How to Check and Contest Your French Property Tax (Taxe Foncière)

If you own property in France — a holiday home, a rental, a pied-à-terre — you receive a taxe foncière bill every year, and often a taxe d'habitation as well if the property is a second home. Both are calculated from the same figure: the cadastral rental value (valeur locative cadastrale) your bien was assigned decades ago.

That figure is frequently wrong. It was set during the 1970 nationwide valuation and is rarely updated. If the characteristics on record no longer match your property, you have been overpaying — quietly, every year. Here is how to check, and what you can do about it.

A note on wording: contesting your taxe foncière does not mean the tax office made a calculation error. The calculation is correct — it is the data about your property (surface, category, condition, comfort features) that may be out of date. Contesting means asking for that data to be corrected.

Why your French property tax may be too high

Your cadastral rental value is built from a handful of parameters, each a potential source of error:

• Weighted surface (surface pondérée): the tax office starts from floor area, not the Carrez (habitable) area — and adds notional square metres for comfort features. Miscounted attics or outbuildings inflate it.
• Category (1 to 8): a quality rating from grand standing (1) to very modest (8). Homes are often over-classified compared to their real condition.
• Maintenance coefficient: 0.80 to 1.20 depending on the building's state. Fixed at construction and rarely revised downward, even as the building ages.
• Comfort features: water, heating, bathrooms — each converted into extra taxable square metres.

For foreign owners, one situation is especially common: a property converted, renovated or let as a holiday rental almost never has an evaluation sheet that reflects its current state.

Before going further, one question is worth answering: is this worth it for your property? Our simulator reproduces the official DGFiP calculation and tells you, in a few minutes and for free, whether your recorded data looks inflated.

The deadline to contest — do not miss it

You can challenge your taxe foncière until 31 December of the year following the year the tax was issued (art. R*196-2 of the French Tax Procedures Code). For example, a 2026 bill can be contested until 31 December 2027. This deadline is strict — one day late and the claim is inadmissible.

The same deadline applies, as a matter of prudence, to the taxe d'habitation on second homes and to vacant-property taxes.

Step 1 — Get your evaluation sheet (fiche d'évaluation)

This document (the fiche d'évaluation cadastrale, also called form 6675-SD) lists every parameter used to calculate your value. It is free. Request it:

• through the secure messaging of your personal space on impots.gouv.fr, or
• by letter to the local land tax office (centre des impôts fonciers) where the property is located.

Allow a few weeks. Without this sheet you cannot check anything precisely.

Step 2 — Check the figures against reality

Compare what the sheet records against your actual property: surface, category, maintenance condition, comfort features. A gap between the recorded data and reality is what you can challenge.

Step 3 — File your claim (réclamation)

There is no lawyer and no fee required. You file:

• online, through the secure messaging on impots.gouv.fr ("I am reporting an error in the calculation of my tax"), or
• by post to the land tax office of the property.

The tax office has, in principle, six months to reply. A favourable reply means a dégrèvement (reduction). A rejection can be appealed before the administrative court within two months.

Note: you must still pay the tax while your claim is examined, unless you expressly request a stay of payment (sursis de paiement).

This guide is general information in English for convenience. Recalcul-Taxe-Fonciere.fr helps you read and reproduce the official calculation of your cadastral rental value; you remain in charge of any dealings with the French tax authority. We are not lawyers or tax representatives and do not act on your behalf.