Millions of homes to receive French TV licence fee refund

The French Parliament has passed a bill including the removal of the TV licence fee (redevance TV) this year, and it has now been announced that up to 6.2 million households will be eligible for a reimbursement.

Read more: MPs vote to formally end licence fee in France

Households which owned a television on January 1 of a given year were previously required to pay the tax at the same time as their taxe d’habitation, which is also being phased out for main homes.

Read more: Which French households must still pay some taxe d’habitation in 2022?

The end of the redevance TV for everyone in France means that 23 million households will save €138 each year in metropolitan areas, €88 in overseas territories.

France Télévisions, Radio France and the other stations which were previously funded by the €3.7billion raised annually by the fee will now be financed by VAT payments diverted to them by the government.

Who will be eligible for licence fee reimbursement?

Most people in France pay their redevance TV in one go along with their taxe d’habitation (if required to still pay this) in the autumn. They will have nothing to pay this year.

However, others choose to pay monthly in instalments from January to October. If you are one of these people, you are entitled to a refund for the money already taken from your account this year.

If you are eligible for the refund and no longer have to pay taxe d’habitation, you should receive a bank transfer from the Direction générale des finances publiques (DGFiP) in early September.

Only 20% of the highest-income households must still pay taxe d’habitation – at a reduced rate – this year. It is also still payable by second-home owners.

If the tax still applies to you and you pay your bill monthly, the amount you will have contributed towards your redevance TV so far this year will be deducted from your impôt local bill, and if a refund is necessary, it will be made in October.

The refunds apply to 6.2 million households, Les Echos reports.

All residents will still receive a taxe d’habitation bill in late September or early October, but unless you are still concerned by the tax this year, the bill will show that you have neither taxe d’habitation nor redevance TV to pay.

The removal of the TV licensing fee was included in the Loi de finances rectificative interim budget amendment, which appeared in the government’s official legal publication Le Journal officiel on August 17.

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