French property tax payment deadlines begin today – check your bills for errors

Deadlines if using certain methods to pay the taxe foncière property tax end today (October 15). 

Those wishing to pay via cash, cheque, or bank transfer must do so by midnight tonight. These payment methods are only possible for bills of €300 or less. 

Alternatively, online payments through your personal space on the French tax website can be made until midnight on October 20 (Monday). 

Unless a direct debit is already in place this is the only method of payment possible for bills above €300.

The option to schedule monthly payments for this year’s tax has passed, but it is possible to set this up for next year’s bills. 

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

If you fail to pay the tax on time, a 10% addition to the final bill can be added to cover ‘administrative costs’. 

If you are more than 45 days late in paying, interest is added to the bill, up to a maximum of 2.04% per year.

Check for errors 

If you are yet to pay, it is worth doing a final check of the bill to ensure all of the information is correct. Even if you have already paid, you can request a refund on this year’s bill if you believe you were overcharged.

One piece of good news for many homeowners this year was that taxe foncière increases were relatively low.

Most communes decided not to apply additional rates, meaning for many, their bills only increased by an across-the-board 1.7% due to inflation.

Check that calculations for the increase match with the national and local increases – there may be an error if your bill has risen greatly. 

Some legal experts believe that around half of homeowners are overcharged. 

In many cases this can be caused by the VLC (valeur locative cadastrale or theoretical land value). 

A series of complicated calculations based on the VLC are used to determine the final tax amount, but the figure itself can often be extremely outdated.

The VLC increases annually with inflation and also if certain alterations to properties are declared but in many cases the VLC has not been accurately recalculated in decades.

It means many properties are overtaxed (and some may be undertaxed) as the VLC fails to correspond to the actual conditions of the property.

An overhaul of the system is planned in 2028 but is likely to be a complex exercise and has already been postponed once (it was originally set to take place in 2026).

A common highlighted issue is over the ‘maintenance coefficient’, which can see bills reduced by up to 30%.

Otherwise, you can ask (for future iterations of the bill) for the exact calculations to be broken down for you). 

Further advice, and information on how to ask for a refund, can be found in this article. 

Note however that even if you believe you have been overcharged, you should still pay your bill before the deadline then ask for a refund.