You have lived in France, you are moving back to the United Kingdom, and someone has told you that France can tax gains on shares you have not sold. That warning is about the exit tax, not about the last ordinary income-tax return. The exit tax is the charge in article 167 bis of the Code général des impôts, the French General Tax Code. It can reach unrealised gains, called plus-values latentes, on substantial shareholdings, together with certain earn-out claims and gains whose taxation had already been deferred. Payment can be deferred. A deferral, or sursis de paiement, is not a cancellation. A missing form can make the deferred tax payable at once. This note, prepared from the text in force on 1 October 2026, explains who is caught, when a move to the United Kingdom can defer payment, why a move to Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man is a different case, and how a wrong bill is challenged. It does not value your holding and it does not replace the return you file for income you have already received. That neighbouring filing is the subject of the final French income-tax return filed the year after a move back to the United Kingdom. The statute, the tax administration’s published pages and the judgments cited below control the general rules. Your share register, your acquisition documents and, if there is a dispute, the judge control your file.

I. When a move from France to the UK taxes share gains you have not sold

The practical question is narrower than the slogan. Many people who leave France owe nothing under this article, because they have not been French tax resident for long enough, or because the household’s securities are below both statutory thresholds. Others are within the charge but can keep the tax unpaid for two years, or five years if the holding is large, provided the securities are still owned at the end of that period and the forms are filed. A third group, moving to a place that does not meet the assistance-convention test, must ask for deferral before they leave, name a representative in France and put up a guarantee. Reading those three groups as if they were one rule is how a departure is mishandled.

A. The six-year test, the €800,000 or 50 per cent threshold, and what is actually taxed

Article 167 bis of the Code général des impôts, in the version in force since 1 January 2024, states the charge in these terms: «Les contribuables fiscalement domiciliés en France pendant au moins six des dix années précédant le transfert de leur domicile fiscal hors de France sont imposables lors de ce transfert au titre des plus-values latentes constatées sur les droits sociaux, valeurs, titres ou droits mentionnés au 1 du I de l’article 150-0 A détenus, directement ou indirectement, par les membres de leur foyer fiscal à la date de ce transfert lorsque ces mêmes droits sociaux, valeurs, titres ou droits représentent au moins 50 % des bénéfices sociaux d’une société ou lorsque la valeur globale desdits droits sociaux, valeurs, titres ou droits, déterminée dans les conditions prévues au premier alinéa du 2, excède 800 000 € à cette même date.» The securities concerned are those mentioned at point 1 of I of article 150-0 A, held directly or indirectly by the members of the tax household, the foyer fiscal, on the date of the transfer. Two gates must both be passed. First, you must have been fiscally domiciled in France for at least six of the ten years preceding the transfer. Second, those securities must either represent at least 50 per cent of the profits of a company, or have a global value above 800,000 euros. A holding of 900,000 euros in listed shares can be caught even if it is a small percentage of a large company. A 60 per cent holding in a small company can be caught even if the value is well under 800,000 euros. A portfolio under both figures is outside this first limb.

The same article also taxes a different asset, and the residence test is worded slightly differently. The text continues: (article 167 bis) «Les contribuables fiscalement domiciliés en France pendant au moins six années au cours des dix dernières années sont imposables lors du transfert de leur domicile fiscal hors de France sur la valeur des créances trouvant leur origine dans une clause de complément de prix mentionnée au 2 du I de l’article 150-0 A.» A créance trouvant son origine dans une clause de complément de prix is a claim to an extra price, the sort of earn-out that is paid later if a business that was sold hits a target. It is taxed by reference to its real value at the moment of departure, not by waiting for the cash. If you sold a company before leaving and part of the price is still contingent, that claim can be in the exit tax even though you no longer hold the shares.

Gains whose taxation had already been deferred are brought into charge as well. The article provides: (article 167 bis) «Lorsqu’un contribuable transfère son domicile fiscal hors de France, les plus-values de cession ou d’échange de droits sociaux, valeurs, titres ou droits dont l’imposition a été reportée en application du II de l’article 92 B, de l’article 92 B decies et des I ter et II de l’article 160 , dans leur rédaction en vigueur avant le 1er janvier 2000, de l’article 150-0 C , dans sa rédaction en vigueur avant le 1er janvier 2006 et, des articles 150-0 B bis , 150-0 B ter et 150-0 B quater sont également imposables lors de ce transfert.» That limb matters if you exchanged shares, contributed them to a holding company, or otherwise used a French rollover and have not yet been taxed on the old gain. Leaving France can end the quiet life of that rollover. It is a separate line from the unrealised gain on shares you simply still own.

What the article does not allow is a homemade netting. It says: (article 167 bis) «Les moins-values latentes calculées selon les modalités prévues au premier alinéa du 2 ne sont pas imputables sur les plus-values calculées selon les mêmes modalités ni sur d’autres plus-values, quelles que soient leurs modalités d’imposition.» A latent loss on one line cannot be set against a latent gain on another at the moment you leave, and it cannot be set against other gains either. If one company has fallen and another has risen, the risen line can be taxed and the fallen line does not reduce that figure on the departure return. A later actual sale at a loss can still discharge the tax on that line, but that is a later event, not a netting you can do on the day you pack.

The tax administration’s page on this charge, modified on 10 March 2026, states that the person who transfers tax domicile out of France is taxable, under conditions, to income tax and to social contributions, the prélèvements sociaux, on latent gains, on earn-out claims and on gains placed under a deferral of taxation. That page is the official explanation headed Je quitte la France, suis-je concerné par l’Exit Tax. Article 167 bis itself organises the income-tax computation and, in its later credit rule, refers to the social-contribution prélèvements in the Social Security Code and to the related contributions. This note does not state a percentage for those contributions, because the rate articles were not the text used to fix the figures below. The figure that the exit-tax article itself states, and only for a guaranteed request rather than for the whole bill, is dealt with in the second part.

The same official page also says that, for transfers from 1 January 2019, the device reaches shares in companies with a preponderance of real estate that are subject to corporation tax on the day of the move. A French house you own in your own name is not this charge. Selling that house, or being taxed on it as a non-resident, is a different set of rules. Shares in a company that itself owns the house can fall inside article 167 bis if the securities tests are met. That is why a family company, or a holding company sitting over a property company, has to be listed with the quoted portfolio and not left in the property file.

The six-year test is a test of French tax domicile, not of passport and not of how many days a removal company spent in the house. Article 4 B of the Code général des impôts provides: «Sont considérées comme ayant leur domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article 4 A : a. Les personnes qui ont en France leur foyer ou le lieu de leur séjour principal ; b. Celles qui exercent en France une activité professionnelle, salariée ou non, à moins qu’elles ne justifient que cette activité y est exercée à titre accessoire» A third criterion, in the same paragraph, is the centre of economic interests. You can meet the test through your home, through your main work, or through the place where your economic life is centred. Six years out of the ten before departure is enough. A person who arrived in 2021 and leaves in 2026 may already have the six years. A person who kept a French home for three years, went back to Britain, and returned for two years, has to count the years that actually qualify, not the years since the first visit.

B. How the latent gain is worked out, and why the treaty may not wipe the bill on the day you leave

The gain is not a guess and it is not the broker’s unrealised-profit screen taken on its own. Article 167 bis provides: «La plus-value constatée dans les conditions du premier alinéa du 1 du présent I est déterminée par différence entre la valeur des droits sociaux, valeurs, titres ou droits lors du transfert du domicile fiscal hors de France, déterminée selon les règles prévues à l’article 758 et au dernier alinéa du I de l’article 973, et leur prix d’acquisition par le contribuable ou, en cas d’acquisition à titre gratuit, leur valeur retenue pour la détermination des droits de mutation.» In ordinary language, the statute takes the value of the securities at the transfer, determined under the valuation rules of article 758 and of the last paragraph of I of article 973, and subtracts the price you paid or, if you received the securities by gift or inheritance, the value that was used for the transfer taxes. If the securities came from a tax-deferred exchange, the statute looks back to the acquisition price of the securities given in exchange, adjusted for any cash balancing payment. A wrong starting value, or a forgotten acquisition cost, is a ground of challenge. This note does not restate the valuation method in articles 758 and 973, which have to be applied to the actual securities. What can be said now is that an unlisted family company is not valued by the last dividend, and a listed share is not valued by a price picked from a convenient day.

The date of the transfer is a legal date, not the date on the ferry ticket. The article provides: (article 167 bis) «Pour l’application du présent article, le transfert hors de France du domicile fiscal d’un contribuable est réputé intervenir le jour précédant celui à compter duquel ce contribuable cesse d’être soumis en France à une obligation fiscale sur l’ensemble de ses revenus.» The transfer is deemed to happen on the day before the day from which you cease to be subject in France to tax on all of your income. That deeming rule is the hinge of the treaty argument. Article 4 B also provides: «Les personnes qui satisfont à l’un au moins des critères fixés aux a à c du présent 1 ne peuvent toutefois pas être considérées comme ayant leur domicile fiscal en France lorsque, par application des conventions internationales relatives aux doubles impositions, elles ne sont pas regardées comme résidentes de France.» So a tax treaty can mean that you are not regarded as French-resident even if a domestic criterion is met. Readers sometimes join those two sentences and conclude that, the moment the France-United Kingdom treaty makes them UK-resident, France cannot tax the unrealised gain. The case law read for this note does not support that shortcut.

On 4 February 2026 the Paris administrative court of appeal decided case 24PA03156, available as CETATEXT000053442861. The taxpayer had transferred his tax domicile to Luxembourg on 20 December 2013. He was charged under article 167 bis on latent gains and on gains in deferral. After a desk audit, the administration took the view that events had ended part of the automatic deferral and it collected tax to that extent. The court rejected the appeal. On the treaty point it held: «il n’entrait pas, à la date de cette imposition, dans le champ de la convention franco-luxembourgeoise, dont il n’est, par suite, pas fondé à se prévaloir pour faire obstacle à l’imposition en France.» The gains had been taxed at the transfer, deemed to be the day before he ceased to be taxable in France on worldwide income. On that date, the court said, he was not within the field of the France-Luxembourg treaty, and he could not rely on it to block the French tax. The court was applying the version of the article in force for a 2013 move, and it was a Luxembourg treaty, not the France-United Kingdom treaty. The deeming sentence in III of the current article is the same mechanism. A person leaving for the United Kingdom in 2026 should not assume that the treaty cancels the exit tax on the day of departure. A later actual sale may raise a different treaty question. That is not the same question as the charge that arises on the deemed day.

The same judgment is also useful on what the annual paperwork is, and is not. The court said: (Paris administrative court of appeal decision of 4 February 2026, no. 24PA03156) «un Etat membre est en droit d’imposer une plus-value latente sur son territoire même si elle n’a pas encore effectivement été réalisée dès lors qu’il n’impose pas le recouvrement immédiat lors du transfert dans un autre Etat de l’Union.» It added: «Si le contribuable ayant transféré son domicile hors de France est tenu de déclarer chaque année le montant des plus-values imposables et de l’impôt en sursis de paiement, cette circonstance ne peut être regardée à elle seule comme le soumettant à un traitement disproportionné par rapport à l’objectif poursuivi.» An EU Member State may tax a latent gain that has not yet been realised, provided it does not demand immediate collection on a transfer to another EU state. Being required to declare each year the amount of the gains and of the tax in deferral was not, by itself, a disproportionate burden. The judgment does not decide a move to the United Kingdom after Brexit. It does decide that the existence of an annual declaration is not, on its own, a reason to strike the charge down, and that a treaty argument has to meet the deemed date rather than a general complaint that the statute is unfriendly to treaties.

A different judgment is often mentioned as if it had abolished the exit tax. It has not. On 5 February 2025 the Conseil d’État, in case 476399, CETATEXT000051141457, discharged remaining income tax and social contributions on a deferred gain for a taxpayer who had moved to Belgium on 15 April 2011. The holding is narrow. The court said: «l’application des dispositions de l’article 167 bis du code général des impôts aux transferts du domicile fiscal dans un autre Etat membre de l’Union, réalisés à compter du 3 mars 2011 jusqu’au 11 mai 2011, date à laquelle les contribuables ont eu connaissance du dispositif tel qu’adopté par le conseil des ministres et soumis à la discussion parlementaire, doit être regardée comme portant atteinte aux principes de protection de la confiance légitime et de la sécurité juridique.» The dispositif records the outcome in these words: «M. A… est déchargé des cotisations d’impôt sur le revenu et de contributions sociales mentionnées à l’article 2.» The breach of legitimate expectation and legal certainty was found for transfers to another EU Member State between 3 March 2011 and 11 May 2011, the date on which taxpayers could know the device as adopted by the Council of Ministers and laid before Parliament. A move in 2024, 2025 or 2026 is outside that window. The judgment is still worth reading, because it shows that the Conseil d’État will discharge an exit-tax assessment when the legal basis is misapplied, and because the sums in dispute included both income tax and social contributions. It is not a template for a departure this year.

II. How deferral works, what ends it, and how to challenge a bill or an early demand

A. Automatic deferral or a guaranteed request, the forms, and the two-year or five-year discharge

Deferral is the part that decides whether you write a cheque before you leave. Article 167 bis provides: «Il est sursis au paiement de l’impôt afférent aux plus-values et créances constatées dans les conditions prévues au I du présent article et aux plus-values imposables en application du II, lorsque le contribuable transfère son domicile fiscal hors de France dans un Etat membre de l’Union européenne ou dans un autre Etat ou territoire ayant conclu avec la France une convention d’assistance administrative en vue de lutter contre la fraude et l’évasion fiscales ainsi qu’une convention d’assistance mutuelle en matière de recouvrement ayant une portée similaire à celle prévue par la directive 2010/24/UE du Conseil du 16 mars 2010 concernant l’assistance mutuelle en matière de recouvrement des créances relatives aux taxes, impôts, droits et autres mesures, et qui n’est pas un Etat ou territoire non coopératif au sens de l’article 238-0 A.» Read slowly, automatic deferral applies if you transfer your tax domicile to a Member State of the European Union, or to another state or territory that has concluded with France both an administrative-assistance convention against tax fraud and evasion and a mutual-assistance convention on recovery of a scope similar to Council Directive 2010/24/EU of 16 March 2010, and if that state is not a non-cooperative state or territory within article 238-0 A. The United Kingdom is not an EU Member State. Automatic deferral for a move to the United Kingdom therefore depends on the two conventions and on the non-cooperative list, not on nostalgia for the pre-Brexit rule and not on the passport.

The tax administration’s annex of instruments, BOI-ANNX-000508 of 8 October 2025, states that it records agreements in force on 1 January 2025. In the table of that annex, the columns distinguish exchange of information from assistance in recovery, and they do so tax by tax. The row for the United Kingdom is marked yes for exchange of information on income tax and corporation tax, and yes for assistance in recovery of those same taxes. The annex lists article 167 bis among the provisions whose operation requires a recovery-assistance clause in addition to an exchange-of-information clause. Article 238-0 A provides: «La liste des Etats et territoires non coopératifs est fixée par un arrêté des ministres chargés de l’économie et du budget» The order of 15 April 2026, which replaces the table of non-cooperative states and territories, names Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Vanuatu, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, Palau, Panama, Russia, American Samoa and Vietnam. It does not name the United Kingdom. On those published instruments, a move to the United Kingdom is capable of meeting the conditions of IV, if the same instruments are still in force on the day you leave and if the United Kingdom is not then on the non-cooperative list. That is a reading of published lists, not a ruling on your file.

Two neighbouring mistakes are expensive. The first is to use the old dedicated exit-tax country list, whose own text says it is current as at 1 July 2012 and which does not name the United Kingdom because, at that date, the list was a list of non-EEA states. It is not a 2026 classification. The second is to treat a Crown dependency as if it were the United Kingdom. In the same 8 October 2025 annex, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man are marked as having exchange of information but not assistance in recovery. Anguilla and the Turks and Caicos Islands appear on the non-cooperative table replaced in April 2026. A move to one of those places is not a move to the United Kingdom for article 167 bis. It falls, unless a later official list says otherwise, into the request regime.

That request regime is in V of the same article: (article 167 bis) «Sur demande expresse du contribuable, il peut également être sursis au paiement de l’impôt afférent aux plus-values et créances constatées dans les conditions prévues au I et aux plus-values imposables en application du II lorsque le contribuable :» The cases are a transfer to a state that is not in IV, and a later move from a IV state to a state that is not in IV. The text then requires a declaration of the gains and claims, a representative established in France who can receive communications on assessment, collection and litigation, and guarantees lodged with the competent public accountant before departure. The amount of those guarantees is fixed by the statute: «Le montant des garanties que le contribuable est tenu de constituer préalablement à son transfert de domicile fiscal hors de France pour bénéficier du sursis de paiement prévu au présent V est égal à 12,8 % du montant total des plus-values et créances mentionnées aux I et II, retenues pour leur montant brut sans qu’il soit fait application, le cas échéant, des abattements mentionnés aux 2 bis et 3 du I.» Twelve point eight per cent of the gross gains and claims, before the abatements in points 2 bis and 3 of I, is the guarantee for the income-tax portion. It is not a statement of the whole possible bill, and it is not the rate that applies to a move which already has automatic deferral. Within a month of the assessment notice, a top-up guarantee may be required if the tax as computed exceeds the guarantee already lodged. If the computed tax is lower, the surplus guarantee can be asked back.

The timing of that request is not the timing of the income-tax return. Article 41 tervicies A of Annex III to the General Tax Code, in force since 24 August 2019, provides: «Dans ce cas, le formulaire est déposé, au plus tard quatre-vingt-dix jours avant le transfert du domicile fiscal hors de France, au service des impôts des particuliers non résidents.» The form has to be filed at least ninety days before the transfer, with the non-resident individual tax service, and it has to name the representative, who undertakes on the same document to act. That ninety-day rule is the rule for the express request in V. It is not a second condition of the automatic deferral in IV. A person who qualifies for IV and who also files a needless request is in a different position from a person who needed the request, missed the ninety days, and left with neither automatic deferral nor a valid request. If the destination is Jersey, Guernsey or another place outside IV, the ninety-day date has to be in the diary before the removal date, not after.

Automatic deferral does not mean silence. Article 167 bis provides: «Le contribuable qui transfère son domicile fiscal hors de France est tenu de déclarer les plus-values et les créances imposables en application des I et II sur la déclaration mentionnée au 1 de l’article 170 l’année suivant celle du transfert dans le délai prévu à l’article 175 .» The declaration mentioned in article 170 is the annual income-tax return. Article 170 requires a person taxable to income tax to file a detailed declaration of income and profits. Article 175 provides: «Les déclarations doivent parvenir à l’administration au plus tard le deuxième jour ouvré suivant le 1er avril.» It adds: «Ce délai peut être prorogé chaque année selon un calendrier et des modalités fixés par l’administration et publiés sur son site internet, sans que la date limite de dépôt qui en résulte ne puisse être postérieure au 1er juillet.» The exit-tax figures therefore go on the return of the year after the year of departure, within that income-tax deadline, which the administration may extend but not beyond 1 July. Article 167 bis also says: «Un décret fixe les conditions d’application du présent article, notamment les obligations déclaratives des contribuables.» The forms that implement those reporting duties are published by the tax administration. Its page modified on 10 March 2026 describes form 2074-ETD for the transfer itself, form 2074-ETS for the following years if a deferral is in place, form 2074-ETS3 where the transfer took place from 1 January 2014, and form 2074-ETSL as a lighter follow-up when a full deferral continues and no ending event occurred in the year. It also says that box 8TN of form 2042-C should carry the global amount of the tax in deferral. Those form numbers are the administration’s, not a guess.

The sanction for silence is in the statute, not in a leaflet. The article provides: (article 167 bis) «Le défaut de production de la déclaration et du formulaire mentionnés aux 1 et 2 ainsi qu’au dernier alinéa du 3 du présent IX ou l’omission de tout ou partie des renseignements qui doivent y figurer entraîne l’exigibilité immédiate de l’impôt en sursis de paiement.» Failure to file the declaration and the form, or omission of information that must appear on them, makes the tax in deferral immediately payable. That is the crisis that meets people who were told that a move inside the convention list meant they could ignore the French return. It is also the crisis that meets a household which declared the quoted shares and forgot the earn-out, or which left a box blank. Immediate exigibility is not the same thing as a final loss of every later discharge. It does mean the Treasury can ask for the money now, and that the conversation has moved from a quiet deferral to a collection file.

If the securities are still yours, time itself can discharge the tax on the latent gains of the first limb. The article provides: (article 167 bis) «A l’expiration d’un délai de deux ans suivant le transfert de domicile fiscal hors de France ou lorsque le contribuable transfère de nouveau son domicile fiscal en France si cet événement est antérieur, l’impôt calculé dans les conditions du II bis afférent aux plus-values latentes mentionnées au premier alinéa du 1 du I est dégrevé d’office, ou restitué s’il avait fait l’objet d’un paiement immédiat lors du transfert de domicile fiscal hors de France, lorsque les titres mentionnés au même alinéa ou les titres reçus lors d’une opération d’échange entrant dans le champ d’application de l’article 150-0 B intervenue après le transfert de domicile fiscal hors de France demeurent, à cette date, dans le patrimoine du contribuable. Par dérogation, ce délai est porté à cinq ans lorsque la valeur globale définie au premier alinéa du 1 du I du présent article excède 2,57 millions d’euros à la date du transfert du domicile fiscal hors de France du contribuable.» Two years after the transfer, or earlier if you move your tax domicile back to France, the income tax on those latent gains is discharged automatically, or refunded if you paid it at once, provided the securities, or securities received in a qualifying exchange after departure, are still in your estate. The period becomes five years if the global value defined in the first paragraph of point 1 of I exceeded 2.57 million euros on the departure date. The administration’s page expresses that threshold as 2,570,000 euros. It is the same figure. Selling, redeeming or cancelling the securities before the end of the period is a different event: the deferral can end, and the tax on that line can become payable, subject to the caps and discharges in VIII if the real gain is smaller or if a loss is realised.

Death and gift are not the same as a sale, and they are not the same for every kind of gain. For the latent gains of the first limb, the article provides that the tax is also discharged, or refunded if it was paid at once, on the taxpayer’s death: (article 167 bis) «L’impôt calculé dans les conditions du II bis afférent aux plus-values latentes mentionnées au premier alinéa du 1 du I est également dégrevé, ou restitué s’il avait fait l’objet d’un paiement immédiat lors du transfert de domicile fiscal hors de France, en cas de décès du contribuable» A gift of those securities can discharge the fraction that relates to the securities given, if the donor is domiciled in a IV state or, if not, if the donor shows that the gift’s main purpose was not to escape the tax. Death does not, on that limb, operate as an event that makes the deferred tax payable. A different and narrower death rule, in VII.1.c, expires the deferral for certain old deferred gains. Mixing those two sentences is how a family is told, wrongly, that a death in the United Kingdom automatically calls in the whole exit tax. The securities, the limb of the article, and the state of domicile at the relevant date have to be identified before anyone writes that letter.

A later tax paid in the United Kingdom is not automatically a French credit. Article 41 tervicies F of Annex III provides: «l’impôt acquitté hors de France est imputable, dans les conditions de ce même 5, sous réserve que : a) L’impôt acquitté hors de France soit un impôt personnel sur le revenu assis sur les plus-values de cession de valeurs mobilières ou de droits sociaux ; b) Et que l’impôt mentionné au a du présent article soit calculé à partir du prix ou de la valeur d’acquisition des titres concernés retenu pour l’application du premier alinéa du 2 du I de l’article 167 bis précité.» It adds: «Cet impôt, dont il incombe au contribuable de justifier du paiement effectif, est converti en euros sur la base du taux de change en vigueur à la date dudit paiement.» The foreign tax that can be credited against the final French tax, and first against the social-contribution prélèvements referred to in VIII.5, has to be a personal income tax on gains from a disposal of securities, and it has to be computed from the same acquisition price or value that article 167 bis used. The taxpayer must prove actual payment, converted at the exchange rate on the payment date. A United Kingdom computation that starts from a different acquisition figure does not meet that second condition. This note does not state a United Kingdom capital-gains rate. What it does say is that the French credit is conditional, capped by the final French tax, and limited to the events the statute lists. Hoping that HM Revenue and Customs and the French tax office will quietly cancel each other out is not a filing position.

B. What to do if the tax office denies deferral, calls the tax because a form is missing, or uses the wrong value

The disputes that actually arrive are repetitive. The office treats a move to the United Kingdom as if it were a move to a state with no recovery convention, and it asks for the 12.8 per cent guarantee or for immediate payment. Or it accepts the destination and then calls the tax under IX.4 because a form was missing or a figure was omitted. Or it values an unlisted company far above the acquisition file and refuses to look at a later sale at a lower price. Or it treats a gift, or a death, as an event that makes the whole tax payable, without distinguishing the limb of the article. Each of those is a question of assessment or of a right given by the statute. Each of them can be put in a claim. None of them is solved by ignoring the notice.

The claim is the réclamation. Article L. 190 of the Book of Tax Procedures, the Livre des procédures fiscales, is applicable on 1 October 2026, with a deferred abrogation dated 1 January 2027. It 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.» A claim that asks for the correction of a mistake in the base or the calculation, or for the benefit of a right given by the statute, is a contentious claim. The right to automatic deferral, the right to a discharge after two or five years, the right to have the tax capped when the real sale price is lower, and the right to a discharge on death of the latent-gain limb, are rights of that kind if the facts meet the text. The article does not, in the version read here, state the last day for filing the claim. That time limit sits in the procedural articles that apply to the notice you have actually received. It should be read on that notice, not copied from a general recollection of a two-year rule. A claim that is late can close the administrative route even where the tax was wrong.

If the money is being demanded now, the claim has to say so. Article L. 277 provides: «Le contribuable qui conteste le bien-fondé ou le montant des impositions mises à sa charge est autorisé, s’il en a expressément formulé la demande dans sa réclamation et précisé le montant ou les bases du dégrèvement auquel il estime avoir droit, à différer le paiement de la partie contestée de ces impositions et des pénalités y afférentes.» The deferral of the contested part is available if the claim expressly asks for it and states the amount, or the base, of the discharge you say you are entitled to. Above an amount fixed by decree, the same article requires guarantees on the contested duties, and the accountant can take protective measures if the guarantees are missing or are judged insufficient. Article 167 bis assimilates its own payment deferral to the deferral in L. 277 for the application of articles L. 208 and L. 279. That assimilation does not mean you can skip the claim. It means the collection rules that attach to a contested tax are the ones to read once a claim is on the table. A person who pays the whole sum and says nothing has a different, and usually harder, path than a person who claims, asks for the contested part to be deferred, and offers the guarantee the text requires.

There is also a duty to tell the administration where you have gone. Article 167 bis provides: «Dans les deux mois suivant chaque transfert de domicile fiscal, les contribuables sont tenus d’informer l’administration fiscale de l’adresse du nouveau domicile fiscal.» Within two months of each transfer of tax domicile, you must inform the tax administration of the address of the new tax domicile. The administration’s page modified on 10 March 2026 tells a person who, once established abroad, moves again to a different country, to write on plain paper to the non-resident individual tax service, Service des impôts des particuliers non-résidents, 10 rue du Centre, TSA 10010, 93465 Noisy-le-Grand Cedex. That is the address published for that further-move notice. It is also the practical centre of the file for many British leavers, which is why the exit-tax litigation read for this note was brought in the administrative court of Montreuil, with appeal to the Paris administrative court of appeal. A reader who lived in Paris or elsewhere in the Île-de-France before leaving should not assume that the local Paris tax office is the right recipient of form 2074-ETD or of a later challenge. The non-resident service is the channel the administration itself publishes for this charge. Papers sent to the wrong office, or sent only by an informal email with no record, are a poor answer to a notice that says the tax has become payable.

The pieces to put with a claim are ordinary, and they are the pieces the statute itself uses. Proof of the years of French tax domicile, if the six-year test is denied. The acquisition documents, and the value used if the securities were received by gift or inheritance. A valuation that can be compared with articles 758 and 973, if the office’s figure is the dispute. The destination, and the annex in force on the departure date, if the office denies IV. The forms that were filed, and proof of filing, if the office invokes IX.4. The later sale contract and the computation of the real gain or loss, if VIII is the ground of discharge. Proof of payment of any foreign tax, the exchange rate on that day, and a computation showing that the foreign tax used the same acquisition value, if a credit under 41 tervicies F is claimed. A death certificate or a gift deed, if the discharge on death or gift is the ground. None of those documents is a substitute for the claim. All of them are what make the claim about this statute rather than about a feeling that the bill is large.

Two boundaries are worth keeping in view so that this charge is not argued on the wrong file. The final income-tax return for the year of departure, including income you actually received, is the subject of the separate note on the final French return after a move back to the United Kingdom. Declaring a salary, a pension or a rent on that return does not declare an unrealised share gain, and filing 2074-ETD does not close the ordinary return. A sale of a French house, whether before or after you leave, is not article 167 bis either, unless what you hold is securities that the article catches. A United Kingdom pension, an ISA, or a drawdown is a different article of the treaty and a different French form. Bringing those files into an exit-tax claim, or leaving the shareholding out of them, is how the same household ends up with two incomplete disputes instead of one accurate return.

If you are still in France and the move is planned, the order of work follows the statute rather than the removal company’s calendar. Count the years of French tax domicile under article 4 B. List every security and earn-out claim of the household, not only the account you look at most often. Test the 800,000 euro value and the 50 per cent profits test. Identify the destination as a state, not as a feeling of going home: the United Kingdom, on the instruments read for this note, is not Jersey. If the destination is outside IV, the express request and the guarantee have a ninety-day lead time. If it is inside IV, you still file 2074-ETD with the return of the following year, you keep the securities if you want the two-year or five-year discharge, and you tell the administration the new address within two months. If a notice arrives that denies the deferral, calls the tax for a missing form, or uses a value you can contradict, the claim under L. 190, with an express request under L. 277 if payment is being demanded, is the procedural answer. Waiting to see whether the notice goes away is how IX.4 becomes a collection file.

Conclusion

The exit tax is a charge on a departure, not a tax on a sale you have already made and not a reason to ignore the ordinary return. On the text in force on 1 October 2026, it catches a household that has been French tax resident for at least six of the ten years before the move and that holds securities above 800,000 euros or representing at least 50 per cent of a company’s profits, together with specified earn-out claims and already deferred gains. Latent losses do not reduce latent gains on that day. The transfer is deemed to occur on the day before worldwide French taxation ceases, which is why a treaty, in the Luxembourg case decided in Paris on 4 February 2026, did not block the charge. A move to the United Kingdom is capable of qualifying for automatic deferral on the administration’s instrument list of 8 October 2025 and on the non-cooperative list replaced on 15 April 2026, provided those instruments still hold on your departure date. A move to Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, or a territory named on the non-cooperative list, is a request case, with a representative, a 12.8 per cent guarantee and a ninety-day filing. Deferral, even when it is automatic, still requires the forms. Two years, or five years above 2.57 million euros, can discharge the tax on latent gains that are still held. A missing form can make the tax payable now. A wrong notice is challenged by a claim that asks for the statutory right and, if money is demanded, for deferral of the contested part. The judge, not this note, decides a dispute on those facts.