Non-residents: PAS explained
You can choose to pay monthly or quarterly tax-at-source instalments
Non-residents are subject to tax-at-source (PAS) instalments on regular French-taxable income, notably rent from property in France. You can choose to pay monthly or quarterly instalments and you must provide details of a bank account in the SEPA area to the tax service.
SEPA is essentially an EU scheme but the UK remains in it and is expected to continue to do so in the foreseeable future assuming it continues to comply with the relevant requirements, subject to ongoing evaluation. In the first year of rental you may voluntarily start to pay instalments based on estimated income so as to avoid regularisation payments later.
You do this by accessing your online space and clicking Gérer mon prélèvement à la source and then on the left, Actualiser suite à une hausse ou baisse de revenus.
To create an online space onimpots.gouv.fr if you have not declared before you will need to obtain log-in details (see chapter 4).
Note that if, as a non-resident, you have French income of a kind that can be taxed at source in the literal sense, eg. French salaried income or pensions, then, if these are considered taxable in France under double tax rules between your country of residence and France, they are taxed at source.
See tinyurl.com/uk-res-info for the kinds of French pension or work income that may apply under this to a UK resident. Note that the only pensions concerned are ‘government’ ones and even then they are not declarable if you are of exclusively British nationality.
If this applies, this PAS is called retenu à la source des non-résidents, or RAS NR. It has its own specific income bands, and rates at 0%, 12% and 20% (0%, 8% and 14.4% for income from the DOMs, overseas territories) after an expenses allowance of 10% (see: tinyurl.com/ras-nr).
As a non-resident, relevant salaries should be declared in box 1AF etc of the main declaration and pensions in 1AL etc. Check that box 8TA has been pre-filled with tax deducted as RAS NR. Those concerned should also complete the online / paper annexe form 2041E.
Tax on the first two bands of RAS NR is libératoire (definitive) and so the income concerned is not taken into account in the calculation of the nonresidents’ income tax on any other forms of French-taxable income a person may have. However this is not the case with any part of RAS NR income taxed under the 20% band.