The occupancy declaration: the annual obligation foreign owners miss

It is a recent obligation, quiet and purely declarative, and that is why it slips through: since 2023 every owner of a home in France declares to the tax administration who occupies their premises and on what basis. An owner living abroad often discovers it through an unexpected tax notice. This page says what it governs, alongside our reference page on keeping watch over a property.

What the declaration determines

Since council tax on principal residences was abolished, the administration no longer knows, from tax notices alone, who occupies what. The occupancy declaration fills that gap: it states, unit by unit, whether it is occupied by the owner, let, lent, vacant, and since when.

It is what decides which tax you are sent, and the consequence is not small for a non-resident owner. A furnished home, ready to live in, used a few weeks a year, is a second home: it falls under the corresponding council tax, which the municipality may increase by 5 to 60 % in a tight housing area. A home empty of furniture and unoccupied for more than a year in a tight area falls instead under the vacant dwellings tax, at 17 % of the rental value in the first year and 34 % thereafter.

These two regimes look alike from a distance and look nothing alike on arrival. Absent a declaration, the administration decides on the material it holds, and the error is then corrected by formal claim, with supporting documents, from abroad. Better to make the declaration.

Who declares, and how

The obligation covers every owner of residential premises located in France, whether an individual or a company, resident or not. A life tenant declares for a property held in split ownership, and where a property is held in undivided shares any co-owner may declare on behalf of all.

The declaration is made online, in the owner’s account on the tax administration’s site, in the section devoted to managing property. Each unit already appears there, with its land registry references, and it is enough to confirm or correct the occupancy status and, where relevant, the occupant’s identity and the amount of rent.

A non-resident owner without an online account yet creates one using their tax number, the one that appears on the first property tax notice. It is the same identifier that then serves to view and pay local taxes from abroad.

When to update it

The declaration is not annual in the sense of a form to return every year: once the situation is declared, it rolls over tacitly. What triggers a new declaration is change, and it has to be made before the deadline set each year by the administration, traditionally at the start of summer.

The situations that constitute a change are more numerous than people think:

• a tenant arriving or leaving, and any change in the rent;
• a move from unfurnished to furnished letting, or from long-term to short-term letting;
• a move from a furnished second home to a home emptied of its furniture, which shifts the property from one tax regime to the other;
• free occupation granted to a relative, which still has to be declared;
• the sale of the property, and the acquisition of a new one.

Reletting after works also belongs on the list, which makes it one of the last steps not to forget when a project finishes.

Why this belongs to watching over the property, not just to accounting

This obligation attaches to watching over the property for a practical reason: nobody can correctly declare an occupancy status they do not know. A home believed empty that a relative uses occasionally, a tenant gone without formal notice, furniture removed during a move without the owner knowing, and the declaration becomes wrong without any bad faith.

It is the same logic that requires knowing exactly how to date the state of a property when damage occurs, a subject covered in what to do about a claim from abroad. In both cases, what protects the owner is regular time-stamped records rather than a recollection.

You own a property in France and do not know what occupancy status has been declared for it: the personal study offered by French Realty takes stock with you and organises the visits that document the home’s real state, with your dedicated contact.