No prior authorisation is required of a foreign buyer in France. No administrative approval, no nationality requirement, no residence obligation: the purchase is unrestricted. The only constraint is one of form, and it is absolute. The sale of real property is concluded before a notaire (the French public notary), a public officer who drafts the deed, checks title, clears pre-emption rights and carries out registration at the land registry (publicité foncière).
An open market, a locked-down deed
This openness explains the make-up of the French high-end market. International clients account for around 60% of transactions in the Paris luxury segment. On the Côte d'Azur, more than 70% of buyers are foreign: American, British, Scandinavian, German-speaking, with a growing Slavic clientele.
The notaire is neutral: he or she executes the deed and represents neither party. A foreign buyer therefore has an interest in appointing his or her own notaire, which French law allows at no extra cost, the two offices sharing the fee (émolument). It is the simplest way to obtain an independent second reading of the title deed and of the easements.
The timetable seen from abroad
The sequence is the same as for a resident: written offer, promesse de vente or compromis de vente (the preliminary sale agreement), then the acte authentique (the final notarised deed) once the administrative clearances have been completed and financing obtained. Distance does not change the stages, it lengthens each of them.
Three points call for particular care. The ten-day withdrawal period benefits the non-professional buyer; it runs from notification of the preliminary agreement, and a notification sent abroad must be properly organised to be enforceable. The loan condition precedent (condition suspensive de prêt) must describe the intended financing precisely, including where it is sought outside France. The technical survey file (dossier de diagnostic technique), provided no later than the promesse, includes the loi Carrez floor-area measurement and the energy performance certificate (diagnostic de performance énergétique, DPE).
A notarised power of attorney (procuration authentique) is the usual tool when the buyer cannot travel. It is signed before a local notary or a consulate, with an apostille and translation by a sworn translator. This process takes several weeks and should be started as soon as the preliminary agreement is signed, not the day before completion.
What entry really costs
The asking price is not the cost of entry. In 2026, acquisition costs for existing (resale) property range from 7 to 8% of the price in the départements that have remained at 4.50% transfer duties, and up to around 8.5% in those that have moved to 5.00%.
The 2025 Finance Act authorised the conseils départementaux (county councils) to raise the rate of droits de mutation à titre onéreux (transfer duties on sales) from 4.50% to 5.00%, i.e. 0.5 point, from 1 April 2025 to 30 April 2028, by resolution. As at 1 June 2026, almost all départements apply this ceiling, including Paris and the whole of Île-de-France, the Lyon metropolitan area and the Rhône, the Bouches-du-Rhône, the Gironde, the Haute-Garonne, the Nord, the Loire-Atlantique, Alsace and Corsica. Transfer duties represent around 70% of what are customarily called frais de notaire (notary's fees).
To these are added agency fees, bank charges and currency exchange. On a €2,000,000 acquisition settled from another currency, the movement in the exchange rate between the preliminary agreement and completion can weigh more than the price negotiation. A forward exchange contract, set to the expected signing date, neutralises this risk at a cost known in advance.
Financing in euros in 2026
French banks lend to non-residents, with firmer requirements: a larger deposit, placement of savings with the bank, sometimes a pledge over a life-insurance policy (assurance-vie). The application is judged on the quality of the income and its currency as much as on its amount, because income denominated outside the euro area shifts the exchange risk onto the lender.
The context in September 2026 is one of rising costs. The average 20-year rate stands at 3.35% according to the Observatoire Crédit Logement/CSA, with brokers' barometers ranging from 3.40% to 3.54%. The strongest profiles obtain 3.00 to 3.10% over 20 years. Above all, the 10-year OAT (French government bond) crossed 4% in September 2026, a level not seen since 2009, and the trend in rates is once again upward.
Borrowing also retains a tax advantage for a non-resident: acquisition debt is deductible from the base of the impôt sur la fortune immobilière (IFI, the French real-estate wealth tax), whose entry threshold is €1.3 million of net taxable assets on 1 January. A non-resident is liable only on property located in France. The documents expected by a French lender are as follows:
- tax assessments or income tax returns for the last two years, translated
- bank statements for the last three months, in each currency held
- the employment contract, or the accounts and declared remuneration for a company director
- a statement of assets and outstanding loans, in France and abroad
- documented evidence of the source of the deposit funds
- the signed compromis and the property's technical survey file
Letting: taxation of French-source income
French-source rental income is taxable in France, wherever the owner resides. It is subject to the progressive income tax scale, with a minimum tax rate of 20%, to which the prélèvements sociaux (social security levies) are added.
The most rewarding point of attention concerns precisely these levies. Persons affiliated to a compulsory social security scheme of the European Economic Area, Switzerland or the United Kingdom bear only the 7.5% solidarity levy (prélèvement de solidarité), instead of 17.2%. This reduction is not automatic: it must be requested, with proof of affiliation, and claimed back where it has been omitted.
The tax treaty between France and the state of residence then determines the treatment in the country of domicile, by exemption or by tax credit. It takes precedence over domestic law and should be read before the first return, not after the first assessment.
Reselling: capital gains and formalities
On resale, capital gains on property realised by individuals are taxed at 19% income tax and 17.2% social security levies, subject to the solidarity levy reduced to 7.5%. A surtax of 2% to 6% applies above €50,000 of taxable gain.
The holding period reduces the bill according to two distinct schedules. For income tax, the allowance is 6% per year from the 6th to the 21st year and 4% in the 22nd year, with full exemption after 22 years. For social security levies, it is 1.65% per year from the 6th year, then follows an accelerated pace at the end of the period, full exemption being reached after 30 years.
Two flat-rate allowances improve the cost basis without supporting documents: a flat 7.5% for acquisition costs and a flat 15% of the purchase price for works, allowed after 5 years of ownership. Keeping invoices remains preferable when actual works exceed this flat rate.
The tax is paid on the day of the deed, deducted from the price by the notaire. Above a certain sale amount, a seller resident outside the European Economic Area must appoint an accredited tax representative (représentant fiscal), whose fee is negotiated and should be anticipated in the exit budget.
Direct ownership, SCI or foreign company
The choice of structure is made before the offer, because changing it afterwards costs duties. Direct ownership in one's own name is the simplest and the most transparent, including for lenders. It does, however, expose the property to French succession rules and to joint ownership between heirs (indivision) that is hard to manage from abroad.
The société civile immobilière (SCI, a French non-trading property company) brings governance: management, articles of association, transfer of shares, split ownership of the shares (démembrement, into usufruct and bare ownership) valued according to the scale in article 669 of the CGI (French General Tax Code), and gradual transfer within the €100,000 allowance per parent and per child, renewable every fifteen years. It does not remove the IFI, and the 30% allowance attached to the main residence does not apply to a property held by an SCI in which the household lives.
A foreign company is rarely a sound choice for a French property: it adds an annual reporting obligation on the chain of ownership, complicates borrowing and attracts the attention of the tax authorities. What we observe can be summed up in one sentence: non-resident purchases that proceed smoothly are those in which the French notaire, the tax adviser in the country of residence and the bank were brought together before the offer was signed. Those that go off the rails are those in which the structure was decided between the compromis and completion.
