If you own a home in France, the main annual property tax, Taxe Foncière, averaged roughly €1,070 for a house and €850 for an apartment in 2024. Bills in Paris, Nice, Marseille and other high-demand cities can run two or three times that. France doesn’t charge a single flat property tax; owners deal with several overlapping levies tied to the property’s cadastral rental value, and local councils set their own rates each year, so what you actually pay depends heavily on where the property sits and what you use it for.
How the Taxe Foncière Bill Is Built
Every French property owner pays Taxe Foncière, whether you live in the property, rent it out, or leave it empty. It applies to buildings, apartments, and bare land. Whoever owns the property on January 1 of the tax year owes the full year’s bill, even if the property changes hands later that year.
The calculation starts with the cadastral rental value, an official estimate of what the property could rent for. The tax authorities apply a flat 50% deduction for built properties (20% for undeveloped land) to produce a “net cadastral income.” That figure is then multiplied by the rates voted by your commune, intercommunal authority, and department. Because those rates are set annually, your bill can move even when nothing about your property has.
Cadastral values are notoriously outdated and generally sit well below real market rents. To offset that, the government applies an annual inflation uplift to all cadastral values: 7.1% in 2023, 3.9% in 2024, and 1.7% in 2025. Even if your local rate is frozen, this uplift pushes your bill up each year.
What to Budget as a Percentage of Property Value
Most owners find Taxe Foncière, plus any applicable Taxe d’Habitation on a second home, works out to somewhere between 0.5% and 1.5% of the property’s market value per year. Urban properties in high-demand areas tend to land at the top of that range.
A standard apartment in a major French city typically generates a Taxe Foncière bill between €800 and €2,500 per year. Properties in and around Paris, Nice, and Marseille sit at the higher end of the per-square-meter cost; some rural communes in eastern France come in at less than a quarter of those figures. Rural properties often have lower cadastral values but sometimes higher local rates, so totals can surprise either way.
The single best predictor of your actual bill is the previous owner’s tax notice. Any seller or estate agent should be able to provide last year’s notice on request, and that document shows the exact amount paid.
The Waste Collection Charge on Your Bill
A line that catches new owners off guard is the TEOM, a household waste collection tax that appears directly on the Taxe Foncière notice. It’s a separate levy technically, but you pay it at the same time through the same notice. If you rent the property out, you pay TEOM upfront and can recover the cost from the tenant as a recoverable charge.1Service Public. Household Waste Collection Fee (TEOM or REOM) Property tax exemptions for elderly or low-income owners don’t extend to the TEOM, so even exempt owners still owe this portion.
Extra Taxes for Second Homes
The Taxe d’Habitation, once paid by every occupant of a French dwelling, was phased out on primary residences between 2018 and 2023. Since 2023, no household pays it on a main home.2Service Public. Property Tax 2025: What Is the Deadline to Pay?
Second homes still owe it. The calculation mirrors Taxe Foncière: cadastral rental value multiplied by local rates. In areas classified as “tense housing zones,” where demand far outstrips supply, communes can add a surcharge of 5% to 60% on top of the base amount to discourage occasional-use ownership. More than 1,600 communes have opted into this surcharge, so if you’re buying a holiday home in a popular area, expect the Taxe d’Habitation to add a meaningful second line to your annual property tax budget.
What You Owe on an Empty Property
Leaving a property empty for an extended period triggers its own tax. If you own an unfurnished dwelling that has sat vacant for at least one continuous year in a designated tense housing zone, you owe the Taxe sur les Logements Vacants (TLV).3Service-Public.fr. Annual Vacant Housing Tax and Vacant Housing Tax The rate is 17% of the cadastral rental value in the first year, jumping to 34% every year after.4Service Public. Taxe annuelle sur les logements vacants (TLV) et taxe d’habitation sur les logements vacants Owners must show the vacancy is involuntary, such as a property listed for sale or rent at a reasonable price with no taker.
Outside tense zones, the TLV doesn’t apply, but a commune can impose a similar local levy called the Taxe d’Habitation sur les Logements Vacants (THLV). Starting in 2027, a consolidated tax on vacant residential premises is expected to replace both, with rates that can reach 30% in the first year and 60% from the second year on.
Wealth Tax Above €1.3 Million
France imposes a separate annual tax on property wealth that catches owners who may not think of themselves as wealthy. If the total net value of your real estate holdings exceeds €1.3 million on January 1, you owe the Impôt sur la Fortune Immobilière (IFI).5Service Public. Real Estate Wealth Tax (IFI): Persons and Property Concerned Net value is current market value minus any outstanding mortgage or secured loan balance. It’s a household-level tax: couples file jointly and must include property held by minor children. Non-residents owe IFI only on their French real estate, whether held directly or through a company.
Once the €1.3 million threshold is crossed, the tax is calculated on a progressive scale that actually starts at €800,000:
- Up to €800,000: 0%
- €800,001 to €1,300,000: 0.5%
- €1,300,001 to €2,570,000: 0.7%
- €2,570,001 to €5,000,000: 1.0%
- €5,000,001 to €10,000,000: 1.25%
- Above €10,000,000: 1.5%
Qualifying debts secured against the property reduce the taxable base. To be deductible, a debt must exist and be certain on January 1, be borne by a member of the IFI household, and relate to a taxable asset.6Service Public. Calculation of Real Estate Wealth Tax (IFI) Property used as a professional asset, such as a hotel or certain qualifying rental operations, may be exempt under strict conditions.
Exemptions and Reductions That Lower the Bill
New constructions are exempt from Taxe Foncière for the first two years after completion. You need to file a declaration with the tax office within 90 days of the property being ready for occupation; miss that window and you risk losing the full two-year benefit.
Owners aged 75 or older whose household income falls below annually adjusted thresholds are fully exempt from Taxe Foncière. Those aged 65 to 74 meeting the same income criteria get a €100 reduction instead. Recipients of certain disability and pension-supplement benefits, including the Allocation aux adultes handicapés (AAH) and the Allocation supplémentaire d’invalidité (Asi), also qualify for full exemption as long as income stays below the relevant ceiling. The thresholds change every year and depend on household size, so check the figures on your most recent income tax notice. Remember that none of these exemptions remove the TEOM waste charge.
When and How You Pay
Property tax notices are issued every autumn. In 2025, online notices became available on August 28 for lump-sum payers and September 20 for those on monthly installments, with paper notices following through early October. The standard deadline falls in mid-October. In 2025, that meant October 15 for cash or check, October 20 for online payments, and direct debit taken on October 25.2Service Public. Property Tax 2025: What Is the Deadline to Pay?
You can pay through your personal space on impots.gouv.fr, by direct debit, or in cash or by check at authorized locations for amounts of €300 or less.7impots.gouv.fr. Services Non-resident owners should make sure the tax office has a current postal and email address. A French bank account simplifies things, but international transfers are accepted.
What’s Changing With Cadastral Values
The cadastral rental values underlying all of these taxes have been due for a comprehensive overhaul for years. A national revision was originally set to produce new values based on January 1, 2025 data, feeding into 2028 bills. The 2026 Finance Bill pushed that back by three years: new rental values will be determined as of January 1, 2028, and won’t affect bills until 2031.
In the meantime, the tax authorities are running a limited verification campaign. Letters and emails are being sent to property owners in early 2026 asking them to confirm or update the characteristics of their properties. Owners have until April 2026 to respond and until June to provide supporting documentation. This isn’t the full revaluation, but it could still produce adjustments on individual properties where the recorded details are clearly wrong. When the full revision does take effect, properties in high-demand areas are widely expected to see meaningful increases in their tax base.