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General information only. Property tax depends on the commune, the property's cadastral value and your personal situation. For figures specific to your case, log in to impots.gouv.fr or consult an expert-comptable.
The essentials
- Taxe foncière — paid by owners only, every year, regardless of who lives in the property ;
- Taxe d'habitation — abolished for primary residences in 2023, still applies to second homes ;
- Taxe d'enlèvement des ordures ménagères (TEOM) — waste collection tax, billed with the taxe foncière ;
- IFI — wealth tax on real estate above €1.3 million net worldwide ;
- The TV licence (redevance audiovisuelle) was abolished in 2022.
Taxe foncière (property ownership tax)
Anyone who owns a building, an apartment or land in France on 1 January of a given year owes the taxe foncière for that year. It is paid even if you don't live in the property — landlords pay it on rented properties, second-home owners pay it on holiday homes. The bill arrives in September or October, with payment due in mid-October by direct debit, online or by cheque.
How it's calculated
The base is the valeur locative cadastrale — the theoretical annual rental value the property would fetch if rented out, set by the tax office and reviewed periodically. This base is reduced by 50% for buildings (to allow for maintenance) and 20% for land. The local commune, département and intercommunalité each add their own rate on top, which is why the same flat can pay very different amounts depending on which town it's in.
Concretely, expect to pay between €500 and €2,500 per year for a typical 2-bedroom flat in a French city, with Paris on the lower end of that range and many provincial towns on the higher end (the Paris cadastral values have not been revised in decades). Your bill is searchable on impots.gouv.fr in your personal space.
Exemptions and reductions
- New buildings are exempt from taxe foncière for 2 years after completion, provided you declare the construction to the tax authority within 90 days ;
- Energy-efficient renovations on older homes can grant a partial or full exemption for 3 to 5 years, depending on the commune ;
- Owners over 75 with modest income can be fully exempt from the part on their primary residence ;
- Owners over 65 with modest income receive an automatic €100 reduction on their primary residence ;
- Disabled persons receiving the AAH (Allocation aux Adultes Handicapés) are exempt on their primary residence under income conditions.
Taxe d'habitation (now only on second homes)
The taxe d'habitation used to be paid by anyone occupying a property on 1 January, owner or tenant. After a phased reform from 2018 to 2023, it has been fully abolished for primary residences. Tenants and owner-occupants no longer pay anything on their main home.
It still applies in two cases:
- Second homes (résidences secondaires) — the owner pays the taxe d'habitation, regardless of whether they rent the property out for short stays ;
- Vacant furnished property kept available for personal use is treated as a second home for tax purposes.
Since 2023, every owner must declare the use of every property they own (primary, secondary, rented, vacant) on impots.gouv.fr — the déclaration d'occupation. Failing to do so can trigger a €150 fine per property and a presumption that the property is a second home.
The second-home surcharge in tense areas
Communes in zones tendues (areas with severe housing pressure) can apply a surcharge of 5% to 60% on top of the standard taxe d'habitation rate for second homes. The list expanded substantially in 2024 to over 2,000 communes. The major cities concerned in 2026 include:
- Paris and the entire Île-de-France conurbation ;
- Annecy, Annemasse, Thonon-les-Bains and the Geneva border zone ;
- The Côte d'Azur from Toulon to Menton, including Cannes, Nice, Antibes ;
- Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Arcachon, Bayonne and the Atlantic coast resorts ;
- Lyon, Grenoble, Saint-Étienne ;
- Lille, Strasbourg, Nantes, Saint-Nazaire ;
- Marseille and Aix-en-Provence ;
- Montpellier, Sète, Béziers ;
- Most of Corsica's coastal communes (Ajaccio, Bastia, Calvi, Porto-Vecchio).
For a precise check, the official list is published by the Ministry of Housing in the arrêté defining zones tendues — searchable by commune on impots.gouv.fr.
Waste collection tax (TEOM)
The taxe d'enlèvement des ordures ménagères funds household waste collection. It is billed alongside the taxe foncière and uses the same cadastral base, so it appears as a separate line on the same notice.
It is owed by the property owner, but in rented properties the landlord can pass it on to the tenant as part of the charges récupérables. There are very few exemptions — even an empty property still owes it as long as the collection service is provided in the commune. Some communes (mostly rural) use a redevance d'enlèvement des ordures ménagères (REOM) instead, billed by the volume actually used.
IFI: the wealth tax on real estate
The Impôt sur la Fortune Immobilière (IFI) replaced the broader ISF in 2018 and only targets real-estate holdings. It applies to French tax residents whose net real-estate worth exceeds €1.3 million globally — in or outside France. Non-residents pay it only on their French real estate above the same threshold.
Rates are progressive from 0.5% to 1.5%:
| Net real-estate value | Marginal rate |
|---|---|
| Up to €800,000 | 0% |
| €800,000 – €1.3M | 0.5% (only if total ≥ €1.3M) |
| €1.3M – €2.57M | 0.7% |
| €2.57M – €5M | 1% |
| €5M – €10M | 1.25% |
| Over €10M | 1.5% |
Your primary residence benefits from a 30% reduction on its market value before IFI is calculated. New residents arriving in France from abroad benefit from a 5-year exemption on foreign real estate — they only pay IFI on their French property until the sixth year.
No more TV licence (since 2022)
France used to charge a contribution à l'audiovisuel public of €138 per year (€88 in overseas territories) for any household with a television. This levy was abolished in August 2022. Public broadcasting (France Télévisions, Radio France, Arte) is now funded through a fraction of the VAT receipts, no longer through a per-household charge. If you arrive in France in 2026, you will not see it on any tax bill.
How and when to pay
All property tax bills are issued by the Direction Générale des Finances Publiques (DGFiP) and visible in your personal tax space on impots.gouv.fr.
- Taxe foncière: bill arrives in September, due mid-October ;
- Taxe d'habitation on second homes: bill arrives in October-November, due mid-November ;
- IFI: declared in May–June with your income tax, paid in September.
For taxes above €300, payment must be made online or by direct debit — paper cheque is no longer accepted. The cheapest and easiest method is monthly instalments by direct debit (mensualisation): your annual tax is split into 10 monthly payments from January to October, smoothing the impact on your budget.
In your first French tax year, you'll need to set up your account on impots.gouv.fr using the numéro fiscal from your tax notice or registration confirmation. After that, all communications and payments happen online by default.