You live in Britain. You own a house in France. Since Brexit you can only spend ninety days in any one-hundred-and-eighty-day period in the Schengen area, so for much of the year your French house stands empty. Then an envelope arrives from the French tax office, the direction générale des finances publiques, demanding a tax you never budgeted for: a yearly charge precisely because the property is vacant. Many British owners assume that an empty house costs nothing beyond insurance and the taxe foncière, the local property tax paid by every owner. That assumption is wrong in large parts of France. Where the housing market is tight, the state charges a dedicated vacant-dwelling tax, and where it does not, your commune may vote one in. From the 2027 tax year the two existing taxes merge into a single levy, the taxe sur la vacance des locaux d’habitation, usually shortened to TVLH. This article explains, for a British owner living in the United Kingdom, which tax applies to your house and why, how the bill is calculated and declared from abroad, the three lawful exits that can reduce it to nothing, and the exact procedure for challenging an unfair bill, with time limits, two recent Paris court decisions showing what evidence wins and what evidence fails, and the specifics that matter in Paris and the Île-de-France.

I. Which vacant-dwelling tax applies to your French house, and what changes in 2027

A. Is your French house legally “vacant”? The test the French tax office applies

French law does not treat every empty house the same way, and the first question is always vocabulary. A résidence secondaire, a furnished second home where you spend holidays, is not a vacant dwelling. The official service-public guidance draws the line by furnishing: a furnished second home is not a vacant dwelling, while an unfurnished empty property is (TLV and THLV official guidance) In other words, a furnished holiday home falls under the taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires, the council-type tax on second homes, which Article 1407 of the code général des impôts (the French general tax code) confirms is due as follows: “La taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires est due pour tous les locaux meublés conformément à leur destination d’habitation autre qu’à titre principal”. A genuinely vacant dwelling, by contrast, is an unfurnished property (logement non meublé) with nobody living in it, and it attracts one of the two vacant-dwelling taxes, depending on where it stands.

The heavier and better-known of the two is the taxe annuelle sur les logements vacants, the yearly tax on vacant dwellings, known as the TLV. Article 232 of the tax code states the trigger plainly: “La taxe est due pour chaque logement vacant depuis au moins une année, au 1er janvier de l’année d’imposition”. Two cumulative conditions follow. First, duration: the property must have been empty for at least one full year on the first of January of the tax year. A house that became empty in March 2025, for example, cannot be taxed for 2025 but becomes taxable for 2026 if still empty on 1 January 2026. Second, geography: the TLV only applies in designated communes, the so-called zones tendues, tense areas where demand for housing structurally exceeds supply. The statute describes them as communes in a continuous built-up area of more than fifty thousand inhabitants with a marked imbalance between housing supply and demand, plus communes outside those areas with a high proportion of dwellings that are not main homes, and it adds: “Un décret fixe la liste des communes où la taxe est instituée”. That list is the decree of 10 May 2013, extended in 2023, and you can check your commune against it with the official simulator on service-public: Vérifier si la taxe sur les logements vacants (TLV) s’applique à votre commune. Paris, the inner suburbs and most of the Île-de-France are covered, which is why this tax matters so much to British owners with a flat in Paris or a house in the commuter belt.

If your house sits outside the TLV zoning, you are not automatically safe. Any commune or intercommunal body can vote in the second tax, the taxe d’habitation sur les logements vacants, the THLV, by a local council decision (délibération). The THLV bites later but just as surely: it applies to an unfurnished dwelling that is fit for habitation and has been vacant for more than two years on 1 January of the tax year. Rural Dordogne, Brittany or Normandy houses owned by British families therefore often escape the TLV yet fall inside a THLV voted by a commune keen to push empty homes back onto the market. The practical consequence is that you must check two things, not one: whether your commune is on the state’s TLV list, and whether it has voted the THLV. Your yearly tax notice (avis d’imposition) will name the tax, but by then the clock for challenging it is already running, so checking before the notice arrives is always cheaper.

One ninety-day rule then decides a surprising number of cases. Even inside a tense zone, a dwelling does not count as vacant if it was occupied for more than ninety consecutive days during the reference year. Article 232 says: “n’est pas considéré comme vacant un logement dont la durée d’occupation est supérieure à quatre-vingt-dix jours consécutifs”. Occupation counts whether it is you, a tenant, or someone housed free of charge, and the official guidance confirms the exemption plainly: a dwelling occupied for more than ninety days running in a year escapes the TLV. For a British owner this is the hinge of everything. Your ninety-days-in-any-one-hundred-and-eighty Schengen allowance, explained in our guide to counting your 90/180 days as a British second-home owner, caps your own stays, but a single three-month winter let, a caretaker arrangement, or a student tenant from October to January can cross the ninety-consecutive-day line and take the property out of vacancy altogether. Keep dated proof of every stay and every letting, because the tax office taxes first from its own records and asks questions later.

B. How the bill is worked out and declared when you live in Britain

The amount of the TLV is a simple multiplication, but the multiplicand surprises British owners. The base is the valeur locative cadastrale, the cadastral rental value: the theoretical yearly rent the property could produce if let, as recorded in the land-registry matrices. It has nothing to do with the price you paid, the mortgage, or the fact that you never let the house. The same value already underlies your taxe foncière and, for furnished homes, the second-home taxe d’habitation, since Article 1409 provides that “La taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires est calculée d’après la valeur locative des habitations et de leurs dépendances, telles que garages, jardins d’agrément, parcs et terrains de jeux”. The cadastral value is revalued every year in line with prices, so the TLV drifts upwards even if you change nothing. The rate applied to it is fixed by statute: “Son taux est fixé à 17 % la première année d’imposition et à 34 % à compter de la deuxième”. From the second year of vacancy the charge therefore doubles in rate terms, and because each vacant dwelling is taxed separately, an owner with two empty flats pays twice. A property with a cadastral rental value of six thousand euros costs its owner just over one thousand euros in year one and just over two thousand euros from year two, before any penalties.

The declaration duty is where British non-residents most often trip. If you own residential property in France you must file a yearly déclaration d’occupation, an occupancy declaration, on the impots.gouv.fr portal in the Gérer mes biens immobiliers (manage my property) section of your personal account. You must file before 1 July whenever the property has never been declared or something has changed, stating whether you keep use of the dwelling and, if so, whether it is your main home, a second home or vacant, or identifying any occupant with full civil details. The official guidance sets the deadline before 1 July whenever the property is undeclared or something has changed, and warns of a 150 euro fine per premises for a missing or inaccurate declaration (TLV and THLV official guidance) From London, Manchester or Edinburgh this is easy to neglect: the letters go to a French address you visit twice a year, the portal demands a French tax number (numéro fiscal) and password, and the declaration feels like paperwork for residents. It is not. Since the administration now builds its vacancy cases directly from these declarations, an absent or stale declaration is the single most common reason a British owner receives a TLV bill for a house that was in fact occupied, or a second-home taxe d’habitation bill for a house that was in fact empty and therefore wrongly categorised. Log in every spring, check each property line, and correct it before the July deadline, keeping screenshots of every validation.

Paris and the Île-de-France deserve a special word, because the mechanics bite harder there. The capital and the inner-ring departments sit inside the statutory tense zone, so the TLV, not the THLV, is the tax you will face, at the full 17 then 34 per cent rates on Parisian cadastral values that are among the highest in France. Disputes go through the Paris regional tax directorate, the direction régionale des finances publiques d’Île-de-France et de Paris, the very office that appears as the respondent in both of the court decisions examined below, which concerned houses in Cachan and Saint-Maur-des-Fossés in the Val-de-Marne. If your property is managed by a Parisian gestionnaire or a family member, mandate them in writing to check the occupancy declaration each June and to forward every avis d’imposition the day it arrives, because the challenge deadlines described in Part II run from receipt and do not pause while you are in Britain. Finally, note the calendar change coming in 2027: under the 2026 Finance Act (loi de finances pour 2026), the TLV and the THLV merge into one levy, and the tax office states that from the tax bills issued for 2027 the new vacancy tax for residential premises will replace both the yearly vacant-dwelling tax and the vacant-dwelling council tax, with liability established from the information in each owner’s occupancy declaration Your 2026 declaration is therefore already building your 2027 file, which is one more reason to get it right this spring: Une taxe unique pour les logements vacants à partir de 2027.

II. Paying nothing or less: exemptions, evidence and challenges

A. The three exits British owners actually use, and the proof that wins or loses

French law offers three genuine ways out of the vacant-dwelling taxes, and each one maps onto a situation British owners recognise. The first is involuntary vacancy. Article 232, paragraph VI, provides that “La taxe n’est pas due en cas de vacance indépendante de la volonté du contribuable”, and the administration’s own guidance gives the everyday examples: a flat put up for letting or for sale at the market price that finds no taker, despite genuine efforts. For a British owner this covers the classic Dordogne story: you inherited your mother’s house, you instructed the local agent immobilier the month after the funeral, the asking price tracks the market, viewings happen, nobody buys. It also covers the failed letting: advertisements on the usual portals, a realistic rent, no tenant. What defeats this exit is passivity. A house simply left empty because you visit twice a year and never instructed anyone is, in the tax office’s eyes, vacant by your own choice, and Brexit travel limits do not by themselves make the vacancy involuntary, since letting through an agent was always available to you.

The second exit is the unfit dwelling. A property that cannot be lived in under normal conditions is not taxable, and the Constitutional Council (Conseil constitutionnel) has ring-fenced this point twice: dwellings cannot be subjected to the tax where making them habitable would require major works necessarily borne by the owner (constitutional reservation recalled in CAA Paris, 14 June 2023, no. 22PA03204, full decision on Légifrance). The tax administration applies a working threshold set out in the official guidance: in practice the works must cost more than 25 per cent of the dwelling’s value (TLV and THLV official guidance). A roof to redo, a heating system to replace entirely, missing sanitation: these qualify if the quotes prove the scale. A lick of paint and a new kitchen do not.

The two most recent Paris appeal decisions show exactly where the line falls, and British owners should read them as a pair. In the first, the administrative court of appeal of Paris discharged the tax. The owner of a building in Cachan, living on a retirement pension of 11,874 euros with a declared property deficit, produced a bailiff’s report (constat d’huissier) proving the flats had neither compliant wiring nor usable sanitary fittings and could not be let, plus dated quotes and invoices for electrical and sanitary compliance works totalling over 25,000 euros. The court held that “M. B… justifie que la vacance de ces logements était indépendante de sa volonté et que la taxe n’est donc pas due en application du VI de l’article 232”, and ordered: “M. B… est déchargé de la taxe sur les logements vacants” (CAA Paris, 14 June 2023, no. 22PA03204, full decision on Légifrance). Dated bailiff evidence, itemised invoices tied to the taxed flats, and modest means defeating any suggestion he could have funded the works: that is the winning file.

In the second, decided less than two years later by the same court, the owner of a house in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés lost on near-identical arguments. He claimed major renovation was needed, but his only costing was an undated quote for 391,570 euros covering a wholesale transformation splitting the house into two lettable units, going well beyond restoring normal habitable conditions, while his declared rental income exceeded 115,000 euros a year from property in Saint-Maur and Cannes. The court recalled the constitutional shield, “Ne sauraient être assujettis des logements dont la vacance est imputable à une cause étrangère à la volonté du bailleur, faisant obstacle à leur occupation durable”, then found he had produced nothing showing the works were so costly that leaving them undone was beyond his control: “le requérant ne verse pas d’élément de nature à faire apparaître que le montant des travaux était d’une importance telle que leur absence de réalisation, et la vacance qui en résultait, étaient indépendantes de sa volonté”. Result: “La requête de M. A… est rejetée” (CAA Paris, 2 April 2025, no. 23PA04089, full decision on Légifrance). The lesson for a British owner is practical, not theoretical: commission a bailiff’s report before works start, get dated itemised quotes limited to making the place habitable, keep every invoice, and never submit a global redevelopment estimate as if it were a repair bill, because a comfortable British income disclosed on the French return will be used against you.

The third exit operates on a different tax but often alongside: the taxe foncière relief for a house meant for letting that stands empty. Article 1389 of the tax code grants a proportional discharge “en cas de vacance d’une maison normalement destinée à la location”, running month by month, and it sets a triple test: “Le dégrèvement est subordonné à la triple condition que la vacance ou l’inexploitation soit indépendante de la volonté du contribuable, qu’elle ait une durée de trois mois au moins et qu’elle affecte soit la totalité de l’immeuble, soit une partie susceptible de location ou d’exploitation séparée”. Three months instead of a year, and no tense-zone condition. A British owner who buys to let, registers with an agent, yet leaves the house empty between tenants can therefore lose on the TLV but still recover part of the foncière. Claims under this article follow their own deadline in Article R*196-5 of the tax procedure book, so plead it separately and on time rather than folding it silently into the TLV challenge.

B. Challenging the bill step by step from the United Kingdom

Challenging a French tax bill follows a compulsory staircase, and missing a step ends the case whatever its merits. Step one is always the prior complaint to the tax office, the réclamation contentieuse. Article R190-1 of the livre des procédures fiscales (the tax procedure code) requires that “Le contribuable qui désire contester tout ou partie d’un impôt qui le concerne doit d’abord adresser une réclamation au service territorial, selon le cas, de la direction générale des finances publiques” for the place of taxation. From Britain you file it through your personal account on impots.gouv.fr, in the messagerie under the property-tax heading, or by recorded delivery to the service des impôts des particuliers shown on the notice. Attach everything: the bailiff’s report, dated quotes and invoices, the agent’s mandate and advert screenshots with dates, entry and exit inventories (états des lieux) proving ninety-day occupation, travel records, and the corrected occupancy declaration. Write in French or add a translation, number the exhibits, and keep the sending receipt, because the office has six months to answer and silence for six months counts as an implied rejection (rejet implicite*) that opens the next step.

Step two is the deadline, and it is brutally short in appearance but workable if diarised. Because the vacant-dwelling taxes follow the litigation rules of the taxe foncière, complaints must reach the office “au plus tard le 31 décembre de l’année suivant celle” of the collection, as Article R196-2 states: “Pour être recevables, les réclamations relatives aux impôts directs locaux et aux taxes annexes doivent être présentées à l’administration des impôts au plus tard le 31 décembre de l’année suivant celle, selon le cas : a) De la mise en recouvrement du rôle”. A TLV bill collected in autumn 2026 can therefore be challenged until 31 December 2027. Complaining does not suspend collection, the official guidance warns that filing a complaint does not excuse payment of the tax (TLV and THLV official guidance), so either pay and reclaim later or expressly request a stay of payment (sursis de paiement) in the complaint, offering guarantees if asked. Many British owners discover the bill only when the enforcement letter (mise en demeure) reaches their French neighbour months later; check the impots.gouv.fr inbox quarterly from abroad and treat any unfamiliar avis* as urgent.

Step three, if the office rejects expressly or stays silent for six months, is the administrative court (tribunal administratif) of the place of the property. Article R421-1 of the administrative justice code sets the rhythm: “La juridiction ne peut être saisie que par voie de recours formé contre une décision, et ce, dans les deux mois à partir de la notification ou de la publication de la décision attaquée”. Two months from the rejection letter, not from the original bill. The application (requête) goes to the court covering the property, Paris cases to the tribunal administratif de Paris, Val-de-Marne cases to Melun as in both decisions above, and it can be filed through the Télérecours citoyens portal without travelling to France. Plead the exemption precisely: cite paragraph VI of Article 232 with the constitutional wording for an unfit house, or the ninety-day occupation with dated exhibits, and quantify the 25 per cent works ratio the administration itself applies. The Cachan file shows a modest, documented claim succeeds; the Saint-Maur file shows an inflated, undated claim fails even with genuine disrepair. Frame the case the way the winning file did, and the losing file teaches exactly what to avoid.

Keep one eye on 2027 throughout. The merger into the single TVLH does not reset the past: bills for 2025 and 2026 remain challengeable under the rules above and within the same deadlines, so an unchallenged 2025 TLV becomes final while you wait for the new tax. For 2027 onwards the new tax will apply in a wider set of communes than today’s TLV, and because the office will work from occupancy declarations, a declaration left showing logement vacant when the house is in fact let or lived in for a season becomes a self-written tax bill. Update the declaration every June, keep the proof behind every line of it, and calendar the 31 December complaint deadline for each bill. The British government’s own Living in France guide for British nationals is a useful starting point for the move itself, but it does not replace the French statute and the French deadlines, which alone decide whether your empty house costs you hundreds or thousands of euros a year.

Conclusion

An empty French house owned from Britain is never fiscally neutral: inside a tense zone the yearly TLV applies after one year of vacancy at 17 then 34 per cent of the cadastral rental value, outside it a commune-voted THLV can apply after two years, and a furnished second home attracts its own taxe d’habitation instead. The declaration you file each spring on impots.gouv.fr decides which of these you face, and the ninety-consecutive-day occupation rule, the involuntary-vacancy exit and the unfit-dwelling exit each offer a lawful way out for owners who document their position like the successful Cachan claimant rather than the unsuccessful Saint-Maur one. Challenge in the right order, complaint first, court within two months of rejection, and never let a deadline expire while you are across the Channel. With the single TVLH arriving for 2027 and built on the same declarations, the files you assemble this year will defend you under both the old taxes and the new one.