French and foreign interest (bank, building society)

2042 section 2

French interest should be declared in total from the information on the imprimé fiscal unique provided by your bank.

French interest and other investment income is subject to PFU ‘flat tax’ at-source at 12.8% tax plus social charges.

The income still has to be declared and the levies at-source are provisional - hence they are called prélèvement forfaitaire non libératoire, meaning fixed-rate levies that are not considered a definitive tax payment.

Provisional amounts taken should have been prefilled at 2CK but it is worth checking.

The section also includes boxes (also likely to have been prefilled) for sums which have already had social charges taken off.

If you think that you would obtain a better rate by having the ordinary tax bands applied to all investment income (including non-property capital gains), you can opt for this and your tax will be regularised later this year with a refund or a reduction on overall tax on other incomes, if applicable.

This is likely to mostly apply to people on low incomes.

People on modest incomes also have the option of not having the income tax part of the PFU taken off at-source, which they must take up before the end of November of the year preceding the year it will apply.

They need to contact their bank.

• If you are satisfied with having PFU applied, the income should be entered by you in box 2TR (it will probably already be there unless this is your first declaration or you opted out of the PFU).

• If you want the interest to be assessed using the tax bands not the PFU then you should also select box 2OP.

If taken up, this option applies to all your investment income and investment capital gains.

Treatment of foreign interest for French residents depends on tax treaties and is declared accordingly in boxes in section two of the 2047 (if relevant, section 6 or 7) and carried forward to section 2 of the 2042.

In some cases, the source country can tax foreign income and France issues a tax credit for the foreign tax or for the French tax (see the country lists in the Notice for the 2047 for more, for example the USA is on page 5). 

For most kinds of US interest, for US citizens in France, a tax credit equal to the French tax is issued, in which case the income needs to be declared:

2047 section 2, line 240+251+252

2047 section 6

2042 section 2, box 2TR

In other countries, such as the UK, there is no tax in the source country. In this case there is no tax credit calculation and the interest can be declared as follows:

2047 line 260, Intérêts et autres produits de placement à revenu fixe

Enter country of origin (in French), then enter the total amount of interest.

Enter the same figure in 2042 section 2, box 2TR

As for French interest, note the option to select box 2OP on the 2042 to opt out of the PFU flat tax.

If you have non-French bank accounts, you need to select box 8UU to declare their existence (on paper, cross it at the end of the main form 2042), and also remember to select the 3916 - 3916 bis annexe section for completing details of these accounts. See chapter 10, 'Declaring overseas bank accounts and investment schemes' for more about this section.