Will six-month visa make us tax residents of France?

We are UK pensioners with a second home in Brittany. If we were to visit for a 90-day period and then apply for a six-month visa to stay longer in the same year, would it make our pensions subject to French taxation?

The law states that your incomes are only taxable in France if you become a fiscal resident of France.

What defines fiscal residency is found in article 4b of the Tax Code: having your home or main place of residence in France, spending most of the (calendar) year in France, having one’s centre of economic interest in France and, in some cases, having a business in France.

So, if you only came for 90 days, you would not fall foul of any of the tax rules and your UK income would remain taxable in the UK.

If you apply for a visa to spend longer in France, you should watch out for the ‘most of the year’ rule.

If you are here in France for most of the tax (calendar) year, you will have met one of the conditions to be considered tax-resident in France.

Having said that, the other three conditions will show you as being resident in the UK.

Another consideration is whether the tax office would even consider the level of taxes and charges they could levy on you as making it worth their while to treat you as residents.

It is unlikely that the tax authorities will take any action on the first occasion because they will probably want to see the repetitive nature of you being in France for most of the year.

One tax expert advising Britons in France said the tax office generally has an unwritten rule that spending less than two tax years in France does not constitute residency, so your status would probably not attract attention. Although, if you repeated this for more than two years, it may well do.