What taxes are collected on a rented out second home in France?
Taxe d'habitation applies to all housing not used as a main residence
New rules on declaring holiday accommodation mean having a Siret number
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Reader Question: Will I now have to pay the cotisation fonci猫re des entreprises (CFE) business tax as well as taxe d'habitation if I rent out my second home?
The simple reply is 鈥減ossibly鈥�.
Taxe d'habitation applies to all housing not used as a main residence.
Where a second home is rented out long term, the decision on whether it applies depends on the situation of the renter: if it is their main home, the tax is not levied. If it is rented out as a holiday let, it is.
The other tax, CFE, is the successor to the old taxe professionnelle, which was abolished in 2010 and which used to make up half of the revenue of many communal budgets.
This helps to explain why the new requirement to make a d茅claration d'un meubl茅 de tourisme to the mairie and tax office has excited interest far beyond communes in which Airbnb rentals have emptied town centres.
Many rural communes have 驳卯迟别蝉 within their boundary and a proportion of the CFE should go back to them, even though regional councils get the lion鈥檚 share.
However, communes can choose not to apply CFE to tourist accommodation. The reasoning is that tourism often brings in more income than the tax.
The fact that many members of the municipal council in rural areas know people who rent out 驳卯迟别蝉, or rent them out themselves, means additional taxes can also be sensitive.
New rules on declaring holiday accommodation mean having a Siret number, which identifies the business and is used by the tax office to calculate income tax, social security contributions and which also opens the way for CFE payments.
Businesses with sales of less than 鈧�5,000 a year are exempt from paying CFE.
Also exonerated are occasional, not-repeated rentals. It is assumed that if the property is advertised online it is more than an occasional rental.
To understand if you will have to pay CFE, talk to your local tax officer who deals with businesses.
They may have to check whether your commune has decided to exempt CFE from tourist rentals, so do not expect an immediate answer.
