You have lived together for years, in London, Manchester or Bristol, and now France is home: a flat in Paris, a stone house in the Dordogne, a new life after Brexit. You are not married and you do not plan to be, but the mairie (the town hall), the notaire (the French public officer who authenticates deeds) and the tax office all ask the same question: are you pacsés? The PACS, or pacte civil de solidarité (the French registered civil partnership), is the contract that organises the life of two unmarried partners. It is neither a marriage nor an English civil partnership, and misunderstanding it is expensive: it changes how you are taxed, what happens to the house if you separate, and, crucially, what your partner keeps if you die. Since Brexit made British citizens third-country nationals, the PACS has also become a residence argument for the British partner of a French national — but it is not a residence permit in itself, and prefectures refuse applications built on that confusion every year.

This guide explains every French term the first time it appears, links every decisive statement to its official text, and shows how judges actually decide these cases. Part I walks through registration as a Briton: who can sign, where two Britons or a mixed couple must go, which papers the town hall demands from foreigners, and which property regime your agreement should choose for the house. Part II covers life under the agreement and its end: joint income tax, gifts, the survivor’s rights and the will you still need, then separation, division of the house, debts, residence permits for British partners, and how to challenge a refusal.

I. Signing a PACS in France as a Briton: who can sign it, where to register, and which property regime to choose

A. Who can sign a PACS after Brexit, where do you register, and which papers must Britons produce?

Any two adults can conclude a PACS to organise their shared life. Article 515-1 of the Civil Code states: “Un pacte civil de solidarité est un contrat conclu par deux personnes physiques majeures, de sexe différent ou de même sexe, pour organiser leur vie commune.” Both partners must be adults, unmarried, not already bound by a PACS, and not closely related to each other. Nationality is irrelevant: two Britons living in France can sign one, and so can a British-French couple. Brexit changed nothing about that eligibility; it changed the immigration context around it, which Part II addresses.

Registration happens at the town hall of your shared home. Article 515-3 of the Civil Code provides: “Les personnes qui concluent un pacte civil de solidarité en font la déclaration conjointe devant l’officier de l’état civil de la commune dans laquelle elles fixent leur résidence commune ou, en cas d’empêchement grave à la fixation de celle-ci, devant l’officier de l’état civil de la commune où se trouve la résidence de l’une des parties.” You appear together before the officier de l’état civil (the civil registrar) of the commune (the municipality) where you live together. If you prefer tailor-made clauses, a notaire can receive the agreement instead: the same article continues that where the agreement is drawn up by a notary instrument, “le notaire instrumentaire recueille la déclaration conjointe, procède à l’enregistrement du pacte et fait procéder aux formalités de publicité”. One Brexit-specific trap sits in the last paragraph of the article: outside France, registration by French diplomatic and consular officers covers only agreements “liant deux partenaires dont l’un au moins est de nationalité française”. Two Britons living in London therefore cannot register a PACS at the French consulate; two Britons living in France register at their French town hall like anyone else.

The file has four elements. First, the agreement itself (convention de PACS): a standard-form agreement is freely available, or the notaire drafts a bespoke one. Registration is refused without it — article 515-3 adds: “A peine d’irrecevabilité, les personnes qui concluent un pacte civil de solidarité produisent la convention passée entre elles à l’officier de l’état civil, qui la vise avant de la leur restituer.” Second, the joint declaration with sworn statements (déclaration conjointe et attestations sur l’honneur) on the official form, certifying a common residence and the absence of parentage or existing marriage or PACS. Third, identity documents and birth certificates: each partner produces a valid passport or identity card and a full birth certificate. For a partner born in the United Kingdom, the town hall requires a recent British birth certificate plus a certificat de non-PACS (a certificate confirming no existing PACS), requested from the central civil registry in Nantes through the official procedure for foreign partners born abroad. British birth certificates do not expire under English law, but French registries routinely demand recently issued copies, so order fresh ones from the General Register Office before your appointment rather than arguing about it at the counter.

Fourth, the British side of the paperwork. The British government publishes a self-declaration form for marriage or civil partnership (PACS) in France, available on gov.uk, which a British partner completes to confirm their identity, nationality and freedom to enter the agreement. Since the United Kingdom left the European Union, British documents presented in France may also need an apostille (the international authentication stamp) and a sworn translation (traduction assermentée); check with your town hall early, because a missing apostille is the most common reason appointments fail. Our companion guide to getting British documents accepted in France details that authentication chain step by step.

Practical advice before the appointment: fix a common residence first, because the registrar checks it; align your surnames’ usage (nom d’usage) only if you want it; and decide the property clauses of your agreement before you walk in, since the standard form defaults to separation of property and the registrar will not advise you. That choice — separation or undivided ownership — is the most consequential paragraph you will ever sign together, and it deserves its own section.

B. Separation or undivided ownership: which property regime should your agreement choose for the house?

Unlike marriage, a PACS creates no matrimonial property regime. The default is separation: each partner keeps their own. Article 515-5 of the Civil Code preserves separation unless the agreement says otherwise, then states: “chacun des partenaires conserve l’administration, la jouissance et la libre disposition de ses biens personnels.” Each partner administers, enjoys and freely disposes of their personal property, and remains solely liable for personal debts arising before or during the agreement, apart from everyday household debts. For a British couple this mirrors the English starting point of separate ownership, which is precisely why many couples sign the standard form without thinking — and later discover what the second half of the article does to their house.

Property neither partner can prove to be exclusively theirs is deemed to belong to both of them equally. Article 515-5 continues: “Chacun des partenaires peut prouver par tous les moyens, tant à l’égard de son partenaire que des tiers, qu’il a la propriété exclusive d’un bien. Les biens sur lesquels aucun des partenaires ne peut justifier d’une propriété exclusive sont réputés leur appartenir indivisément, à chacun pour moitié.” Proof is free — bank transfers, loan offers, the notaire’s deed — but it must exist. In practice: a French home bought during the PACS and paid from a joint account, with no paper trail of unequal contributions, belongs to each partner one half each, whatever the true funding was. British buyers who put down unequal deposits must therefore do two things at the notaire’s office: record unequal shares in the deed (acte de vente) and keep the transfer slips proving who paid what. The deed is your constitution; the bank statements are its evidence.

Your agreement can organise this differently, and for couples buying a French home together it should. The standard form keeps the default separation, which suits partners with similar means and no shared purchase. A bespoke agreement can instead place defined assets — typically the family home and its mortgage — under indivision (undivided joint ownership) with agreed shares, set who pays the loan instalments, the taxe foncière (the French local property tax on owners) and the works, and fix what happens on separation: a pre-emption right (droit de préemption) letting the partner who stays buy out the other, a valuation method, and a payment timetable. If you are married rather than pacsé, different rules apply, and our guide to matrimonial regimes for Britons married in England and living in France explains which regime owns your house in that case.

Two warnings complete the picture. First, daily-life debts bind both partners. Article 515-4 of the Civil Code provides: “Les partenaires sont tenus solidairement à l’égard des tiers des dettes contractées par l’un d’eux pour les besoins de la vie courante. Toutefois, cette solidarité n’a pas lieu pour les dépenses manifestement excessives.” Groceries, energy bills, children’s expenses and modest household borrowing engage both of you jointly, but plainly excessive spending does not, and neither do hire-purchase or loan agreements signed by one partner alone without the other’s consent, unless they cover modest sums needed for everyday life. Second, the agreement cannot give your partner what only a will can give. A PACS grants no ownership right over your half of the house and no automatic inheritance right: if you die, your half passes to your heirs, not to your partner, subject only to the survivor-protection mechanisms of Part II. Couples who want the survivor to keep the whole house must combine the PACS with a will, and where children from an earlier relationship exist, with the forced-share (réserve héréditaire) limits that French succession law imposes. Sign the agreement for how you live; sign the will for what happens when one of you dies.

II. Living pacsé and ending the PACS: joint tax, gifts, the survivor’s rights, separation and residence

A. Joint income tax, gifts between partners, and death: what the PACS changes and the will you still need

From the year of registration, pacsé partners are taxed together. Article 6 of the General Tax Code states: “Les partenaires liés par un pacte civil de solidarité défini à l’article 515-1 du code civil font l’objet, pour les revenus visés au premier alinéa, d’une imposition commune. L’imposition est établie à leurs deux noms.” One joint return (déclaration commune), one assessment in both names, two income parts (parts de quotient familial) like a married couple. For British couples where one partner earns little or nothing — a trailing spouse, a partner on a career break — joint taxation usually cuts the bill, because the household income is split across two parts. The trade-off is joint liability for the tax: each partner can be pursued for the whole household’s income tax, so agree before signing who funds the monthly or annual payments. In the year the PACS ends, each partner files separately for income received after the break, and the separation-year return is the single most error-prone filing pacsé couples make; keep every assessment and bank proof for that year.

Gifts between partners enjoy a dedicated allowance. Article 790 F of the General Tax Code provides: “Pour la perception des droits de mutation à titre gratuit entre vifs, il est effectué un abattement de 80 724 € sur la part du partenaire lié au donateur par un pacte civil de solidarité.” A gift (donation) between partners is therefore free of gift tax up to 80,724 euros, with the standard 60 per cent rate applying above that threshold after the allowance. But the second sentence of the article is a trap for short-lived agreements: “Le bénéfice de cet abattement est remis en cause lorsque le pacte prend fin au cours de l’année civile de sa conclusion ou de l’année suivante pour un motif autre que le mariage entre les partenaires ou le décès de l’un d’entre eux.” End the PACS within that window for any reason other than marriage or death, and the tax office claws the allowance back. Couples who make a large gift should calendar that deadline alongside the gift deed, and take notaire advice before any early break.

On death, the surviving partner pays no inheritance tax — but inherits nothing automatically. Article 796-0 bis of the General Tax Code states: “Sont exonérés de droits de mutation par décès le conjoint survivant et le partenaire lié au défunt par un pacte civil de solidarité.” Whatever the survivor receives by will passes free of droits de succession (French inheritance tax). The exemption is worthless, however, without a will naming the partner, because the PACS itself creates no heir status. With children, the réserve héréditaire further caps what the will can give the partner; without children, a well-drafted will can leave the partner the whole estate. The one automatic protection the survivor holds is the roof for a year: article 515-6 of the Civil Code provides that where the agreement ends by death, “le survivant peut se prévaloir des dispositions des deux premiers alinéas de l’article 763”, the provision giving a surviving spouse free use of the dwelling for twelve months. The partner keeps the home for a year; after that, ownership decides.

Two further tools complete the survivor’s protection. First, the agreement’s dissolution triggers preferential attribution: the same article 515-6 makes articles 831, 831-2, 832-3 and 832-4 applicable between partners, so a partner can ask the court to be allotted the shared home or business on settlement, compensating the other. Second, the English will. British partners habitually hold an English will, and since the European Succession Regulation, a Briton living in France can choose English law to govern the whole estate — a choice French notaires recognise but which must be drafted precisely to survive the forced-share rules where children exist. Our guide to choosing English law for a French house walks through that election clause, the children’s protected share, and how to unblock a succession the notaire has frozen. The method, in one sentence: the PACS for the tax exemption, the will for the ownership, the English-law election for the framework — and all three reviewed together, not in isolation. A final caution for couples who still hold English assets: the PACS is a French-law contract, so take English advice on how it interacts with English property, pensions and domicile questions rather than assuming either system reads the other.

B. Breaking up, dividing the house, and staying in France: dissolution, debts, residence permits and remedies

Ending a PACS is deliberately simple — and that simplicity is why the money disputes are hard. Article 515-7 of the Civil Code states: “Le pacte civil de solidarité se dissout par la mort de l’un des partenaires ou par le mariage des partenaires ou de l’un d’eux.” Death or marriage ends it automatically from the date of the event. It also ends by joint declaration or by one partner’s unilateral decision: “Le partenaire qui décide de mettre fin au pacte civil de solidarité le fait signifier à l’autre”, through a bailiff (commissaire de justice), with a copy sent to the registrar or notaire who recorded the agreement. Between the partners, dissolution takes effect on registration; against third parties, only once the publicity formalities are complete. No judge, no ground, no waiting period: one partner can walk away, and the other cannot block the exit, only settle its consequences.

Those consequences are settled by agreement first, by the judge failing that. Article 515-7 provides: “Les partenaires procèdent eux-mêmes à la liquidation des droits et obligations résultant pour eux du pacte civil de solidarité. A défaut d’accord, le juge statue sur les conséquences patrimoniales de la rupture, sans préjudice de la réparation du dommage éventuellement subi.” Claims between partners are measured under the accounting rules of article 1469. As article 515-7 puts it: “Ces créances peuvent être compensées avec les avantages que leur titulaire a pu retirer de la vie commune, notamment en ne contribuant pas à hauteur de ses facultés aux dettes contractées pour les besoins de la vie courante.” In plain terms: the partner who paid less than their means toward everyday life may see that shortfall deducted from what the other owes them. British couples should therefore keep, from day one, the paper the judge will ask for years later: who paid the deposit, each mortgage instalment, the works invoices, and the household bills.

The leading court decision on these accounts is a warning against turning everyday support into a loan. On 27 January 2021 the First Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation, decision no. 19-26.140, published in the Bulletin, rejected a former partner’s claim for reimbursement of the loan instalments he had paid on the couple’s jointly owned home. Visaed on article 515-4, the Court recalled: “les partenaires liés par un pacte civil de solidarité s’engagent à une vie commune, ainsi qu’à une aide matérielle et une assistance réciproques. Si les partenaires n’en disposent autrement, l’aide matérielle est proportionnelle à leurs facultés respectives”. Where the appeal judges find that one partner’s payments toward the shared home were made in proportion to their means, those payments perform the material support the partner owed, and no debt arises from them. The higher earner who services the mortgage alone cannot, at separation, present the instalments as a loan unless the agreement said so. If your contributions are unequal by design — one pays the mortgage, the other the living costs — write that design and its settlement value into the agreement; otherwise the court will treat the imbalance as the support you owed.

For mixed couples, separation also threatens residence. A British partner draws no automatic residence right from the PACS itself: unlike the foreign spouse of a French national, the pacsé partner has no dedicated statutory card and must qualify under article L423-23 of the Code on the Entry and Residence of Foreigners, which grants a one-year carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention “vie privée et familiale” (temporary residence card marked “private and family life”) to the foreigner whose personal and family ties in France are such that refusing residence “porterait à son droit au respect de sa vie privée et familiale une atteinte disproportionnée au regard des motifs du refus”. The prefect assesses the intensity, age and stability of the ties, the applicant’s means, integration including French language, and remaining family links in the country of origin. A PACS counts, but duration and shared life carry the weight: a recent agreement with little cohabitation behind it rarely suffices, while years of documented common life can.

Judges enforce that assessment strictly. On 18 April 2024 the Bordeaux Administrative Court of Appeal, decision no. 23BX02501, annulled a prefect’s refusal and order to leave France against the American PACS partner of a Frenchman. The court noted the couple had settled together in mainland France in August 2021, signed their PACS in February 2022, and shared life for over thirteen months by the date of the order, running a bakery together, with a joint lease, a joint account, a joint tax return and witness statements. It held: “il ressort des pièces produites qu’elle a noué des liens privés d’une intensité telle que la décision lui refusant le séjour porte à son droit au respect de sa vie privée et familiale une atteinte disproportionnée”, finding a breach of article L423-23 and of article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and concluded: “L’annulation prononcée par le présent arrêt implique nécessairement que soit délivrée à Mme A… une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention ” vie privée et familiale “.” British partners should read this as a checklist, not a promise: joint lease in both names, joint account, joint tax return, energy bills, proof of work or business, language effort, and evidence of daily life together — assembled before the prefecture appointment, not after the refusal.

When the answer is no, three remedies exist. First, an informal appeal (recours gracieux) to the prefect who decided, asking for reconsideration on new or better-presented evidence, within two months. Second, a court challenge before the administrative tribunal (tribunal administratif) against the refusal, and against any attached order to leave France (obligation de quitter le territoire français), within the strict time limits — article R421-1 of the Code of Administrative Justice sets the standard two-month deadline from notification of the decision. Third, urgent interim relief (référé) where removal is imminent. The same discipline applies to a town hall that wrongly refuses to register the PACS itself: demand the refusal in writing, complete the missing document if the registrar is right, and challenge an unlawful refusal before the administrative court if the file was complete. Never let a refusal sit past its deadline while negotiating; file first, discuss in parallel.

Conclusion

A PACS gives an unmarried British couple in France much of what marriage gives for tax and daily life — joint taxation, the 80,724-euro gift allowance, the inheritance-tax exemption, joint liability for household debts — at the cost of a signature at the town hall rather than a wedding. It gives none of what only ownership documents give: no share in the house beyond what the deed and the proofs establish, no inheritance without a will, and no automatic residence card for the British partner of a French national. Sign the agreement deliberately, choosing separation or tailored undivided ownership for the home with your eyes open; pair it with a will that names the survivor and, where children exist, respects their protected share; and build the residence file — joint lease, joint account, joint tax, language, work — long before any prefecture appointment. The couples who struggle are not those who chose the wrong status, but those who signed the standard form in ten minutes and discovered its paragraphs ten years later, in front of a judge. Take the hour now; it is the cheapest legal advice you will ever act on.