France–Ireland — Tax Treaty

1One convention from 1968 — and the treaty that was never signed

One instrument does the treaty work of this relationship, and it is old. The convention of 21 March 1968, signed at Paris, was ratified by law 69-971 of 24 October 1969, entered into force on 15 June 1971 and was published by decree 71-733. Its French and English texts are equally authoritative, and our agency holds both, with the synthesised edition Irish Revenue publishes. Article 1 §3 lists what it covers: on the French side the personal income tax, the complementary tax and the corporation tax; on the Irish side income tax, sur-tax and corporation profits tax. Nothing in the text reaches fortune, successions or gifts.

It has no protocol. The text runs to article 27 and then straight to the signatures — checked end to end at this edition against the administration's consolidation and the Irish Revenue text.

Residence here is defined by exclusion, and there is no tie-breaker

This is the provision most likely to surprise. Modern treaties settle a person claimed by both states with a cascade — permanent home, centre of vital interests, habitual abode, nationality, then agreement between the administrations. THIS CONVENTION HAS NONE OF THAT. Article 2 §7 defines a resident of Ireland as a person who is resident in Ireland for Irish tax AND NOT resident in France for French tax, and a resident of France as the mirror of it. Residence is settled by mutual exclusion, so a person whom both domestic laws treat as resident is a resident of NEITHER state for the purposes of this convention — and falls outside its protection rather than being assigned to one side of it. There is no step to argue and no administration to ask. On a dual-base year the question is therefore answered in the two domestic laws first, by counsel on both sides, and the convention has nothing to add until one of them lets go. The contrast in this collection is the France–Canada text, whose article 4 carries the full cascade including the agreement step.

Article 3 is two articles in one, and that trips readers

A 1968 convention has no separate gains article. Article 3 §1 lets the country where the property stands tax income from it; §2 defines immovable property by the law of that country, expressly including the usufruct; and §3 applies the rule to income from direct use or renting out and, in the same sentence, "to profits from the alienation of immovable property". So both the rent and the sale profit are answered in one place. A reader who comes to this convention looking for the article 6 and article 13 of a modern treaty will find neither, and the answer is not missing — it is earlier in the text.

What the multilateral instrument added, and what it did not

The BEPS multilateral instrument was signed on 7 June 2017, ratified by law 2018-604, and took effect for France on 1 January 2019 and for Ireland on 1 May 2019 — for withholding taxes from 1 January 2020 and, for other taxes, for periods beginning six months after 1 May 2019. It added the principal-purpose test, under which a treaty advantage can be refused where obtaining it was a principal object of an arrangement, and brought in arbitration. And through article 9 §4 it inserted the property-rich gains clause, superseding the convention: gains on shares or comparable interests — including interests in a partnership or a trust — are taxable in the country where the property stands if, AT ANY TIME in the 365 days before the sale, they drew more than half their value directly or indirectly from property there. What it did not touch is article 21, which keeps its 1968 shape.

Article 21 removes the double charge the old way

Most conventions in this collection have France give a credit. This one does not. Under article 21 A §1, income that the convention makes taxable in Ireland is EXEMPT from the French taxes named in article 1 — and §4 keeps France's right to compute its tax on the income it does tax at the rate corresponding to the taxpayer's whole income. On the Irish side, article 21 B works by credit: French tax on French-source income counts against the Irish tax on the same income, subject to Irish credit law. Knowing which way round it runs matters before a return is filed on either side.

The treaty that was never signed

There is no succession or gift convention between France and Ireland, and none is under negotiation. That is the inverse of two relationships in this collection: Monaco has one from 1950 and the United Kingdom one from 1963, and in both a treaty settles which state taxes what before any duty is computed. Here nothing does. France charges duty because the property stands in France. Ireland's capital acquisitions tax attaches to where the person receiving and the person giving live rather than to where the asset is (orientation). The two can therefore meet on the same transmission, and only each state's own unilateral relief answers the overlap. Section 6 sets out what follows; it is the reason the acquisition-day choices of section 3 carry more weight on this pair than on a treaty pair.

One question this brief leaves open, and says so

Irish capital gains tax was introduced in 1975, seven years after the convention was signed. Article 1 §4 extends the convention to taxes of the same or a substantially similar kind coming in later. Whether that catches the Irish capital gains tax is a real question, and this brief does not answer it in either direction: where the Irish charge is load-bearing on a file, it is settled with counsel in Dublin, not assumed from a general text.

Sources considered: 1968 convention (official consolidation with the multilateral instrument, and the Irish Revenue synthesised text) arts. 1, 3, 21, 25–27; MLI art. 9 §4; BOI-INT-CVB-IRL-10 and -20 — texts read. Scope note: Irish domestic law is stated at orientation level only and never carries a conclusion.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1968 convention arts. 1, 3, 21, 26–27; MLI art. 9 §4; BOI-INT-CVB-IRL — 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 annual wealth tax, which Ireland does not answer

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°). The 1968 convention covers income alone, so no article limits the charge, softens it or promises a credit. Ireland levies no wealth tax, so the French charge arrives alone: a carrying cost that is never doubled but never relieved either. The value declared each year is the owner's own detailed estimate of real market value (CGI article 973 I), which is why a dated written valuation resting on comparable sales is worth holding.

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. An entity established in the EU is exempt on filing, which an Irish company is — so this is a declaration to make rather than a cost to carry, and it 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: CGI arts. 964, 965, 973 I, 974, 990 D–990 E; the notarial scale; DVF (the French government's transaction register). 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 · 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

On this pair the ownership question carries more weight than on a treaty pair, because no succession convention will correct the choice later. What follows is what each route does at purchase, each year, on a sale and at death.

Direct ownership

Simplicity, and France taxes it at every stage. On a sale, article 3 §3 sends the profit to France as the country where the property stands, and Ireland relieves by credit under article 21 B. At death French duty attaches to the property — and the Irish charge, if the people involved bring it, arrives beside it with no treaty to divide them.

A French property company (SCI)

The wealth tax reaches the property fraction of the shares in any event (article 965, 2°). 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. So the company does not put the property outside French duty, and it does not put the transmission outside the Irish charge either, because that charge follows the people.

The clause that looks back a year

Selling the company rather than the property does not move the gain. The multilateral instrument inserted the property-rich clause into this convention through its article 9 §4: gains on shares or comparable interests — interests in a partnership or a trust included by name — are taxable where the property stands if, at any time during the 365 days before the sale, they drew more than half their value directly or indirectly from property there. The look-back is the point. A company restructured shortly before a sale is still caught if the property share was above half at any moment in that year, and the principal-purpose test sits over any arrangement whose main object was the treaty advantage.

An Irish or other EU company

The 3% annual charge of articles 990 D to 990 E applies with an exemption on filing for EU-established entities. French corporation tax reaches French property income, and the shares stay within the property-rich clause on a sale. The company adds an annual filing discipline; it removes no French charge.

A trust

Irish families use trusts, and French law meets them on its own terms without waiting for the convention. The trustee reports to the French administration 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 dedicated levy of article 990 J, at the top wealth-tax rate, answers a failure to declare. The property-rich clause names trust interests expressly, so a sale of them is taxed by France.

Splitting ownership between generations

Giving the bare ownership while keeping the use for life is a French civil mechanism, and the values are fixed by statute rather than negotiated: CGI article 669 sets the split by the giver's age, and article 751 answers the case where the two halves are held within one family. It is a gift, so France taxes it as one — and on this pair the Irish side of that gift is a separate question to put to counsel in Dublin at the same time, not afterwards.

Sources considered: 1968 convention art. 3 §3; MLI art. 9 §4; 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 Irish treatment of any structure is a question for counsel in Ireland.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1968 convention art. 3; MLI art. 9 §4; CGI arts. 750 ter, 965, 990 D–E, 990 J, 1649 AB, 669, 751

4What you pay when you sell — and the two costs an EU seller does not carry

France taxes the profit because the property stands in France (article 3 §3), and CGI article 244 bis A charges it: 19% income tax, plus the social levies, 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. Works and acquisition costs enter the calculation on evidence, which is the practical argument for keeping invoices from the first year of ownership.

The reduced 7.5% levy applies here, and that is unusual in this collection

The solidarity levy falls to 7.5% instead of the full 17.2% for persons affiliated to a social-security scheme within the European coordination regulation. Irish affiliation is inside it. Against the third-country pairs of this collection — where the courts have confirmed the full rate applies — that is worth nearly ten points of the gain. It is a fact about the seller's affiliation, not about their nationality or the location of the property, so it is evidenced rather than assumed.

No accredited representative

Because Ireland is an EU member state, the accredited tax representative required of third-country sellers by CGI article 244 bis A, IV is not required here. That removes a cost and a step from the sale which most pairs in this collection carry.

Ireland then relieves by credit

Article 21 B gives the Irish side the credit method: French tax on French-source income counts against the Irish tax on the same income, subject to Irish law on credits. Whether the Irish capital gains tax is within the convention at all is the open question of § 1, and it is the reason the Irish computation belongs with advisers in Dublin rather than in a French brief.

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. It is named here because it is the charge most often confused with the property tax on a move.

Sources considered: 1968 convention arts. 3 §3, 21 B; CGI arts. 244 bis A (incl. IV), 150 VC, 200 B, 1609 nonies G, 167 bis; BOI-RFPI-PVINR-20-20 on the solidarity levy — texts read. Scope note: the Irish computation is orientation only.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · CGI arts. 244 bis A, 150 VC, 200 B, 1609 nonies G, 167 bis; BOI-RFPI-PVINR-20-20

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

Article 3 §§1 and 3 assign the income to France as the country where the property stands, whatever the form of exploitation — the article names direct use, renting out and any other form. 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), with the social levies at the reduced 7.5% solidarity rate for an Irish-affiliated owner.

Ireland then answers under article 21 B by credit, subject to its own credit law, and the remittance basis Ireland retains for non-Irish-domiciled residents can bear on when foreign income is charged there at all (orientation). That is a point of difference worth knowing: the United Kingdom abolished its equivalent in 2025 and Ireland did not. The Irish reading belongs with the family's advisers in Dublin.

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: 1968 convention arts. 3 §§1 and 3, 21; CGI art. 197 A; BOI-RFPI-PVINR-20-20; BOI-INT-CVB-IRL-10 — texts read. Scope note: the Irish remittance basis and communal registration rules are stated at orientation level.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1968 convention arts. 3, 21; CGI art. 197 A

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

This is the section the pair turns on. No succession or gift convention exists between France and Ireland, so nothing divides the two charges and nothing promises relief. Each side applies its own law to the same transmission.

The French charge follows the property

French duty attaches to the property because it stands in France, whatever the owner's domicile, for estates and for lifetime gifts alike, 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. 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 instead.

The Irish charge follows the people

Ireland's capital acquisitions tax attaches to the residence of the person receiving and of the person giving rather than to where the asset stands (orientation). That is the whole difference. A French property can be inside the Irish charge because of who inherits it, without anything about the property changing — and a family that moves, or a child who becomes Irish-resident, changes the exposure while the property sits where it always was. Since no convention divides the two, the same transmission can meet both, and the only answer is each country's own unilateral relief, read together by counsel on both sides. The French credit of CGI article 784 A does not fill the gap: it operates only where France is taxing the worldwide estate, and only against foreign duty on assets outside France, so it never relieves the French property.

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), and it is not displaced by a will made under a law that allows free disposal. 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 condition, that the deceased or a child is a national of, or resident in, an EU member state, being met on this pair rather than argued.

The gift, which is the same exposure earlier

A gift of the property, or of its bare ownership, bears French gift duty because the property is in France, on the same scales, with the splitting values of article 669 fixed by the giver's age. No convention covers gifts either, so the Irish charge on the person receiving is a separate question asked at the same time. On this pair the fifteen-year French calendar and the Irish thresholds are planned together or not usefully at all.

Sources considered: CGI arts. 750 ter, 777, 779, 784 A, 669, 751; Code civil arts. 912–913 (incl. 913, al. 3); EU Regulation 650/2012; the administration's treaty list — texts read. Scope note: Irish capital acquisitions tax is stated at orientation level and is a question for counsel in Ireland; civil law runs before tax law in this section.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · CGI arts. 750 ter, 777, 779, 784 A; Code civil arts. 912–913; EU Reg. 650/2012

7The eight questions Irish owners ask most

Is there a succession treaty between France and Ireland?

No, and that is this pair's defining fact. France charges duty because the property stands here; Ireland can charge the same transmission because of where the people involved live. Nothing divides them, and only each country's own unilateral relief answers the overlap.

Does an Irish resident pay French wealth tax on a Riviera property?

Yes — the IFI applies once French real-estate assets pass €1.3M, held directly or through the property fraction of company shares (CGI article 964). The 1968 convention covers income alone, so no treaty article limits or softens it; Ireland levies no wealth tax, so the charge arrives alone and is never doubled.

Do I need a tax representative to sell?

No. Ireland is in the EU, so the requirement that applies to third-country sellers under CGI article 244 bis A, IV does not apply to you.

Which social levy rate applies to my sale?

7.5%, not 17.2%, where you are affiliated to a social-security scheme within the European coordination regulation — which Irish affiliation is. It is a fact to evidence about the seller, not an assumption from nationality.

Where is the gains article in this convention?

There isn't one. This is a 1968 text: article 3 §3 covers both income from the property and the profit on selling it. The property-rich share clause came later, through article 9 §4 of the multilateral instrument.

Does selling the company instead of the property change who taxes it?

No, and the clause looks back a year: if at any time in the 365 days before the sale the shares drew more than half their value from French property, France taxes the gain. Restructuring shortly before a sale does not escape it.

Both Revenue and the French administration treat me as resident — who wins?

Neither, and that is the unusual answer. Article 2 §7 makes you a resident of Ireland only if you are NOT resident in France, and the mirror of that. There is no tie-breaker cascade, so being resident under both domestic laws puts you outside the convention rather than on one side of it. The two domestic laws are settled first, with counsel on both sides.

Is Irish capital gains tax covered by the convention?

Not settled, and this brief will not assert it either way. Irish capital gains tax arrived in 1975, seven years after signature; whether article 1 §4 catches it as a tax of a similar kind is a question for counsel where the Irish charge carries weight on a file.

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

Yes, in France, whatever the form of exploitation (article 3). The progressive scale applies with a 20% minimum rate unless a lower worldwide rate is demonstrated (article 197 A), with the social levies at the reduced solidarity rate. Ireland then relieves by credit under article 21 B.

Sources considered: 1968 convention arts. 1, 3, 21; MLI art. 9 §4; 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 was read end to end at this edition — both authoritative versions, French and English, plus the Irish Revenue synthesised text — and it carries no protocol.

What the re-reading changed

Two things, and both are about where a reader looks. Article 3 does the work that a modern treaty splits between an income article and a gains article, so this brief cites article 3 §3 for the sale rather than an article 13 that does not exist here. And the property-rich clause is not in the convention at all: it arrives through article 9 §4 of the multilateral instrument, with a 365-day look-back — the opposite of the France–Singapore position in this collection, where article 13 was left untouched and carries no look-back at all. Two neighbouring briefs, two opposite answers, and the difference is which articles each state chose to let the multilateral instrument rewrite.

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 near-absence of litigation is itself the observation, and it is not reassurance: the exposure on this pair sits at death, where no treaty exists to be litigated over.

The market figures

The sales figures come from DVF, the French government's register of property transactions, covering twelve years. The observatory of ownership our agency maintains records no Irish-resident position on the canvassed pockets to date: an honest absence rather than a finding, and the column opens with the first recorded position.

What this brief is not

It states the general position on the French side and reads the Irish 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 Ireland — which on this pair matters more than on most, because the death-duty question has no treaty answer. Write to us directly for a file-specific reading.

Sources considered: 1968 convention (official consolidation with the multilateral instrument, and the Irish Revenue synthesised text); MLI art. 9 §4; BOI-INT-CVB-IRL-10 and -20; BOI-RFPI-PVINR-20-20; the CGI and Code civil articles cited in each section; DVF. Scope note: where the administration's commentary predates the multilateral instrument, this brief follows the treaty texts.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1968 convention + MLI art. 9 §4 — texts read; DVF

Further intelligence

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

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

France–UK — the convention pair

France–Germany — the convention pair