France–Switzerland — Tax Treaty

1The 1966 convention in force, the 1953 convention denounced — and who counts as a resident

The relationship rests on one convention and on the visible absence of a second. The convention of 9 September 1966, amended by the avenants of 1969, 1997, 2009 and 27 June 2023, governs taxes on income and on fortune — one of the few French conventions to cover wealth taxation expressly, and its article 2 §4 extends it to analogous later taxes, which brings in the IFI, successor to the ISF from 2018. The 2023 avenant, in force since 24 July 2025 and applicable from 1 January 2026, concerns cross-border employment — notably a 40% telework allowance — and adds a principal-purpose clause; the rules on who taxes property income, gains and fortune stand unchanged. The succession convention of 31 December 1953 is gone: France denounced it by note of 17 June 2014 (decree 2014-1270), and it applied for the last time to deaths before 1 January 2015. Two narrower instruments complete the frame — the 1979 accord on gifts for charitable purposes, and the 1983 frontier-worker accord.

Who counts as a resident — and the forfait exclusion

Article 4 §1 adopts the familiar liability-based definition of residence. The provision peculiar to this relationship follows at paragraph 6 b: a person taxable in a state only on a lump-sum basis measured by the rental value of the residences held there is not a treaty resident of that state at all. The two administrations agreed an interpretation, published on the French side in 1972, preserving residence where the assessment base is set at more than five times the rental value of the home (or one and a half times the pension price) and covers French-source income the convention privileges — the reinforced assessment Swiss practice knows as the forfait majoré.

The Conseil d'État has applied the exclusion strictly in four decisions from 2020 to 2023 — section 8 retells them. The practical rule for a family taxed d'après la dépense in Geneva or Vaud: access to the convention is decided by how the assessment is framed, and it is settled with the cantonal authority before the French purchase, not after.

Nationality, for once, matters only at the margin: article 26 §1 carries an equal-treatment clause under which Swiss nationals bear no taxation in France other or heavier than French nationals in the same situation. The deciding questions of this brief turn on residence and on where the property sits, not on the passport. The 1966 convention was concluded in French alone, so the single authentic text is the text this brief reads.

Sources considered: 1966 convention arts. 2 §4, 4 §§1 and 6, 26 §1, 31 §2; the 2023 avenant (decree 2025-838); decree 2014-1270 (the denunciation); DB 14 B-2211 (the 1972 agreed interpretation); BOI-INT-CVB-CHE-10 and -20. Scope note: the treaty text prevails over the older commentary, and every date here is re-checked at each edition.

Reviewed as at 9 August 2026 · 1966 convention arts. 2, 4, 26, 31 §2; decree 2014-1270

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; then the pre-sales contract (compromis de vente), with its ten-day cooling-off period and a deposit of usually 10%; then the conditions precedent. Last comes the deed itself (acte authentique), signed before the notaire, who collects the duties and registers your title. The notaire is a public officer. The law obliges him to advise both parties on the deed he draws up — what it covers, what it commits each side to, what its risks are. His duty stops at the deed: the planning around it belongs to your own advisers, and the structure questions of section 3 are best settled before the pre-sales contract, because the acquiring vehicle is hard to change once the process is under way.

Worked example — the median Saint-Tropez villa (€4.9M, the 2014–2025 DVF median of the peninsula):

These figures follow the published scales and are given for orientation; the notaire itemises the duties and fees on your actual deed. A new-build VAT regime, furniture excluded from the price, or a mortgage will change the arithmetic. The annual local property tax (taxe foncière) is set commune by commune, and communes in designated high-demand areas (zone tendue) may vote a surcharge (surtaxe) on second homes; our agency re-checks those rates at each edition rather than freezing them.

The wealth tax — France taxes the property, Switzerland does not tax it again

Article 964 of the tax code charges an annual tax on real-estate wealth above €1,300,000; for an owner not domiciled in France it reaches French property and the property share of any company's shares (article 965, 2°). The 1966 convention confirms rather than constrains: article 24 §1 assigns the wealth constituted by French immovables to France, the property-linked categories the 1997 avenant added keep holdings that stand for the property under the same rule, and article 25 B has Switzerland exempt the French-taxed fortune while keeping it for the progression of its own cantonal and federal rates — on justification, for the property-linked categories, that France has actually taxed. The charge is settled rather than doubled. The statute holds one planning window worth naming: a person who becomes French-domiciled after five years abroad is taxed for five years on French assets only (article 964, 1°, al. 2) — relevant to a family weighing a later move across the border in either direction.

Borrowing against the French property cuts the wealth-tax base on both sides — French and Swiss

The financing conversation runs in Geneva as it does in Monaco: a loan from the buyer's bank, secured on a pledged portfolio, so the liquidity stays invested while the debt reduces the taxable base. The code anticipates the pattern. Bank acquisition debt is deductible from the IFI base (article 974), and financial assets sit outside that base. Three limits apply. An interest-only loan, with the capital repaid at the end, is treated as if you were repaying it in equal yearly steps, so the deductible amount shrinks year by year — and by one twentieth a year where no term is fixed. Where your French property exceeds €5M and the debt exceeds 60% of its value, only half of the excess is deductible, unless you show the loan was not taken mainly for tax. And the debt must be real: actually drawn, actually serviced, at market terms; lent to a French property-holding company (an SCI) through its shareholder account, it no longer reduces the taxable value of the shares (article 973). One feature is unusual in this collection: Switzerland levies a cantonal wealth tax, and the same debt can reduce that base too — the French and Swiss deductions are modelled together, with the lender and the French tax lawyer, before the offer.

Three filings fall due every year, and two of them need a value you declare yourself

None of these depends on the convention. They fall on the owner of French property whatever their residence, and they are the part a non-resident owner most often discovers late.

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: 1966 convention arts. 6, 24 §1, 25 B; CGI arts. 964 (incl. 1°, al. 2), 965, 973–974, 990 D–990 F, 1418; BOI-INT-CVB-CHE-10. Scope note: costs follow the published scales and are itemised on your deed; the Swiss side of the debt deduction belongs with the family's Swiss advisers.

Reviewed as at 9 August 2026 · 1966 convention arts. 6, 24 §1, 25 B; CGI arts. 964–965, 973–974

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

These are questions to work through with your advisers, not recommendations. Two facts frame every one of them here. Since 2015 there is no succession treaty, so at death the structure decides reporting and governance on the French side while the Swiss side of the sums belongs with the family's Swiss advisers. And the 2023 avenant writes a principal-purpose clause into the convention: a benefit may be refused where obtaining it was one of the principal purposes of an arrangement — a reason to let each structure answer a purpose the family can state plainly.

Giving your children the ownership now, and keeping the use for life (démembrement)

The structure most often proposed alongside the loan divides ownership itself. You keep the right to use the property and take its income for life (the usufruit), and your children take the ownership now (the nue-propriété). The tax code values the split by your age: under article 669, bare ownership is worth 60% of the full value when you are between 61 and 70, and 70% between 71 and 80. The gift is taxed on that fraction alone, at today's value, and when you die the two halves rejoin with no further tax — article 751's conditions observed: a notarised gift, made more than three months before death, valued on the article 669 scale. Article 968 keeps the property's full value in your own IFI base, so your wealth tax does not move. The absence of any treaty gives the mechanism the same interest here as in the Monaco relationship: a known French charge today in exchange for certainty at death, and an age scale that runs against delay.

What an ownership structure changes, beyond tax

An ownership structure answers seven questions. Tax is one of them, and rarely the one that matters most.

Sources considered: CGI arts. 669, 750 ter, 751, 777, 779, 968, 973–974, 990 D, 990 J, 1649 AB; the 2023 avenant (principal-purpose clause); BOI-INT-CVB-CHE-20 §40. Scope note: structures are presented as questions for analysis, not recommendations, settled with counsel in France and in Switzerland.

Reviewed as at 9 August 2026 · CGI arts. 669, 751, 968, 990 J, 1649 AB; 2023 avenant

4What you pay when you sell

France taxes first, as the state where the property sits — and the treaty makes the computation a matter of equality. Article 15 §1 assigns gains on French immovables to France, where article 244 bis A levies the non-resident charge at 19% with the ownership-duration allowances: the income-tax component extinguishes after 22 years, the social levies after 30. Article 15 §4 then requires the gain, and any withholding-type levy, to be computed in the same conditions whether the seller is resident of France or of Switzerland — and the courts have given that clause practical content: the levy applied to a Swiss resident may not exceed the rate borne by a French resident (CE n° 361167), and a Swiss seller who meets the conditions of the code's own exemptions — notably the first-sale-of-a-dwelling exemption of article 150 U II-1° bis — may claim them on the same terms (CE n° 415475). Property-rich holdings do not change the analysis: the convention's property-linked clauses keep interests that stand for the property within France's reach.

Worked example — the income-tax clock, per €1,000,000 of gain:

The social levies follow their own slower clock, extinguishing at 30 years — 7.5% for a seller within the Swiss coordination rules, 17.2% otherwise. One register note puts the machinery in proportion: on the Saint-Tropez peninsula the median €3M+ villa sale moved from €4.3M (2016–2017) to €5.0M (2024–2025); a property bought at the earlier median and resold at the later one shows no taxable gain at all, because the statute lifts the acquisition base by 7.5% for costs and, beyond five years, by 15% for works (article 150 VB). On the median trajectory the charge falls on outperformance, not on ownership.

Why a Swiss-affiliated seller pays 7.5% and not 17.2%

Since the 2019 financing law, a seller covered for health insurance by the legislation of a state inside the European coordination rules, and not simultaneously charged to a French mandatory scheme, is exempt from CSG and CRDS on the gain and bears the 7.5% solidarity levy alone (article 235 ter). Switzerland sits inside the line because the coordination regulation was extended to it by the free-movement agreement. The criterion is affiliation, never nationality: the Conseil d'État refused the carve-out to an EU national affiliated outside the coordination (n° 397881), upheld the administration's framework (n° 430189), held the full levies on third-state affiliations compatible with free movement of capital (n° 436412, following Jahin), and restated the line as recently as May 2025 (n° 491958). For a Geneva-insured seller the practical reading is simple: the 9.7-point saving follows from the affiliation itself, documented at the date of the gain — not from permits or passports.

The representative you must appoint

Switzerland sits outside the EU and the EEA, so a seller resident there appoints a representative accredited by the French tax administration, answerable for the filing and the payment (article 244 bis A, IV). Two automatic exemptions exist: sales at €150,000 or less per seller, and sales fully exempt because the property has been owned thirty years. The notaire handling the deed normally arranges it.

If you leave France after selling: the exit tax

France's exit tax is narrower than its name suggests. Article 167 bis aims at shares, not property: it applies to people who were French-domiciled for at least six of the ten years before leaving, and taxes the unrealised gain on shareholdings worth more than €800,000, or on stakes of 50% or more of a company's profits. A property you have already sold has paid its own tax, and the sale proceeds are outside the charge. Shares in a family SCI are treated like the property itself rather than like a share portfolio: as long as the company keeps the ordinary income-tax regime, the gain on those shares stays inside article 150 UB and outside the exit tax. A company that has opted for corporation tax changes that answer, so the option belongs on the pre-departure checklist. Where the exit tax does apply, payment is normally deferred, and the assessment lapses after two years — five if the portfolio exceeded €2.57M — or when you return to France.

Sources considered: 1966 convention art. 15 §§1, 4; CGI arts. 150 U, 150 UB, 150 VB, 150 VC, 167 bis, 235 ter, 244 bis A (incl. IV), 1609 nonies G; CSS art. L. 136-7 I ter; CE n° 361167, n° 415475, n° 397881, n° 430189, n° 436412, n° 491958 — decision texts read. Scope note: the affiliation carve-out is a factual condition verified case by case at the date of the gain.

Reviewed as at 9 August 2026 · 1966 convention art. 15; CGI arts. 244 bis A, 235 ter, 150 VC

5Renting before you buy, and renting your property out

Renting before you buy

A year's rental before buying is the usual first step, and for a Swiss family it carries one caution worth stating plainly. French tax residence under article 4 B of the tax code depends on where your household is, where you mainly stay, and where your professional and economic interests sit — none of which defers to a lease. A Riviera property that becomes the family's real home can make you French-resident, taxable in France on worldwide income, well before you buy anything — and for a family taxed on an ordinary forfait, the treaty's residence article offers no tie-breaker shelter at all. The choice between a furnished seasonal rental and a one-to-three-year unfurnished lease (bail civil) also changes how easily you can leave.

Renting your property out

France taxes the rental income of non-residents, furnished rentals included, at a minimum of 20% up to the second bracket and 30% above it (article 197 A of the tax code), unless you can show a lower worldwide effective rate. The convention gives the income to France as the state where the property sits (article 6), and Switzerland exempts it while keeping the progression of its own rates (article 25 B §1). Social levies apply on the affiliation logic of section 4: 7.5% inside the Swiss coordination rules, the full 17.2% otherwise. For a lump-sum taxpayer outside the convention, the French position is unchanged in substance — France taxes its own source — while the Swiss-side consequence belongs to the design of the forfait itself.

Sources considered: 1966 convention arts. 6, 25 B §1, 4 §6; CGI arts. 4 B, 197 A, 235 ter. Scope note: the treatment turns on the form of exploitation and on affiliation, both questions of fact.

Reviewed as at 9 August 2026 · 1966 convention arts. 6, 25 B; CGI arts. 4 B, 197 A

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

Since 1 January 2015 who taxes what at death is settled by French domestic law alone. France denounced the 1953 succession convention by note of 17 June 2014, and the text applied for the last time to deaths before 1 January 2015. Much of the advisory literature still reads as if a treaty stood behind the estate; for a decade none has.

At death: what article 750 ter reaches

The unilateral credit of article 784 A relieves less than its reputation suggests: it operates only in the worldwide cases (1° and 3°), and only for foreign tax paid on assets outside France — the French charge on the property itself is never reduced by it. Whether the relevant canton relieves or exempts on its side is a question of cantonal law, examined with the family's Swiss advisers. Where French duty applies, the scale is that of article 777: rising to 45% in the direct line above €1.8M per child, after the €100,000 allowance per child of article 779, with the surviving spouse exempt. Before France computes anything, the civil law decides who inherits — matrimonial regime, EU Regulation 650/2012 and its choice of law, Switzerland's position outside that Regulation, French forced heirship — a question for the family's counsel as much as its tax adviser.

Gifts run on French domestic law alone, like successions

Gifts between the two states have never been treaty-covered — the 1953 convention concerned succession duty alone, and the only surviving instrument on gratuitous transfers is the 1979 accord on gifts for charitable purposes. A family gift of the property or of SCI shares is therefore governed by French rules in full, and the démembrement of section 3 keeps the same interest here: duty on the age-scale fraction today, no further tax at the reunification, the wealth tax unmoved.

Sources considered: CGI arts. 750 ter, 777, 779, 784 A; decree 2014-1270; the 1979 accord (BOI-INT-CVB-CHE-30); Code civil art. 913; EU Regulation 650/2012. Scope note: the cantonal side of every sum belongs with your Swiss advisers; the allowances follow the statutory scales.

Reviewed as at 9 August 2026 · CGI arts. 750 ter, 777, 779, 784 A; decree 2014-1270

7The eight questions Swiss owners ask most

Which country taxes the succession on a French property owned from Switzerland?

France, under its domestic law alone. The 1953 succession convention was denounced in 2014 and has not applied to deaths since 1 January 2015. The property is within French duty whatever the family's domicile (article 750 ter), and the article 784 A credit never relieves the French property itself; any relief on the Swiss side is a matter of cantonal law.

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

Yes, once French real-estate assets exceed €1.3M, held directly or through the property share of company shares (article 964). The 1966 convention agrees: article 24 §1 assigns the property's wealth to France, and Switzerland does not tax it again, but counts it when setting its own rate (article 25 B).

Is a lump-sum (forfait) taxpayer covered by the convention?

Not on the ordinary basis. Article 4 §6 b excludes from treaty residence a person taxed only on an expenditure-based assessment computed from the rental value of their residences; the 1972 agreed interpretation preserves residence for the reinforced forfait (majoré). The Conseil d'État has applied the exclusion strictly four times — n° 427182, n° 439606, n° 431982, n° 469789 — and the article 31 §2 attestation cannot substitute for the assessment-base test.

Did the 2023 avenant change how French property is taxed?

No. It concerns cross-border employment — notably a 40% telework allowance — and adds a principal-purpose clause. The rules on who taxes property income, gains and wealth, and the residence article, are unchanged; the clause matters only where a structure leans on treaty benefits without a purpose the family can state plainly.

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

France, as the state where it sits (article 15 §1), under article 244 bis A with the duration allowances. By article 15 §4 the computation must equal a French resident's — the rate may not exceed the resident rate, and the code's own exemptions remain open to a Swiss seller who meets their conditions. Switzerland does not tax the gain again, but counts it for its own rate.

Do French social charges apply to a Swiss-resident owner?

At a reduced rate, in the usual case. An owner inside the Swiss social-security system falls under the European coordination rules, is exempt from CSG and CRDS on property gains and income, and bears the 7.5% solidarity levy alone (article 235 ter); outside the coordination rules the full 17.2% applies. Affiliation — never nationality — is the criterion.

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

Yes. France taxes first at a minimum of 20%, then 30% (article 197 A); the convention assigns the income to France (article 6), and Switzerland does not tax it again, but counts it for its own rate (article 25 B). Social levies follow the affiliation logic above.

Does a French exit tax apply after selling and leaving?

Rarely, and never on the property itself. Article 167 bis reaches only people French-domiciled six of the ten years before leaving, and only their unrealised gains on shares — above €800,000, or stakes of 50% or more. The property you sold and its proceeds are outside it, as are family-SCI shares kept under the ordinary income-tax regime (article 150 UB).

Sources considered: 1966 convention arts. 4 §6, 6, 15, 24 §1, 25 B; CGI arts. 150 UB, 167 bis, 197 A, 235 ter, 244 bis A, 750 ter, 784 A, 964; CE n° 427182, n° 439606, n° 431982, n° 469789. Scope note: these answers condense the sections above and inherit their scope notes.

Reviewed as at 9 August 2026

8The court decisions, the sources and the sales figures

Four decisions that refused treaty residence to forfait taxpayers — CE n° 469789, n° 439606, n° 431982, n° 427182

The exclusion is settled, recent jurisprudence. A couple who had settled in Switzerland without working there were assessed under the expenditure-based regime on a base fixed at five times their rent increased by 30%; the Conseil d'État held that they fell squarely within the article 4 §6 b exclusion and could not be treated as Swiss residents under the convention, whatever their liability under Swiss domestic law (18 September 2023, n° 469789). Two decisions of the same chamber had already applied the 1972 agreed interpretation strictly to ordinary forfait assessments (19 April 2021, n° 439606 and n° 431982 — the latter restating the five-times-rental-value and one-and-a-half-times-pension thresholds). And the court has removed a procedural comfort: the article 31 §2 residence attestation is not a condition of residence, so producing — or withholding — the form neither creates nor saves a treaty position the assessment base has already lost (23 November 2020, n° 427182).

Decision texts read in full. Scope note: the decisions concern ordinary expenditure-based assessments; a reinforced (majoré) assessment meeting the 1972 thresholds preserves residence.

What changed, and what our agency is watching

Edition 2 — the position in August 2026. The instruments as they stand: the 1966 convention as amended through the 2023 avenant (in force 24 July 2025, applicable from 1 January 2026); the 1979 charitable-gifts accord; the 1983 frontier-worker accord; and on the succession side, no convention since the 2014 denunciation.

The sales figures behind this brief

Where the registers place Swiss ownership is itself the market note: not on the Croisette but along the quieter shores — Ramatuelle on the Saint-Tropez peninsula, Théoule-sur-Mer on the Esterel, La Croix Valmer on the gulf — with further positions at Cannes, on the Roquebrune corniche and at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Across the three registers this brief measures, 1,490 villa sales of €3M and above cleared €11.5 billion over the twelve DVF years.

Source: DVF (« Demandes de Valeurs Foncières », DGFiP), villa sales ≥ €3M, 2014–2025, duplicate estate records removed — the same method as the published Riviera Intelligence pages. Register complete to 31 December 2025.

Where the owners live, in aggregate. The public record counts owners, it does not identify them. Across 20 Riviera communes, 34% of the ownership positions studied are held from outside France, and Switzerland accounts for 7% of those — led by Ramatuelle and Théoule-sur-Mer. The Swiss sample is small, and its shares are read with that caution. One structural preference is nonetheless legible: 89% of Swiss-resident positions are held in direct personal ownership, without a company in the chain — the pattern whose fiscal logic section 3 examines.

Aggregates only, drawn from public sources under their re-use conditions; no individual holding is identified or published. Residence follows the address on the register.

How this brief was checked, and its limits

Every statement of law is checked against the Chiron Legal Corpus — the research library maintained by our offshore legal-research partner — and re-checked against the official sources at each edition. The review of 9 August 2026 covered four sources.

• Légifrance — CGI arts. 4 B, 150 U, 150 UB, 150 VB, 150 VC, 167 bis, 197 A, 235 ter, 244 bis A, 669, 750 ter, 751, 777, 779, 784 A, 964–965, 968, 973–974, 990 D–990 J, 1418, 1609 nonies G, 1649 AB; CSS art. L. 136-7; Code civil art. 913.
• The treaty texts — the 1966 convention consolidated with its avenants including 27 June 2023 (decree 2025-838), and decree 2014-1270 publishing the denunciation — read in the raw text. The convention was concluded in French alone: the single authentic text is the text read.
• The tax authority's commentary — the BOI-INT-CVB-CHE tree, including -20 on the denounced 1953 convention and the 1972 agreed interpretation (DB 14 B-2211).
• The Conseil d'État — the forfait quartet (n° 427182, n° 439606, n° 431982, n° 469789), the computation-equality pair (n° 361167, n° 415475) and the affiliation line (n° 397881, n° 430189, n° 436412, n° 491958), read in the decision texts.

Swiss federal and cantonal law is stated for orientation from secondary sources and never carries a legal conclusion on its own. Items that depend on the file — communal rates, affiliation, the version of a forfait, the cantonal succession position — are stated at mechanism level and verified case by case. Market data: DVF (DGFiP), villa sales ≥ €3M, duplicate estate records removed, register complete to 31 December 2025.

This brief sets out published law and public transaction data. It is research, not advice on your own situation: your residence history, the form of a Swiss assessment, your matrimonial regime and your chain of title all change the answer. For an actual purchase or sale, our agency brings in the French tax lawyer and the notaire you need, and handles the sale or purchase itself.

Reviewed as at 9 August 2026 · decision texts read; DVF register, duplicate estate records removed

Further intelligence

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

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

France–Mauritius — the convention pair

France–Belgium — the convention pair

Deutsche Ausgabe