What the expression "frais de notaire" covers
The expression frais de notaire (literally, notary's fees) is misleading, and it proves costly to those who take it literally. Only a small part of the sums paid on the day of signing goes to the notaire (the French public notary). They break down into three blocks: the droits de mutation à titre onéreux (transfer duties on sales), collected on behalf of the département, the municipality and the State; the débours (disbursements), advanced by the notary's office to obtain planning documents, the mortgage register search or a survey document; and the émoluments, the notary's fees proper, set by regulation and decreasing by price band.
The hierarchy between these blocks is unambiguous: on existing property, transfer duties represent around 70% of acquisition costs. The variable that determines the cost of entry of an acquisition is therefore neither the notary's tariff nor the choice of office, but a resolution of a conseil départemental (county council).
This mechanism explains why comparing two notary's offices has little point on this item, and why comparing two départements had a great deal of point until recently. It has much less today, for a reason that lies in the widespread use of an option opened up in 2025.
The half-point of April 2025
The 2025 Finance Act authorised the conseils départementaux to raise the rate of transfer duties from 4.50% to 5.00%, i.e. an additional half-point, for the period from 1 April 2025 to 30 April 2028. The option is not automatic: it requires a resolution of the departmental assembly, and it is limited in time.
On an illustrative calculation, a €2,000,000 acquisition, this half-point represents €10,000 of additional duties. Compared with acquisition costs that reach around 8.5% of the price in the départements at the ceiling, i.e. in the order of €170,000, the increase may seem secondary. It is not, in a financing plan, because these sums are not covered by the loan and are charged in full against the available deposit.
The temporary nature of the measure deserves attention. It expires on 30 April 2028, unless the legislature decides otherwise. A buyer reasoning over a long holding horizon has no reason to make it a decision criterion; a buyer whose project falls at the turning point of the timetable would do well to discuss it with his notaire, because the date that counts is that of the acte authentique (the final notarised deed), not that of the promesse (preliminary sale agreement).
A map that has become almost uniform
The option opened up in 2025 has been widely used. As at 1 June 2026, almost all départements apply the 5.00% 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. The areas that have remained at 4.50% are now the exception.
The practical consequence is twofold. On the one hand, geographical arbitrage based on the transfer duty rate has lost almost all its point: differences remain, but they now concern only half a point and will never offset a difference in price per square metre. On the other hand, the reference range to use when building a budget has shifted: 7 to 8% of the price where the rate has remained at 4.50%, up to around 8.5% elsewhere.
This range applies to existing property. For new-build property, the sale falls under a separate regime: registration duties are reduced, the tax being paid in the form of value added tax included in the advertised price. The difference in costs between new-build and existing property therefore says nothing about the difference in overall cost, which depends on the sale price itself and on the condition of the property.
The exception reserved for first-time buyers
The legislature attached an exclusion to the increase. Primo-accédants (first-time buyers) acquiring their main residence are excluded from the 0.5-point increase, whatever the département. They therefore remain at the previous rate, including in départements that have resolved to apply the ceiling.
Two checks are required before relying on this exclusion. The first concerns first-time buyer status, which is assessed according to precise criteria of not having previously owned one's main residence, and not according to the buyer's intuition. The second concerns the intended use of the property: the exclusion covers the acquisition of the main residence, to the exclusion of a buy-to-let investment or a second home.
This point is dealt with the notaire before the promesse, because the qualification appears in the deed and governs the calculation of duties. A subsequent correction remains possible, but it is slow and requires the situation to be justified after the event.
The items people forget to budget for
The asking price, acquisition costs and agency fees make up only part of the real cost of entry. In prestige property, negotiation fees are frequently set as a fixed amount rather than as a percentage, and who bears them, seller or buyer, is stated in the mandate and then in the preliminary agreement. It is a clause to be checked, not an implicit convention.
The complete entry budget includes at least the following items:
- Transfer duties and notary's fees, calculated by the notaire on the price excluding furniture.
- Negotiation fees, with express mention of the party that bears them.
- Loan security costs, mortgage or guarantee (caution), and bank arrangement fees.
- Borrower insurance over the full term, an item often heavier than a difference in interest rate.
- Adjustment of copropriété (co-ownership) service charges, the works fund and calls for funds voted but not yet due.
- Refurbishment works and project management fees, established on the basis of quotes and not estimates.
One point deserves to be negotiated rather than accepted: the allocation for furniture. Where a property is sold with genuine movable items, inventoried and taken at their market value, their amount is removed from the base for duties. The exercise is legitimate if it rests on a serious inventory and defensible values; it becomes risky as soon as it is used to understate the price artificially, and the notaire will refuse to lend himself to it.
What costs become on resale
Acquisition costs are not lost: they are taken into account in calculating the capital gain on the day of resale. The seller uses either the costs actually incurred and documented, or a flat rate of 7.5% of the purchase price. In addition, after five years of ownership, a flat-rate works allowance of 15% of the purchase price is allowed without supporting documents.
The effect on taxation is far from marginal. Capital gains realised by individuals are taxed at 19% income tax and 17.2% prélèvements sociaux (social security levies), with a surtax of 2% to 6% above €50,000 of taxable gain. The holding-period allowances lead to exemption from income tax after 22 years and from social security levies after 30 years. The main residence, for its part, is exempt whatever the holding period.
The rule of method that follows can be stated in two words: keep invoices. The 15% flat-rate works allowance is only advantageous if actual spending was lower; otherwise, only retained supporting documents make it possible to use the amount actually spent, and the difference sometimes amounts to tens of thousands of euros in tax.
Our conclusions
The real cost of entry for an acquisition of existing property now lies between 7 and 8.5% of the price depending on the département, and this sum must be available as equity. It is the first constraint to set in a financing plan, even before the question of the borrowing rate.
The second lesson concerns timing and geography. The additional half-point applies until 30 April 2028, and almost all départements have adopted it. Useful arbitrage therefore no longer concerns the location of the acquisition, but the quality of the price negotiation: one point obtained on the price weighs far more than the half-point of duties one might hope to avoid by changing département.
An honest caveat to finish. The exact calculation of duties depends on the nature of the property, its intended use, the presence of furniture, the status of the buyer and, for acquisitions made by a company, a separate regime that calls for its own analysis. Only the notaire calculates the cost of the deed, and does so on the basis of documents. An online simulation gives an order of magnitude, never an amount to enter in a financing plan.
