French Mediterranean town cuts tax for 20,000 second-home owners

Second-home owners in a seaside town in southern France will pay less tax from 2027, following a decision by the new mayor.

Charly Crespe, mayor of Le Grau-du-Roi, Gard, promised before he was elected to lower the taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires, paid by second-home owners in France.

Now elected, he has fulfilled his promise, benefiting around 20,000 second-home owners in the town.

The municipality has decided to reduce the additional charge applied to the tax from 60% to 30%.

The maximum 60% rate is applied by more than 600 communes in France. 

Why has the mayor lowered the tax?

The reduction reverses part of a tax increase introduced by the previous municipal administration.

“We did not intend to abolish a local tax or reduce it completely, but simply to reasonably lessen the impact of a measure that seemed unfair to some of our second-home owners,” Mr Crespe said at the council meeting where the reduction was voted and approved.

The earlier increase was meant to encourage second-home owners to rent out their properties all year round instead of using them for seasonal accommodation.

“Based on the experience of the past few years, there has been no major increase in the number of properties being made available, as had been expected,” he said.

He added that the additional charge also affected second-home owners.

“Penalising second-home owners with an additional 60% on top of their council tax also affects their purchasing power,” he said.

“In our town, second-home owners also represent purchasing power for our shopkeepers,” he added.

He said the change for him was “a rebalancing of local taxation”.

Opposition raised concerns

The tax reduction was approved by the municipal council on September 30. Opposition councillors did not attend the meeting, and the opposition group said it would have abstained from the vote.

Its members questioned whether the reduction was fair and how the resulting loss of tax revenue could affect local public services and investment.

The measure could reduce the commune’s annual tax revenue by around €1.4 million to €1.5 million, according to Actu.fr.