France–Poland — Tax Treaty

1One convention from 1975 — and the article that says Poland steps aside

One instrument governs this relationship. The convention of 20 June 1975, signed at Warsaw, was approved by law 76-580, published by decree 76-1075 and entered into force on 12 September 1976. Its French and Polish texts are equally authentic and our agency holds both. It has never been replaced — the text still speaks of the Polish People's Republic, and its protocol still carves out the tax treatment of "socialised establishments". Article 2 covers income AND fortune, which is unusual in this collection and does most of the work below. That matters more than it sounds: this is a text more than FIFTY YEARS old which the two states never amended, and which was then modernised in a single pass by the multilateral instrument of 2017 — so its architecture is 1975 and its anti-abuse apparatus is contemporary, with nothing in between. The French wealth tax of today reaches it through the clause extending the convention to later taxes of the same kind, which is the footing the administration's own income-and-fortune classification of this relationship confirms.

Poland exempts, it does not credit — and that is the whole shape

Most relationships in this collection have the other country tax the same income and then give a credit for the French tax. This one does not. Article 23 §1 a says that where the convention lets France tax income or fortune, POLAND EXEMPTS IT — keeping only the right to compute the tax on the rest of that person's income or fortune at the rate it would have applied had the exempt amount been included. The credit method appears at §1 b, and it is a closed list: articles 10, 12, 14, 16 and 17 — dividends, royalties, independent work, employment and directors' fees.

Read those two paragraphs against the articles that matter to an owner and the answer falls out. Article 6 (rents), article 13 (the gain on a sale) and article 22 (the property for wealth-tax purposes) ARE NOT IN THE CREDIT LIST. So none of them is credited in Poland; all three are exempt there. The French charge is the whole charge on the property, and Poland's only remaining involvement is the rate it sets on everything else. Put plainly: while the family remains Polish-resident, this file has ONE TAXING STATE for the property, and it is France. France runs the mirror of it at article 23 §2, exempting Polish-taxable income and keeping its own whole-income rate reserve at §2 c.

The protocol exists, and it is silent on property

The convention carries a protocol signed the same day and expressly part of it. Read end to end at this edition, it holds six numbered addenda: to article 3 on what counts as transport, article 5 on construction sites during a 1972 cooperation agreement, article 7 on how a permanent establishment's profit is computed, article 12 on payments for equipment and consultancy, article 24 on two Polish local taxes and on socialised establishments, and article 27 on diplomats. NOT ONE of them touches article 6, 13 or 22. This is stated rather than left out because knowing a protocol exists, without knowing it says nothing about property, is worse than not knowing at all.

Who counts as a resident

Article 4 makes residence turn on liability to tax and then runs the familiar cascade where both states claim a person: permanent home, centre of vital interests, habitual abode, nationality, then agreement between the two administrations; §3 answers a company through its place of effective management. French domestic law asks its own prior question through CGI article 4 B, on the family's foyer, the principal place of stay and the centres of professional and economic interest.

What the multilateral instrument changed

The BEPS multilateral instrument took effect for Poland on 1 July 2018 and for France on 1 January 2019, reaching this convention from 1 January 2019 for withholding taxes and, for other taxes, for periods from 1 July 2019. It rewrote the preamble, added the principal-purpose test under which a treaty advantage can be refused where obtaining it was a principal object of an arrangement, brought a 365-day holding condition into the dividend article, and added the 365-day timing test to the property-rich rule of article 13 §1. It left article 23 standing as drafted, which is why the exemption method survives in a treaty of this age.

Sources considered: 1975 convention and its integral protocol (official consolidation with the multilateral instrument, and the original text) arts. 2, 4, 23 §§1–2, and protocol addenda 1–6; BOI-ANNX-000306 (29 April 2026), Poland row read verbatim; BOI-INT-CVB-POL; BOI-INT-DG-20-25-20-30 §110 on the instrument's dates — texts read. Scope note: Polish domestic law is stated at orientation level only and never carries a conclusion.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1975 convention arts. 2, 4, 23 + protocol addenda 1–6; BOI-ANNX-000306 (29 April 2026) — 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 the half of the article people miss

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°). Article 22 §1 of the convention confirms it: fortune made up of property standing in France is taxable in France. Poland then exempts that fortune under article 23 §1 a, so the charge is not doubled.

The half worth knowing is §4: ALL OTHER FORTUNE of a Polish resident is taxable only in Poland. The portfolio, the Polish company, the bank accounts — none of it can be drawn into a French wealth-tax base, and that is a treaty entitlement rather than a feature of French domestic law that could change. The value declared each year for the French property 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 — which on this pair is doubly true, since article 22 §4 keeps them Polish in any event. Three limits apply to the deduction. 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 a Polish 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: 1975 convention arts. 22 §§1 and 4, 23 §1 a; 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, and on this pair the treaty answer barely moves between them — what moves is the paperwork and the position at death.

Direct ownership

Simplicity, and France taxes it at every stage while Poland exempts at every stage. On a sale, article 13 §1 gives the gain to France and article 23 §1 a exempts it in Poland. Each year the wealth tax applies on the property alone, with everything else left Polish by article 22 §4. At death French duty attaches to the property, with no treaty to divide it.

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. The company therefore changes the deed and the filings, not the country that taxes.

The property-rich rule is older than people think

Selling the company rather than the property does not move the gain, and on this pair that has been true since 1975. Article 13 §1 as originally drafted reaches gains on immovable property "or on shares or analogous rights in a company whose assets consist principally of immovable property", taxable where the property stands. Many relationships acquired that rule only when the multilateral instrument rewrote them; here the instrument added the TIMING TEST instead — the property share is now read at any moment in the 365 days before the sale, not only on the day. Dating this correctly matters: a file reasoned on the assumption that share sales became taxable in France only recently is reasoning from the wrong decade. The principal-purpose test sits over any arrangement whose main object was the treaty advantage.

A Polish 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 article 13 §1 on a sale. The company adds an annual filing discipline; it removes no French charge.

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 where both halves are held in one family. It is a gift, and since no gift convention exists the Polish side of it is a separate question asked at the same time.

Sources considered: 1975 convention arts. 13 §1, 22 §4, 23 §1 a; 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 Polish treatment of any structure is a question for counsel in Poland.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1975 convention arts. 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 two costs an EU seller does not carry

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, 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

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, and Polish 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 Poland 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.

And Poland exempts the gain

Article 13 is not in the credit list of article 23 §1 b, so the gain is exempt in Poland under §1 a rather than credited. Poland may still use it to set the rate on the rest of that year's income, which is the one place the French sale touches a Polish return at all.

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. This convention carries NO accommodation clause for it — nothing like the one in the German text — so the position is answered on French domestic law alone, and 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, 23 §1; 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 Polish 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 6 gives 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 a Polish-affiliated owner.

Poland then exempts the rent under article 23 §1 a — article 6 is not in the credit list either — and may use it only to set the rate on the rest of that person's income. So a Polish owner files in France on the rent and declares it in Poland for rate purposes rather than for tax. The Polish filing mechanics belong with advisers there.

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 — texts read. Scope note: the Polish return is 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

At death the convention stops helping, and this is where the pair can cost more than either country alone. It covers income and fortune and nothing else: there is no succession or gift convention between France and Poland. AND POLAND DOES LEVY AN INHERITANCE AND GIFT TAX, with substantial relief inside the close family (orientation). So two charges meet on one transmission with no instrument between them — the exact reverse of the income position, where Poland steps aside entirely. Whatever relief exists is unilateral on each side.

The French charge

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, which is what makes the calendar of lifetime gifts worth planning rather than improvising. 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 instead — and only in those cases does the credit of CGI article 784 A operate, 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. THE COMPENSATORY LEVY OF CODE CIVIL ARTICLE 913, AL. 3 IS THE ONE THAT DOES NOT HELP HERE, and the reason is worth knowing: it operates only where the chosen law permits NO protective mechanism for the children, and Polish law has one — the zachowek, a reserved claim for close family (orientation). Its own condition is therefore not met on this pair, and a family reaching for it will find it unavailable — the reverse of several relationships in this collection, and a question of Polish law rather than French law.

The gift, which is the same charge 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, so what Poland does with the same transfer is a separate question put to counsel there at the same time — not afterwards, because the French fifteen-year calendar and any Polish timing rule 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; BOI-ANNX-000306 (29 April 2026) — texts read. Scope note: the Polish treatment of an estate or a gift is a question for counsel in Poland; 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 Polish owners ask most

Will Poland tax me again on the French rent?

No. Article 23 §1 a exempts income that France may tax, and article 6 is not in the credit list of §1 b. Poland may only use the exempt rent to set the rate on the rest of your income — so it can raise your Polish tax on other things without taxing the rent itself.

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

Yes above €1.3M, and the treaty confirms it at article 22 §1. Poland exempts that fortune under article 23 §1 a, so it is not doubled.

Can France reach my Polish portfolio for wealth tax?

No, and that is written into the treaty rather than left to French law: article 22 §4 leaves all other fortune of a Polish resident taxable only in Poland.

Is there a succession treaty?

No. The relationship covers income and fortune only. French duty runs to 45% in the direct line after the €100,000 allowance per child, with family companies counted in, and the Polish position is answered in Poland.

Do I need a tax representative to sell?

No. Poland 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 Polish affiliation is. It is a fact to evidence about the seller, not an assumption from nationality.

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

No — and it has not since 1975. Article 13 §1 has always reached shares of a company whose assets are principally property. What the multilateral instrument added is the 365-day look-back on the property share.

Does the protocol affect any of this?

No. Its six addenda cover transport, construction sites, permanent establishments, equipment and consultancy payments, two Polish local taxes and diplomats. None of them touches the articles that govern a property, and it was read end to end to be able to say so.

Sources considered: 1975 convention arts. 6, 13, 22, 23 + protocol addenda 1–6; 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 ITS PROTOCOL were read end to end at this edition, in the official consolidation and in the original text.

What the re-reading settled

Two things, and both are about dates. The property-rich rule of article 13 §1 is ORIGINAL to the 1975 drafting, not a modern import: the multilateral instrument added the 365-day timing test to a clause that already existed. And the protocol, which does exist and is expressly part of the convention, contains nothing that touches a property — six addenda about transport, construction sites, permanent establishments, equipment payments, two Polish local taxes and diplomats. Across the pairs migrated in this pass the protocol question has now produced three different answers: no protocol at all (France–Singapore, France–Ireland), a protocol carrying an operative rule that changes rates (France–India), and here a protocol that is real and beside the point. The only way to know which is to read it.

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 on this pair it is unsurprising: an exemption method leaves far less to argue about than a credit, because there is no computation to disagree 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 reports positions as proportions rather than counts where a national sample is thin, because 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 Polish 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 Poland — which matters most at death, where no treaty answers the question at all. Write to us directly for a file-specific reading.

Sources considered: 1975 convention and its integral protocol (official consolidation with the multilateral instrument, and the original text); BOI-ANNX-000306 (29 April 2026); BOI-INT-CVB-POL; BOI-INT-DG-20-25-20-30 §110; BOI-RFPI-PVINR-20-20; the CGI and Code civil articles cited in each section; DVF. Scope note: the administration's commentary on this pair predates the multilateral instrument and the current French wealth tax, so this brief follows the treaty texts.

Reviewed as at 11 August 2026 · 1975 convention + protocol read end to end; BOI-INT-DG-20-25-20-30 §110; DVF

Further intelligence

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

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

France–USA — the convention pair

France–Australia — the convention pair

Wydanie polskie