Residency and eligible assets

If you are fiscally resident in France, eligibility extends to assets and liabilities in and outside France if you do not qualify for the five-year exemption for foreign assets.

French tax law states you are a French fiscal resident if your 'home' (foyer) is in the country; this may, for example, be where your spouse and children also live.

Other tests include whether you spend more of the year in France than elsewhere, whether your job or businesses you run are based here, and whether you manage your financial affairs here. Nationality may be a factor if there is doubt.

Generally speaking, you become a French fiscal resident from the day you move to the country to make it your main home.

For those who took up fiscal residency from 2020, foreign assets can be excluded from your assets in the 2026 declaration.

If unsure of your fiscal residency, it is advisable to take professional advice, for

example from a specialist accountant.

If a person is tax-resident in another country (barring double tax treaty exemptions), they are still subject to French wealth tax on any property and property rights they own in France, such as:

• Bricks-and-mortar property and land, minus mortgages on that property.

• Beneficially owned assets. Examples could include shares in a société civile immobilière (SCI) and reversionary interests where property ownership rights will revert back to a person in the future.

• For shares in investment companies that own property both in France and abroad, non-residents are taxed on the relative value of shares that corresponds to the French property investment.