France–Australia — The Riviera Private Wealth Brief

0Executive summary

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus

1The France–Australia convention — 2006, income only

The relationship rests on a single instrument, and a modern one. The convention of 20 June 2006, signed at Paris and in force since 1 June 2009, replaced the Canberra convention of 13 April 1976; its approval ran through the law of 26 February 2009 and the decree of 18 June 2009, and its stipulations have applied on the French side since 1 January 2010. The multilateral instrument, in force for France and for Australia alike since 1 January 2019, now reads into the text a preamble directed against non-taxation through treaty-shopping and a principal-purpose test, under which a treaty advantage can be refused where obtaining it was a principal object of an arrangement. The authentic texts are French and English, both equally authoritative — a convenience for a bilingual file that few treaty relationships offer.

The scope is the organising fact. Article 2 lists income taxes alone: on the Australian side the income tax and the petroleum resource rent tax, on the French side the income tax, the corporation tax, its contributions, and the CSG and CRDS. No wealth-tax article exists, and no succession or gift convention has ever been concluded between the two states — the administration's own list of conventions in force records the relationship as income-only. Wealth, succession and gift taxation on a Riviera villa therefore run entirely on French domestic law, examined in sections I and I bis.

Residence does the sorting, on a shortened cascade. A person within the tax of both states is assigned by article 4 §3: permanent home first, then centre of vital interests, then nationality or citizenship — a drafting particularity of this text, which passes over the habitual-abode step of the standard model. Persons taxed in a state only on income from sources within it are not residents of that state for the convention's purposes (article 4 §2). Australia keeps its own accents — no wealth tax, no death or gift duties since the early 1980s, capital-gains taxation organised around cost-base inheritance rather than charges at death, and family holdings commonly arranged through trusts; this brief states Australian law at orientation level only, and its verified ground is the French side and the 2006 text.

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus · 2006 convention (CML consolidation) arts. 1, 2, 4; BOI-ANNX-000306 (29 Apr 2026); BOI-INT-CVB-AUS (2012 vintage — the text prevails)

2The market seen from Australia

Seen from Australia, the Riviera's €3M+ villa market leads with Cannes. Cannes and its hills — the Super Cannes quarter on the Vallauris side included — contributed 306 qualified sales for €2,066M across 2014–2025, at a €4.9M median and a €46.5M ceiling, with 37% of value in eight-figure transactions. The Saint-Tropez peninsula remains the largest €3M+ register on the coast, at 1006 sales for €7,049M, while Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat is its narrowest and most expensive: 178 sales for €2,375M at a €6.5M median and a €200.0M ceiling. The past 36 months alone account for €3,970M across the three.

Source: DVF (« Demandes de Valeurs Foncières », DGFiP), villa sales ≥ €3M, 2014–2025, estate-deduplicated — the same convention as the published Riviera Intelligence hub, so this brief and the public pages cannot disagree. DVF through 2025-12-31.

The public record itself describes how the Riviera is held, and this brief reads it in aggregate — the State's transaction register alongside the public company registers, all of it already published and anonymised in processing. Across the 20 Riviera communes studied, the aggregates record, at this edition, no ownership position held from Australia. The figures refresh with each edition, and the Australian column will open with the first recorded positions.

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus · DVF register, estate-deduplicated · ownership aggregates from public registers only

IBuying in France as an Australian resident

The process and its costs

The acquisition follows the standard French sequence: offer, compromis de vente with a ten-day cooling-off period, deposit of customarily 10%, conditions precedent, and the authentic deed before the notaire, who collects the duties and registers title. The notaire acts as a public officer rather than as the buyer's counsel, and Australian buyers typically retain their own advisers in addition. Because French law settles wealth and succession questions largely by reference to what the deed creates, the structure questions of section I bis deserve to be answered before the compromis is signed; the acquiring vehicle is difficult to change once the process is under way.

The cost of owning

CGI article 964 institutes the annual tax on real-estate wealth above €1,300,000 of taxable assets. For persons not domiciled in France the base comprises French-situs property together with the fraction of any company's shares representing French property (article 965, 2°). For this relationship the treaty is silent: the 2006 convention contains no wealth-tax article, so the IFI applies on domestic terms alone. The consequence runs in both directions. The charge is never doubled — Australia levies no wealth tax, so there is no second assessment and, equally, no foreign tax for the code's own credit mechanism to impute (article 980 concerns foreign charges on non-French assets in any event). Yet it is also never treaty-moderated, and an Australian adviser accustomed to a system without an annual wealth charge will find the IFI the villa's principal recurring cost of carry above the threshold.

For the family weighing a full move to France, the statute provides its own window: a person who becomes French-resident after five years abroad is taxed, for the five years that follow, on French assets only (article 964, 1°, al. 2). In this relationship the window exists by domestic law alone — no treaty clause guarantees it, and a future legislature could narrow it — a contrast worth noting with the handful of relationships where an equivalent five-year rule is written into a convention. The calendar of a move is therefore best planned on the statute as it stands, re-verified at engagement.

Recurring charges follow the property. Taxe foncière runs at communal rates; for furnished secondary residences, communes in the zone tendue — a category that includes the marquee Riviera communes — may vote a surtaxe on the taxe d'habitation for second homes, and the annual occupancy declaration is required of all owners. Because these rates are communal and year-specific, this brief's edition cycle re-verifies them rather than freezing them.

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus · CGI arts. 964–965, 980; 2006 convention art. 2 (no wealth-tax article); cost scales stated for orientation, itemised at engagement

I bisStructures, as questions

The structure question

Holding structures are presented here, in keeping with this line's doctrine, as questions for analysis rather than as recommendations. For an Australian buyer the analysis carries one organising fact: with no succession convention and no wealth-tax article, every wrapper is read by French domestic law alone — and that law reads through most of them.

Debt against the IFI — what the code anticipates

The financing conversation runs as it does elsewhere on this coast: a loan from the buyer's bank, secured on a pledged portfolio, so that liquidity remains invested while the debt reduces the taxable base. The mechanics are lawful and the code anticipates them. Acquisition debt owed to a bank is deductible from the IFI base under CGI article 974, while financial assets sit outside that base altogether. The boundaries are three. Loans repaying capital at term are deemed to amortise, the deduction declining pro rata over the loan's life, and by one twentieth a year where no term is fixed. Where taxable property exceeds €5M and debts exceed 60% of its value, the excess is deductible only as to half, unless the borrower shows the loan was not contracted mainly for tax. And the debt must be real — actually drawn, actually serviced, at market terms; routed through a shareholder account of an SCI it ceases to count for valuing the shares (article 973). Leverage moderates the IFI in its early years and fades by design — a calendar best examined before the compromis rather than after.

The family trust, before the compromis

Australian family wealth commonly runs through discretionary trusts, and here the French regime deserves to be read before the deed is drawn rather than after. Once a trust holds a French asset, or counts a French-resident settlor or beneficiary, the trustee declares its constitution, terms and annual values (CGI article 1649 AB); trust assets within the IFI's scope are taxed in the settlor's hands, the dedicated levy of article 990 J standing behind the declaration duty; and transmissions through the trust answer to article 792-0 bis, at rates that reach 60% where beneficiaries' shares are not determined — the discretionary form itself, in other words, carries a French price at death. Whether the villa belongs inside the family trust or beside it is, in practice, the first structuring question an Australian file presents, and it is best answered with counsel on both sides before the compromis.

What the acquisition decides for succession — and for gifts

No succession or gift convention exists between France and Australia, so French domestic law states the whole of the French position. Article 750 ter taxes the French villa in the estate of a non-resident, whether held directly or through companies in which the deceased, with spouse, ascendants, descendants or siblings, holds more than half the interests through any chain; the same territoriality reaches lifetime gifts. Where an heir has been French-domiciled for six of the ten years preceding the transmission, French duty extends to everything that heir receives, worldwide — a rule of direct interest to Australian families with a child settled in France. The scale is that of article 777, progressive to 45% in the direct line beyond €1.8M per share, after the €100,000 per-child allowance of article 779, with the surviving spouse exempt in succession. The credit mechanism of article 784 A operates only where France taxes a worldwide estate and only for foreign tax on foreign assets; on the villa itself no credit arises — and with Australia levying no death or gift duty, there is nothing to credit in any case. The French bill is, simply, the whole bill. On the Australian side, capital-gains tax does not as a rule arise at death itself: the heir inherits the asset's cost base and the charge defers to a later sale, a feature stated at orientation level for the family's Australian advisers.

Before either system determines the duty, the civil law determines who inherits, and here the two traditions answer differently. Australian succession law rests on testamentary freedom, qualified by family-provision legislation rather than by fixed shares; French law reserves a portion of the estate for children. EU Regulation 650/2012 lets an Australian national habitually resident in France elect Australian law for the succession as a whole, and with it the freedom of an Australian will. The election is not the end of the analysis: since the law of 24 August 2021, where the deceased or a child is a national or habitual resident of an EU member state and the law applicable to the succession allows no reserved-share mechanism for children, each child may take a compensatory levy on assets situated in France — the villa first among them — up to the French reserved share (Civil Code, article 913, al. 3). For an Australian family the clause turns on its EU connections: a child holding an EU nationality or living in France engages it, a family whose members are Australian throughout does not. The will, the matrimonial regime carried into the purchase, and the calendar of any gifts are questions for counsel on both sides, best answered before the compromis.

The démembrement — bare ownership gifted, use retained

The structure commonly proposed alongside the loan divides ownership itself: the buyer retains the usufruct, the use of the villa and its income for life, and gifts the bare ownership to the next generation. The code values the split by age. Under the scale of CGI article 669, bare ownership represents 60% of full value where the usufructuary is between 61 and 70, and 70% between 71 and 80; the gift bears duty on that fraction alone, at today's value, and the reunification of full ownership at the usufructuary's death is not a further taxable transmission. Article 751 sets the conditions — a notarised gift, made more than three months before death, valued on the article 669 scale — and article 968 keeps the full value within the usufructuary's IFI base, so the wealth tax is unmoved. With no gift convention in the relationship, France taxes the gift as the situs state and nothing overlays the domestic analysis; the Australian consequences of a lifetime gift, capital-gains rules included, belong with the family's Australian advisers, alongside the choice-of-law election noted above.

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus · CGI arts. 669, 750 ter, 751, 777, 779, 784 A, 792-0 bis, 968, 973–974, 990 J, 1649 AB; Civil Code art. 913; EU Reg. 650/2012; 2006 convention arts. 13, 23

IISelling as an Australian resident

France taxes first. Article 13 §1 of the 2006 convention assigns gains on French immovables to France, and paragraph 4 — carrying the multilateral instrument's 365-day look-back — reaches gains on shares, partnership interests and trust interests whose value derived mainly from French real estate, directly or through interposed entities, at any time in the year before the sale. For an Australian-resident seller the French charge runs under CGI article 244 bis A: the taxable gain is reduced by an ownership-duration allowance of 6% for each year of ownership beyond the fifth and 4% for the twenty-second (article 150 VC), the income-tax component then applying at 19% (article 200 B) and extinguishing after 22 years. Taxable gains above €50,000 bear in addition the progressive surcharge of article 1609 nonies G, which reaches 6% at the levels this market transacts.

Two features distinguish the Australian seller's file from a European one. Australia sitting outside the European Union and the European Economic Area, the seller must in principle appoint an accredited fiscal representative in France, who signs the gain computation and answers for it; the administration grants an automatic dispensation where the price does not exceed €150,000 per seller or where the duration allowances have extinguished both the tax and the levies, thresholds a Riviera villa rarely meets. And the social levies apply at their full rate: the carve-out that reduces EU-coordinated sellers to the 7.5% solidarity levy rests on the European coordination regulation and does not extend to Australian affiliation — the Conseil d'État has confirmed, for a third-country resident's sale, that the levies apply and that the free movement of capital offers no escape.

Australia then taxes the same gain in the resident's hands, and the convention orders the meeting: article 21 §3 deems the gain to arise from French sources, and article 23 §1 requires Australia to credit the French tax against its own on that income. How the credit is computed, and how Australian capital-gains rules measure the gain in the first place, are questions of Australian law for the family's advisers, stated here at orientation level; what the treaty settles is the direction — France first, Australia crediting. The choice between selling the asset and selling the shares of a property-rich structure alters the pool of buyers and the French analysis under article 13 §4; that choice is best evaluated before marketing begins rather than in the course of negotiation.

Leaving after the sale — a note on the exit tax

Families who sell and then move away from France sometimes ask whether an exit charge applies on departure. The answer is narrower than the name suggests. France's exit tax (CGI article 167 bis) is aimed at securities, not at property: it concerns persons who were French-domiciled for at least six of the ten years before leaving, and taxes the unrealised gains on substantial securities holdings — positions whose combined value exceeds €800,000, or stakes of 50% or more in a company's profits, the second criterion catching a controlling holding whatever its value — as they stand on the day of departure. A villa already sold has settled its own tax under the regimes above, and the sale proceeds themselves are not within the charge. Shares of a family SCI follow the property rather than the portfolio: so long as the company keeps the ordinary income-tax regime, gains on its property-rich shares remain within the real-estate regime (CGI article 150 UB) and outside the exit tax — the French right to tax a later sale being preserved instead by article 244 bis A. A company that has opted for corporation tax changes the classification, and with it the analysis; the option belongs on the pre-departure checklist. The residence clock matters equally: a person who leaves before six years of French domicile within the preceding ten stands outside the latent-gains charge altogether, so the family that tried France for a few years and moved on typically departs untouched; gains already placed under a tax deferral follow their own rules and are reviewed at engagement. Where the machinery does apply, payment is generally deferred, and the assessment lapses automatically where the securities are still held two years after departure — five where the portfolio exceeded €2.57M — or upon a return to France. The France–Australia relationship adds a note of its own: under article 13 §5 of the convention, a person taxed by one state on a deemed disposal at the end of residence may elect, in the other state, to be treated as having reacquired the assets at their market value on that day — so a gain taxed on departure is not taxed again on the later sale. The same clause serves the inbound family, since Australia applies deemed-disposal rules of its own when residence there ends, a matter of Australian law noted here at orientation level. For most sellers the exit tax is therefore a question of calendar and paperwork rather than of cost; the destination-specific mechanics of the deferral are settled at engagement.

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus · 2006 convention arts. 13 §§1, 4, 5, 21 §3, 23 §1; CGI arts. 150 UB, 150 VC, 167 bis, 200 B, 244 bis A (incl. IV bis), 1609 nonies G; CE 5 Mar 2018 n° 400329

IIIRenting — as tenant and as owner

Renting as a tenant

A rental year before purchase remains the classic first step, and it carries one caution worth stating clearly: French tax domicile under CGI article 4 B turns on the location of the foyer, the principal place of stay, and the centres of professional and economic interest — none of which defers to a lease. A Riviera villa that becomes the family's effective home can establish French residence, with worldwide consequences, well before any purchase; and because this relationship carries no treaty wealth-tax window, the years of an extended trial are best counted against the domestic statute alone. The choice between furnished seasonal lettings and the one-to-three-year civil lease determines exit flexibility, and is best matched to the trial's real purpose.

Renting the villa out

French-source rental income of non-residents — the furnished lettings common at this price point included — is taxed under the minimum-rate regime of CGI article 197 A, at no less than 20% up to the second-bracket ceiling and 30% above it, unless the taxpayer demonstrates a lower worldwide effective rate; social levies apply in addition, for Australian-affiliated owners at the full rate, verified at engagement. The convention is categorical on the allocation: article 6 makes income from immovable property, under whatever form of exploitation, taxable in the state where the property stands, and extends the same rule to occupancy rights held through companies or trusts (article 6 §4). Australia then includes the income in its resident's assessable income and credits the French tax under article 23 §1, the source-deeming of article 21 §3 carrying the credit; the Australian return of the income belongs with the family's Australian advisers.

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus · CGI arts. 4 B, 197 A; 2006 convention arts. 6, 21 §3, 23 §1

4What changed

Edition 1 — baseline (July 2026). The instrument as it stands: the convention of 20 June 2006, in force since 1 June 2009, as modified by the multilateral instrument — in force for France and Australia since 1 January 2019, on the reservations and notifications lodged by France (26 September 2018 and 22 September 2020) and by Australia (26 September 2018 and 2 October 2020) — whose effects on this convention run from 1 January 2019 for withholding taxes and from taxable periods beginning 1 July 2019 for the rest. No succession or gift convention exists, and none is under negotiation to this office's knowledge. Watch items for edition 2: annual Loi de finances movements on the IFI and transfer duties; communal surtaxe votes on the Riviera arc; any change to either state's MLI reservations, which would alter the consolidated text; Australian legislation touching the taxation of foreign property income and gains; and any refresh of the administration's single 2012-vintage commentary page on the convention, which predates the multilateral instrument. The ownership aggregates of section 2 are refreshed with each edition.

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus

5Questions, answered

Does an Australian resident pay French wealth tax on a Riviera villa?

Yes, once French real-estate assets exceed €1.3M, whether held directly or through the property fraction of company shares (CGI art. 964). The 2006 convention covers income only, so the IFI applies on domestic terms alone — never doubled, Australia levying no wealth tax, yet never treaty-moderated either.

Is there a France–Australia succession or gift treaty?

No. The administration's list of conventions in force records the relationship as income-only, and no succession convention has ever been concluded. French duty on a French villa in an Australian estate runs under CGI article 750 ter at the scale of article 777 — 45% in the direct line beyond €1.8M per share — with the spouse exempt; Australia levies no duty of its own and no credit mechanism applies, so the French bill is the whole bill.

Who taxes the gain when an Australian resident sells a French villa?

France first, as the situs state (2006 convention, art. 13 §1), under CGI article 244 bis A with the ownership-duration allowances — the income-tax component extinguishing after 22 years. Australia then taxes the gain in the resident's hands and credits the French tax (art. 23 §1); the treaty settles the direction, Australian law the computation.

Must an Australian seller appoint a fiscal representative in France?

In principle yes: Australia sits outside the EU and EEA, so the accredited fiscal-representative requirement of article 244 bis A applies, with automatic dispensation only below €150,000 per seller or where the duration allowances have extinguished the charge. The social levies also apply at their full rate — the reduced 7.5% solidarity levy is confined to EU-coordinated affiliations.

Is rental income from France taxed if the owner lives in Australia?

Yes — by France as the situs state (2006 convention, art. 6), under the minimum-rate regime of CGI article 197 A at no less than 20% and 30%, with social levies in addition. Australia includes the income in the resident's assessable income and credits the French tax under article 23 §1.

Can an Australian will keep testamentary freedom over a French villa?

Largely, yes: EU Regulation 650/2012 lets an Australian national elect the law of his or her nationality for the succession as a whole. Since 2021, however, where the deceased or a child is an EU national or habitual resident and the chosen law allows no reserved share, each child may take a compensatory levy on assets situated in France, the villa first among them (Civil Code, art. 913). A family with a child settled in France engages the clause; a family Australian throughout does not.

What does a family trust change for a French villa?

France answers the trust with a regime of its own: trustee declaration of the trust's terms and values (CGI art. 1649 AB), wealth-tax attribution to the settlor, a dedicated levy where declaration fails (art. 990 J), and transmission taxation under article 792-0 bis at rates reaching 60% where beneficiaries' shares are not determined. Whether the villa belongs inside or beside the trust is the first question an Australian file presents.

Does a French exit tax apply after selling and leaving?

Rarely, and never on the villa itself. The charge (CGI art. 167 bis) reaches only persons French-domiciled for six of the ten years before departure, and only their unrealised gains on securities — above €800,000 in value, or stakes of 50% or more of a company's profits; the sold villa and its proceeds stand outside, as do family-SCI shares kept under the ordinary income-tax regime (art. 150 UB). Where it does apply, payment is generally deferred and the assessment lapses after two years — five above €2.57M — or upon return to France; and article 13 §5 of the convention lets a gain taxed on departure be stepped up in the other state, so it is not taxed twice.

What is the Chiron Legal Corpus?

The Chiron Legal Corpus is the research library behind this brief, maintained by this office's offshore legal-research partner: an extensive cross-border collection of consolidated statutes, tax-authority doctrine, treaty instruments and case law, including the French primary sources in full text. Every statement of law in these pages is verified against it, re-checked against Légifrance and BOFiP at each edition, and stamped with its review date section by section.

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus

6Methodology, sources & qualifications

Method. Legal statements are verified against the Chiron Legal Corpus, the research library maintained by this office's offshore legal-research partner — an extensive cross-border and international collection of consolidated statutes, tax-authority doctrine, treaty instruments and case law, including French primary law held in full text and re-checked against the official sources at each edition. The review of 19 July 2026 covered Légifrance (CGI arts. 4 B, 150 UB, 150 VC, 167 bis, 197 A, 200 B, 244 bis A incl. IV bis, 669, 750 ter, 751, 777, 779, 784 A, 792-0 bis, 964–965, 968, 973–974, 980, 990 J, 1609 nonies G, 1649 AB; Civil Code arts. 912–913 — consolidated texts), the convention of 20 June 2006 in its two official presentations on impots.gouv.fr — the signed text and the consolidation carrying the multilateral instrument's modifications, the authentic languages being French and English, both equally authoritative, this brief quoting the French consolidation — and the administration's list of conventions in force of 29 April 2026, which records the relationship as income-only. The administration's commentary on the convention consists of a single chapeau page of 2012 vintage predating the multilateral instrument; this brief follows the treaty text. Australian domestic law — the absence of wealth, death and gift duties, cost-base inheritance at death, foreign-income crediting, deemed-disposal rules on ceasing residence, family-provision legislation, superannuation regulation — is stated at orientation level from secondary sources and is never load-bearing for a legal claim. Market data: DVF (DGFiP), villa sales ≥ €3M, estate-deduplicated, register through 2025-12-31. Ownership aggregates: compiled from public land and company registers, anonymised, as at 19 July 2026. Items flagged "at engagement" — communal rates, the Australian return of French income and gains, the deed-level gain base — are stated at mechanism level pending case-specific verification.

Qualification. This brief documents published law and public transaction data; it is research rather than personalised legal or tax advice, and individual circumstances — residence history, nationality, matrimonial regime, the chain of title — change outcomes. For a live transaction, this office coordinates the appropriate French counsel (avocat fiscaliste, notaire) and executes the property side.

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus

Further intelligence

The Riviera villa market — the coast-wide €3M+ index

Riviera property tax & relocation — the incoming buyer's primer

France–Poland — the convention pair

France–Spain — the convention pair