You live in France, you pay French tax, your children go to a French school — and every month a letting agent in Manchester, Leeds or Croydon sends you rent from the flat you kept when you moved. Then two envelopes arrive: a Self Assessment bill from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC, the British tax authority) and an avis d’imposition (the French tax bill) that seems to tax the same rent again. After Brexit nothing about this changed in principle, but everything about it feels harder: you are now unambiguously a foreign landlord in Britain and a taxable resident in France, and each country taxes you under its own rules while a bilateral treaty decides who gives way. This guide explains the position as a British reader needs it — where your British rental income is really taxed when you are French-resident, what HMRC takes at source and why, how to declare the rent on the French return so the treaty credit works, and how to challenge the bill when either country taxes you twice. The companion guides on this desk cover the two questions readers usually ask next: how the tie-breaker settles dual tax residence (see Claimed as Tax Resident in Both France and the UK After Brexit: the Tie-Breaker That Decides, and How to Challenge Double Tax) and how a first French return is put together after the move (see Just Moved to France from the UK After Brexit: Your First French Tax Return).

A word on vocabulary, because the two systems use the same words for different things. In France, rent from an unfurnished letting is revenus fonciers (land income), taxed under its own set of rules; rent from a furnished letting is treated as business profit, bénéfices industriels et commerciaux (BIC, industrial and commercial profits), with different allowances. Your French tax household is the foyer fiscal (the taxpayer unit: you, your spouse and your dependent children, taxed jointly). The British letting agent deducting tax under the non-resident landlord scheme operates a withholding, a prélèvement à la source, not a final settlement. And the mechanism that stops double taxation on the French side is a crédit d’impôt (a tax credit set against French tax), not an exemption. Keep these distinctions in mind and the rest follows.

I. Where your British rental income is really taxed when you live in France

A. Why both countries claim the rent, and how the France-United Kingdom treaty divides it

France taxes its residents on worldwide income; Britain taxes rent arising on British soil whoever receives it. If your home, your family life and the centre of your interests are in France, you are within the French tax net for everything you earn anywhere, including the Manchester flat. The French calculation starts from the household: “Chaque contribuable est imposable à l’impôt sur le revenu, tant en raison de ses bénéfices et revenus personnels que de ceux de ses enfants et des personnes considérés comme étant à sa charge” — see article 6 of the Tax Code (Code général des impôts) on Légifrance. The progressive scale then applies to residents under the familiar machinery: “En ce qui concerne les contribuables visés à l’article 4 B , il est fait application des règles suivantes pour le calcul de l’impôt sur le revenu” — see article 197 of the Tax Code on Légifrance, article 4 B being the provision that defines French tax residence (domicile fiscal). So the starting assumption is blunt: the British rent goes on the French return, in full, converted into euros.

Britain, meanwhile, never lets go of rent from British land. The treaty between the two countries — the Convention signed on 19 June 2008 for the avoidance of double taxation, published by the French tax administration together with later amendments (see the France-United Kingdom tax treaty on impots.gouv.fr and the administration’s commentary at BOI-INT-CVB-GBR-10-30 on the treaty on bofip.impots.gouv.fr) — expressly preserves Britain’s right to tax it. Article 6 of that treaty, headed “Revenus immobiliers” (income from immovable property), gives the State where the property is situated the right to tax income from that property. In plain English: rent from property situated in one of the two States may be taxed in that State. Your Leeds terrace is situated in Britain, so Britain may tax the rent — and does, through the non-resident landlord machinery described below.

France then eliminates the resulting double taxation by credit, not by looking away. Article 24 of the treaty, headed “Elimination des doubles impositions” (elimination of double taxation), provides that income which is taxable in the United Kingdom under the treaty is brought into the French tax computation, and that a French resident is granted a credit against French tax subject to the conditions and limits set out in that article. Read that twice, because it is the sentence that governs your case: the British rent enters the French taxable base, and France grants a credit against French tax for it, within limits. The credit for property income of this kind equals the French tax attributable to that income, computed as the net income multiplied by the effective rate on your total net taxable income where the progressive scale applies. In practice this means the rent pushes your French marginal rate up (it sits in the base) while the credit wipes out the French tax on that slice, provided you actually paid British tax on it. If you paid no British tax — because British allowances covered the rent, for example — the credit shrinks to match, and the French charge on that slice can survive. That asymmetry surprises many readers, and it is the single most common source of “but I thought the treaty protected me” disputes.

Two consequences follow that shape everything else. First, the treaty allocates the primary right to tax the rent to Britain but gives France the final computation: you must engage with both systems every year, and doing only the British return leaves the French half of the obligation unmet, with late-filing interest running. Second, the French credit is only as good as your French declaration: put the rent in the wrong box, omit the foreign-income schedule, or forget to claim the credit, and the computer grants nothing — the double taxation you suffer is then your own paperwork error, correctable but stressful. The sections below walk through each side in order.

B. What HMRC takes in Britain: the non-resident landlord scheme, form NRL1i and your British return

From the British side you are a non-resident landlord. The British government’s own guidance states that anyone letting out property in the United Kingdom must pay tax on the rental income. And on status: living abroad for six months or more a year makes HMRC treat you as a non-resident landlord, even if you remain UK-resident for tax purposes. — see Tax on your UK income if you live abroad: Rental income on GOV.UK. Note the trap hidden in that second sentence: living in France for six months or more a year makes you a non-resident landlord for the withholding scheme whatever your technical residence position, so the machinery below applies to almost every reader of this guide.

The machinery works like this. By default your letting agent — or your tenant, if you let directly and the weekly rent exceeds GBP 100 — deducts basic-rate British tax from the rent after expenses they have paid, sends it to HMRC, and gives you a certificate at year-end showing what was withheld. You then declare the rental income on a British Self Assessment return (the annual British tax return, filed by the taxpayer rather than the employer). The withholding cannot simply be treated as a final settlement: the guidance requires the rent to be declared on a Self Assessment return unless HMRC says otherwise. Non-residents face an extra practical wrinkle: they cannot use the online filing service and must file by post, use commercial software, or go through a professional such as an accountant.

There is a lawful way to receive the rent gross and settle once a year instead: HMRC form NRL1i, the application to receive British rental income without deduction. Under that route you apply on form NRL1i and send it to HMRC; if the application is approved, HMRC instructs the letting agent or tenant to stop deducting tax and you settle the liability through the Self Assessment return instead. Approval is not automatic — taxpayers behind with returns or payments are refused — and it does not exempt the rent; it merely moves the payment point from monthly withholding to the annual return. For a French-resident landlord with a reliable agent and straightforward affairs, gross receipt plus Self Assessment is usually tidier: one British computation, one British payment, and a clean figure of British tax paid to carry into the French credit.

Two British details matter for the French side. First, keep every certificate of tax deducted and every Self Assessment calculation: the French credit for the treaty equals tax actually and finally borne in Britain, so undocumented withholding is credit lost. Second, remember the British personal allowance (the slice of income free of British tax, which non-residents can generally still claim): if the allowance wipes out your British liability, there is little or no British tax for France to credit, and the French charge on the rent stands almost in full — the correct outcome under the treaty, but a shock if you assumed “taxed in Britain” meant “untouched in France”. Readers who also receive a British pension alongside the rent should read our pensions guide, because pensions follow different treaty articles with different credit mechanics (see British Pensions in France After Brexit: QROPS, Taxation and How to Challenge the Bill).

II. Declaring the British rent in France and challenging the bill when it goes wrong

A. How to declare the rent on the French return: the right boxes, the right regime, and the credit that must not be forgotten

Every person liable to French income tax must file: “En vue de l’établissement de l’impôt sur le revenu, toute personne imposable audit impôt est tenue de souscrire et de faire parvenir à l’administration 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” — see article 170 of the Tax Code on Légifrance. For British rent this means three forms working together: the main return Nº 2042, the foreign-income schedule Nº 2047 (where the British rent is identified by country so the treaty credit can attach), and the property schedule — Nº 2044 for unfurnished lettings, Nº 2044-SPE or the BIC schedules for furnished ones. File the rent on the main return alone without the 2047 and the system sees French land income with no foreign tax to credit; file the 2047 without the property schedule and the net figure is missing. All three, every year, even if the letting lost money: a British-law loss still needs declaring to carry the correct net figure, and silence reads as concealment.

Next, classify the letting correctly, because France taxes furnished and unfurnished rent under different regimes. Unfurnished rent is revenus fonciers: “sont compris dans la catégorie des revenus fonciers, lorsqu’ils ne sont pas inclus dans les bénéfices d’une entreprise industrielle, commerciale ou artisanale, d’une exploitation agricole ou d’une profession non commerciale” — see article 14 of the Tax Code on Légifrance — and the same article specifies: “1° Les revenus des propriétés bâties, telles que maisons et usines”. Your Manchester terrace, let unfurnished on an assured shorthold tenancy (the standard British open-ended rental contract), falls squarely here. Within revenus fonciers you then choose between the simplified régime micro-foncier (a flat 30 percent allowance against gross rent, no questions asked) and the régime réel (actual expenses deducted line by line). The statute draws the boundary for the simplified route: “lorsque le montant du revenu brut annuel défini aux articles 29 et 30 n’excède pas 15 000 €, le revenu imposable correspondant est fixé à une somme égale au montant de ce revenu brut diminué d’un abattement de 30 %” — see article 32 of the Tax Code on Légifrance. Below EUR 15,000 of gross annual rent the micro route applies by default; above it, or by election, the real-expense route applies, where the deductible charges are listed by law: “Les charges de la propriété déductibles pour la détermination du revenu net comprennent : 1° Pour les propriétés urbaines : a) Les dépenses de réparation et d’entretien effectivement supportées par le propriétaire” — see article 31 of the Tax Code on Légifrance, which continues through insurance premiums, management costs, loan interest and local taxes. Worked example: GBP 12,000 of gross annual rent, roughly EUR 14,000, lets under the micro route, gives a taxable base of about EUR 9,800 after the 30 percent allowance; the same rent with GBP 4,000 of genuine repair bills and agent fees favours the real-expense route, giving roughly EUR 9,300 of net rent after conversion. Run both computations before electing — the election binds you for several years, and a hasty micro election with heavy works bills is money left on the table.

Furnished lettings follow a different track. Profits from letting furnished accommodation are business profits: “Présentent également le caractère de bénéfices industriels et commerciaux, pour l’application de l’impôt sur le revenu, les bénéfices réalisés par les personnes physiques désignées ci-après” — see article 35 of the Tax Code on Légifrance — and the simplified BIC route has its own thresholds: “Sont soumises au régime défini au présent article pour l’imposition de leurs bénéfices les entreprises dont le chiffre d’affaires hors taxes, ajusté s’il y a lieu au prorata du temps d’exploitation au cours de l’année de référence, n’excède pas, l’année civile précédente ou la pénultième année” — see article 50-0 of the Tax Code on Légifrance. A British reader letting a furnished London flat while living in Lyon therefore declares BIC, not revenus fonciers, and claims the furnished allowance rather than the 30 percent micro-foncier allowance. Misclassifying a furnished letting as revenus fonciers is one of the most common errors in these files, and it corrupts both the base and the credit.

Do not confuse rent with sale: when you eventually sell the British property, a different treaty article and a different French article apply to the gain. French law opens the capital-gains chapter with: “Sous réserve des dispositions propres aux bénéfices industriels et commerciaux, aux bénéfices agricoles et aux bénéfices non commerciaux, les plus-values réalisées par les personnes physiques ou” — see article 150 U of the Tax Code on Légifrance — and the sale of a British home by a French resident follows that gains regime, not the rental rules above (our guide to selling is at British Resident in France Who Sells a UK Home: Capital Gains, the Treaty and How to Challenge the Bill). Finally, remember the French social levies: as a French resident your rental income also feeds the prélèvements sociaux (the social charges computed alongside income tax, shown separately on the French bill), whose treaty credit works differently from the income-tax credit — check the breakdown lines of your avis d’imposition before assuming the whole bill is creditable.

B. How to challenge the bill when France or Britain taxes you twice

Four failure patterns cover nearly every double-tax dispute on British rental income, and each has its own remedy. Identify yours before writing anything, because a challenge aimed at the wrong country fails on jurisdiction and wastes the deadline.

First pattern: the French return omitted the treaty credit. Symptoms: the avis d’imposition taxes the full British rent with no credit line, usually because the Nº 2047 schedule was missing or the rent was entered as French-source income. Remedy: file a corrective return if the filing window is still open, or lodge a formal claim — a réclamation contentieuse (the written challenge to a tax bill, sent through your secure personal space on impots.gouv.fr or by recorded post to the tax office that issued the bill) — asking for the treaty credit under Article 24 of the France-United Kingdom Convention, attaching the British Self Assessment calculation and the withholding certificates that prove British tax actually paid. Quote the treaty sentence set out above, show the country code on the 2047, and compute the credit as the French tax attributable to the rent. Most of these cases settle at the office stage once the paperwork proves the British tax: the error was yours, the correction is yours, and the administration grants what the treaty commands.

Second pattern: Britain withheld too much. Symptoms: the agent deducted basic-rate tax all year although British allowances or deductible expenses (agent fees, repairs, insurance, loan interest under British rules) would have reduced the liability, and no NRL1i approval was sought. Remedy: this fight happens in Britain, not France — complete the Self Assessment return claiming every allowable British expense, reclaim the excess withholding from HMRC, and only then carry the final British tax figure into the French credit. There is no point asking France to credit tax Britain should never have kept; France credits tax “effectively borne” in Britain under the treaty, and a reclaimable overpayment is not tax borne. Readers who let through an agent should also check the agent’s expense deductions line by line: agents sometimes withhold on gross rent without deducting the repair invoices they themselves paid, inflating both the British withholding and — temporarily — the French credit base.

Third pattern: the allowance trap. Symptoms: Britain taxed little or nothing because the personal allowance absorbed the rent, while France taxes the rent almost in full after a tiny credit. This is not an error by either country — it is the treaty working as written, since the French credit mirrors British tax actually paid — but it is still worth challenging the computation rather than the principle: verify that France applied the correct treaty paragraph (credit equal to French tax on the income where British tax was paid, capped at that French tax), that the exchange rate used for conversion is documented, and that the rent was not also swept into the social levies twice. If the numbers check out, the remaining French charge is lawful, and the planning question for next year becomes whether British-side elections (timing of expenses, joint ownership between spouses, or furnishing status) change the British liability and hence the credit — questions for advice before the year ends, not claims after it.

Fourth pattern: years of silence. Symptoms: several years of British rent never declared in France, discovered on a mortgage application, an inheritance file, or an exchange-of-information notice. Remedy: regularise voluntarily before the administration opens the file — late returns with the treaty credit claimed from the start produce a far smaller bill than reassessments with penalties, and the credit remains available on late filing provided the British tax is proved. Assemble, for each year: the British Self Assessment and payment receipts, the tenancy agreement, the agent statements, the euro conversions used, and the French returns as corrected. Where the administration has already reassessed, challenge each reassessment separately with the same treaty material, year by year, because the credit is computed annually and a global argument invites a global rejection.

In every pattern, procedure decides as much as substance. Write in French to the French office and in English to HMRC; never send the same letter to both. Put the treaty article numbers, the 2047 country code, and the exact euro figures in the first page — reviewers decide in minutes whether a file is serious. Keep proof of sending and of receipt. And diary the deadlines from the day the bill arrives: French claims and British amendments both run on strict time limits measured from the notice or the year-end, and a perfect argument filed a week late is worth nothing. If the office rejects the claim, the next step is the administrative court on the French side or review and tribunal on the British side — but the overwhelming majority of rental-income cases never get there, because the treaty text quoted in this guide is unambiguous and administrators apply it once they see it.

Conclusion

Living in France while letting out a British property means accepting two tax systems and making them talk to each other through the treaty. Britain taxes the rent at source because the building stands on British soil; France taxes it again in principle because you live in France, then hands back a credit that mirrors the British tax you actually paid. Declare the rent every year on the 2042 with its 2047 schedule and the correct property form, choose deliberately between the micro allowance and real expenses — or the BIC track if the letting is furnished — keep every British certificate, and claim the Article 24 credit in the exact treaty words. When the bill still taxes you twice, diagnose which of the four patterns fits, direct the challenge at the right country, and move before the deadline. Handled this way, the Manchester flat remains what it should be: an investment that pays you, not two treasuries.