French Gift Tax 2026: Rates, Allowances, Property Rules

French gift tax mirrors French inheritance tax — same family-based allowances, same progressive scale — because the two are designed as one system : what you give during life is, within limits, simply an advance on what would otherwise be taxed at death. Used deliberately, that design is the single most powerful estate-planning lever France offers to families with property here.

The mechanics in three sentences. Each gift is taxed on the amount received by each recipient, after a tax-free allowance that depends on kinship (€100,000 from a parent to a child being the flagship). Allowances refresh every 15 years — the famous rappel fiscal clock — so a couple in their fifties can pass €400,000 to two children tax-free, twice, before the estate is ever opened. And unlike the UK, there is no « seven-year rule » that makes gifts retroactively taxable at death : once the 15 years have run, the gift is definitively out of the estate for tax purposes (it may still count for the reserved shares of other heirs — a civil-law point your notaire will manage).

France casts a wide net (art. 750 ter of the tax code). French gift tax applies when any one of these is true :

• the donor is a French tax resident — worldwide assets are taxable ;
• the recipient has been French tax resident for at least 6 of the past 10 years — worldwide assets again ;
• the gifted asset is French — real estate above all, including shares of a property-holding company like an SCI. This applies even when donor and recipient both live abroad.

So a London couple gifting their Dordogne farmhouse to children in Manchester still faces French gift tax — with the same €100,000-per-child allowances as a French family. What about home-country tax on top ? The France-UK treaty of 1963 covers inheritances only, not gifts, so both systems can apply in sequence (the UK side is usually a « potentially exempt transfer », plus a capital-gains sting covered below). The France-US treaty of 1978 does cover gifts and allocates taxing rights — French real estate stays taxable in France, while the US unified credit (about $15 million per person from 2026) means most American donors owe nothing extra at home.

The 2026 budget left allowances and the scale unchanged (they have been frozen since 2012). Per donor, per recipient, renewable every 15 years :

In the direct line, the progressive scale is gentle at first (5% on the first €8,072 above the allowance, 20% for the wide band up to €552,324) and only bites hard on very large transfers. Three add-ons matter :

• Cash gift bonus (art. 790 G) : an extra €31,865 of money, tax-free, from a donor under 80 to an adult child or grandchild — on top of the €100,000 ;
• Disability allowance : an additional €159,325 for a disabled recipient, cumulative with the others ;
• Stepchildren : gifts to a spouse's children remain taxed at 60%. (The €15,932 stepchild allowance created by the 2026 budget applies to inheritances, not lifetime gifts.)

This is the measure the English-language press has largely missed. Since 15 February 2025, art. 790 A bis of the tax code exempts family cash gifts from gift tax entirely — on top of all the allowances above — within two limits : €100,000 per donor and €300,000 per recipient (so a child can receive €100,000 from each parent and a grandparent, all tax-free).

The conditions are strict but manageable :

• eligible recipients : children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren — or nephews and nieces if the donor has no descendants ;
• the money must be spent within 6 months on either the purchase of a new-build home (or VEFA off-plan), or energy-renovation works eligible for MaPrimeRénov' on the recipient's main residence ;
• the property must remain the recipient's main residence for 5 years (or be let as someone's main residence) ;
• the gift must be made before 31 December 2026 — the window closes at year-end unless a future budget extends it.

The 2026 budget also added a variant : from 1 January 2026 to 30 June 2027, the same exemption covers cash gifts helping a first-time buyer purchase an existing home as their main residence. For families planning to help children buy in France — new-build or old — this is the cheapest transfer window French law has offered in years. The buying process itself is covered in our guide to buying property in France.

Gifting real estate (as opposed to money) is a formal affair : French law requires a notarised deed, the notaire files the tax return, and fees plus land-registry costs typically add several thousand euros on a mid-range property (roughly €4,000-5,000 on a €200,000 gift). Since a June 2026 anti-fraud law, even transfers of SCI shares must go through an authenticated deed — the do-it-yourself route is closed.

The classic French structure is the gift with reserved usufruct (donation avec réserve d'usufruit) : parents give the bare ownership (title) and keep the usufruct — the right to live in or rent the property for life. Gift tax is then charged only on the bare ownership, valued by the donor's age (art. 669) : 50% of full value at age 51-60, 60% at 61-70, 70% at 71-80. At death, the usufruct extinguishes and the children own the property outright — with no further tax. For a 65-year-old couple gifting a €300,000 house to two children, the taxable base is €180,000, fully covered by the four €100,000 allowances : total gift tax, zero.

Two cross-border traps for Anglo-American owners :

• UK capital gains tax : a gift is a disposal at market value for UK CGT. France charges no capital-gains tax on gifts (a donation « purges » the French gain — the recipient takes the gifted value as their new cost base), but a UK-resident donor can face a UK CGT bill on a property that was never sold. Compare with the rules in our guide to French capital gains tax before signing ;
• US basis rules : the US does not tax the gift itself for most donors (unified credit), but the recipient inherits the donor's historic cost basis — unlike property transmitted at death, which gets a stepped-up basis. Gifting low-basis French property to US-taxpayer children can create a large latent US gain.

Every taxable gift must be declared to the French tax office, and the procedure changed this year : since 1 January 2026, manual gifts (money, transfers between accounts) must be declared online through the donor's or recipient's account on impots.gouv.fr — the paper form 2735 era is over for standard cases. The declaration is due within one month of the gift, even when no tax is payable (a fully-allowanced gift still starts the 15-year clock, which is precisely why declaring it is in your interest).

Practical notes for non-residents :

• recipients living abroad who owe the declaration can still use the non-resident tax portal ; where online filing is genuinely impossible, the tax office accepts the form ;
• property gifts are declared by the notaire with the deed — nothing extra to file ;
• keep the paperwork : the declared value of a gifted property is the recipient's cost base for any future French capital-gains calculation, and the dated declaration is what proves the 15-year clock ;
• undeclared gifts have no statute of limitations shelter — the tax office can tax them whenever it discovers them, with interest and penalties.

For most families with French property, gifting early beats leaving everything to the estate, for three compounding reasons :

• The 15-year clock only works if you start it. Allowances used at 60 have refreshed by 75 ; allowances never used are simply lost capacity. The same €100,000 per parent per child applies at death — once ;
• Usufruct arithmetic rewards age, gently. The younger the donor, the smaller the taxable bare-ownership fraction — at 55, you gift at 50% of market value ;
• The 2026 windows are closing. The €100,000 art. 790 A bis exemption dies on 31 December 2026 ; the first-time-buyer variant runs to mid-2027.

The counterweights : a gift is irrevocable — never give away security you may need for care costs ; gifts to one child are brought back into the reckoning at the succession to protect the others' reserved shares ; and holding until death suits US-taxpayer heirs (basis step-up) or property you may sell yourself. The full picture of what happens at death — rates, deadlines, the family home — is in our guides to French inheritance tax and French inheritance law.

Whichever route you choose, it starts with the same number : the current market value of the property, because allowances, usufruct fractions and the tax itself are all computed on it.