The French Property Playbook

Departmental duty and notaire costs.

A worked estimate is a starting point for the notaire’s transaction-specific calculation.

Formula sources checked 26 September 2026. This is a review date for the method, not confirmation of the rate for your property.

Ordinary resale: build the rate from its components

For the ordinary model, combine the confirmed departmental rate, 1.2% communal component and a collection charge equal to 2.37% of the departmental tax. With a 5% departmental rate, the combined rate is 6.3185%.

For an illustrative €250,000 ordinary purchase: €12,500 departmental tax + €3,000 communal tax + €296.25 collection charge = €15,796.25 transfer duty.

The same purchase, with the other modelled costs

Illustrative €250,000 resale — no relief or remuneration discount
Transfer duty	€15,796.25
Sale remuneration including 20% VAT	€2,873.70
CSI (0.1%)	€250.00
Illustrative formalities/disbursements allowance	€1,400.00
Selected acquisition costs	€20,319.95
Price plus selected costs	€270,319.95

The allowance is not a regulated flat charge. Agency fees, loan and guarantee costs, works, foreign-exchange costs and a buffer may need to be added.

Rates, dates and relief

The temporary increase above 4.5% applies within the statutory window from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2028, subject to local implementation. The estimator supports 3.8%, 4.5% and 5% as confirmed inputs; it does not determine which rate applies.

First-purchase/principal-residence treatment and other relief require transaction-specific confirmation. Enter the rate confirmed after relief. Mixed eligibility, partial relief and other local arrangements need a notaire’s calculation; they are not reduced automatically here.

Qualifying new property

The optional illustration assumes a sale subject to VAT on the full price at 20%, with reduced purchase tax. Its tax base is the entered VAT-inclusive price divided by 1.2; the reduced rate is 0.7% plus 2.14% of that tax, or 0.71498% of the excluding-VAT base. A new-looking property is not enough to establish this treatment.

The remuneration estimate uses the ordinary sale scale. Confirm its applicability: programme-volume and HLM reductions, VAT-on-margin sales and other special cases are excluded. CSI is modelled on the VAT-inclusive value.

Notarial remuneration

The ordinary model applies 3.870% on the first €6,500, 1.596% on the next €10,500, 1.064% on the next €43,000 and 0.799% above €60,000, then 20% VAT. An optional confirmed remise of up to 20% is applied only to the eligible remuneration slice above €100,000. The ordinary price base is rounded to a whole euro; added charges or a higher tax valuation are not modelled.

Scope and rounding

This simplified model concerns ordinary residential property in metropolitan France excluding Alsace-Moselle. Overseas and special transaction regimes are outside scope. CSI uses 0.1% with a €15 minimum. Arithmetic retains precision internally and displays cents; the notaire’s final assessment and rounding may differ.

Correction to our earlier estimate

The previous method added 0.5 percentage points to the old aggregate rate. The correction also applies the collection charge to the increased departmental component. At €250,000 that raises the duty estimate by €29.625 before display rounding.