Tax & Regulation

France’s Most Controversial Lease: the Bail Code Civil, Your Second Home, and the 2026 Crackdown

The bail Code civil is the correct lease for a French second home - and the contract Paris's mayor calls industrial-scale fraud when it dodges rent control. Where the line runs after the 2026 rulings, the DGCCRF campaign and the bill in parliament.

The Foreign Owner’s Tax Map of France: What 47 Expat Towns Charge in 2025

Official 2025 rates for the 47 French towns where foreign buyers concentrate: a 3.3x spread, the 90% club in the Dordogne, eleven towns with 60% second-home surcharges, and Paris up 50% in five years.

Anatomy of a French Tax Bill: the Avis de Taxe Foncière, Translated Line by Line

France's property-tax bill, decoded box by box on a real anonymised 2025 avis: what every line means in English, how the €1,016 total is built, what to check before paying, and how to contest it.

The Jeanbrun Housing Bill (Relance Logement): What It Would Mean for Foreign Owners of French Property

France's Relance Logement bill would sweeten the Jeanbrun tax break and hand F and G homes a renovation-for-reprieve deal, but the Conseil d'Etat has filled the margins with warnings. Here is what foreign owners need to know.

LMNP Tax Calculator: Micro-BIC vs Régime Réel Break-Even (2026)

A free calculator that shows whether micro-BIC or régime réel leaves you with less taxable income on your French furnished rental, built on the verified 2026 allowances.

How to File Your French Non-Resident Tax Return in 2026: The Foreign-Owner’s Checklist

If you own French property and live abroad, you owe a French tax return by 21 May 2026 — even with zero rental income. Here is the box-by-box walkthrough, deadlines, and the five mistakes foreign owners make every year.

The 90/180 Schengen Rule for Foreign Owners of French Property: How Long You Can Actually Stay

A non-EU passport holder can spend a maximum of 90 days in any rolling 180-day period in the Schengen Area. This is the rule that catches more foreign owners of French property at the border than any other piece of post-Brexit law — and the VLS-T visa is the legal way around it.

The Real Cost of a Paris Pied-à-Terre in 2026: An Honest Spreadsheet for Foreign Buyers

What does a Paris pied-à-terre actually cost a foreign owner in 2026? We walked through a representative €500,000 one-bedroom and added up every line — DMTO, copropriété, taxe d'habitation surtax, CSG/CRDS, exit CGT. The honest after-tax net yield is 2.1%, lifestyle value notwithstanding.

France’s LMP Reform 2026: Foreign Income Now Counts in the Non-Resident Threshold (Loi de Finances 2026)

The Loi de Finances 2026 has ended a long-standing French quirk: non-resident landlords previously qualified for LMP status because only French-source income was compared against rental receipts. From 1 January 2026, foreign income now counts — pushing many non-resident owners back to LMNP, with material CGT consequences.

France’s 120-Day Airbnb Cap: The Cour de cassation Closes the ‘Internship’ Loophole (Civ. 3e, 16 April 2026)

The Cour de cassation has ruled that a student internship — even one embedded in a university curriculum — does not count as a 'professional obligation' for the purposes of the 120-day annual cap on tourism rentals of a French primary residence. We unpack what the 16 April 2026 ruling closes off, what it leaves intact, and how it interacts with the Loi Le Meur tightening.

Buying French Property as a US Person: The Tax-Reporting Stack You Cannot Skip (2026)

A field guide to the IRS reporting stack — FBAR, Form 8938, Form 8865, Schedule E, Foreign Tax Credit — that US persons take on the moment they buy French property, with the SCI classification puzzle and the post-2019 CSG/CRDS creditability under LB&I-04-0819-007.