France–Canada — Tax Treaty

1One convention, amended three times — and the widest coverage in this collection

One instrument governs this relationship and it does all four jobs. The convention of 2 May 1975, signed at Paris, was approved by law 76-532, entered into force on 29 July 1976 and was published by decree 76-917. Its French and English texts are equally authoritative — the closing formula says so in terms — and our agency holds both. It has been amended three times: at Ottawa on 16 January 1987, at Ottawa on 30 November 1995, and at Paris on 2 February 2010.

The administration's treaty list marks the relationship for income tax, fortune, successions AND gifts. Every one of those flows from this single text through article 2 §4, which the 1995 amendment added. There is no second treaty and no succession convention beside this one — the coverage is simply wider than most. Set against the France–Ireland relationship in this collection, where nothing covers death at all, it is the opposite end of the same shelf.

The 1995 amendment is the one that matters

Before 30 November 1995 nothing coordinated the two countries at death. That amendment did three things at once. Its article 2 §4 extended the convention to succession and gift duty. Its article 16 created the whole of the death-credit structure now in article 23. And its article 15 added the five-year fortune window of article 22 §7 for a Canadian national moving to France. A brief that reads this convention without noticing which parts arrived in 1995 will misdate the protection.

Who counts as a resident

Article 4, as amended in 1995, runs the full cascade where both states claim a person: permanent home, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality, then agreement between the two administrations. A person a state taxes only on income sourced there is not a resident of it (article 4 §1 a). For a person other than an individual claimed by both, the administrations try to agree, and failing agreement the person is a resident of neither for the purposes of the convention's benefits. French domestic law asks its own prior question through CGI article 4 B.

The convention does not reach Québec

Article 2 §3 a covers the taxes levied by the Government of Canada under the federal income tax act. Provincial taxes sit outside the instrument. The administration's own commentary says as much and points to a separate agreement — the fiscal understanding signed between France and Québec on 1 September 1987 — for Québec-specific provisions. For a Québec-resident family this is not a detail: the federal analysis in this brief holds, and the Québec layer is answered under the other instrument, with counsel.

Sources considered: 1975 convention (official consolidation with the 1987, 1995 and 2010 amendments) arts. 2, 4; BOI-ANNX-000306 (29 April 2026), Canada row read verbatim; BOI-INT-CVB-CAN chapeau — texts read. Scope note: Canadian domestic law and the Québec understanding are stated at orientation level only and never carry a conclusion.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1975 convention arts. 2, 4; BOI-ANNX-000306 (29 April 2026); BOI-INT-CVB-CAN — texts read

2What you pay to buy a property in France, and what it costs you every year

Buying is priced by French law and takes no notice of where the buyer lives. On the Cannes median of €4.9M, the transfer duties at 5.81% come to €284,526 and the notaire's scaled fee to roughly €61,250 — about €345,776 before any survey, agency or financing cost. Those duties are the largest single line of the purchase, and they are the reason the deed structure is settled before signature rather than after.

The wealth tax, and a treaty that confirms it rather than staying silent

Above €1,300,000 of taxable French real-estate assets, CGI article 964 institutes the annual wealth tax; for a person not domiciled in France the base takes in property located in France and the fraction of any company's shares that stands for such property (article 965, 2°). On most relationships in this collection that charge rests on French domestic law alone. Here the treaty speaks: article 22 §1 makes French immovable fortune taxable in France, §2 follows the property-rich shares, §3 sends a substantial holding — 25% or more of the profits — to the company's state, and §6 leaves all other fortune taxable only where the owner lives. Canada levies no annual wealth tax, so the French charge is confirmed by the treaty rather than doubled by it. The convention names the older French wealth tax and reaches the current one through the analogous-taxes clause of article 2 §5.

The five-year window for a Canadian moving to France

Article 22 §7, added in 1995, keeps assets outside France out of the French wealth base for the five years following the move, for a Canadian national who is not also a French national — and it renews after at least three years of non-residence. It is one of the few genuine advantages in this collection that is written into a treaty rather than into French domestic law, and both of its conditions are facts to evidence before the move rather than after.

Debt, and what it does to the base

Acquisition debt owed to a bank is deductible from the wealth base under CGI article 974, while financial assets sit outside that base altogether. Three limits apply. A loan repaying capital only at term is treated as if it were being repaid gradually, the deduction declining over the loan's life — by one twentieth a year where no term is fixed. Where taxable property exceeds €5M and the debt exceeds 60% of that value, the excess counts only for half. And debt owed to the owner's own company or family is admitted only on proof that the loan is genuine and normal.

The local charges, and the 3% tax

The annual local property tax (taxe foncière) follows the deed at communal rates; a surcharge can apply to furnished second homes in tension zones. Separately, CGI articles 990 D to 990 E charge 3% of market value each year on entities holding French property, with exemption routes that are a filing obligation rather than a favour: an entity that discloses its holders, or undertakes to on request, is outside the charge — and the exemption is lost by a missed filing rather than by any change in the facts.

Our agency prepares a free valuation for owners at valuation.elenaagueeva.com. An agent contacts you within 48 hours to arrange a visit.

It rests on the same official records a French property valuer (expert immobilier) works from: the government's register of recorded sale prices, the cadastre, and the planning permits granted on the parcel. The agent then visits to appraise the view, the garden, and the quality of the construction and the finishes. The valuation report (avis de valeur) is produced within 48 hours of the visit.

The same figure carries your French filings. Wealth tax, the 3% company tax and gift duty are all declared at the property's market value. The law takes that value from your own detailed estimate (articles 761 and 973 of the tax code), and asks no particular valuer to produce it. A court-appointed expert (expert judiciaire) belongs to litigation, not to a declaration. If the administration challenges your figure, a dated, written valuation resting on comparable sales is what supports it.

The first valuation of a property is free for its owner or seller. A repeat valuation of the same property, or one commissioned by a family office, a bank or another adviser for a client, is a billable engagement — ask us for terms.

Sources considered: 1975 convention arts. 2 §§3 and 5, 22 §§1–3, 6–7; CGI arts. 964, 965, 973 I, 974, 990 D–990 E; the notarial scale; DVF (the French government's transaction register) — texts read. Scope note: the figures are the statutory scales applied to a median, not a quotation for a particular deed.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1975 convention art. 22; CGI arts. 964, 965, 973 I, 974, 990 D–990 E — texts read; DVF medians

3Five ways to own a French property, and what follows from each

French law prices each route on its own terms. What follows is what each does at purchase, each year, on a sale and at death — and on this pair the gift column is the one that repays attention.

Direct ownership

Simplicity, and France taxes it at every stage. On a sale France taxes as the country where the property stands (article 13 §1) and Canada credits the French tax (article 23 §1 a). At death French succession duty applies and the Canadian charge on the gain applies too — and article 23 §1 c credits the French duty against it.

A French property company (SCI)

The wealth tax reaches the property fraction of the shares in any event (article 965, 2°), and article 22 §2 confirms it at treaty level. On a sale of the shares the property-rich test applies with a 365-day look-back, so France taxes the gain and the shares stay French for the credit as well — no method switch follows. At death, CGI article 750 ter, 2° counts the holding as if it were held directly where the deceased, with spouse, ascendants, descendants or siblings, holds more than half the interests.

The gift that costs more than the inheritance

This is the structural point of the pair, and it is not intuitive. Article 2 §4 extends the convention to gift duty, but only for articles 4, 23, 25 and 26 — and every paragraph of article 23 speaks of the deceased and of death. No paragraph addresses a lifetime gift. So a gift of the property can bear French gift duty AND a Canadian charge on the same transfer, with nothing in the treaty to credit one against the other, while the identical transfer on death is bridged in both directions. Whether a particular gift triggers a Canadian charge is a question of Canadian law for counsel there; the point this brief makes is that if it does, the treaty will not answer it. Any plan built on giving the property away during life is checked against this before it is executed, not after.

A Canadian or other foreign company

The 3% annual charge of articles 990 D to 990 E applies, with the disclosure route out. French corporation tax reaches French property income, and the shares remain within the property-rich test on a sale. Article 22 §3 sends a substantial holding — 25% or more of the profits — to the company's state for fortune purposes, which is one of the few places the structure changes the treaty answer rather than just the paperwork.

A trust, and splitting ownership between generations

French law meets trusts on its own terms without waiting for the convention: the trustee reports under CGI article 1649 AB, assets within scope enter the settlor's taxable estate or that of a beneficiary treated as the settlor, and the levy of article 990 J answers a failure to declare. Giving the bare ownership while keeping the use for life is a French civil mechanism whose values are fixed by statute — CGI article 669 by the giver's age, article 751 for the case where both halves are held in one family. It is a gift, so the uncoordinated gift position above applies to it in full.

Sources considered: 1975 convention arts. 2 §4, 13 §1, 22 §§2–3, 23; CGI arts. 750 ter, 965, 990 D–990 E, 990 J, 1649 AB, 669, 751 — texts read. Scope note: structures are presented for analysis, never as recommendations; the Canadian treatment of any structure or gift is a question for counsel in Canada.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1975 convention arts. 2 §4, 13, 22, 23; CGI arts. 750 ter, 965, 990 D–E, 990 J, 1649 AB, 669, 751

4What you pay when you sell — and the representative the sale needs

France taxes the gain because the property stands in France (article 13 §1), and CGI article 244 bis A charges it: 19% income tax, plus the social levies at the full 17.2%, plus the surcharge of article 1609 nonies G on the larger gains. The taxable gain falls with holding time under CGI article 150 VC — the income-tax component clearing at 22 years, the social-levy component at 30. On a €1M gross gain that means roughly €133,000 of income tax and €42,000 of surcharge at ten years, and nothing on either count at twenty-two, with the levies running to thirty. Works and acquisition costs enter the calculation on evidence, which is the practical argument for keeping invoices from the first year of ownership.

The 7.5% rate does not apply here

The reduced solidarity levy of 7.5% belongs to persons affiliated to a social-security scheme within the European coordination regulation. Canadian affiliation sits outside it, as the Conseil d'État has confirmed for third countries, so the full 17.2% applies. The social-security understanding between France and Canada does not move that analysis. This is the assumption most often carried into a Riviera file from a European precedent, and it is worth nearly ten points of the gain.

The accredited representative

Because Canada sits outside the EU and the EEA, the sale ordinarily requires an accredited tax representative (représentant fiscal) to stand behind the filing and the payment (article 244 bis A, IV). The administration's instruction of 22 January 2025 grants automatic exemptions for sales at €150,000 or less per seller and for sales wholly exempt through the thirty-year clock — thresholds a Riviera sale rarely meets. The deed's notaire ordinarily arranges the appointment.

Canada then relieves by credit

Article 23 §1 a gives the credit, and §1 d supplies the rule that treats the income as arising in France so the credit machinery engages. Shares of a property-rich company stay French on the same basis, so selling the company rather than the property does not switch the method. The Canadian computation belongs with advisers there.

Leaving France after a sale

France's exit tax (CGI article 167 bis) concerns securities and company rights held on departure by a person leaving French residence after at least six of the previous ten years. It does not reach the property itself and is not triggered by selling one. The convention carries its own departure hook at article 13 §5, resting on nationality or on ten years' residence with residence in the previous five — a design Canada's own departure charge shares (orientation). The ordering of a sale and a change of residence is a question for counsel on both sides.

Sources considered: 1975 convention arts. 13 §§1 and 5, 23 §1 a and d; CGI arts. 244 bis A (incl. IV), 150 VC, 200 B, 1609 nonies G, 167 bis; BOI-RFPI-PVINR-20-20 and -30-20; CE n° 400329 and n° 436412 on the social levies — texts read. Scope note: the Canadian computation is orientation only.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · CGI arts. 244 bis A, 150 VC, 200 B, 1609 nonies G, 167 bis; CE n° 400329, n° 436412

5Renting before you buy, and renting your property out

A family often rents on the coast for a season before buying, and the two positions are not symmetrical. As a tenant of a furnished seasonal let, you are a customer: the rent carries no French tax consequence for you, the deposit and inventory are governed by the lease, and the tourist tax is collected by the landlord.

As an owner renting the property out

The convention assigns the income to France as the country where the property stands, whatever the form of exploitation. France taxes it under its own rules — the progressive scale with a 20% minimum rate up to the second bracket ceiling and 30% beyond, unless a lower worldwide rate is demonstrated (article 197 A) — and the social levies add their full 17.2%, Canadian affiliation lying outside the European coordination.

Canada then answers as the country of residence and relieves by credit under article 23 §1 a, subject to its own credit law. The Canadian reading belongs with the family's advisers in Toronto, Montréal or Vancouver — and for a Québec-resident family the provincial layer runs on the 1987 France–Québec understanding rather than on this convention.

Furnished renting, and the rules that came with it

Renting furnished is a different French regime from renting unfurnished, with its own thresholds and its own allowances, and short-term seasonal renting on the coast now sits under communal registration and quota rules that vary from one commune to the next. Cannes, Antibes and Saint-Tropez do not answer the same way. The rules bear on the yield rather than on the deed, so they are checked before a purchase made for rental return, not after.

Sources considered: 1975 convention arts. 6, 23 §1; CGI art. 197 A; BOI-RFPI-PVINR-20-20; BOI-INT-CVB-CAN-10 — texts read. Scope note: the Canadian and Québec treatments are stated at orientation level; communal registration rules change by commune and by year.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1975 convention arts. 6, 23; CGI art. 197 A

6What happens to the property when you die, or give it away

This is the section the pair is built around, and the reason is that the two countries do not charge the same KIND of tax at death. France charges succession duty on what passes. Canada charges income tax on a gain, treating a person as having sold everything they owned on the day they died. Two different taxes on one event, and no domestic rule connects them.

Why the French domestic credit cannot help

CGI article 784 A is the credit a reader reaches for, and it does not work here. It relieves only foreign tax that is ITSELF succession duty, and only on assets situated outside France. The Canadian charge is an income tax, and the property is in France, so 784 A fails on both counts. Without a treaty this death would simply be taxed twice.

What article 23 does instead

The 1995 amendment built a bridge in both directions, one credit per class of asset, with ordering rules so that no relief is taken twice. Where a Canadian resident dies, the French succession duty on the French estate — after the §2 c ii credit — is deducted from the tax otherwise due in Canada for the year of death (§1 c): the French duty on the property is set against the Canadian charge on the gain. In the other direction, where France taxes the worldwide estate, it deducts the Canadian tax paid on gains taxable in Canada at death, capped at the French duty on those same assets (§2 c i); and where the deceased was Canada-resident, France deducts the Canadian tax on death-gains taxable only in Canada — the portfolio, not the French property, whose gain is French — under a double cap (§2 c ii). The credits are capped at each country's own charge, so they reduce the overlap rather than erasing it, and the order of the two computations changes the result.

The French charge itself

French duty attaches to the property because it stands in France, whatever the owner's domicile, and it reads through interposed companies — a property held through entities in which the deceased or donor, together with spouse, ascendants, descendants or siblings, holds more than half the interests is taxed as if it were held directly (CGI article 750 ter, 2°). The scale of article 777 runs to 45% in the direct line after the allowance of article 779 — €100,000 per child, renewing every fifteen years — and the surviving spouse is exempt. Where the deceased was French-domiciled, or an heir has been French-resident for six of the ten years before the transmission, French duty reaches the worldwide estate.

The gift, which is where the bridge stops

Article 2 §4 extends the convention to gift duty for articles 4, 23, 25 and 26. But every paragraph of article 23 speaks of the deceased and of death, and none of them addresses a lifetime gift. So the same property, given rather than inherited, can meet French gift duty and a Canadian charge on the transfer with no treaty credit between them. The asymmetry runs the opposite way to intuition: on this pair the lifetime gift is the exposed transfer and the death is the protected one. Whether a particular gift triggers a Canadian charge is for counsel there; that the treaty will not relieve it if it does is settled by the text.

Who inherits, which is a different question

French forced heirship reserves a share of the estate for the children (Code civil articles 912 and 913). Neither the common-law provinces nor Québec reserves a fixed share for children, so the contrast is complete rather than partial. European Regulation 650/2012 lets a person choose the law of their nationality to govern the succession, which changes who inherits and in what shares; it does not move the tax. And the compensatory levy of Code civil article 913, al. 3 can restore a child's reserved share out of assets located in France, its own condition being that the deceased or a child is a national of, or resident in, an EU member state.

Sources considered: 1975 convention arts. 2 §4, 23 §§1 c, 2 c i and ii (all created by article 16 of the 1995 amendment); CGI arts. 750 ter, 777, 779, 784 A, 669, 751; Code civil arts. 912–913 (incl. 913, al. 3); EU Regulation 650/2012 — texts read. Scope note: the Canadian charge at death and on a gift is stated at orientation level and is a question for counsel in Canada; civil law runs before tax law in this section.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1975 convention art. 23 (1995 amendment art. 16); CGI arts. 750 ter, 777, 779, 784 A; Code civil arts. 912–913

7The eight questions Canadian owners ask most

Does a treaty cover succession between France and Canada?

Yes, and unusually it is the same treaty that covers income and fortune. Article 2 §4, added in 1995, extended the 1975 convention to succession and gift duty; there is no separate succession convention. The coverage is the widest in this collection.

Why does my French duty get credited in Canada rather than the other way round?

Because the two charges are different taxes. France charges succession duty on the transfer; Canada charges income tax on a gain, treating you as having sold everything on the day you died. Article 23 §1 c sets the French duty against the Canadian charge for the year of death, and §2 c runs the credit the other way for gains taxable in Canada.

Is a lifetime gift treated the same way?

No, and this is the trap. Every paragraph of article 23 speaks of the deceased. A gift can meet French gift duty and a Canadian charge on the same transfer with no treaty credit between them, while the identical transfer at death is bridged.

Does a Canadian resident pay French wealth tax on a Riviera property?

Yes above €1.3M, and here the treaty confirms it: article 22 §1 assigns French immovable fortune to France. Canada levies no annual wealth tax, so the charge is never doubled — and article 22 §7 keeps non-French assets out of the base for five years after a Canadian national moves to France.

Does this convention cover my Québec taxes?

No. Article 2 §3 a covers federal taxes only. Québec is answered under the separate fiscal understanding signed between France and Québec on 1 September 1987, with counsel.

Which social levy rate applies on my sale?

The full 17.2%. The reduced 7.5% rate belongs to affiliations within the European coordination regulation, and Canadian affiliation is outside it — confirmed by the Conseil d'État for third countries. The France–Canada social-security understanding does not change that.

Do I need a tax representative to sell?

As a rule yes, because Canada is outside the EU and the EEA. Sales at €150,000 or less per seller and sales wholly exempt through the thirty-year clock are dispensed by the instruction of 22 January 2025 — thresholds a Riviera sale rarely meets.

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

Yes, in France, whatever the form of exploitation. The progressive scale applies with a 20% minimum rate unless a lower worldwide rate is demonstrated (article 197 A), and the social levies add 17.2%. Canada then relieves by credit under article 23 §1 a.

Sources considered: 1975 convention arts. 2 §§3–4, 13, 22, 23; CGI arts. 964, 750 ter, 777, 779, 197 A, 244 bis A — texts read. Scope note: these answers condense the sections above and inherit their scope notes.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026

8The court decisions, the sources and the sales behind this brief

Every legal statement in this brief was checked against the text it comes from, in the Chiron Legal Corpus, at the date on each section stamp. The convention and all three amendments were read end to end at this edition, in both authoritative versions.

What the re-reading confirmed, and what it dated

The whole death-credit structure of article 23 was created by article 16 of the 30 November 1995 amendment, and the fortune window of article 22 §7 by its article 15. Dating them matters: a family whose planning predates 1998, when that amendment came into force, was working without any of it. The re-reading also confirmed the boundary that does the most work in § 6 — that CGI article 784 A credits only foreign tax which is itself succession duty, and only on assets outside France, so it cannot reach a Canadian income tax on a French property.

What the courts have decided

No reported decision of the Conseil d'État concerns a property, treaty residence or an estate on this relationship. The decisions this brief does rely on are about the social levies rather than the convention: CE, 5 March 2018, n° 400329 and CE, 31 March 2021, n° 436412, which confirm that a third-country affiliation bears the full rate and that the free movement of capital does not open an escape from it.

The market figures

The sales figures come from DVF, the French government's register of property transactions, covering twelve years. In the ownership observatory our agency maintains, foreign-held positions are about 29% of those studied and Canadian-held positions about 4% of the foreign-held ones — reported as proportions rather than counts, because the Canadian sample is thin enough that a count would suggest more precision than the data carries.

What this brief is not

It states the general position on the French side and reads the Canadian side at orientation level only. It is not advice on a particular file, and it does not replace a notaire, a French tax counsel or an adviser in Canada — and for a Québec family, one who works under the 1987 France–Québec understanding. Write to us directly for a file-specific reading.

Sources considered: 1975 convention and the 1987, 1995 and 2010 amendments (official consolidation, both authoritative texts); BOI-ANNX-000306 (29 April 2026); BOI-INT-CVB-CAN chapeau, -10 and -20; BOI-RFPI-PVINR-20-20 and -30-20; CE n° 400329, n° 436412 — decision texts read; the CGI and Code civil articles cited in each section; DVF. Scope note: the administration's commentary predates both the multilateral instrument and the current French wealth tax, so this brief follows the treaty texts.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1975 convention + 1987/1995/2010 amendments; CE n° 400329, n° 436412 — decision texts read; DVF

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