The brown envelope, or the pdf in your espace particulier (personal tax account on impots.gouv.fr), arrives in the last quarter. It is headed avis de taxe foncière (the annual property-tax notice). It is not council tax. It is not the old taxe d’habitation (the dwelling tax that still bites second homes). It is not the IFI real-estate wealth tax. It is a local tax on the building itself, due whether you live in Dordogne, keep a flat empty in Paris, or still spend most of the year in Kent. After Brexit the same French rules apply to a British owner as to anyone else who holds bricks and mortar in France. Living in the United Kingdom does not wipe the bill out. Letting the house to a tenant does not transfer it. Selling in March does not, by itself, split it with the buyer.

This guide is for the British owner who has just opened that avis and needs to know three things: who the law treats as the taxpayer, how the figure is built (including the waste charge printed on the same page), and how to challenge a wrong name, a wrong valuation or a missed exemption without missing the payment date. The purchase process itself belongs to another desk. What follows is the yearly tax on holding the property, the exemptions that attach to the person or to the building, and the administrative claim that has to be filed before the Conseil d’État (the French supreme administrative court) will even look at a later appeal. Service-Public’s page on the taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties (tax on built property, TFPB) is the official starting map. The binding text sits in the code général des impôts (CGI, the French tax code) and in the case-law of the administrative courts.

I. I received a French property tax bill after Brexit: who pays and how is it calculated?

A. What is taxe foncière and who is the redevable if I live in the UK or the house is let?

Article 1380 of the CGI states, in terms that have barely moved in forty years: “La taxe foncière est établie annuellement sur les propriétés bâties sises en France à l’exception de celles qui en sont expressément exonérées par les dispositions du présent code.” In English: the tax is charged each year on built property situated in France, except where the code itself grants an exemption. The connecting factor is the land, not your passport and not your tax residence. A British national who is tax-resident in the United Kingdom still owes French taxe foncière on a house in France. The France–United Kingdom double tax convention, which we discuss in the residence article, does not rewrite article 1380. If you need the current wording, it is on Légifrance, article 1380 CGI.

The person who must pay is the redevable (the person legally liable). Article 1400 I of the CGI provides: “Sous réserve des dispositions des articles 1403 et 1404 , toute propriété, bâtie ou non bâtie, doit être imposée au nom du propriétaire actuel.” Every property, built or unbuilt, must be assessed in the name of the current owner, subject to articles 1403 and 1404. The full article is at article 1400 CGI. Article 1400 II then shifts the bill, in listed cases, onto the usufruitier (the holder of a life interest who may use the property and take its fruits), the long-leaseholder under a bail emphytéotique or bail à construction, or the holder of certain other real rights. A British couple who have carved out an usufruct for a parent, or who bought in viager (a sale for a life annuity, with the seller often keeping a right of use), must read that paragraph before they assume the registered freeholder is the only name that matters. Service-Public is blunt on the ordinary case: you pay if you are owner or usufructuary of a built property on 1 January of the tax year, and you pay even if a tenant occupies the house.

The snapshot date is not a matter of administrative convenience. Article 1415 of the CGI, in the version in force on 17 September 2026, reads: “La taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties, la taxe foncière sur les propriétés non bâties et la taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires sont établies pour l’année entière d’après les faits existants au 1er janvier de l’année de l’imposition.” Built-property tax, unbuilt-property tax and the remaining dwelling tax on second homes are assessed for the whole year according to the facts existing on 1 January of the tax year. See article 1415 CGI. The Conseil d’État applied that 1 January rule in CE, 8th chamber, 16 December 2022, no. 461939, recalling that, under article 1415, the tax is due “pour l’année entière d’après les faits existants au 1er janvier de l’année d’imposition”. If you complete in March, the tax office still sends the year’s avis to the person who owned on 1 January. Service-Public says the same: the administration does not split the year when the owner changes. Any apportionment with the buyer is a private clause in the acte de vente (the notarial sale deed), not a rewriting of the rôle (the tax roll).

A tenant is not the redevable of taxe foncière. The owner pays. What often confuses British landlords is the second line on the same notice: taxe d’enlèvement des ordures ménagères (TEOM, the household-waste collection tax). Service-Public states that you must pay both TFPB and TEOM even if the dwelling is let, but that TEOM is among the charges récupérables (service charges the landlord may recover from the tenant under the tenancy rules). Recovering TEOM from a tenant is a lease question. It does not change who the tax office will chase. If the property is held through an SCI (société civile immobilière, a French civil property company), the company is in principle the owner on the cadastre. Article 1400 III has a special rule only for the transparent co-ownership companies of article 1655 ter, where each member is assessed on his share. An ordinary family SCI is not that vehicle. The avis will usually name the SCI. A British shareholder who has kept the UK as home still sees a French bill in the company’s name; ignoring it because “I live in Surrey” is how penalties start.

Wrong name on the avis is a recognised defect, not a reason to do nothing. Article 1404 I of the CGI provides: “Lorsque au titre d’une année une cotisation de taxe foncière a été établie au nom d’une personne autre que le redevable légal, le dégrèvement de cette cotisation est prononcé à condition que les obligations prévues à l’article 1402 aient été respectées. L’imposition du redevable légal au titre de la même année est établie au profit de l’Etat dans la limite de ce dégrèvement (1).” If a year’s assessment was raised in the name of someone other than the legal taxpayer, that assessment is discharged provided the cadastral mutation duties of article 1402 have been met, and the true taxpayer is then assessed, for the State’s benefit, up to the amount discharged. The text is at article 1404 CGI. Article 1402 itself requires owners to see that mutations of title are carried onto the cadastre, and that no legal change is mutated unless the deed or judgment has first been published at the fichier immobilier (the land charges file): see article 1402 CGI. In CE, 3rd chamber, 16 June 2022, no. 447507, the court held that once the judge has discharged a person who was not the legal taxpayer, “le juge est tenu, même en l’absence de toute demande des parties, de désigner le redevable légal de l’imposition au vu des éléments portés à sa connaissance et après avoir mis en cause ce redevable” — the court must, even without a party asking, designate the legal taxpayer in the light of the material before it and after joining that person. A British vendor who still receives the avis after a completed sale should not treat the paper as a private matter between friends. The roll has to be corrected, and the true owner will be put on it.

B. How is the avis built: cadastral rental value, TEOM, SCI and the 1 January rule?

The amount is not a percentage of the market price you paid in euros, and it is not your UK council-tax band. Article 1388 of the CGI sets the base: “La taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties est établie d’après la valeur locative cadastrale de ces propriétés déterminée conformément aux principes définis par les articles 1494 à 1508 et 1516 à 1518 B et sous déduction de 50 % de son montant en considération des frais de gestion, d’assurances, d’amortissement, d’entretien et de réparation.” The tax is assessed on the valeur locative cadastrale (the cadastral rental value, a notional annual rent the property could produce), minus 50 per cent for management, insurance, depreciation, maintenance and repairs. The current text is at article 1388 CGI. The Conseil d’État quoted that same sentence in CE, 3rd and 8th chambers combined, 24 July 2025, no. 474557, a decision on how a house divided into lots should be valued. Local rates voted by the commune and the intercommunal body are then applied to that halved base. Service-Public summarises the arithmetic in the same way: half the cadastral rental value, revalued each year, multiplied by the rates of the local authorities.

Cadastral rental value is not a figure you negotiate with an estate agent. Article 1494 of the CGI provides: “La valeur locative des biens passibles de la taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties, de la taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires ou d’une taxe annexe établie sur les mêmes bases est déterminée, conformément aux règles définies par les articles 1495 à 1508 , pour chaque propriété ou fraction de propriété normalement destinée à une utilisation distincte (1).” The rental value of property liable to built-property tax, to second-home dwelling tax or to an ancillary tax on the same bases is determined, under articles 1495 to 1508, for each property or fraction of property normally intended for a distinct use. See article 1494 CGI. In CE, 9th chamber, 28 March 2022, no. 438905, the court quashed a first-instance judgment that had failed to answer a plea about splitting a commercial building into three lots. The administrative judge must actually examine whether the physical layout and the use justify separate valuations. A British owner who has knocked two cottages into one, or who has a gîte that is no longer a separate dwelling, is in that territory. Silence on the avis is not proof that the cadastre still matches the house.

The notice you receive is itself a legal document. Article L. 253 of the livre des procédures fiscales (LPF, the tax procedures book) provides that “Un avis d’imposition est mis à disposition, sous forme dématérialisée, dans le compte fiscal en ligne de tout contribuable inscrit au rôle des impôts directs” — an assessment notice is made available, in dematerialised form, in the online tax account of every taxpayer entered on the roll of direct taxes — and that the notice states the totals by type of tax, the conditions of exigibility, the date of collection and the payment deadline. The current wording is at article L. 253 LPF. Service-Public adds that the paper or online avis arrives in the last quarter, and that you can also read it in your personal space on impots.gouv.fr. If you have no French login because you never filed an income-tax return, the first practical job is to obtain an account, not to wait for a second brown envelope to find a UK letterbox.

TEOM is the line that most British owners misread as “rubbish rates”. It is a separate tax, usually collected on the same avis. Article 1520 I of the CGI opens: “Les communes qui assurent au moins la collecte des déchets des ménages peuvent instituer une taxe destinée à pourvoir aux dépenses du service de collecte et de traitement des déchets ménagers et des déchets mentionnés à l’article L. 2224-14 du code général des collectivités territoriales” as well as certain prevention-programme costs not covered by non-tax revenue. Municipalities that at least collect household waste may create a tax to meet the cost of collecting and treating household waste and the waste referred to in article L. 2224-14 of the local-authorities code. The article is at article 1520 CGI. In CE, 8th and 3rd chambers combined, 12 November 2025, no. 501633, the court restated that TEOM “n’a pas le caractère d’un prélèvement opéré sur les contribuables en vue de pourvoir à l’ensemble des dépenses budgétaires, mais a exclusivement pour objet de couvrir les dépenses exposées par la commune ou l’établissement public de coopération intercommunale compétent pour assurer l’enlèvement et le traitement des ordures ménagères” — it is not a levy to fund the whole budget, but exists solely to cover the competent authority’s waste collection and treatment costs not met by non-tax revenue assigned to those operations. The product, and therefore the rate, “ne doivent pas être manifestement disproportionnés par rapport au montant des dépenses exposées pour ce service”. A TEOM line that has jumped without any change to the house can be attacked on that disproportion ground. It is not attacked by arguing that you already pay a private contractor, nor by confusing it with the second-home dwelling-tax surcharge, which is a different tax on a different roll.

Three neighbouring bills must be kept apart if the file is not to be argued on the wrong statute. Taxe foncière is the yearly tax on the building, due by the owner on 1 January, whether or not anyone lives there. The remaining taxe d’habitation on second homes, and any local surcharge on under-occupied dwellings, is a tax on occupation of a residence that is not the taxpayer’s main home. IFI is a wealth tax on net real-estate value above the statutory threshold, described in our IFI guide for British owners. Capital gains on a later sale are another regime entirely, set out in the article on selling a French house. Paying one does not settle the others. A British owner who forwards the avis to a UK accountant with the words “French council tax” will often get an answer that mixes all four.

New builds and reconstructions have their own clock. Article 1383 I of the CGI provides: “Les constructions nouvelles, reconstructions et additions de construction à usage d’habitation sont exonérées de la taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties durant les deux années qui suivent celle de leur achèvement.” New dwellings, reconstructions and additions of residential construction are exempt from built-property tax for the two years following the year of completion. The commune may, by deliberation, cut that exemption to a stated percentage of the base, and the intercommunal body may suppress its own share. The text is at article 1383 CGI. The exemption is not automatic in every commune at 100 per cent, and it does not wipe TEOM. A British buyer of an off-plan house who is told “no property tax for two years” needs the completion year, the local deliberations, and a separate look at the waste line.

II. How do I challenge a taxe foncière bill and claim an exemption as a British owner?

A. Exemptions, modest-income relief and what the bill does not cover

Personal exemptions attach to the occupier of a main home, not to a British second home left empty for the summer. Article 1390 I of the CGI provides: “Les titulaires de l’allocation de solidarité aux personnes âgées mentionnée à l’article L. 815-1 du code de la sécurité sociale ou de l’allocation supplémentaire d’invalidité mentionnée à l’article L. 815-24 du même code sont exonérés de la taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties dont ils sont passibles à raison de leur habitation principale.” Recipients of the old-age solidarity allowance (Aspa) or of the supplementary invalidity allowance (Asi) are exempt from built-property tax on their main home. See article 1390 CGI. Article 1390 II then tapers the relief over four years if the allowance stops. Service-Public warns, and the warning matters, that the exemption does not apply to TEOM. A British pensioner who receives Aspa because he lives in France as his main home is in article 1390. A British pensioner who keeps a cottage in Charente and draws a UK state pension in Hampshire is not.

Age without the allowance is a different gate. Article 1391 I of the CGI provides: “Les redevables âgés de plus de soixante-quinze ans au 1er janvier de l’année de l’imposition sont exonérés de la taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties pour l’immeuble habité par eux, lorsque le montant des revenus de l’année précédente n’excède pas la limite prévue à l’article 1417 .” Taxpayers over seventy-five on 1 January of the tax year are exempt for the building they inhabit, if the previous year’s income does not exceed the article 1417 ceiling. The article is at article 1391 CGI. Two conditions do the real work: the building must be inhabited by the taxpayer, and the income test is the one in article 1417, not a UK notion of “modest means”. Article 1417 I, in the version applicable on 17 September 2026, states that articles 1391 and 1391 B apply to taxpayers whose previous year’s income does not exceed “la somme de 12 793 €, pour la première part de quotient familial, majorée de 3 416 € pour chaque demi-part supplémentaire”, with higher figures for the overseas departments. The current text is at article 1417 CGI. A British owner aged seventy-six whose main home is the French house, and whose French revenu fiscal de référence (reference tax income) sits under that ceiling, may have a claim. The same person whose main home is in the United Kingdom will struggle to say that the French house is “l’immeuble habité par eux”.

Where full exemption is unavailable, Service-Public describes a cap: the part of TFPB on the main home that exceeds 50 per cent of the household’s income can be removed, if the taxpayer was not liable to IFI the previous year and if income stays under the article 1417 II ceilings. Article 1417 II, on the same Légifrance page, states: “Les dispositions de l’ article 1391 B ter sont applicables aux contribuables dont le montant des revenus de l’année précédant celle au titre de laquelle l’imposition est établie n’excède pas la somme de 30 083 €, pour la première part de quotient familial, majorée de 7 029 € pour la première demi-part et 5 533 € à compter de la deuxième demi-part supplémentaire, retenues pour le calcul de l’impôt sur le revenu afférent auxdits revenus.” That cap is a main-home mechanism. It is not a discount for a holiday house, and it is not a substitute for contesting a wrong cadastral value. ANIL, in its public explainer, also reminds owners that vacancy of the dwelling does not, by itself, cancel taxe foncière. Service-Public does, however, set out a dégrèvement (a reduction granted after a claim) where a dwelling intended to be let has been vacant for at least three consecutive months for reasons outside the owner’s control. The claim goes to the tax centre for the place where the property sits. Seasonal and furnished holiday lets are outside that relief. A British owner who cannot find a winter tenant for a gîte should not assume the vacant-home dégrèvement applies.

What the personal exemptions never cover is worth stating in one place. They do not cover TEOM, as Service-Public repeats under the age and Aspa headings. They do not cover a second home. They do not cover IFI. They do not cover the remaining dwelling tax on second homes. They do not cover a British owner who is over seventy-five but whose income, once the article 1417 add-backs are made, sits above the ceiling — UK pension, UK rental and ISA interest that have to be declared in France once you are a French tax resident will count in that test. The article on UK savings, ISAs and form 3916 is the place for that declaration. Mixing an exemption file with an undeclared UK account is how a simple local-tax claim becomes a wider audit.

Building-side exemptions are a separate list. Article 1382 of the CGI exempts specified public and similar buildings; it is not the private owner’s article, but it shows that exemption is always textual. Article 1383, already quoted, is the two-year new-build relief, which a commune may shrink. Energy-renovation exemptions exist in other CGI provisions and in BOFIP commentary; they depend on the works, the dates and a declaration. None of them is triggered by writing to the mairie in English. If the avis shows a completed extension that was never declared to the cadastre, the risk runs the other way: the office can revalue, and the owner who stayed silent may face a corrected base rather than a rebate.

B. Deadlines, réclamation and court if the valuation or the taxpayer is wrong

The first rule of a French local-tax dispute is the one Service-Public prints in bold: you still pay by the date on the avis, even if you file a réclamation (a formal claim). You may ask for sursis de paiement (a stay of payment) under the ordinary tax-claim rules, but a stay is a separate request, not the automatic effect of disagreeing with the figure. Late payment of built-property tax is not a small courtesy reminder. Article 1730, 1 of the CGI provides: “Donne lieu à l’application d’une majoration de 10 % tout retard dans le paiement des sommes dues au titre de l’impôt sur le revenu, des contributions sociales recouvrées comme en matière d’impôt sur le revenu, de la taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires , des taxes foncières sur les propriétés bâties et non bâties, des impositions recouvrées comme les impositions précitées et de l’impôt sur la fortune immobilière.” Any delay in paying, among other taxes, the taxes on built and unbuilt property attracts a 10 per cent surcharge. Article 1730, 2, a then applies that surcharge “Aux sommes comprises dans un rôle ou mentionnées sur un avis de mise en recouvrement qui n’ont pas été acquittées dans les quarante-cinq jours suivant la date de mise en recouvrement du rôle ou de la notification de l’avis de mise en recouvrement, sans que cette majoration puisse être appliquée avant le 15 septembre pour les impôts établis au titre de l’année en cours”. Sums on a roll or collection notice unpaid forty-five days after the roll is put into collection, or after notification of the collection notice, are surcharged, but not before 15 September for taxes of the current year. The article is at article 1730 CGI. Article 1730, 5 allows up to fifteen extra days for individuals who pay by télérèglement (online payment). The date printed on your avis is the date that matters. A UK standing order that leaves two days late is still late.

The claim deadline for local taxes is not the income-tax deadline. In CE, 9th chamber, 29 October 2024, no. 473319, the Conseil d’État quoted article R. 196-2 of the LPF as follows: “Pour être recevables, les réclamations relatives aux impôts directs locaux et aux taxes annexes doivent être présentées à l’administration des impôts au plus tard le 31 décembre de l’année suivant celle, selon le cas : / a) De la mise en recouvrement du rôle ou de la notification d’un avis de mise en recouvrement ; / b) de la réalisation de l’évènement qui motive la réclamation ; (…)”. To be admissible, claims relating to local direct taxes and ancillary taxes must be presented to the tax authority at the latest on 31 December of the year following, as the case may be, the putting of the roll into collection or the notification of a collection notice, or the event that founds the claim. In that case the Versailles administrative court had treated a 2019 assessment as out of time. The Conseil d’État held that a claim filed on 24 November 2020, before 31 December of the year after the 2019 roll, was in time under paragraph a. The lesson for a British owner is practical: diary 31 December of the year after the year on the avis, keep proof of filing, and do not wait for an email from the office explaining the 1992 cadastral base. That email is not, without more, a new “event” that reopens a year already out of time.

Where to send the claim is the tax centre for the situation of the property, which Service-Public identifies as the address for both ordinary claims and vacant-home dégrèvement. The réclamation should say what is wrong in words the office can check against the CGI: wrong redevable (article 1400 and 1404), sale after 1 January that the owner wants recorded for next year (article 1415, with any private apportionment left to the notarial deed), cadastral rental value that no longer matches a distinct use (article 1494), TEOM rate out of proportion to the waste service (article 1520 as read in CE 12 November 2025, no. 501633), or a personal exemption under articles 1390, 1391 and 1417 that the roll ignored. A letter that only says the bill is too high compared with the neighbour is not a legal ground. A letter that attaches the sale deed, the completion declaration, the Aspa award or the floorplan of the knocked-through cottages is.

If the office rejects the claim or stays silent beyond the statutory decision period, the next court is the tribunal administratif (administrative court) of the place where the property sits, not a UK tax tribunal and not the judicial court that hears a neighbour dispute. For a Paris flat that court is the Tribunal administratif de Paris. For much of inner Île-de-France it is Paris, Montreuil, Cergy-Pontoise or Versailles, depending on the département. Those courts apply the same CGI articles as a court in Dordogne; what changes is the local rate on the avis and the practical time it takes to obtain an appointment at the service des impôts des particuliers (the individual tax office). A British owner who is only in France for the 90/180-day visits discussed in the second-home Schengen article should not let the claim period run because the next trip is in the spring. The 31 December date in article R. 196-2 does not move for a Channel crossing.

Valuation litigation is evidence-heavy. The 2025 decision in CE no. 474557 shows the court reading articles 1380, 1388 and 1494 together to decide whether lots in a house are one property or several for cadastral purposes. The 2022 decision in CE no. 438905 shows a first-instance court being censured for failing to answer a plea on how many lots a building should be. Neither decision is a promise that “my bill is higher than last year” will succeed. Annual revaluation of cadastral values is built into the system Service-Public describes. The plea that works is a mismatch between the cadastre and the actual, distinct use of the premises, or a TEOM rate that is, in the words of CE no. 501633, “manifestement disproportionnés” relative to the cost of the waste service. Wrong-person litigation follows article 1404 and the duty stated in CE no. 447507 to put the true redevable on the roll. A British seller and buyer who agreed a private split in the acte de vente still need that roll to name the 1 January owner for the year of sale; the private clause is enforced between them, not against the public accountant.

Competitors’ French pages — PAP on who pays, BailFacile on calculation and exemptions, ANIL on vacancy — stop at the domestic landlord. They do not tell a British owner how an avis in a language he does not read sits beside IFI, second-home dwelling tax and a UK tax year, nor how the Conseil d’État currently reads TEOM and the 31 December claim. That is the gap this article is written to fill. The cheaper file remains the one that pays on time or with a documented stay, claims in time, and argues the article that actually applies.

Conclusion

French taxe foncière is an annual tax on built property situated in France. Article 1380 charges the building. Article 1400 names the owner, or in listed cases the usufructuary. Article 1415 freezes the facts on 1 January and charges for the whole year. Article 1388 builds the base from cadastral rental value minus 50 per cent. Article 1520, as read by the Conseil d’État on 12 November 2025, adds a waste tax that may appear on the same avis but is not a general budget levy. Personal exemptions in articles 1390 and 1391 are for a main home, with income ceilings in article 1417; they do not shelter a British second home and they do not cancel TEOM. A wrong name is corrected under article 1404, provided the cadastral mutation duties of article 1402 have been met. A claim on local taxes must, under article R. 196-2 of the LPF as applied in CE 29 October 2024, no. 473319, reach the office by 31 December of the following year. Payment, meanwhile, remains due: article 1730 adds 10 per cent after forty-five days, not before 15 September of the tax year. Brexit did not write the British owner out of that code. It left him facing the same roll, the same 1 January, and the same administrative court as any other owner of a wall in France.

Need a quick opinion on your case

If you have just received a French avis de taxe foncière, cannot match the name or the cadastral value to the house, have been refused an exemption, or face a 10 per cent surcharge, our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write via our contact page. The firm advises clients in Paris and Île-de-France as well as British owners throughout France.