You live in Manchester, Leeds or London. You own a holiday house in the Dordogne, Brittany or the Luberon that you bought years ago, and you have now decided to sell it. The buyer has been found, the notaire (the French public officer who authenticates property sales) is preparing the deed, and then comes the question every British vendor asks too late: how much French tax will be taken from the sale price, who pays it, and what can you do if the bill looks wrong? Since Brexit, the answer is harsher than many owners expect. You are taxed in France as a non-resident, you must in most cases appoint and pay a représentant accrédité (an accredited tax representative established in France), you have lost the benefit of a 150,000-euro exemption reserved for European Union residents, and you remain taxable in the United Kingdom on the same gain, with only a tax credit to soften the double hit. This article explains the full mechanism: the French levy on the gain, the social charges, the holding-period reductions, the surcharge on large gains, the representative, the deadlines, the British side of the story, and the remedies available on both sides of the Channel when the figures are disputed.

I. What France taxes when a United Kingdom resident sells a French second home, and what Brexit changed

A. How much French tax will you pay on the sale of your French second home?

French tax law starts from a simple territorial principle. Article 164 B of the French General Tax Code (Code général des impôts, the CGI) provides that: “Sont considérés comme revenus de source française : a. Les revenus d’immeubles sis en France ou de droits relatifs à ces immeubles” , which means that income from buildings situated in France, and from rights over them, counts as French-source income. A capital gain realised on a house situated in France is therefore taxable in France even when the vendor lives in Britain and pays tax there as a resident. The France–United Kingdom double tax convention signed on 19 June 2008 confirms this allocation: gains from immovable property are taxable in the country where the property stands, so France taxes first and the United Kingdom then grants relief by crediting the French tax against its own charge. The two taxes do not cancel each other out; they stack, and only the credit mechanism prevents outright double taxation.

For a vendor who is not domiciled in France for tax purposes (non-résident), the charge takes the form of a withholding-style levy called the prélèvement under Article 244 bis A of the CGI. whose text states: “Sous réserve des conventions internationales, les plus-values, telles que définies aux e bis et e ter du I de l’article 164 B , réalisées par les personnes et organismes mentionnés au 2 du I lors de la cession des biens ou droits mentionnés au 3 sont soumises à un prélèvement selon les taux fixés au III bis.” , i.e. subject to tax treaties, the defined gains realised by the listed persons on the listed property bear a levy at the III bis rates. And the same Article 244 bis A expressly covers: “Les personnes physiques qui ne sont pas fiscalement domiciliées en France au sens de l’article 4 B”, that is, individuals not domiciled in France for tax purposes under Article 4 B. A British reader habitually resident in the United Kingdom, with his or her home, family and economic centre there, and spending fewer than 183 days a year in France, falls squarely into this category.

The rate of the levy for an individual is 19% of the taxable gain. Article 244 bis A, III bis, provides: “Toutefois, les personnes physiques, les associés personnes physiques de sociétés, groupements ou organismes dont les bénéfices sont imposés au nom des associés et les porteurs de parts, personnes physiques, de fonds de placement immobilier mentionnés à l’article 239 nonies sont soumis au prélèvement au taux de 19 %.” , which sets the 19% levy rate for individuals and individual partners. On top of this 19%, social charges (prélèvements sociaux) apply at 17.2% in the standard case, so the headline combined burden on the taxable gain is 36.2% before any surcharge. One nuance matters for British vendors who work and pay social security contributions in the United Kingdom: where European coordination rules or the social-security protocol of the EU–United Kingdom Trade and Cooperation Agreement place you under the British scheme, only the 7.5% solidarity levy (prélèvement de solidarité) may be due instead of the full 17.2%; otherwise the full 17.2% applies. Because the boundary depends on your affiliation certificate (an A1 posting certificate or an S1 healthcare entitlement document), check your position with the paperwork in hand before the notaire computes the bill, since a wrongly applied 17.2% instead of 7.5% on a large gain is one of the most expensive mistakes in this file.

The taxable gain itself is not the sale price. It is the difference between the sale price (prix de cession) and the adjusted acquisition cost (prix d’acquisition), and each side of the subtraction has its own traps. The sale price is reduced by the costs borne by the vendor that are set out in the deed, such as estate-agent commission and certain certifications. The acquisition cost is the price you originally paid, increased by the purchase expenses (registration duties and notaire fees) either at their real amount with receipts or at a statutory flat rate, and increased by building, rebuilding, extension or improvement works, again either proved by invoices from proper businesses or taken at a flat rate of 15% of the purchase price, but only once the property has been held for more than five years. Owners who threw away the invoices for a new roof or an extension twenty years ago regularly discover at the signing table that thousands of euros of real expenditure cannot be counted, which is why gathering every invoice, every facture, and the original deed of acquisition months before the sale is the single most profitable step a vendor can take.

Time then reduces the gain through holding-period reliefs (abattements pour durée de détention), and the two clocks run at different speeds. For the 19% income-tax portion, Article 150 VC of the CGI provides: “La plus-value brute réalisée sur les biens ou droits mentionnés aux articles 150 U , 150 UB et 150 UC est réduite d’un abattement fixé à : – 6 % pour chaque année de détention au-delà de la cinquième ; – 4 % au titre de la vingt-deuxième année de détention.” , a scale that wipes out the income-tax portion of the gain after twenty-two years of ownership. The arithmetic gives full exemption from the income-tax portion after twenty-two years of ownership. For the social-charges portion, Article L. 136-7 of the Social Security Code (Code de la sécurité sociale) applies instead: “d’un abattement fixé à : a) 1,65 % pour chaque année de détention au-delà de la cinquième ; b) 1,60 % pour la vingt-deuxième année de détention ; c) 9 % pour chaque année de détention au-delà de la vingt-deuxième.” , a slower scale that requires thirty years for full exemption from social charges. Full exemption from social charges therefore needs thirty years. A concrete example makes the mechanism tangible. Take a house bought in 2008 for 200,000 euros with 15,000 euros of purchase costs, improved in 2012 with 30,000 euros of invoiced works, and sold in 2026 for 350,000 euros net of agency commission. The gross gain is 350,000 minus 245,000, or 105,000 euros. After eighteen years of ownership, the income-tax relief is 6% times thirteen years (years six to eighteen), or 78%, leaving a taxable base of 23,100 euros for the 19% levy, or 4,389 euros. The social-charges relief is 1.65% times thirteen, or 21.45%, leaving 82,478 euros taxable at 17.2%, or 14,186 euros. Keep the house until thirty years of ownership and both portions fall to zero; sell after six years and almost the whole gain bears the full 36.2%.

Large gains attract one more layer, the surtax on high property gains (surtaxe sur les plus-values élevées) under Article 1609 nonies G of the CGI. which states: “La taxe est due à raison des plus-values imposables d’un montant supérieur à 50 000 €, selon le barème suivant appliqué au montant total de la plus-value imposable” , and adds: “Elle est due par le cédant et exigible lors de la cession.” , meaning the vendor owes this surtax, on the whole taxable gain above 50,000 euros, at the time of disposal. In practice the scale runs from 2% to 6% of the taxable gain once the 50,000-euro threshold is crossed, and because it applies to the whole gain and not only the slice above the threshold, crossing the line by one euro can cost over a thousand. Splitting a sale artificially to stay below the threshold does not work, and the notaire computes the surtax automatically, so the only lawful way to reduce it is to reduce the taxable gain itself through genuine acquisition costs, works and reliefs.

B. Why the 150,000-euro exemption and the European shortcuts no longer protect British sellers

Before Brexit, a British owner of a French holiday home enjoyed the same European cushions as a German or Dutch owner. Three of them have now disappeared or narrowed, and misunderstanding this point is the most common source of shock at the signing table. The first concerns the special exemption for non-residents who once lived in France. Article 150 U, II, 1° of the CGI exempts: “Qui constituent la résidence principale du cédant au jour de la cession” , i.e. property that is genuinely the vendor’s main home on disposal day. That main-residence exemption is unchanged and benefits everyone, British vendors included, where the facts genuinely support it. But a holiday home is by definition not a main residence, and the tax administration tests the claim against occupation evidence, utility bills, tax returns and electoral registration, so re-labelling a second home at the last minute fails and can trigger penalties.

The second cushion, now lost, is the 150,000-euro exemption for non-residents in Article 150 U, II, 2° reads: “Au titre de la cession d’un logement situé en France lorsque le cédant est une personne physique, non résidente de France, ressortissante d’un Etat membre de l’Union européenne ou d’un autre Etat partie à l’accord sur l’Espace économique européen ayant conclu avec la France une convention d’assistance administrative en vue de lutter contre la fraude et l’évasion fiscales et à la condition qu’il ait été fiscalement domicilié en France de manière continue pendant au moins deux ans à un moment quelconque antérieurement à la cession.” , which reserves the shelter to non-resident individuals holding European Union or EEA nationality who were once domiciled in France for at least two unbroken years. The same Article 150 U then applies the shelter: “dans la limite d’une résidence par contribuable et de 150 000 € de plus-value nette imposable, aux cessions réalisées : a) Au plus tard le 31 décembre de la dixième année suivant celle du transfert par le cédant de son domicile fiscal hors de France ; b) Sans condition de délai, lorsque le cédant a la libre disposition du bien au moins depuis le 1er janvier de l’année précédant celle de la cession”, capping it at one residence per taxpayer and 150,000 euros of net taxable gain, with a tenth-year deadline or, alternatively, no deadline where the vendor kept full disposal of the property.. Since 1 January 2021, a British national is no longer a national of a European Union Member State, and the United Kingdom is not party to the European Economic Area agreement, so this 150,000-euro shelter is closed to British sellers even if they once lived in France for years. Only the separate exemption for a former main residence sold shortly after departure, which also covers States that have signed assistance and recovery conventions with France, may still help a British vendor who left France very recently and sells within the year following departure without having let or lent the property in the meantime; beyond that narrow window, the full non-resident regime applies.

The third change is procedural and hits every British sale: the compulsory accredited representative. Article 244 bis A, IV, of the CGI provides: “L’impôt dû en application du présent article est acquitté lors de l’enregistrement de l’acte ou, à défaut d’enregistrement, dans le mois suivant la cession, sous la responsabilité d’un représentant établi en France, accrédité par l’administration fiscale.” , so the tax travels with the deed and rests on a France-established, administration-accredited representative. The official tax commentary (the BOFiP, the administration’s published doctrine) is explicit about the territorial trigger: the representative mechanism targets taxpayers domiciled outside the European Union or the EEA, by requiring a representative who undertakes to pay the tax in their place. In plain terms, because the United Kingdom is now outside that circle, a British vendor domiciled in Britain must appoint a représentant accrédité who stands surety for the tax, and the representative charges a fee, typically a five-figure sum or a percentage of the price, which comes on top of the tax itself. Two automatic dispensations soften the rule, and the doctrine states the first plainly in substance in the BOFiP: disposals priced at 150,000 euros or less escape the representative requirement, with the threshold assessed per vendor. The second dispensation covers sales that are fully exempt by holding period (more than thirty years, so that neither income tax nor social charges remain). A married couple selling jointly counts as a single vendor for the threshold, so a 280,000-euro sale by a couple still needs a representative, while a 140,000-euro sale by one owner does not. Vendors who hold the French house through a French property company (société civile immobilière, or SCI, the family company commonly used to organise ownership) face an extra layer: the levy is computed pro rata on the non-resident partners’ shares, and the courts have enforced this strictly. In a ruling of 20 June 2023 (Conseil d’État, 9th and 10th chambers combined, No. 463599, SCI Faucon), the court held in substance that a partnership-type company taxed in the hands of its partners pays the levy on French-property gains pro rata to the shares held by partners not domiciled in France or seated abroad. British families holding through an SCI should therefore read the two companion guides on the family SCI and on British wills covering French houses alongside this article.

II. How the sale works in practice, and how to challenge the bill

A. Which papers, which representative and which deadlines before the notaire releases the price?

The sale of a French property is prepared and authenticated by the notaire, and the tax is collected at the source, through him or her. The vendor does not receive the full price and pay the tax later: the notaire draws up the capital-gains return (form 2048-IMM, the standard return for property gains of individuals), computes the levy, the social charges and any surtax, withholds the total from the price, and pays it to the Treasury when the deed is registered (enregistrement) at the land-registry publicity service. The balance reaches the vendor only afterwards, by transfer to the declared bank account. Because the computation happens before signature, every supporting document must be on the notaire’s desk weeks in advance: the original acquisition deed (acte d’acquisition), proof of purchase costs, all works invoices from registered businesses with dates and addresses matching the property, the property-tax (taxe foncière) notices that help establish the holding history, and, for the representative, full identity and domicile evidence. A missing invoice cannot be reconstructed after the deed is signed, and the administration accepts neither estimates nor statements from unregistered handymen.

The accredited representative must be appointed before completion wherever the price exceeds 150,000 euros per vendor and the gain is not fully exempt. In practice the notaire usually introduces an accredited firm, but the vendor may appoint any accredited representative, and comparing fees is worthwhile because they vary widely. The representative examines the file, signs the return alongside the vendor, and guarantees payment, which is why the accreditation regime exists: the Treasury wants a solvent debtor established in France. For British vendors based in Paris or the Île-de-France for part of the year, or selling a property in the capital region, one practical detail helps: after the sale, correspondence about the levy, requests for corrections and claims are handled for non-residents by the dedicated non-resident tax office (Service des impôts des particuliers non-résidents) at Noisy-le-Grand in Seine-Saint-Denis, east of Paris, rather than by the local office of the property, so file references, payment receipts and the representative’s details should be kept together for that correspondence. Where the property is let furnished or occupied under specific arrangements, or where the vendor also faces the annual property taxes and the real-estate wealth tax, the companion guides on second-home taxation and on furnished letting complete the picture.

The British side of the file must be prepared in parallel, not discovered the following January. A United Kingdom resident is taxable in Britain on worldwide gains, so the French gain is declared to His Majesty‘s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) through Self Assessment, and the French tax already paid is credited against the British capital-gains bill under the treaty’s elimination-of-double-taxation article. The United Kingdom computes its own gain under its own rules (sterling values at acquisition and disposal dates, allowable costs, the annual exempt amount), so the British taxable figure will differ from the French one, and the credit cannot exceed the British tax attributable to that gain; any French tax above that level is unrelieved, which is a further reason to minimise the French base lawfully before signing. Keep every French document translated in substance: the deed, the 2048-IMM return, the payment receipt (quittance) and the representative’s certificate, because HMRC may ask for proof of the foreign tax within its enquiry window. The British government’s own guidance confirms the treaty mechanism: the United Kingdom’s double-taxation treaties allocate taxing rights on disposals, and where treaty relief applies the relevant return must still be filed to claim it. Two timing points complete the calendar: the French tax is paid at registration of the deed, while the British declaration follows the Self Assessment cycle for the year of disposal, and exchange-rate movements between the euro price and the sterling computation can move the British gain after the French figures are frozen, so an adverse swing deserves a final check before the return is filed.

B. How do you challenge an excessive assessment and recover what was overpaid?

Errors in these files are frequent, and the sums justify a methodical challenge. The classic mistakes are a wrong holding-period start date (the administration sometimes counts from registration rather than from the dated deed), forgotten purchase costs or works, the wrong social-charges rate where the vendor was in fact covered by the British scheme under the coordination rules, a surtax applied to a gain that in truth fell below 50,000 euros once correctly computed, and the lost benefit of an exemption the vendor actually qualified for, such as the former-main-residence window after a recent departure. The first step is always a written request to the notaire and the representative for the full computation schedule (décompte): every figure must be traceable to a document, a date and a statutory rate. Where the error is identified before registration, the deed computation can still be corrected; afterwards, the figures can only be attacked through the formal claim procedure.

French tax procedure channels disputes through the administrative claim (réclamation contentieuse) before any court action. Article L. 190 of the Book of Tax Procedures (Livre des procédures fiscales, the LPF) provides: “Les réclamations relatives aux impôts, contributions, droits, taxes, redevances, soultes et pénalités de toute nature, établis ou recouvrés par les agents de l’administration, relèvent de la juridiction contentieuse lorsqu’elles tendent à obtenir soit la réparation d’erreurs commises dans l’assiette ou le calcul des impositions, soit le bénéfice d’un droit résultant d’une disposition législative ou réglementaire.” , sending claims that seek correction of base or computation errors, or the benefit of a statutory right, to the contentious courts. In practice the claim is filed with the non-resident tax office, sets out each error with the evidence, and quantifies the refund sought, including late-payment interest (intérêts moratoires) where due. If the administration rejects the claim expressly or stays silent for six months, the vendor may appeal to the administrative court (tribunal administratif), then to the administrative court of appeal, and ultimately to the Conseil d’État. The SCI Faucon litigation shows both the demands and the discipline of this route: the file travelled from the Nice administrative court to the Marseille court of appeal and twice to the Conseil d’État over a 4-million-euro levy, and every paragraph of the final ruling turned on the precise wording of Article 244 bis A, which is why claims must quote the statute and the evidence rather than argue fairness in general terms. Time limits are strict, running in months from assessment or from the rejection decision, so diary the deadline on the day the deed is signed rather than on the day the disappointment arrives.

On the British side, the mirror challenge concerns the foreign-tax credit. If HMRC refuses or caps the credit for the French levy, the Self Assessment return can be amended within the statutory window, and a formal review or appeal to the Tax Tribunal follows the usual domestic route, with the treaty and the French payment receipts as the core exhibits. Where the French claim succeeds and part of the levy is refunded, the British position must be corrected symmetrically, because the credit cannot exceed the French tax finally retained; keeping the two files aligned avoids interest on either side. Vendors who discover the problem years later should check both countries’ late-claim provisions rather than assume the file is closed: French procedure allows claims within defined years after the disputed payment, and British overpayment relief has its own four-year horizon, but each condition is narrow and fact-sensitive.

Conclusion

Selling a French second home from Britain after Brexit means accepting three linked disciplines. France taxes the gain first, at 19% plus social charges, softened only by the holding-period clocks of twenty-two and thirty years and hardened by the surtax above 50,000 euros; the European exemptions and shortcuts that once protected British owners, above all the 150,000-euro shelter, are gone, and an accredited representative must guarantee the bill wherever the price exceeds 150,000 euros per vendor. Britain then taxes the same gain under its own rules and credits the French tax paid, which makes the French computation decisive twice over. Prepared months ahead, with every invoice gathered, the correct social-charges rate evidenced, the representative appointed in good time and the treaty credit mapped, the sale proceeds smoothly; computed hastily at the signing table, it overpays on both sides of the Channel. When it does, the French administrative claim and the British appeal routes give a structured path back, provided the evidence was kept and the deadlines respected.