France–Netherlands — Tax Treaty

1The 1973 convention, and what the Netherlands itself charges

The convention of 16 March 1973, signed at Paris and in force since 29 March 1974, governs income and wealth taxes between the two states. It replaced the post-war text of 1949, was amended once — the avenant of 7 April 2004, an aviation carve-out negotiated for the Dutch flag carrier — and carries the BEPS multilateral instrument, in force for France since 1 January 2019 and for the Netherlands since 1 July 2019. That instrument added the principal-purpose test: either state may refuse a treaty advantage where obtaining it was a principal object of the arrangement. The authentic texts are French and Dutch, equally authoritative; this brief quotes the French consolidation.

Article 2 answers the first question a Dutch owner asks. The convention applies to taxes on income and on fortune: the Dutch list of 1973 names the net-wealth tax (vermogensbelasting) alongside the income taxes, and article 2 §4 extends the convention to future taxes of identical or analogous nature. The administration's current table of conventions in force records the relationship as covering both families of taxes — which is why the French wealth tax on the property is a treaty-confirmed charge, examined in § 2.

Article 4 sorts residence. A person taxable in both states is assigned by the familiar cascade — permanent home, centre of vital interests, habitual abode, nationality, mutual agreement. The Conseil d’État confirmed in September 2025, on this convention, that a residence certificate issued by the Dutch administration under article 4 suffices for treaty entitlement, without any further showing that the tax was effectively borne (CE n° 490793).

Three features of Dutch law shape everything that follows, and each is stated here at orientation level — the verified ground of this brief is the French side and the convention, and the Dutch reading belongs with your Dutch advisers. The Netherlands has levied no net wealth tax since 2001: private investment assets are taxed through box 3, a compartment of the income tax that charges a return the law assumes you earned on your net assets, whatever you actually earned. Dutch inheritance and gift duty (erfbelasting, schenkbelasting) follows the residence of the deceased or the donor — and treats a Dutch national as still resident for ten years after emigration. And Dutch succession law gives children a minimum entitlement paid in money (the legitieme portie), not a share of the estate in kind. Sections 2, 3 and 6 return to each.

Sources considered: 1973 convention (CML consolidation) arts. 1, 2, 4; avenant of 7 April 2004; CE, 30 September 2025, n° 490793; BOI-ANNX-000306 of 29 April 2026, the Pays-Bas row; BOI-INT-CVB-NLD (early-vintage substance — the text prevails). Scope note: Dutch statutes and case law are outside our agency’s verified corpus; nothing load-bearing in this brief rests on them.

Reviewed as at 10 August 2026 · 1973 convention arts. 1, 2, 4; CE n° 490793; BOI-ANNX-000306

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

The purchase follows the standard French sequence: your offer; the pre-sales contract (compromis de vente), with its ten-day cooling-off period and a deposit of usually 10%; the conditions precedent; then the deed itself (acte authentique), signed before the notaire — the public officer who draws up the deed, collects the duties and registers your title. Dutch buyers typically retain their own advisers in addition: the notaire is not the buyer’s counsel. Because the annual wealth tax, the gains regime and French death duty each read a holding structure differently in this relationship, settle the structure questions of § 3 before the compromis is signed — the vehicle is difficult to change once the process is under way.

Worked example — the median Saint-Tropez peninsula villa in the DVF register (€4.9M, 2014–2025, sales of €3M and above):

The notaire itemises duties and émoluments precisely on the actual deed; a new-build VAT regime, furniture carve-outs or mortgage security change the arithmetic. The figures above state the published scales, for orientation.

Owning then has one French charge that matters at this price point. CGI article 964 levies the annual wealth tax (IFI) on French real-estate assets above €1,300,000 — for a non-resident, French property plus the French-property fraction of any company’s shares (article 965). The treaty confirms rather than shelters: article 23 §1 assigns French immovable wealth to France. And the charge is one-sided by construction — the Netherlands has levied no net wealth tax since 2001, and article 24 A relieves French-taxed fortune by exempting it with progression, so the IFI is a French cost of carry, not one leg of a double charge.

Box 3 deserves its own paragraph, because it is often mistaken for a wealth tax. Box 3 sits inside the Dutch income tax and charges a return the law assumes you earned on your net assets. Economically it can feel like a wealth tax; legally it taxes notional income, and three consequences follow for you. The IFI and box 3 are not counterparts, so the French charge will not feel familiar. No relief runs between them — article 24 A exempts what France taxed, and there is no Dutch wealth tax for the IFI to be credited against. And box 3 has been under sustained reform and litigation in the Netherlands, so on this pair the Dutch side is the moving number while the French side has been comparatively stable — § 8 carries it as a watch item.

For a family weighing a full move to France, the French statute itself provides a calendar: 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). The 1973 convention contains no counterpart clause, so the window rests on the statute alone — plan against it, with the ordinary reservation that a statute can be revised the way it was made.

Two recurring local charges follow the property. The annual local property tax (taxe foncière) runs at communal rates. For furnished second homes, communes in designated high-demand areas (zone tendue) — the marquee Riviera communes among them — may vote a surcharge (surtaxe) on the residence tax, and every owner files the annual occupancy declaration. These rates are communal and year-specific; this brief re-verifies them at each edition rather than freezing them.

Borrowing against the property changes four numbers at once, so it belongs to the structure decision. A debt is deductible from the wealth-tax base only where actually incurred for the taxable asset; in-house and non-amortising arrangements are capped or reconstructed on a notional amortisation (CGI arts. 973–974). Interest deducted against a French receipt lowers the base — usually the point. It also lowers the ceiling of any treaty credit computed on that base (§ 4). On this pair, model the deduction and the credit together — with the lender and your French tax lawyer (avocat fiscaliste), before the offer.

Sources considered: CGI arts. 964 (1° al. 2 and 2°), 965, 968, 973–974; 1973 convention arts. 2, 23 §1, 24 A; BOI-ANNX-000306 of 29 April 2026. Scope note: box 3, the assumed return it is charged on and the reform under way are stated at orientation level only. Whether a particular foreign charge is a tax on capital for a given treaty article is a question no French decision has settled for this pair; which country taxes the property itself does not depend on it.

Reviewed as at 10 August 2026 · CGI arts. 964–965, 973–974; 1973 convention arts. 23 §1, 24 A

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

One asymmetry organises the whole structure question for a Dutch owner, and it has been in the text since signature. The gains article reads through companies: article 13 §1 taxes gains on shares of a company whose assets are principally French real estate — in the original 1973 wording « parts ou de droits analogues », sharpened by the multilateral instrument to cover partnerships and trusts and to look back 365 days. French death duty does the same by domestic law (CGI art. 750 ter). The fortune article does not: after the property itself, article 23 §4 sends every other element of a Dutch resident’s fortune — company shares included — to the Netherlands, exclusively. The protocol’s reservation on transparent co-ownership companies names articles 6 and 13 only, and the administration’s commentary does not address the fortune article at all. One vehicle, three different readings — and the principal-purpose test now attached to the convention frames any arrangement examined in its light.

What follows is a map of questions for counsel, not a route.

The financing conversation runs as it does elsewhere on this coast: a loan from your bank, secured on a pledged portfolio, so liquidity stays 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 (CGI art. 974), and pledged financial assets sit outside that base altogether. Three boundaries. Loans repaying capital at term are treated as if they were being repaid gradually, the deduction declining pro rata — by one twentieth a year where no term is fixed. Where taxable property exceeds €5M and debt exceeds 60% of its value, the excess counts only as to half, unless you show the loan was not contracted mainly for tax. And the debt must be real — drawn, serviced, at market terms; routed through a shareholder account of an SCI it ceases to count for valuing the shares (art. 973). Leverage moderates the IFI in its early years and fades by design — read the calendar before the compromis, not after.

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: 1973 convention arts. 13 §1, 23 §§1, 4, protocol pt. II; CGI arts. 669, 750 ter, 751, 968, 973–974, 990 D–990 E, 990 J, 1649 AB. Scope note: the Dutch classification of an SCI and the box 2/box 3 consequences are Dutch-counsel questions; this brief states the French side and what the treaty gives each country.

Reviewed as at 10 August 2026 · 1973 convention arts. 13 §1, 23 §§1, 4, protocol pt. II; CGI arts. 973–974, 990 D–E

4What you pay when you sell

France taxes first, and on this point the 1973 text was already modern: article 13 §1 assigns gains on French immovables to France and, in the same sentence, gains on shares of a company whose assets are principally French real estate. The multilateral instrument added the 365-day look-back and extended the clause to interests in partnerships and trusts. For a Dutch-resident seller the French charge runs under CGI article 244 bis A: the taxable gain shrinks by 6% for each year of ownership beyond the fifth and 4% for the twenty-second (art. 150 VC); the income-tax component applies at 19% (art. 200 B) and ends after 22 years; the social levies end after 30 and follow your social-security affiliation — within the European coordination, generally the reduced solidarity rate, verified when our agency takes the file. Taxable gains above €50,000 bear the progressive surcharge of article 1609 nonies G, which reaches 6% at the levels this market transacts. The Netherlands is an EU member state, so the accredited fiscal-representation requirement borne by third-country sellers does not arise (art. 244 bis A, IV bis).

Worked example — the duration clock, per €1,000,000 of gross gain on a property sold at the Saint-Tropez peninsula median of €4.9M:

Social levies apply in addition until the thirtieth year, at the rate your affiliation commands. On the holding periods this coast’s pocket studies measure — frequently two decades and more — the income-tax component has often already ended by the time of sale. The actual base is itemised on the deed (works, acquisition costs) when our agency takes the file.

The Dutch side then stands back. Gains taxable in France under article 13 are relieved by the proportional reduction of article 24 A — exemption with progression — and Dutch law taxes private investment property through the box-3 assumed return rather than on realised gains, so a Dutch household ordinarily faces no separate Dutch charge on the sale. How the exemption is returned in the Dutch declaration belongs with your Dutch advisers. Whether you sell the property or the shares changes the pool of buyers and the French analysis — France’s right to tax survives in either form — and that choice is best evaluated before marketing begins.

Where this convention grants a credit rather than an exemption — the dividend and interest articles, principally — the Conseil d’État has settled how far it goes, and the rule is narrower than the word suggests. The ceiling is the French tax attributable to the income concerned, taken NET of the costs incurred to obtain it (CE n° 401490). Two carry-overs for a private owner. A treaty credit is never a refund: a heavier foreign charge does not come back. And costs deducted against a French receipt lower the base — usually the point — but also lower the ceiling of any credit computed on that base; where a purchase is leveraged, model the deduction and the credit together.

Families who sell and then leave France sometimes ask about the exit tax. The charge is narrower than its name: CGI article 167 bis reaches only people who were French-domiciled for six of the ten years before departure, and only their unrealised gains on securities — holdings above €800,000, or stakes of 50% or more. A property already sold has settled its own tax under the regimes above, and the proceeds are outside the charge. Shares of a family SCI that keeps the ordinary income-tax regime stay within the real-estate regime (art. 150 UB) and outside the exit tax; a company that opted for corporation tax changes the classification — put the option on the pre-departure checklist. The convention adds a mirror note. Under article 13 §5, each state keeps the right to tax gains on substantial participations in its own companies, realised by its own nationals who were its residents at any time in the five years before the sale. That is the clause under which a Dutch family recently arrived in France keeps a Dutch tail on gains from a Dutch BV; your Dutch advisers will know its calendar well.

Sources considered: 1973 convention arts. 13 §§1, 5, 24 A; CGI arts. 150 UB, 150 VC, 167 bis, 200 B, 244 bis A (incl. IV bis), 1609 nonies G; BOI-RFPI-PVINR-30-20 of 22 January 2025; CE, 28 January 2019, n° 401490 — decision read in full. Scope note: that decision concerned corporation tax and dividend credits, not a private property gain; it is cited for the ceiling rule it establishes — French tax on the net — and the gains article of this convention operates by exemption on the Dutch side.

Reviewed as at 10 August 2026 · 1973 convention arts. 13, 24 A; CGI arts. 150 VC, 167 bis, 244 bis A; CE n° 401490

5Renting before you buy, and renting your property out

A rental year before purchase remains the classic first step, and it carries one caution worth stating plainly: French tax residence under CGI article 4 B turns on the location of the household (foyer), the principal place of stay, and the centres of professional and economic interests — none of which defers to a lease. A property that becomes the family’s effective home can establish French residence, with worldwide consequences, well before any purchase. Where both states then claim you, the cascade of article 4 — permanent home, centre of vital interests, habitual abode, nationality — does the sorting. Match the choice between furnished seasonal rentals and the one-to-three-year civil lease to the trial’s real purpose: exit flexibility is what it buys.

Renting the property out reverses the flow. French-source rental income of non-residents — furnished rentals included — is taxed under the minimum-rate regime of CGI article 197 A: no less than 20% up to the second-bracket ceiling and 30% above it, unless you demonstrate a lower worldwide effective rate. Social levies apply in addition, at the rate your affiliation commands — for Dutch-affiliated owners generally the reduced solidarity rate, verified when our agency takes the file. The convention assigns the income to France as the state where the property stands (article 6), and the Netherlands exempts it with progression under article 24 A — in box-3 practice the French property is excluded from the Dutch charge. How the exemption is returned on the Dutch side belongs with your Dutch advisers.

Sources considered: CGI arts. 4 B, 197 A; 1973 convention arts. 4, 6, 24 A. Scope note: treatment turns on the form of exploitation and on affiliation — both questions of fact, settled on the file.

Reviewed as at 10 August 2026 · CGI arts. 4 B, 197 A; 1973 convention arts. 4, 6, 24 A

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

No France–Netherlands succession or gift convention exists — the administration’s treaty table records income and fortune coverage only. Each state therefore applies its own law in full, and this section names the one mechanism in this relationship that can genuinely charge a death twice.

On the French side, CGI article 750 ter draws the map. The property is always within French duty because it stands in France — held directly, or through entities whose assets are principally French real estate. Where the deceased was not French-domiciled, French assets alone are reached (750 ter 2°). And where an heir has been French-domiciled for six of the ten years before the transmission, French duty extends to that heir’s worldwide inheritance (750 ter 3°). The scale is article 777: progressive to 45% in the direct line above €1.8M per share, after the €100,000 per-child allowance of article 779; the surviving spouse is exempt in succession.

The Dutch side taxes by the person, not the place: inheritance duty (erfbelasting) where the deceased was Dutch-resident — and Dutch law treats a Dutch national as still resident for TEN YEARS after emigration. That tail is the mechanism to name. A Dutch family that moves to Monaco, London or Dubai and dies within the window can meet a Dutch charge on the worldwide estate at the same moment France charges duty on the French property as the state where it stands.

The French relief does not reach that overlap. Article 784 A credits foreign death duty only where France taxes on a worldwide basis, and only against the duty on assets situated OUTSIDE France. The property, being in France, is never within the credit — any relief for the second charge comes from the Dutch side, under Dutch rules, with your Dutch advisers. In practice the tail expires and the problem with it. The calendar therefore matters more than the structure: the question is rarely whether the exposure can be removed, but where the family will be — and for how long they will have been there — when it crystallises.

Before either state computes a duty, the civil law decides who inherits, and here the relationship is well equipped: both states apply EU Regulation 650/2012, so a Dutch national habitually resident in France may elect Dutch law for the succession as a whole. The election changes the mechanics more than the protection — Dutch law gives children the legitieme portie, a monetary claim of half the intestate share, where French law reserves a share of the estate itself — and it leaves untouched which country taxes what, above. Because the legitieme portie is a claim in money, the compensatory levy of Code civil article 913 al. 3 is not in principle engaged — a reading of the French text’s own condition, hedged accordingly: no reported decision settles it.

Gifts follow the same two-system logic with one difference: France has no gift convention either, so a gift by a Dutch-resident donor meets French gift duty because the property is in France, and Dutch gift duty (schenkbelasting) because the donor lives there — including its ten-year tail. Splitting use from ownership works identically on the French side (CGI arts. 669, 751, 968); the relief between the two charges runs on each side’s own rules, a two-system calculation for counsel, timed before the compromis where a transmission is already in view.

Sources considered: BOI-ANNX-000306 of 29 April 2026, the Pays-Bas row — no S and no D column; CGI arts. 669, 750 ter (1°, 2°, 3°), 751, 777, 779, 784 A, 968; Code civil art. 913 al. 3; EU Regulation 650/2012. Scope note: Dutch inheritance and gift duty, the ten-year rule and the legitieme portie are stated at orientation level only — Dutch statutes are outside our agency’s verified corpus, and the relief the Netherlands grants for French duty on the property is applied by Dutch advisers under Dutch rules.

Reviewed as at 10 August 2026 · CGI arts. 750 ter, 777, 779, 784 A; EU Reg. 650/2012; BOI-ANNX-000306

7The eight questions Dutch owners ask most

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

Yes, once French real-estate assets exceed €1.3M (CGI art. 964). The 1973 convention covers taxes on fortune and assigns French immovable wealth to France (art. 23 §1), so the charge on the directly-held property is confirmed by treaty. The Netherlands has levied no net wealth tax since 2001, so it is never doubled. Company-held structures raise the distinct treaty question of § 3.

Is there a France–Netherlands succession or gift convention?

No. Death and gifts run on each state’s domestic law: French duty always reaches the property because it stands in France (CGI art. 750 ter), including through property-rich companies, and extends to an heir’s worldwide inheritance where that heir has been French-resident for six of the preceding ten years. The Netherlands taxes where the deceased or donor was Dutch-resident, with a ten-year tail for Dutch nationals.

Who taxes the gain when a Dutch resident sells a French property?

France, as the state where the property stands (art. 13 §1) — including on sales of shares of property-rich companies, a clause the treaty has carried since 1973 — under CGI article 244 bis A with the duration allowances: the income-tax part ends after 22 years, the social levies after 30. The Netherlands exempts the gain with progression (art. 24 A) and taxes no private realised gain of its own.

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

Yes, by France: the convention assigns income from immovable property to the state where it stands (art. 6), and France applies the minimum-rate regime of CGI article 197 A — no less than 20%, 30% above the second-bracket ceiling — with social levies in addition. The Netherlands exempts the income with progression; in box-3 practice the French property is excluded from the Dutch charge.

Can a Dutch owner’s heirs keep Dutch succession law?

Largely, yes. Both states apply EU Regulation 650/2012, so a Dutch national habitually resident in France may elect Dutch law for the whole succession. Dutch law gives children the legitieme portie — a monetary claim of half the intestate share — rather than the French reserved share in kind, and the election does not move the tax anywhere: French duty still reaches the property.

Does a bank loan reduce French wealth tax on the property?

Yes. Acquisition debt owed to a bank is deductible from the IFI base (CGI art. 974), and pledged financial assets stay outside the tax altogether. The deduction is bounded: interest-only loans are treated as if repaid gradually 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.

Does a French exit tax apply after selling and leaving?

Rarely, and never on the property itself. CGI article 167 bis reaches only people French-domiciled for six of the ten years before departure, and only their unrealised gains on securities — above €800,000, or stakes of 50% or more. The sold property 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 on a return to France.

What should a Dutch buyer ask before holding through a BV, STAK or SCI?

Three things, with counsel. The annual 3% entity tax and its filings (CGI arts. 990 D–990 E; EU entities are exempt on filing). How the fortune article giving company shares to the Netherlands (art. 23 §4) meets the French annual tax’s reading of the French-property fraction — a treaty question the commentary does not address, framed by the principal-purpose test. And the certainty that neither a company nor a foundation moves the property outside French death duty (CGI art. 750 ter).

Sources considered: the sections above; these answers condense them and inherit their scope notes.

Reviewed as at 10 August 2026 · condensed from §§ 1–6

8The court decisions, the sources and the sales figures

The decisions this brief rests on

CE, 28 January 2019, n° 401490 — on this convention: a treaty credit is capped at the French tax on the NET income, costs deducted against the receipt shrinking the credit with the base. Read in full; its scope is stated in § 4. CE, 30 September 2025, n° 490793 — a Dutch residence certificate under article 4 suffices for treaty entitlement, without showing the tax was effectively borne. Both are cited from the official report.

What our agency is watching

Edition 2 baseline, August 2026. The instruments stand as § 1 records them; the Dutch finance ministry’s published list of treaty negotiations for 2025 does not include France, so no successor instrument is in preparation on either side’s public record. Watch items: annual Loi de finances movements on the IFI and transfer duties; communal surcharge votes on the Riviera arc; the administration’s table of conventions in force (re-issued April 2026 — the classification § 2 relies on); Dutch box-3 reform, the moving number of this pair; and any refresh of the administration’s early-vintage commentary.

The market, from the register

Seen from the Netherlands, the Riviera’s €3M+ villa market leads with the Saint-Tropez peninsula, the largest register of the coast: 1,006 qualified sales for €7,049M across 2014–2025, at a €4.9M median and an €85.5M ceiling. Cannes and its hills — the Super Cannes quarter included — contributed 306 sales for €2,066M at the same €4.9M median. Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat remains the narrowest and most expensive register: 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 », the French government’s official record of property transactions, published by the tax administration), villa sales ≥ €3M, 2014–2025, each sale counted once — the same method as the published Riviera Intelligence pages. Register through 2025-12-31.

How this brief was checked, and its limits

Legal statements are verified against the Chiron Legal Corpus — the research library maintained by our legal-research partner — and re-checked against the official sources at each edition. The review of 10 August 2026 read the 1973 convention in its original and consolidated French presentations (arts. 2, 4, 6, 13, 23, 24 A and protocol pts. I–II re-read against the raw text), the consolidated CGI articles cited section by section, and the administration’s table of conventions in force of 29 April 2026. The administration’s commentary on this convention predates, in substance, everything after the convention’s early years and does not address the immovables, gains or fortune articles — on those points this brief follows the treaty text. Dutch domestic law is stated at orientation level from secondary sources and is never load-bearing. Market data: DVF, villa sales ≥ €3M, each sale counted once, register through 2025-12-31. Items flagged “when our agency takes the file” — communal rates, social-levy affiliation, the Dutch return of exempted income, the deed-level gain base — are stated at mechanism level pending case-specific verification.

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, our agency coordinates the French counsel the file needs (avocat fiscaliste, notaire) and executes the property side.

Sources considered: the review record above; CE n° 401490; CE n° 490793; BOI-ANNX-000306; the DVF register. Scope note: where this section and a numbered section differ, the numbered section governs.

Reviewed as at 10 August 2026 · full review record above

Further intelligence

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

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

France–Nordics — the convention pair

France–USA — the convention pair

Nederlandse editie