Property tax hike for 7.4 million homes in France postponed

New property tax (taxe foncière) calculations that were set to increase the bills of 7.4 million homes in France have been postponed, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced. 

Earlier this month, tax authorities announced an update to calculations for ‘comfort’ features that make up part of the tax, with many homes automatically seeing expected features included for the property. 

Homeowners would have to specifically announce if an element such as an indoor toilet, connection to mains electricity, shower or bathtub, heating, sinks, etc was not actually present. Otherwise the homes would be presumed to have these.

The change was set to bring in around €460 million in increased property taxes for local authorities, with bills of affected homes increasing on average by €63. The taxe foncière is paid by homeowners, including on second homes.

Despite initial claims that the change was backed by local authorities in search of more funding, vice president of the Association of French Mairies André Laignel told AFP the change “was not requested.”

Mr Lecornu announced the postponement during a Q&A session with the Senate yesterday (November 26), following backlash and a ‘rapid consultation’ between local authorities and homeowner groups.

The prime minister said he asked for the measure to be pushed back until next year – likely until May or June – so that improved calculation methods could be implemented.

As taxe foncière is based on the status and ownership of a property on January 1 of the given year, these changes will therefore not affect 2026 bills, but those from 2027 onwards if they come into force next year. 

Homeowners should note, however, that 2026 bills will likely increase automatically, based on inflation in France in 2025.

Local authorities then vote on the final rates of the bill, choosing to implement the inflation-based rate, increase the bill through further rates, or in rare cases drop them.

New ‘local’ calculations

While the exact method set to be used for the new calculations is not known, it is expected to be carried out at a more local level, with location-based factors being taken into account. 

The current calculations see fictitious m² added to the final ‘size’ of a property based on the presence of so-called ‘comfort’ features. 

For example, a 75m² property may have 20m² added to its size for the bill based on these elements, with calculations on the tax and any additional rates being based on a final figure of 95m².

Despite being referred to as comfort features, these are elements deemed ‘comfortable’ when the system was originally rolled out in the 1970s. They thus account for features that are all but standard in properties today. 

“We will have to return to a departmental approach, or even a sub-departmental or a municipality-by-municipality approach,” Mr Lecornu told the Senate. 

“When we look at… this issue, we can clearly see that we are dealing nationally with a subject that sometimes [is very different] from one department to another,” he added. 

An overhaul of this feature-based taxation is only one aspect of a wider reworking of how the property tax is calculated, likely via an update to the theoretical rental value (valeur locative cadastrale or VLC) used as a base for the tax. 

Originally planned for 2026, this is now not expected until at least 2028.