Is there a ‘bedroom tax’ in France for additional rooms?

Reader Question: I recently purchased a new home in rural France and it has more bedrooms than we need. If I combine some of the rooms will it lower the taxes I pay?

To clarify, there is no UK-style ‘bedroom tax’ on properties in France, where owners see higher taxes (or lower benefits) for having additional bedrooms in their properties. 

The number of bedrooms in a property is unlikely to affect your property taxes, but renovations or changes to rooms (and their use) may in some cases lead to minor differences in final calculations.

France’s main property tax, taxe foncière, is in part based on the valeur locative cadastrale (VLC), a theoretical rental value of the property, which is in part based on the useable surface area of the property.

Several factors are looked at including the maintenance standard, local amenities and infrastructure, and so-called ‘comfort’ features – although these are significantly outdated and include things such as indoor toilets and mains electricity connections. 

These give rise to adjustments to the surface area used in the tax calculation, called the ‘weighted surface area’ (surface pondérée) to which percentage rates voted by the local council will be applied to give the final taxe foncière bill. 

This may not necessarily correspond to the true m² of your property, as each element can add or subtract a fictional amount of the m² put forward to final calculations. The use of parts of the property also affects this, for example with a bedroom being given more weighting than a cellar, as you get more daily use out of it. 

Altering bedroom to new room makes little difference

A bedroom is classified along with living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, hallways, etc, as one of the ‘pièces à vivre’ or habitable spaces. 

Their surface area is used as part of the calculations towards the surface pondérée. 

Their measurements are used on a full-scale basis (for example, if a bedroom or kitchen is 10m², it adds 10m² to the property’s surface area)

Most renovations you would make (for example, knocking the wall between two smaller bedrooms to make one larger living room, or replacing a bedroom with a bathroom) are only likely to switch the room’s function between different pièces à vivre, and would therefore not affect the calculations made towards your taxe foncière. 

There are only two ways this would affect the final calculations.

The first is if the room sees a new comfort feature added (for example it is converted to a bathroom and has mains hot water and a toilet connected), in which case tax rates could increase.

The second is if the room changed function completely to a different type of room not classified as a pièce à vivre.

These are known as dépendances or surfaces annexes, and include rooms such as cellars, laundry rooms, veranda, or garage.

In this case, the m² of the room is halved for calculations (for example, a 20m² cellar adds only 10m² to the calculations). 

Inform authorities of changes

Note that the biens immobiliers declaration for property owners includes information on your property’s status, including the number of rooms and their designated function.

If this information changes, you should update, using your login on the French tax site.

Remember that if you are making major renovations affecting the comfort and amenities, this may trigger the garden shed tax or taxe d’aménagement. 

There are plans to eventually update and simplify the VLC system, but it will be several years away. 

This may see the importance of a room’s functional use change, but nothing has been confirmed.