France–Brazil — 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–Brazil convention — 1971

The relationship rests on a single instrument: the convention of 10 September 1971, signed at Brasilia with a protocol forming an integral part of it, in force since 10 May 1972. It was the first double-taxation convention France concluded with a Latin American state, and it remains close in design to the OECD model of its era. It has never been amended: the text in force today is, on both registries, the text of 1971 — the French administration's official presentation and Brazil's federal register (Decreto n° 70.506 of 1972) each carry the original instrument and nothing later, and the multilateral instrument does not modify it. The authentic texts are French and Portuguese, each equally authoritative; this brief quotes the French original.

Residence does the sorting. A person taxable in both states is assigned by the cascade of article 4 §2: permanent home first, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality, then mutual agreement — a sequence the Conseil d'État applied to this very convention in 2020, holding that any dwelling durably at a person's disposal counts as a permanent home (16 July 2020, n° 436570). Companies and other bodies resolve to the state of their effective management (article 4 §3). The scope of the convention, by contrast, is deliberately narrow: article 2 covers, for France, the income tax and the corporation tax, extended to identical or analogous taxes instituted after signature. The administration's commentary, recast on 17 July 2024, reads that extension as covering the contributions on corporation tax, the CSG, the CRDS and the prélèvement de solidarité — income-type charges, all of them. No wealth tax appears anywhere in the instrument or in the administration's list, and the consequences of that silence run through sections I and I bis.

The Brazilian side keeps its own accents. Brazil levies no wealth tax in force, taxes estates and gifts principally through the state-level ITCMD, and organises family transmission around the legítima of its civil code. This brief states Brazilian law at orientation level only; its verified ground is the French side and the 1971 convention, and the Brazilian reading belongs with the family's Brazilian advisers.

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus · 1971 convention arts. 1, 2, 4 (official French presentation, protocol integral); BOI-INT-CVB-BRA (17 July 2024 vintage — current); CE n° 436570 (16 Jul 2020)

2The market seen from Brazil

Seen from Brazil, the Riviera's €3M+ villa market is best introduced through Mougins — the hill village above Cannes where gastronomy, golf and gated hillside quarters have long drawn an international ownership. Mougins recorded 167 qualified villa sales of €3M and above for €967M across 2014–2025, at a €4.3M median and a €34.5M ceiling, with 76 sales for €453M in the past 36 months alone. Cannes and its hills — the Super Cannes quarter on the Vallauris side included — contributed 306 sales for €2,066M at a €4.9M median, while the Saint-Tropez peninsula remains the largest €3M+ register on the coast, at 1006 sales for €7,049M.

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 Brazil. The figures refresh with each edition, and the Brazilian 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 a Brazilian 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 Brazilian buyers typically retain their own advisers in addition. Because no succession convention exists to reallocate anything later, 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 — where the treaty's silence is priced

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 964-2°), at the progressive scale of article 977 — 0.5% to 1.5% across the brackets above €800,000 once the threshold is crossed. Here the 1971 convention offers nothing to invoke: its article 2 covers income taxes alone, so the IFI applies to a Brazilian resident's villa exactly as French domestic law writes it. The charge is not doubled in practice, Brazil levying no wealth tax in force, yet neither is it softened: where the German owner reads a treaty article assigning the tax and a treaty window suspending it, the Brazilian owner reads only the code.

For the family weighing a full move to France, the only wealth-tax window is domestic. A person becoming French-domiciled after five years abroad is taxed for five years on French assets only (article 964-1°, al. 2) — a genuine planning window, yet one resting on the code rather than on a treaty: France may narrow or repeal it unilaterally, where the France–Germany convention guarantees its equivalent as a treaty right. The calendar of a move is therefore worth settling while the rule stands.

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, 977; 1971 convention art. 2 (income taxes only — no wealth-tax coverage); 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 a Brazilian buyer the analysis carries one organising fact: with no succession convention and a treaty confined to income taxes, French domestic law reads through property-rich companies at every point that matters — the wrapper changes the paperwork, rarely the outcome.

Debt against the IFI — what the code anticipates

The financing conversation runs here 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). For the Brazilian owner the deduction matters more than for most, since no treaty window will ever suspend the tax: leverage moderates the IFI in its early years and fades by design, a calendar best examined before the compromis rather than after.

What the acquisition decides for succession — the convention that does not exist

France has concluded succession conventions with only some forty states, and Brazil is not among them: both registries carry a single France–Brazil instrument, the income convention of 1971. The consequence is that French territoriality applies without restriction, on the architecture of CGI article 750 ter. The villa answers to French succession and gift duty as a French-situs asset whoever the deceased was and wherever the heirs live; shares of an unlisted company whose assets are principally French real estate are deemed French assets to the same effect. Where the deceased was French-domiciled, French duty reaches the worldwide estate; and where an heir has been French-domiciled for six of the ten years preceding the transmission, the same worldwide reach applies through the beneficiary — a clock worth watching in families whose children study or settle in France. In those worldwide cases the unilateral credit of article 784 A sets foreign duty paid on non-French assets against the French charge; for the villa itself there is nothing to credit and nothing to negotiate — French duty is simply due. Whether Brazil's state-level ITCMD also reaches the transmission is a question for Brazilian counsel, and with no treaty machinery to coordinate the two charges, the sequencing belongs in the estate plan rather than in the probate.

Where French duty applies, the scale is that of CGI 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. Siblings are taxed at 35% and 45%, and unrelated takers at 60%.

Forced heirship on both sides — the pair's quiet alignment

Before either state levies duty, the civil law determines who inherits, and here the relationship is more comfortable than most. French law reserves a fixed share of the estate for the children — half with one child, two thirds with two, three quarters with three or more (Code civil, articles 912 and 913) — and reduces gifts that encroach on it. Brazilian law is reserved in the same spirit: the legítima assigns half of the estate to the necessary heirs, a statement this brief makes at orientation level for the family's Brazilian counsel to refine. Under EU Regulation 650/2012, which France applies to all successions whatever the nationality involved, a Brazilian national habitually resident in France may elect Brazilian law for the succession as a whole; yet because both systems reserve, the election reorganises the computation rather than the principle, and it moves none of the tax allocation described above. France's compensatory mechanism — article 913, third paragraph, allowing children to recover their reserved share from French-situs assets — is triggered only where the applicable foreign law permits no protective reserve at all, which a Brazilian election does not present. The choice of law, the matrimonial regime carried into the purchase, and the calendar of any gifts remain 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. For a Brazilian family the setting is entirely domestic: with no gift convention, France taxes the French-situs gift under its own rules, and the Brazilian consequences of the same act follow Brazilian law alone — two analyses to align, with counsel on each side, before the deed rather than after.

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, 968, 973–974, 990 D–E, 990 J, 1649 AB; Code civil arts. 912, 913, 920; EU Reg. 650/2012; both-registry succession-convention check July 2026

IISelling as a Brazilian resident

France taxes first, and on this point the 1971 convention is explicit. Article 13 §1 provides that gains from the alienation of immovable property, or of shares or comparable rights in a company whose assets are principally immovable property, are taxable in the state where the property is situated — wording the Conseil d'État has read twice in recent years, confirming both the situs rule and the fact that it does not exclude the residence state from also taxing with a credit (11 December 2020, n° 440307; 14 April 2022, n° 455943). For a Brazilian-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 third-country mechanics complete the French side. The social levies apply until the thirtieth year of ownership, and the reduced 7.5% solidarity-levy lane is confined to sellers within the European social-security coordination who are not charged to a French scheme (CSS article L. 136-7; CGI article 235 ter); a Brazilian-affiliated seller stands outside that coordination and bears the contributions at their full combined rate — 17.2% as the schedules now stand. And a seller resident outside the European Union and the European Economic Area must in principle appoint an accredited fiscal representative in France for the filing; the appointment is dispensed with automatically where the price does not exceed €150,000 per seller, or where the duration allowances have extinguished both tax and levies.

Brazil then answers under its own law, and the convention organises rather than prevents that answer: under article 22 §1, where a Brazilian resident's income is taxed in France in accordance with the convention, Brazil grants a credit equivalent to the French tax, within the limit of its own tax on that income. Since 17 July 2024 the administration's commentary places the CSG, the CRDS and the prélèvement de solidarité expressly within the convention's scope — a point of real value at these price levels, since the levies France collects on a gain are treaty-covered taxes rather than charges outside the system; how Brazil returns the credit is a question for Brazilian counsel. Whether to sell the villa or the shares of a company holding it changes the buyer pool and the deed, but not the French allocation: article 13 reaches property-rich shares in the same sentence as the property itself.

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. 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 · 1971 convention arts. 13, 22; CE n° 440307 (11 Dec 2020), n° 455943 (14 Apr 2022), n° 284930 (26 Jul 2006); CGI arts. 150 UB, 150 VC, 167 bis, 200 B, 235 ter, 244 bis A, 1609 nonies G; CSS art. L. 136-7; BOI-RFPI-PVINR-30-20

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; where residence is claimed by both states, the cascade of article 4 §2 of the convention decides, beginning with the permanent home — and the Conseil d'État reads any dwelling durably at a person's disposal as one. 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. The convention supports the allocation: article 6 attributes the taxation of income from immovable property to the state where the property stands, whatever the mode of exploitation, letting included. The social levies apply in addition, at the full rate for owners affiliated outside the European coordination — the reduced solidarity-levy lane does not extend to Brazilian affiliation. On the Brazilian side the ordinary credit machinery of article 22 §1 answers: Brazil taxes under its own law and credits the French tax within the limit of its own — with the levies themselves inside the treaty's scope since the commentary of July 2024, a mechanical point the family's Brazilian advisers will know to use.

Law reviewed as at 19 July 2026 — verified against Légifrance and BOFiP through the Chiron Legal Corpus · CGI arts. 4 B, 197 A, 235 ter; 1971 convention arts. 4 §2, 6, 22 §1

4What changed

Edition 1 — baseline (July 2026). The instrument as it stands: the convention of 10 September 1971 with its protocol, in force since 10 May 1972, unamended — verified in July 2026 against both registries, the French administration's official presentation and Brazil's federal register (Decreto n° 70.506 of 1972), with no avenant and no modification by the multilateral instrument. The file's lead movement is doctrinal: on 17 July 2024 the administration recast its commentary on the convention (BOI-INT-CVB-BRA), stating expressly that the identical-or-analogous clause of article 2 covers the CSG, the CRDS and the prélèvement de solidarité, and consolidating the Conseil d'État's condition that the forfaitary credits of article 22 §2 d apply only where the income has effectively borne Brazilian tax (26 July 2006, n° 284930). Who is affected: Brazilian residents with French income and gains, whose French social levies now sit unambiguously within the treaty's scope, and French residents with Brazilian income, whose credits follow the effective-taxation condition. Watch items for edition 2: any announcement of a renegotiation of the 1971 text; annual Loi de finances movements on the IFI and transfer duties; communal surtaxe votes on the Riviera arc; and Brazilian legislation on the taxation of estates and gifts. 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 a Brazilian resident pay French wealth tax on a Riviera villa?

Yes, once French real-estate assets exceed €1.3M net, whether held directly or through the property fraction of company shares (CGI art. 964). The France–Brazil convention of 10 September 1971 covers income taxes only and is silent on wealth tax, so the IFI applies by French domestic law with no treaty relief to invoke.

Does the 1971 treaty give any relief from the IFI?

No. Article 2 lists, for France, the income tax and the corporation tax; the identical-or-analogous extension reaches income-type charges such as the CSG and the CRDS, never a wealth tax. By contrast, a German national moving to France holds a five-year treaty shield for non-French assets under the 1959 France–Germany convention; the Brazilian buyer's only window is the domestic rule of article 964-1°, five years on French assets only after a move, which France may amend at any time.

Who taxes the gain when a Brazilian resident sells a French villa?

France, as the state where the property stands — article 13 of the convention covers gains on French immovables and on shares of property-rich companies alike, as the Conseil d'État confirmed in 2020 and 2022. The charge runs under CGI article 244 bis A with the duration allowances, the income-tax component extinguishing after 22 years; Brazil may also tax under its own law and credits the French tax (art. 22 §1).

Is there a France–Brazil succession convention?

No — the 1971 income convention is the only instrument between the two states. French succession and gift duty therefore applies on its own territoriality (CGI art. 750 ter): the villa and property-rich shares are always French assets, the worldwide estate is reached where the deceased was French-domiciled or an heir has been French-resident six of the last ten years, and the unilateral credit of article 784 A covers only foreign duty on non-French assets.

Can a Brazilian family choose Brazilian law for a French succession?

Under EU Regulation 650/2012 a Brazilian national habitually resident in France may elect the law of that nationality for the succession as a whole. The election changes less than a common-law client would expect: French law reserves half to three quarters of the estate for children (Code civil, arts. 912–913), Brazilian law reserves half through the legítima, and the tax allocation is unaffected either way.

Is rental income from a French villa taxed if the owner lives in Brazil?

Yes, by France first: article 6 of the convention attributes income from immovable property to the state where it stands, and France applies the minimum-rate regime of CGI article 197 A — no less than 20% and 30% — with social levies in addition. Brazil taxes under its own law and credits the French tax within the limit of its own (art. 22 §1).

Do Brazilian residents pay the full French social levies?

Yes. The reduced 7.5% solidarity-levy lane is confined to persons within the European social-security coordination who are not charged to a French scheme (CSS art. L. 136-7; CGI art. 235 ter); a Brazilian-affiliated owner bears the CSG and the CRDS in addition — 17.2% in aggregate as the schedules now stand. Since July 2024 the administration treats those levies as taxes within the convention's scope, which matters for the Brazilian credit.

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.

Does a bank loan reduce French wealth tax on a Riviera villa?

Yes. Acquisition debt owed to a bank is deductible from the IFI base under CGI article 974, and pledged financial assets remain outside the tax altogether. The deduction is bounded: interest-only loans are deemed to amortise each year, and where property exceeds €5M and debt exceeds 60% of its value, the excess counts only as to half unless a mainly non-tax purpose is shown. For a Brazilian owner the deduction carries particular weight, no treaty window ever suspending the tax.

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 U, 150 UB, 150 VC, 167 bis, 197 A, 200 B, 235 ter, 244 bis A, 669, 750 ter, 751, 777, 779, 784 A, 964–965, 968, 973–974, 977, 990 D–E, 990 J, 1609 nonies G, 1649 AB; CSS art. L. 136-7; Code civil arts. 912, 913, 920 — consolidated texts), the convention of 10 September 1971 with its protocol in the official French presentation — the authentic texts being French and Portuguese, each equally authoritative — the administration's commentary in its current vintage of 17 July 2024 (BOI-INT-CVB-BRA) together with the non-resident capital-gains series (BOI-RFPI-PVINR), and the Conseil d'État's decisions of 26 July 2006 (n° 284930), 16 July 2020 (n° 436570), 11 December 2020 (n° 440307) and 14 April 2022 (n° 455943). The absence of a France–Brazil succession convention was verified in July 2026 against both registries — the French administration's convention register and Brazil's federal register (Decreto n° 70.506 of 1972). Brazilian domestic law — the legítima, the ITCMD, the absence of a wealth tax in force — is stated at orientation level from secondary sources and is never load-bearing for a legal claim; a Portuguese-language edition of this brief is planned and will quote the Portuguese authentic text. 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 social-levy component rates behind the current 17.2% aggregate, the Brazilian return of the article 22 credit, 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–Belgium — the convention pair

France–Nordics — the convention pair

Edição em português