French property tax: deferment, reduction and remission after the deadline

The deadline to pay taxe foncière bills passed in October, but it is still possible to ask for payments to be deferred, reduced or even cancelled in cases of financial difficulty. 

Deferments usually take the form of an agreement to spread payments over two or three months.

These requests were more common in the days before widespread monthly payments of France’s two main taxes: impôt sur le revenu and taxe foncière.

However, even paying monthly can be impacted by unexpected life events or moving up a tax bracket.

Traditionally, asking for more time to pay the bill – or for it to be reduced – involved a visit to the trésor public and an interview with a percepteur (tax collector).

Often very young, percepteurs were commonly the most highly ranked civil servants in small towns and destined for high office in the finance ministry.

First, however, they had to prove they could collect taxes and administer the districts attached to small towns without making waves.

Part of the job was ensuring the state was fair, and if people genuinely had difficulty paying taxes, making arrangements so they could.

The rules under which they operated when taxes were reduced or simply cancelled came under remise gracieuse, defined by the Direction générale des finances publiques (DGFiP) as a “reduction, moderation or remission granted free of charge by the tax administration to a person experiencing financial difficulties in paying their taxes, even with deferred payment”.

Around 16,400 such requests were granted in 2024 for taxe foncière, out of 30,200 demands in total, according to figures from the DGFiP.

The recent government drive to move services online means cases should now be made in writing, either by letter, email or through the secure messaging service on your personal space on the impots.gouv.fr website. The latter is claimed to guarantee the quickest response.

There is no fixed format for the request, but it should include a reason why you find it difficult to pay the tax, such as the birth of a child, losing a job, separation or divorce, an accident, or other mitigating circumstances.

Requests can be made at any moment, even after the payment date has passed and you have received an official demand for the overdue sum.

In general, however, tax officers prefer people to come to them early rather than later.

Making the request does not mean the tax has been written off or reduced – this only happens after the administration has made its decision.

Taxe foncière can be paid in monthly instalments (prélèvement mensuel), as long as you set this up for the then-current year before June 30.

Mensualisation converts the single bill into 10 equal payments deducted via direct debit between January and October of the year after you receive the notice. 

Otherwise the tax is paid either quarterly or in a lump sum, due in October. This year the deadline for online payments was October 20.