This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Local tax rates change every year by deliberation of each commune and intercommunalité, and your actual bill depends on your property’s cadastral rental value as well as the rates shown here. Before making decisions about a specific property, consult a qualified professional.
Last Updated: July 2026
Here is a small experiment we have wanted to run for a long time. Take two buyers with the same €300,000, one dreaming of a golden-stone house near Sarlat, the other of a one-bedroom flat in Paris. Ask which of them will face the heavier property-tax rate, and nearly everyone picks Paris, because Paris is expensive and expensive places surely tax expensively. The tax administration’s own data says the opposite, and not by a little: the combined rate in Sarlat-la-Canéda is more than three times the Parisian one.
Nobody had assembled the numbers for the towns where foreign buyers actually buy, so we did. We pulled the official 2025 voted rates – the ones behind the avis de taxe foncière (property-tax bills) landing in letterboxes from late August – for 47 communes across every recognised expat belt: the Riviera, the Dordogne and Gascony, the Alps, the Atlantic coast, Brittany, Normandy, the Loire and the big cities. Every figure comes from the tax administration’s own published dataset, pulled programmatically so no number passed through human fingers on its way to this page.
What came back rearranged several things we thought we knew about French property. Some of it will rearrange your shortlist too.
The one-minute version
The gap between the gentlest and heaviest tax town on our map is 3.3 times: Paris multiplies the taxable base by a combined 27.42%, Auch in Gascony by 91.21%. The classic British bargain-hunting belt – Sarlat, Carcassonne, Cahors, Périgueux, Bergerac, Angoulême – occupies almost the entire top of the table, all above 64%, most above 72%. The Riviera looks moderate on rates but plays a different card: eleven towns on our map, Nice, Menton, Saint-Tropez and Biarritz among them, add the legal-maximum 60% surcharge to the second-home tax. Paris has raised its rate faster than anywhere else, up 50% in five years, and is somehow still the cheapest rate on the map. And the ski resorts, which sell the most expensive square metres outside the capital, quietly run some of the gentlest holding costs in France.
Where these numbers come from – and the one thing they cannot tell you
A quick word on what you are looking at, because rates are honest but they are not bills. Your taxe foncière is calculated on your property’s valeur locative cadastrale (notional cadastral rent), halved, and then multiplied by a stack of locally voted percentages. We have written a full anatomy of that mechanism, using a real bill decoded line by line, if you want to see the machine with its casing off.
This study compares the multiplier, not the base. Two clarifications keep everything honest. First, our headline figure combines the global taxe foncière rate (commune, intercommunalité, flood-defence and special levies) with the TEOM (household-waste tax), because that is the stack your bill actually applies; three towns (Périgueux, Bergerac, Eymet) fund waste collection outside the TEOM, so their combined figure is slightly understated. Second, bases differ between towns: a Paris flat carries a far higher cadastral value than a Gascon farmhouse, which is exactly why Paris collects plenty of money at a low rate. The rate still matters enormously, for a simple reason: it is the part that moves. Bases follow a national inflation coefficient; rates are voted every spring by the people who run your commune, and as the five-year chart below shows, they use the pen.
The map at a glance
The full table, ranked by the combined 2025 rate. The THRS column shows the voted surcharge on the second-home taxe d’habitation, where the commune applies one; the last column shows how the global taxe foncière rate moved between 2021 and 2025.
| # | Commune (dép.) | TF rate 2025 | TEOM | Combined | THRS surcharge | 5-yr change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Auch (32) | 81.05% | 10.16% | 91.21% | none | +1.6% |
| 2 | Sarlat-la-Canéda (24) | 68.1% | 18.77% | 86.87% | none | -3.5% |
| 3 | Carcassonne (11) | 72.67% | 12.1% | 84.77% | none | -1.2% |
| 4 | Cahors (46) | 65.46% | 13.76% | 79.22% | none | +0.9% |
| 5 | Périgueux (24) | 73.75% | n/a* | 73.75% | none | +1.3% |
| 6 | Angoulême (16) | 62.48% | 10.3% | 72.78% | none | +0.1% |
| 7 | Bayeux (14) | 53.94% | 18.48% | 72.42% | none | +7.7% |
| 8 | Pézenas (34) | 56.51% | 15.44% | 71.95% | none | +0.1% |
| 9 | Montpellier (34) | 54.28% | 14.62% | 68.9% | +60% | +1.6% |
| 10 | Honfleur (14) | 55.47% | 12.11% | 67.58% | none | +7.5% |
| 11 | Gourdon (46) | 50.78% | 15.89% | 66.67% | none | +0.1% |
| 12 | Marseille (13) | 47.87% | 18.1% | 65.97% | +60% | +13.1% |
| 13 | La Rochelle (17) | 55.25% | 10.18% | 65.43% | +60% | +0.7% |
| 14 | Bergerac (24) | 64.88% | n/a* | 64.88% | none | +2.4% |
| 15 | Cognac (16) | 51.96% | 10.9% | 62.86% | none | +4.2% |
| 16 | Uzès (30) | 49.53% | 13.1% | 62.63% | none | +0.6% |
| 17 | Perpignan (66) | 50.5% | 9.7% | 60.2% | none | -0.2% |
| 18 | Deauville (14) | 56.06% | 4.04% | 60.1% | +20% | +9.1% |
| 19 | Saumur (49) | 48.78% | 10.15% | 58.93% | none | +1.7% |
| 20 | Bordeaux (33) | 49.54% | 9.31% | 58.85% | +60% | +6.4% |
| 21 | Saintes (17) | 58.7% | n/a* | 58.7% | none | -0.1% |
| 22 | Toulouse (31) | 49.67% | 8.1% | 57.77% | +20% | +1.5% |
| 23 | Avignon (84) | 44.51% | 10.9% | 55.41% | +48.6% | +0.2% |
| 24 | Chinon (37) | 51.93% | 3.31% | 55.24% | none | +2.5% |
| 25 | Tours (37) | 44.11% | 10.86% | 54.97% | none | +12.3% |
| 26 | Pau (64) | 44.53% | 9.03% | 53.56% | none | +10.0% |
| 27 | L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (84) | 40.96% | 12.1% | 53.06% | +40% | +0.0% |
| 28 | Nice (06) | 42.43% | 10.46% | 52.89% | +60% | +17.2% |
| 29 | Dinan (22) | 39.52% | 13.1% | 52.62% | none | -0.1% |
| 30 | Menton (06) | 39.01% | 13% | 52.01% | +60% | +30.8% |
| 31 | Limoges (87) | 44.62% | 6.12% | 50.74% | none | +13.0% |
| 32 | Aix-en-Provence (13) | 36.02% | 14% | 50.02% | none | +0.2% |
| 33 | Grasse (06) | 30.97% | 18.73% | 49.7% | +20% | +0.3% |
| 34 | Courchevel (73) | 34.83% | 11.2% | 46.03% | none | +0.1% |
| 35 | Vannes (56) | 34.13% | 11.82% | 45.95% | none | +1.0% |
| 36 | Eymet (24) | 45.25% | n/a* | 45.25% | none | +3.3% |
| 37 | Biarritz (64) | 34.51% | 10.7% | 45.21% | +60% | +1.6% |
| 38 | Annecy (74) | 36.04% | 6.83% | 42.87% | +60% | +19.5% |
| 39 | Les Allues (Méribel) (73) | 31.11% | 11.2% | 42.31% | none | +0.2% |
| 40 | Megève (74) | 34.39% | 7.26% | 41.65% | none | +0.0% |
| 41 | Saint-Tropez (83) | 30.3% | 10.03% | 40.33% | +60% | -0.1% |
| 42 | Cannes (06) | 28.07% | 12.25% | 40.32% | none | -0.8% |
| 43 | Chamonix-Mont-Blanc (74) | 30.99% | 8.2% | 39.19% | +50% | +6.5% |
| 44 | Morzine (74) | 31.96% | 7% | 38.96% | +55% | +1.5% |
| 45 | Lyon (69) | 32.82% | 5.19% | 38.01% | +60% | +9.7% |
| 46 | Antibes (06) | 28.61% | 8.55% | 37.16% | +50% | +0.1% |
| 47 | Paris (75) | 21.21% | 6.21% | 27.42% | +60% | +50.1% |
* Périgueux, Bergerac and Eymet fund waste collection outside the TEOM; their combined figures are understated. Source for all rates: DGFiP, Fiscalité locale des particuliers, 2025 voted rates.
The 90% club: Gascony, the Dordogne and the price of a bargain
Auch, the market-town capital of Gascony, tops the table at 91.21%. Sarlat, the honey-coloured heart of British Dordogne, follows at 86.87%, with Carcassonne (84.77%), Cahors (79.22%) and Périgueux (at least 73.75%, waste aside) close behind. It is hard to miss the pattern: the towns where an English buyer’s money goes furthest on purchase day are the towns that tax ownership hardest ever after.
The economics are not mysterious. These communes maintain schools, pools, roads and medieval town centres on modest cadastral bases – the same low notional rents that make the houses cheap give the council very little to multiply, so it multiplies harder. The result for a foreign owner is a quiet inversion of instinct: on identical bases, a Périgord property owner would pay roughly three times what a Parisian pays. In practice the Parisian’s higher base claws some of that back, but the direction of travel surprises almost everyone, and it compounds annually for as long as you hold.
One consolation for the bargain belt, and it is a real one: this is the corner of the map where rates have been kindest lately. Sarlat actually cut its global rate by 3.5% over five years, Carcassonne trimmed 1.2%, and Auch, Périgueux and Cahors barely moved – high, in other words, but stable in a way that the coast, as we are about to see, is not.
The Riviera plays a different card
Nice sits mid-table at 52.89%, Cannes and Antibes lower still, Saint-Tropez at a positively gentle 40.33%. If you stopped reading at the taxe foncière column, the coast would look like the reasonable choice. Second-home owners should keep reading, because the Riviera has moved its taxation of foreigners somewhere else entirely: the taxe d’habitation sur les résidences secondaires, the second-home occupancy tax that survived the abolition of the main-residence version, and its surcharge.
Communes in designated tight housing markets may vote a surcharge of up to 60% on that tax. Eleven towns on our map have gone straight to the maximum: Nice, Menton, Saint-Tropez, Biarritz, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, La Rochelle, Annecy and Paris. Antibes and Chamonix sit at 50%, Morzine at 55%, Avignon at 48.6%, while Toulouse, Grasse and Deauville have (so far) contented themselves with 20%. If the property you are eyeing will be a holiday home rather than a main residence, this column deserves more of your attention than the headline rate; we have a full guide to the THRS and its surcharge, including who can escape it and how the zones are drawn.
Menton earns a special mention, and not a flattering one: a maximum surcharge and the second-fastest rate growth in the study, up 30.8% since 2021. The lemon festival is lovely. The trajectory is not.
Paris: up 50% and still, on paper, the cheapest
The capital is the study’s best paradox. Its combined 27.42% is the lowest rate on the map, roughly a third of Auch’s. It is also the fastest riser by a distance: the global rate has grown 50.1% in five years, most of it in one move, the now-notorious 2023 deliberation that lifted the communal rate by more than half in a single vote. Parisian bases being what they are, that translated into hundreds of extra euros for ordinary flats, and it happened between two Januarys with no phase-in and no appeal.
The lesson generalises, and it is the most practical sentence in this study: the rate you buy into is not the rate you will own into. A commune can reprice your holding cost every spring, and the 2023 Paris vote proves the ceiling is political, not legal. When you model a purchase – our real-cost Paris exercise shows the method – treat today’s taxe foncière as a floor, not a fact.
The Alpine anomaly
Now for the map’s pleasant surprise: Courchevel combines 46.03%, Megève 41.65%, Les Allues (the commune of Méribel) 42.31% and Chamonix 39.19% – some of the most expensive resale markets in France, sitting in the bottom quarter of the rate table, below Dinan, below Saumur, below Limoges. Megève’s rate has moved 0.0% in five years, a figure we double-checked because we did not believe it either.
The explanation is bittersweet for everyone who does not own a ski flat: resort communes are rich. Lift-company concessions, casino levies in some towns, the taxe de séjour (tourist tax) on hotel nights and a torrent of TEOM from commercial premises mean the mairie simply does not need your taxe foncière the way Auch does. Note the asterisks before you conclude the Alps are a fiscal paradise: Chamonix votes a 50% THRS surcharge and Morzine 55%, so the second-home tax still finds you; and resort service charges (that is a copropriété story, not a tax one) do their own quiet taxing.
Five years of movement: who has been reaching deeper
Measured from 2021 (the first year after the département’s share merged into communal rates, so the comparison is clean), the fast lane belongs to Paris (+50.1%), Menton (+30.8%), Annecy (+19.5%), Nice (+17.2%), Marseille and Limoges (+13.1% and +13.0%) and Tours (+12.3%). At the other end, five towns actually cut: Sarlat, Carcassonne, Cannes, Perpignan and, by a symbolic whisker, Saint-Tropez. The pattern worth noticing is that the risers are overwhelmingly the big, popular, second-home-taxing cities – the same names as the 60% surcharge list. Where foreign and holiday money concentrates, councils have discovered that non-voting owners are the least painful people to charge.
And remember the machinery underneath: even the frozen rates sit on bases that the State revalues for inflation every January (+1.7% in 2025). A commune that never votes a rise still collects more from you each year. Movement in this chart is acceleration on top of that baseline creep.
What to actually do with this table
If you are still choosing where to buy, put the combined rate and the THRS column into your comparison spreadsheet next to the asking price; over a fifteen-year hold, the difference between a 40% town and an 85% town on the same base is a second renovation budget. Ask every seller for their latest avis de taxe foncière – it is the one-page truth about a property’s running cost, any agent can obtain it, and you now know how to read it. If the property will be a second home, model the THRS with the surcharge from our table before you offer, not after the November bill. And whatever you buy, the full step-by-step of the purchase itself – contracts, costs, the notaire’s role – lives in our buying guide, with the tax filings that follow in the non-resident tax return guide.
Owners already holding in one of the fast-lane towns: your rate history is two clicks away in the dataset we used, and your commune’s next vote is a public meeting each spring. Attendance is rare, foreign attendance rarer, and both are legal.
We plan to re-run this study every year as the new rates land. If there is a town you would like added to the map, or your own bill tells a story the data misses, tell us – reader bills (anonymised, always) are how the decoder series was born, and the 2027 edition has room for more dots on the map.
FAQ: the tax map, in four questions
Why is my bill high if my town’s rate is low?
Because the bill is rate times base, and the base – your property’s cadastral rental value – varies hugely between towns and between properties. Paris pairs the lowest rate on our map with some of the highest bases in France. The rate tells you how hard your commune squeezes; the base tells you how much of you there is to squeeze.
Can the commune raise the rate after I buy?
Yes, every year, by a simple vote each spring, with no grandfathering for existing owners. Paris raised its communal rate by more than half in one 2023 vote. Treat the current rate as this year’s price, not a term of your purchase.
Is the 60% second-home surcharge avoidable?
Sometimes. It applies to furnished dwellings at your disposal that are not your main residence, in communes that have voted it. Making the property your genuine main residence removes it; letting it long-term unfurnished takes it out of the THRS altogether (and into other rules); short bursts of holiday letting generally do not. The details, including the zone list and the declaration mechanics, are in our THRS guide.
Where does this data come from, and can I check it?
Everything comes from the tax administration’s published dataset, “Fiscalité locale des particuliers”, 2025 voted rates, retrieved on 4 July 2026. We pulled it by API, so the table contains no manual transcription; the full extract is available to readers on request, and yes, you are warmly encouraged to check us.
