France’s 2026 Notary-Fee Hike: Why British Buyers Pay More

Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal, tax, or financial advice. Always consult a qualified French notaire, avocat, or chartered accountant before acting on anything you read here. The English Investor accepts no liability for decisions taken on the basis of this article.

A British investor we know completed on a one-bed in Antibes in early February 2026, paying €580,000 for a tidy second-line apartment a short walk from the port. His total frais de notaire bill, presented at the signing of the acte authentique, came to roughly €44,000. A friend of his, looking at a similar flat down the same street earlier this year, had used a notaire-fee calculator on the way to the agence and quoted him “around €40,000”. The €4,000 gap was not a mistake. It is the headline result of the 2025 finance law’s authorisation for French départements to raise their share of droits de mutation à titre onéreux (DMTO) from 4.5% to 5%, a rise that landed on 1 April 2025 and that, by 1 April 2026, has been adopted by something like 83 of France’s 100 départements. For most British buyers of a resale flat in 2026, the practical effect is a 0.5-point increase in the largest line of the notaire bill, irrevocable on signing, paid out of cash on the day of completion.

The change is temporary in name — the legal authorisation runs to 31 March 2028, after which the maximum DMTO rate reverts to 4.5% unless a new law is passed. In practice, given France’s fiscal position and the political popularity of devolved tax-raising powers, treating the rate as permanent is the safer planning assumption. This article walks through who actually pays the new rate, who is exempt, what the total notaire bill looks like in the new régime, and how British buyers should think about the change in the wider context of their French acquisition. For the broader procedural map of buying in France, our complete buying guide covers the full transaction; our French mortgage guide for non-residents covers the financing side; our regional property guide covers Paris and the Côte d’Azur in particular; and our 2026 CSG-hike article covers the other significant 2026 tax change for British landlords.

What the 2025 finance law actually changed

The legal mechanism is article 116 of the Loi de finances pour 2025 (LOI n° 2025-127 du 14 février 2025), which authorised French conseils départementaux to raise their DMTO rate by up to 0.5 percentage points above the previous 4.5% statutory ceiling, to a new ceiling of 5%. The rise is optional — each département has to vote it. It is also explicitly time-limited: the authorisation runs from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2028, after which the ceiling reverts. The communal share of DMTO (1.20%) and the state collection fee (around 2.37% of the départemental DMTO) are unchanged. The notaire’s own emoluments — the regulated émoluments du notaire, set by Décret n° 2021-1905 and the arrêté du 25 février 2026 (current tariffs valid until 29 February 2028) — are also unchanged. Only the départemental share is affected.

The take-up has been wide. As of 1 April 2026, the position can be summarised cautiously as follows: somewhere around 83 départements have raised their rate to 5%; roughly 10 départements have kept the old 4.5% rate (Paris is among the 5%-rate départements; some rural and ultramarine départements have not yet moved); and a small number of historically lower-tax territories — notably Indre and Mayotte — have retained their pre-existing 3.80% rate. Because départemental finance councils can revisit the decision year to year, this distribution will continue to drift; before signing a compromis de vente, a British buyer should ask their notaire to confirm the rate applicable to the specific commune and the date of the planned signing.

Who is exempt — and why most British buyers are not

The hike comes with one statutory carve-out that is meaningful for some buyers but, in our experience, helpful for relatively few cross-border British purchasers: an exemption for primo-accédants, meaning buyers acquiring a property to be used as their résidence principale who have not been owners of their main residence for the two years preceding the acquisition. The definition tracks article L. 31-10-3 of the Code de la construction et de l’habitation, which is the same definition used for the Prêt à Taux Zéro. Two conditions have to be met simultaneously: the buyer must not have owned a main residence in the past two years, and the French property being acquired must itself be intended as a main residence.

For a British buyer, this carve-out usually fails on one of the two conditions, often on both. A British investor acquiring a Paris flat as a pied-à-terre, a Côte d’Azur villa as a holiday home, or any property destined for rental — long-term, short-term, furnished, unfurnished — is not buying a French main residence and is therefore outside the carve-out regardless of their UK ownership history. A British buyer who is relocating to France and intends the French property to be their new main residence still has to clear the second condition: the prevailing reading of article L. 31-10-3 is that ownership of a UK main residence in the past two years counts as ownership of “leur résidence principale” for the test, on the basis that the test is about being a property-owner of one’s primary home, not about which country that home is in. A British buyer who has rented in the UK for the past two years and who is moving to France could, on this reading, qualify; a British buyer who already owns a UK home, almost certainly cannot.

One additional nuance applies to couples. For unmarried partners, PACS partners, and married couples in séparation de biens, the exemption is applied on a per-buyer-per-share basis — each indivisaire who personally qualifies as a primo-accédant gets the exemption on their share, even if their partner doesn’t qualify. For married couples in communauté (the default régime for French marriages without a contract), both spouses must qualify — a single non-qualifying spouse defeats the exemption for the whole acquisition. None of this is a workaround for the typical British investor buying for rental or as a second home; it matters only for the narrow case of a British buyer relocating to France where one partner has owned a UK home and the other has not.

What you actually pay: the breakdown by buyer type

The DMTO is the largest line on the notaire bill but not the only one. The other significant components are: the communal share of DMTO (1.20%), an état “frais d’assiette et de recouvrement” surtax computed as 2.37% of the départemental DMTO (so around 0.118% of the property price under a 5% départemental rate), the notaire’s regulated emoluments (sliding scale, roughly 4% of the first €6,500, then descending to 0.799% above €60,000 — a total of around 0.9–1.1% of the price for a typical residential transaction), the contribution de sécurité immobilière at 0.1%, and a few hundred euros of disbursements (état civil, formalities, registration). The headline DMTO rate dominates the total but does not determine it on its own. The table below sets out the practical position for each fact-pattern of British buyer in 2026.

The point the table makes is that the régime is no longer a single national rate. There are now four distinct buckets a British buyer can fall into, and the gap between the lowest and the highest — Indre-resident new-build buyer at ~2% versus Côte d’Azur second-home buyer in a hiked département at ~7.5% — is wider than at any point since the early 1990s. For most British buyers, the practical relevance is the difference between buckets one and two, around 0.5 points, or roughly €2,500 to €5,000 on a typical Paris/Riviera purchase.

The Article 52 LF 2026 primo-accédant reduction (and why it rarely helps British buyers)

The 2026 Loi de finances introduced a separate, optional, département-level reduction available to primo-accédants — a discount of up to 50% on the départemental DMTO, for property acquired between 1 January and 31 December 2026 as a main residence by buyers meeting the PTZ-style primo-accédant test, with an income ceiling tied to the PTZ income thresholds. As with the LF 2025 hike, the reduction is optional at the département level and, in practice, only a handful of départements have voted for it so far. For most British investors buying a French property, the reduction is irrelevant — both the income test and the main-residence requirement filter them out. We mention it because it has been heavily promoted in the French press and because some readers will see it referenced and wonder if it applies. For the typical British investor buyer, the answer is no.

A worked example: a €580,000 Côte d’Azur resale flat in 2026

To make the change concrete, here is the breakdown for a British buyer purchasing a €580,000 resale flat in the Alpes-Maritimes (DMTO raised to 5%) in May 2026, as a second home or for rental — i.e. the typical fact-pattern for our reader. The départemental DMTO is €29,000 (5%), the communal DMTO is €6,960 (1.20%), the état surtax is approximately €687 (2.37% of the départemental DMTO), the notaire’s emoluments are around €5,400 (sliding scale, roughly 0.93%), the contribution de sécurité immobilière is €580 (0.1%), and disbursements are around €600. The total notaire bill is approximately €43,200, or 7.45% of the price. Under the pre-1 April 2025 régime, the départemental DMTO would have been €26,100 instead of €29,000 — a saving of €2,900 — the état surtax would have been around €619 instead of €687, and the total would have been around €40,260 (6.94%). For exactly the same property, in exactly the same commune, the same buyer pays around €2,900 more in 2026 than they would have a year earlier.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the new départemental DMTO rate in 2026 and when did it change?

The maximum départemental DMTO rate rose from 4.5% to 5% from 1 April 2025, under article 116 of the Loi de finances 2025. The authorisation runs to 31 March 2028, after which the rate reverts unless renewed. As of 1 April 2026, somewhere around 83 of France’s 100 départements have voted to apply the new 5% rate; ~10 have kept 4.5%; Indre and Mayotte have retained their historic 3.80%.

Does the hike apply to new-build property?

No. New-build property — VEFA (vente en l’état futur d’achèvement) and property less than five years old — is subject to the taxe de publicité foncière at 0.715% rather than DMTO at 5%. Total frais de notaire on a new build typically run 2–3% of the price, materially cheaper than the 6.5–7.5% range for resale property.

I’m a UK resident buying a Paris flat as a second home. Am I exempt as a primo-accédant?

Almost certainly not. The primo-accédant exemption requires that the property is being acquired as a French résidence principale, and a second home, holiday home, or rental property does not satisfy that test. Even if you are buying a French main residence, ownership of a UK home in the past two years is generally treated as ownership of your résidence principale for the test, which would also disqualify you. Confirm with your notaire on the specific facts of your acquisition.

How much extra does the hike actually cost on a typical British purchase?

0.5 percentage points of the property price. On a €500,000 Paris flat, that is approximately €2,500 extra in DMTO, paid in cash at signing of the acte authentique. On a €1,000,000 Côte d’Azur villa, approximately €5,000 extra. Because the hike is on the départemental DMTO line and not on the émoluments du notaire, the absolute saving from negotiating a lower price flows through proportionately.

Can I get a refund if my département later reverts to 4.5%?

No. The DMTO is paid at the rate in force at the date of signing of the acte authentique. A subsequent rate reduction does not retroactively affect a completed purchase. If your département reverts to 4.5% during your search but before your signing, your notaire will compute on the rate applicable on the day of signature.

Are there any other exemptions or reductions a British buyer might claim?

For most British buyers, no. The hike has very limited carve-outs: the primo-accédant exemption (above), some specific HLM/social-housing acquisitions, and the optional Article 52 LF 2026 reduction for primo-accédants in a small number of opt-in départements. For an investor buying a flat as a second home or to let, none of these is likely to apply. The realistic answer is to budget for the full 7.0–7.5% in any of the 83 hiked départements, and to ask the notaire for the exact computation on the specific commune as part of the compromis.