What rent should I declare on my biens immobiliers declaration?

Reader question: I understand that in 2026 people who rent out property will have to declare the amount of the rents in their biens immobiliers property declaration in their personal space on the tax website. 

But is this the rent such as I declare for tax purposes, excluding the various tenants’ charges that I recuperate along with the rent, or the full amount I have coming in, which is significantly more?

From 2026, people who have rental properties were expected to be required to include the amount of their rents in their biens immobiliers declaration.

The aim of this is to help the government gather data for an upcoming reevaluation of the valeurs locatives cadastrales of French properties. 

These are theoretical annual rental values that are used for calculating local property taxes, which have not been propertly updated to reflect real changes in local property markets since the 1970s.

However, in the latest of many postponements, the current version of the 2026 finance law (still going through the final phases) has put off the start of this reform into the 2030s and it is only from the first half of 2028 now that people are expected to be obliged to provide rental information to feed into it.

So, this year it is expected that the requirement will be optional.

Note that this is completely separate from your declaration of the rental income for income tax, which, if you declare via the réel system, will show a breakdown your actual profit, minus the various expenses.

To answer your question, for the biens immobiliers declaration, you should just declare the current basic monthly rental amount, not also accounting for the charges you recuperate from the tenant (whether for heating, water, maintenance of common areas, etc). 

Under "date d'effet" (when the rental amount is 'effective' from) you should simply insert the date of the declaration, French tax officials said. 

As mentioned, the aim of this is ulimately to help with the long-awaited reevaluation of the valeurs locatives cadastrales.

The amounts declared will not, however, have a direct effect on the VLCs of individual properties, but will rather feed into calculations that will in future be used to reassess VLCs in your area.

Otherwise, the main purpose of biens immobiliers is for tax offices to keep track of which property taxes they can levy on different properties, depending on use.