forms your first French return must contain: 2042, 2047, 3916 and 3916 bis
The filing duty itself is set by Article 170 of the Tax Code, which requires “une déclaration détaillée de ses revenus et bénéfices, de ses charges de famille et des autres éléments nécessaires au calcul de l’impôt sur le revenu” — a detailed return of income and profits, family circumstances and every other element needed to compute the tax. For a British newcomer that means a stack of forms, not one. The core is form 2042, the general return (the déclaration d’ensemble), where your household composition, French wages and the totals flow together. Every item of foreign income must additionally be detailed on form 2047, the foreign-income schedule (the déclaration des revenus encaissés à l’étranger), described by service-public.fr as the form for income received from abroad to be attached to the general return. The totals from 2047 are then carried back onto 2042, and the foreign tax credit is computed from the same schedule. File 2042 without 2047 while receiving UK rent or dividends, and the return is incomplete on its face.
Two annexes cause the most grief. Form 3916, the foreign-account declaration (the déclaration des comptes ouverts à l’étranger), must list every current account, savings account, share-dealing account and life-insurance-type contract opened, held, used or closed abroad during the year — including the HSBC, Barclays or NS&I accounts you kept “just in case”, and each account is declared individually. The duty comes from Article 1649 A of the Tax Code: “Les personnes physiques, les associations, les sociétés n’ayant pas la forme commerciale, domiciliées ou établies en France, sont tenues de déclarer, en même temps que leur déclaration de revenus ou de résultats, les références des comptes ouverts, détenus, utilisés ou clos à l’étranger”. Note the four verbs: opened, held, used or closed — an account you emptied and closed in March is still declarable for that year, and the fine applies per account. Form 3916 bis covers foreign life-insurance and capitalisation contracts (the contrats de capitalisation), which matter if you hold an offshore bond or an assurance-vie style product with a UK or Channel Islands insurer.
The penalty for forgetting 3916 is automatic and has been confirmed at the highest level. In Conseil d’État, 10th and 9th chambers, 4 March 2019, No 410492, concerning two undeclared Luxembourg accounts, the court quoted the applicable version of Article 1736 of the Tax Code: “Les infractions aux dispositions du deuxième alinéa de l’article 1649 A (…) sont passibles d’une amende de 1 500 euros par compte (…) non déclaré.” Each undeclared account costs 1,500 euros, rising to 10,000 euros where the account sits in a State with no administrative-assistance treaty with France — which does not concern the United Kingdom, but shows the scale. Three forgotten UK accounts therefore mean 4,500 euros of fines before any discussion of the tax itself, and the fine is due per year of omission. Declare every account the first year, even dormant ones with a few pounds left: it costs nothing and closes the risk.
Deadlines and first-registration practicalities complete the picture. Online filing on impots.gouv.fr is compulsory for most households, with departmental deadlines usually running from late May to early June; paper filing, where still allowed, closes earlier. In your first year you have no online history, so you must obtain your tax number (the numéro fiscal) in advance — visit or write to the tax office of your French address (the service des impôts des particuliers) as soon as you arrive, because without that number you cannot open the online account and the clock keeps running. Non-EU nationals, which Britons have been since 1 January 2021, cannot regularise a missed first filing by claiming they did not know the system: the courts treat ignorance of French filing duties as no excuse, and late filing draws a 10 percent surcharge (the majoration) even with no tax due, rising if you ignore a formal notice (the mise en demeure). Keep every P60, P45, pension statement, dividend voucher, rental statement and bank certificate from the UK side; the inspector can ask for them for three years, and your 2047 entries must match the sterling-to-euro conversions you used.
II. How is each British income taxed in France and how do you claim treaty relief
A. How France taxes your UK pension, wages, rent, dividends and interest
Once residence is settled, each income stream follows its own path through the treaty and the domestic scale. The treaty in question is the France-UK convention against double taxation and tax evasion covering income tax and capital gains tax, signed in London on 19 June 2008, which replaced the 1968 convention; the French tax administration’s official commentary confirms it entered into force on 18 December 2009 and applies, for most of its provisions on the French side, to charges arising from 1 January 2010. The full official commentary sits in the BOFiP, reference BOI-INT-CVB-GBR-10, and the United Kingdom publishes the 2008 UK-France double taxation convention in force on gov.uk. The architecture is the same for every category: the treaty first allocates the right to tax between the two States, then France taxes whatever falls to it under domestic rules and grants a credit (the crédit d’impôt) for the UK tax attributable to the same income, so the same pound is never taxed twice in full.
UK pensions need the most care because three different regimes coexist. The State pension and most private or occupational pensions paid to a French resident are taxable only in France under the treaty’s pensions article, which means you declare the gross annual amount on the pensions line and the United Kingdom should not tax it — if HMRC has deducted tax under PAYE, you reclaim it from HMRC with the treaty claim form rather than deducting it yourself in France. Government-service pensions are the mirror image: a pension paid by the United Kingdom for past government service (civil service, local authority, police, armed forces where covered) remains taxable only in the United Kingdom and is then declared in France solely to set the effective rate on your other income (the taux effectif), a mechanism expressly required by Article 170 of the Tax Code: “Le contribuable est tenu de déclarer les éléments du revenu global qui, en vertu d’une disposition du présent code ou d’une convention internationale relative aux doubles impositions ou d’un autre accord international, sont exonérés mais qui doivent être pris en compte pour le calcul de l’impôt applicable aux autres éléments du revenu global.” Declare the exempt pension where the 2047 schedule asks for it, but do not include it in taxable income; omitting it understates your rate, including it overstates your base. Readers with a State pension should also read our guide on declaring the UK State pension in France, and those paying French social charges on pension income our analysis of CSG and CRDS on UK pensions and the S1 refund. Lump sums need bespoke advice: a tax-free lump sum (the pension commencement lump sum) that is exempt in Britain can be taxable in France depending on its structure, so never assume the British treatment travels with the money.
Wages tell a simpler story with one trap. Salary for work physically done in France is taxable in France from the first euro, and your UK employer operating a French payroll must apply French withholding; salary for work physically done in Britain while you remain French resident is still declarable in France, with a credit for the UK PAYE. Rental income from a British property follows the immovable-property rule found in every French treaty: the State where the property sits taxes first, so the United Kingdom taxes the rent under its own rules and France taxes it again but grants a credit equal to the French tax on that rent — never more than the French tax, so where British tax is lower a small French balance remains. Dividends and interest from UK shares and savings are taxable in France under domestic law — Article 120 of the Tax Code expressly covers “Les dividendes, intérêts, arrérages et tous autres produits des actions de toute nature”, including those of companies whose registered office sits abroad — with the United Kingdom allowed only a limited withholding at source and France granting a credit for it. In practice this means declaring gross UK dividends and interest on 2047, reporting any UK withholding in the credit boxes, and letting the French 30 percent flat levy or the progressive scale do the rest according to your election. All of these worldwide totals then face the French progressive scale in Article 197 of the Tax Code — “L’impôt est calculé en appliquant à la fraction de chaque part de revenu qui excède 11 600 € le taux de : – 11 % pour la fraction supérieure à 11 600 € et inférieure ou égale à 29 579 € ; – 30 % pour la fraction supérieure à 29 579 € et inférieure ou égale à 84 577 €” and so on up to 45 percent — applied to the household’s parts (the quotient familial), with the treaty credit subtracted at the very end.
B. How to claim the treaty credit, correct a mistake and challenge double tax
Claiming relief is a paperwork discipline, and the order matters. First, convert every sterling amount at the annual rate the administration accepts and keep the calculation; second, enter each income on the correct 2047 line, because the credit attaches to the line, not to the taxpayer — UK withholding entered against dividends generates no credit against rent, and a lump sum entered as salary is taxed as salary. Third, complete the credit boxes with the foreign tax actually paid and attributable to that income, capped at the French tax on the same income; the excess foreign tax is neither refunded nor carried forward, which is why pensioners with heavy UK withholding should fix the withholding at source through HMRC rather than hope the French return absorbs it. Fourth, carry the 2047 totals onto 2042 and check the assessment when it arrives: the avis d’imposition shows the credit line by line, and an absent credit means a data-entry error you can still fix.
Mistakes in a first return are common and the system provides a repair ladder. For a recent online return, the online correction service (the service de correction en ligne) reopens for several weeks after the filing deadline and lets you amend 2042, 2047 and 3916 yourself, including adding a forgotten British account — correcting spontaneously before any audit notice is always cheaper than waiting. After that window, file a formal claim (the réclamation contentieuse) to your tax office, setting out the facts, the treaty article and the credit calculation, and attaching the British certificates; keep proof of sending, because time limits run strictly. Where the dispute concerns the meaning of the treaty itself — which State had the right to tax, or whether a lump sum falls under pensions or other income — ask for a reasoned position in writing, since an unmotivated rejection is harder for the administration to defend later. Throughout, never stop paying the undisputed part of the bill: enforcement (the recouvrement) continues while you argue, and a claim does not suspend collection unless you expressly request a stay and provide security where required.
Where both countries have genuinely taxed the same income and neither yields, the treaty provides the final remedy both administrations accept: the mutual agreement procedure (the procédure amiable), under which the French and British competent authorities negotiate who keeps what. It is slow but it exists precisely for treaty misapplication, and opening it requires showing that at least one State taxed contrary to the convention — a file with both assessments, both returns and the treaty article mapping gets admitted, a bare complaint does not. The realistic sequence for a British household is therefore: get the residence analysis right once, file complete 2042, 2047, 3916 and where needed 3916 bis the first year, claim the credit line by line, correct online while you can, claim formally with documents if the assessment is wrong, and only then escalate. Households that follow that order rarely pay twice; households that declare only the French salary and “forget” the UK side discover the exchange of information between HMRC and the DGFiP the hard way, through an audit proposal (the proposition de rectification) three years later with interest and penalties attached.
Conclusion
Your first French tax return as a British resident condenses the whole post-Brexit condition into four pages: prove to yourself that France is your tax home under Article 4 B before the administration does it for you, assemble the full set of forms — 2042 for the household, 2047 for every pound from Britain, 3916 for every British account and 3916 bis for any offshore contract — declare each income on its own treaty path with the credit entered on the matching line, and keep the British certificates that prove every figure. The treaty of 19 June 2008 guarantees you will not be taxed twice in full, but it grants that protection only to taxpayers who declare everything and claim the credit properly; it offers nothing to income left off the return. File complete and on time, check the credit on the assessment, correct fast if you slipped, and challenge in writing with documents if the bill ignores the treaty. Done once and done right, the first return becomes a template you reuse every year — and the peace of mind that your French life rests on a clean tax file.
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