You have retired to France after a career in a British state school, the National Health Service, local government, the civil service, the police or the armed forces. Your pension is paid from Britain, British tax is already deducted, and now the French tax office has added the same pension to your French income tax bill, sometimes with French social charges on top. For many British residents this looks like straightforward double taxation, and the sums can run into thousands of euros every year. The answer depends on one distinction in the France–United Kingdom double tax treaty signed in London on 19 June 2008: an ordinary private or workplace pension paid to a French resident is taxable only in France, while a pension paid for past government service is taxable only in the United Kingdom. France may still count the British-only pension when it works out the rate on your other income, but it must then cancel the French tax on that pension with a matching credit. This article explains which side taxes which pension, how to declare the pension on the French return so the credit applies, and how to challenge a French assessment that taxes it twice, with the treaty wording, French legislation, official guidance and court decisions that decide the point.

A French avis d’imposition is the tax assessment notice sent by the French tax administration. The foyer fiscal is the tax household: the group of persons taxed together on one French return. A réclamation is the formal written claim you must send to the French tax office before you can go to court. The CSG (contribution sociale généralisée) and the CRDS (contribution au remboursement de la dette sociale) are French social charges that can appear alongside income tax. Every French term used below is explained the first time it appears.

I. Is my UK pension taxed in France or in Britain after Brexit?

Everything starts with French residence. Under Article 4 A of the French General Tax Code, “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” — persons whose tax home (domicile fiscal) is in France are liable to French income tax on all of their income, including income from abroad. In practice the test is met by anyone whose home (foyer) or principal place of stay is in France: Article 4 B of the General Tax Code treats as having their tax home in France, within the meaning of Article 4 A, “Les personnes qui ont en France leur foyer ou le lieu de leur séjour principal”. So a British pensioner living in France starts from worldwide taxation in France, and it is the treaty that then takes categories of income back out of French tax or converts French tax into a credit. The treaty does this differently for private pensions and for government-service pensions, which is why the first job is to classify the pension correctly. If you hold several pensions — for example a State Pension, a local-government pension and a small private pension — each one is classified separately, and each follows its own rule.

A. Private, workplace and State Pensions that France taxes, with relief the other way round

Article 18 of the France–United Kingdom treaty of 19 June 2008, headed Pensions, reserves pensions and similar payments for past employment, paid to a resident of one of the two countries, to taxation in the country of residence only — subject to the government-service exception in Article 19(2) examined below. For a British national who is resident in France for tax purposes, this means the UK State Pension, a private personal pension and an ordinary private-sector workplace pension are taxable in France, not in the United Kingdom. France taxes them under its own rules, and it is on the British side that relief must be organised so the same income is not taxed twice.

Three practical consequences follow. First, tell HM Revenue and Customs that you have moved abroad and that you are resident in France, because British payers often continue to operate PAYE withholding until they are told otherwise. The British government’s own guidance tells pensioners who move abroad to inform HMRC, and points to the tax treaty of the country of residence to determine where pension tax is due. If British tax has already been deducted from a pension that the treaty reserves to France, the overpaid British tax is recovered on the British side, through HMRC, not by asking the French tax office to refund British withholding. Keep the British P60 annual summary, the pension statements and any HMRC coding notice: they are the documentary backbone of every later claim.

Secondly, once the pension is taxable in France, it joins the French computation like other retirement income. French law gives pensions and retirement income a 10 per cent allowance: “Les pensions et retraites font l’objet d’un abattement de 10 % qui ne peut excéder 4 439 €.” The allowance cannot be less than a floor amount either: “L’abattement indiqué au deuxième alinéa ne peut être inférieur à 454 €, sans pouvoir excéder le montant brut des pensions et retraites.” These figures are the version of Article 158(5)(a) of the General Tax Code currently in force, and the ceilings move over time, so always check the figure for the tax year concerned rather than relying on last year’s return. The allowance applies to the pensions that France is entitled to tax; it is one of the reasons the French computation must be done properly even when a treaty is involved.

Thirdly, two companion questions that often arise with private pensions are dealt with in detail elsewhere and should not be confused with the classification question. The one-off 25 per cent tax-free lump sum(one-off 25 per cent payment taken free of British tax) raises its own Franco-British problem, examined in our guide to the UK 25 per cent pension lump sum taxed in France. Moving a pension pot itself to an overseas scheme raises the 25 per cent overseas transfer charge and separate French treatment, examined in our guide to QROPS transfers from Britain while living in France. This article stays with the recurring pension income itself: monthly or annual payments, who taxes them, and how to stop both countries taxing them.

A common and expensive error is to assume that because British tax was deducted at source, France has nothing more to ask. It is the other way round for Article 18 pensions: France is the taxing state, the British deduction is the anomaly to be reclaimed in Britain, and the French return must still declare the pension in full. The declaration and United Kingdom reclaim mechanics for ordinary private pensions are covered step by step in our companion guide to the United Kingdom private pension in France. The opposite error — assuming that because a pension comes from a British public employer it is automatically exempt in France — belongs to the next section, where the treaty draws a much narrower circle than many pensioners expect.

B. Government-service pensions that only Britain can tax, and the narrow exceptions

Article 19 of the treaty, headed Public functions, reserves a defined group of pensions to the paying State. Under paragraph 2, pensions paid by the United Kingdom, by one of its local authorities, or out of funds they set up, to an individual for past services rendered to that State or authority, are taxable only in the United Kingdom. That exclusivity is the whole point of the provision. When it applies, France has no right to subject the pension itself to French income tax. In practice this covers pensions earned in the British civil service, local government, state schools, the police and fire services, and the armed forces’ service pensions, because each is paid for past service to the State or a local authority out of public funds or funds the public employer set up. The test is documentary, not impressionistic: who paid the pension, out of which funds, and for which service. Your pension statement, P60 and any statement from the scheme administrator should identify the payer, and that payer must be the State, a local authority or a fund they constituted.

Two boundaries need the same care as the rule itself. The first is the nationality exception at the end of paragraph 2: where the pensioner is resident in the other country, holds that country’s nationality and does not also hold the nationality of the paying State, the pension is taxable only in the country of residence instead. So a French national, holding only French nationality and resident in France, who draws a British government-service pension, is taxable only in France instead. A person holding both British and French nationality keeps the normal rule, because they hold the nationality of the paying State at the same time, and the pension stays taxable only in Britain. Nationality here means the position for the tax year in dispute, proved by passports and civil-status documents, not by feelings of belonging. Mixed-nationality families should check each pensioner separately: husband and wife can fall on different sides of this line.

The second boundary is the business-activity carve-out in paragraph 3, which sends pensions for services rendered in connection with a business carried on by the State or a public body back to the ordinary employment and pensions articles. Where the past employment was connected with a business carried on by the State or a public body, the pension drops out of Article 19 and back into the ordinary rules — normally Article 18, meaning taxable only in France for a French resident. Employment by a publicly owned commercial operation is the classic danger zone. If the French tax office argues that your former employer was operating a business rather than exercising public functions, it is this paragraph it will rely on, and your answer must show the public-service character of the duties performed, with contracts, job descriptions and employer attestations.

Two special categories deserve separate mention because the treaty gives them their own answer. Armed-forces injury and disability pensions are dealt with in paragraph 4(b): the listed British war pensions, post-service sickness and accident benefits and personal-injury pensions are exempt from French tax whatever the nationality of the pensioner, provided they are exempt from United Kingdom tax. The mirror provision in paragraph 4(a) does the same for the French military-disability pensions listed by reference to French law. And the State Pension — the pension paid on the basis of National Insurance contributions rather than for service as a public employee — is not a government-service pension at all: it follows Article 18 and is taxable only in France for a French resident, a point developed in our guide on protecting the British State Pension when moving to France.

Classification decided, the next question is what France is still allowed to do with a pension it cannot tax. The treaty lets France take the pension into account when computing the tax on the rest of your income, then cancels the French tax attributable to the pension with a credit of exactly the same amount. Article 24(3)(a), as reproduced in the Conseil d’État’s 12 February 2020 opinion on this treaty, states: “les revenus qui sont imposables ou ne sont imposables qu’au Royaume-Uni conformément aux dispositions de la présente Convention sont pris en compte pour le calcul de l’impôt français” — income taxable only in the United Kingdom under the treaty is taken into account for computing French tax — and the resulting credit is, for income of this kind, “(i) pour les revenus non mentionnés à l’alinéa (ii), au montant de l’impôt français correspondant à ces revenus à condition que le résident de France soit soumis à l’impôt du Royaume-Uni à raison de ces revenus”. Lawyers call this exemption with progression: the pension is exempt in substance, but it still pushes your other French-taxable income into higher bands. A French assessment that simply adds the pension to taxable income and charges full tax without that matching credit is therefore wrong in law, and a return that omits the pension entirely is equally wrong, because the pension must be declared so the rate mechanism can operate.

II. My French tax notice includes my UK pension: how do I pay the right amount and challenge the rest?

A wrong French assessment usually comes from one of three mistakes: the pension was classified under the wrong treaty article, the matching credit was forgotten, or the pension was left off the return so the tax office estimated it without the credit. Each has a different fix, but all three pass through the same French declaration machinery, so that machinery comes first.

A. Declaring the pension on the French return without paying twice

Every member of the tax household must declare income received from abroad. The French tax administration’s own guidance explains the chain: the main return (form 2042), the foreign-income schedule (schedule 2047, the annexe detailing salaries, pensions, rents, dividends and interest received abroad), and the complementary return (form 2042-C) where the treaty credit is computed. Schedule 2047 classifies pensions under its first section, the section for work-related income. The official guidance then distinguishes two credit cases. The case that matters for British government-service pensions is the second, where the same income has already been taxed in the country of origin and the treaties in most cases provide a credit reducing French tax. In that second case the administration instructs taxpayers to declare the gross amount on schedule 2047, carry it to the main return, and report the total on the 8TK line (or the equivalent lines) of the complementary return, so that the credit equal to the French tax can be computed.

Do not confuse this with the neighbouring line for exempt income counted only for the effective rate: salaries or pensions exempt for the purposes of the effective-rate computation do not go on schedule 2047 at all and belong only on the 1AC line and following lines of the complementary return. A British government-service pension under the France–United Kingdom treaty follows the credit route described above, not the 1AC route, because Article 24(3)(a)(i) gives a credit equal to the French tax rather than a pure exemption. Using the wrong line is one of the most frequent causes of a missing credit. File the return showing the pension, the treaty article relied on, and the credit claimed, and keep a full copy with proof of filing: the return as filed is exhibit number one in any later dispute.

The same declaration logic reaches the social charges. The treaty defines French tax for its own purposes as including the two main social charges. Because the CSG and CRDS are inside the treaty’s definition of French tax — “(v) les contributions sociales généralisées” and “(vi) les contributions pour le remboursement de la dette sociale” — the Article 24 credit mechanism reaches them as well. The Conseil d’État, France’s highest administrative court, confirmed this in a reasoned opinion on this very treaty on 12 February 2020 (decision 435907): the treaty’s opening words cannot be used to deny the credit against French social charges, since “L’expression en cause ne saurait permettre à la France, s’agissant des résidents de France personnes physiques, de ne pas appliquer le crédit d’impôt prévu à l’alinéa (i) du a) du paragraphe 3 de l’article 24 aux contributions sociales françaises, au motif qu’aucun impôt sur le revenu ou sur un élément du revenu de nature équivalente n’existe au Royaume-Uni.” If CSG or CRDS has been charged on a British government-service pension with no matching credit, that charge is challengeable on the same basis as the income-tax charge. One separate affiliation point should be checked at the same time: a person insured under another European social-security system and not covered by a compulsory French scheme may need the 8SH/8SI boxes, and the European-affiliation line of argument is developed in our guide to reclaiming French social charges on treaty and European grounds.

B. Reclaiming French tax and social charges already charged on the pension

Where the assessment has already been issued — the pension taxed in full, the credit missing, or social charges added without relief — the remedy is a staged dispute, and the stages must be taken in order. French tax litigation starts with a compulsory claim to the administration. The rulebook states: “Le contribuable qui désire contester tout ou partie d’un impôt qui le concerne doit d’abord adresser une réclamation au service territorial, selon le cas, de la direction générale des finances publiques” — a taxpayer who wishes to challenge all or part of a tax concerning them must first send a claim to the local office of the tax administration. No court will hear the case until that claim has been made and answered or left unanswered. The claim must identify the assessment, the year, the amount disputed, the treaty articles relied on — Article 19(2) for exclusive British taxation and Article 24(3)(a)(i) for the matching credit — and attach the evidence: the French assessment, the British P60 and pension statements, proof of British taxation or at least of British tax residence of the income, proof of the public payer, nationality documents where the exception is in play, and the return as filed.

Time limits are strict and missing them ends the case. Claims about taxes other than local direct taxes “doivent être présentées à l’administration au plus tard le 31 décembre de la deuxième année suivant celle, selon le cas” of the collection of the tax roll, the notification of the collection notice, or the payment of the disputed tax — in practice, 31 December of the second year after the year of the assessment. If the administration rejects the claim expressly or by silence, the next stage is the administrative court (tribunal administratif), and there the deadline is two months: “La juridiction ne peut être saisie que par voie de recours formé contre une décision, et ce, dans les deux mois à partir de la notification ou de la publication de la décision attaquée.” Diarise both dates from the day the assessment arrives, not from the day you decide to act. Interest on late payment continues to run while the dispute proceeds unless collection is lawfully suspended, so the claim should also address payment and guarantees rather than simply ignoring the bill.

The legal core of the claim is now well mapped by the courts. First, the Conseil d’État’s 12 February 2020 opinion on this exact treaty holds that the credit condition — being subject to United Kingdom tax on the income — “n’exige pas que les revenus en cause aient été soumis à une imposition effective”, does not require the income to have been effectively taxed, and that “aucune stipulation de l’article 24 ne subordonne l’octroi d’un crédit d’impôt égal à leur montant à ce que les revenus soumis à ces contributions aient été compris dans la base d’un impôt équivalent ou similaire au Royaume-Uni” — no provision makes the credit against social charges conditional on the income having been included in some equivalent British levy. The administration therefore cannot refuse the credit on the ground that the pension paid little or no British tax because of personal allowances, nor on the ground that Britain has no equivalent of the CSG. Second, the condition is satisfied by declaration: it “doit être regardée comme satisfaite s’il est établi par le résident de France qu’il a déclaré les revenus en cause au Royaume-Uni, parce que ces revenus étaient compris dans la base de l’un des impôts énumérés au a) du 1 de l’article 2 de la convention, alors même qu’il n’aurait acquitté dans cet Etat aucun impôt à raison de ces revenus.” Keep and produce the British tax return or self-assessment record showing the pension declared in Britain, even where no British tax was ultimately due.

Third, the courts confirm that taking the pension into account for the French rate is lawful, which means the claim must ask for the credit, not for the pension to vanish from the computation. The Bordeaux administrative court of appeal, in a 3 October 2023 judgment (case 21BX02149) concerning a Norwegian public-service pension under an identically structured treaty clause, held that “sa capacité contributive est déterminée sur la base de la totalité des revenus qu’il perçoit, quelle que soit leur origine” — ability to pay is assessed on all income from whatever source — and that “les pensions versées par l’Etat Norvégien, imposables seulement en Norvège en vertu de l’article 19 de la convention précitée, devaient être prises en compte pour le calcul de l’impôt français conformément à l’article 24 de cette convention”. The pension stays visible in the French computation and the credit neutralises the French tax on it. A claim that demands total removal of the pension from the French return asks for something the treaty does not give and weakens an otherwise winning file; a claim that demands the matching credit asks for exactly what the treaty promises.

Finally, run the British side in parallel rather than afterwards. If British withholding was deducted from a pension the treaty reserves to Britain, there is nothing to reclaim — Britain was entitled to it. If British tax was deducted from a pension the treaty reserves to France, the reclaim belongs to HMRC under the double-taxation agreement. And where the pension sits under Article 19(2) but the former employer disputes the public-service characterisation, or where the administration invokes the business-activity exception or the nationality exception, the file turns on documents: appointment letters, employer attestations about the nature of the service, scheme rules showing who constituted the fund, and passports. Assemble them before writing the claim, because the administration decides first and best on a complete file, and the court later judges the file you made.

Conclusion

A British pensioner living in France after Brexit faces two opposite rules that are easy to confuse. Ordinary private, workplace and State Pensions follow Article 18 of the 19 June 2008 treaty: taxable only in France, declared in France with the 10 per cent allowance, with any British deduction recovered through HMRC. Government-service pensions — civil service, local government, state teaching, police, fire service and armed-forces service pensions paid out of public funds for past public service — follow Article 19(2) and are taxable only in Britain, unless the pensioner is a French-only national resident in France or the service was rendered in connection with a State business. France may still take the British-only pension into account to set the rate on other income, but Article 24(3)(a)(i) then requires a credit equal to the French tax on that pension, and the Conseil d’État has confirmed that this credit reaches the CSG and CRDS, requires no effective British taxation, and is satisfied by declaring the income in Britain. The practical sequence is therefore: classify each pension separately, declare the gross amount through schedule 2047 with the credit on the complementary return, and challenge any assessment that taxes the pension in full — first by a formal claim to the tax office before 31 December of the second following year, then before the administrative court within two months of the rejection. Done in that order, with the payer, nationality and declaration evidence attached, most double charges on British public-service pensions in France can be reduced to the lawful remainder: progression on the rest of the income, and nothing more.

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