Selling Property in France: 2026 Guide for Non-Residents

Selling property in France is a notaire-led process, and that is good news for a non-resident owner : the notaire — a state-appointed legal officer, not your lawyer or the buyer's — secures the title, holds the funds in escrow and files the taxes. You do not need to be in the country for any of the three stages :

1. Mandat de vente : the listing agreement you sign with an estate agent (or you sell privately) ;
2. Compromis de vente : the binding preliminary contract signed once a buyer's offer is accepted — the buyer gets a 10-day cooling-off period and usually a mortgage condition ; the seller is committed from day one ;
3. Acte authentique : the final deed at the notaire's office, roughly 2-3 months after the compromis, when the price is paid and the keys change hands.

Realistic total timeline once a buyer is found : about 90 days. Add your marketing time on top — correctly priced properties in active markets sell in 60-90 days ; overpriced ones sit for a year. The rest of this guide walks through each stage as a remote seller, then the two topics that catch foreigners out : capital gains tax and the représentant fiscal.

Price is the decision that makes or breaks a remote sale. Owners who left France years ago tend to anchor on what they paid or on headline Paris numbers ; the local market may have moved either way. Start from recorded transaction data (the French land registry publishes every sale price) and a professional valuation — not from listing portals, which show asking prices, not selling prices.

Estate agent fees in France

Estate agent fees in France run 4-6% of the sale price on average — degressive, so the rate falls as the price rises. Two things every foreign seller should know :

• Fees are only due on completion — no sale, no fee ; there are no upfront listing charges ;
• The advertised price usually includes the fee (« FAI » — frais d'agence inclus). Whether the contract says the seller or buyer pays is mostly presentational : it changes the notaire-fee base for the buyer, not your net proceeds.

The mandat de vente comes in two main forms : the mandat simple (several agencies plus the right to sell privately) and the mandat exclusif (one agency, typically 3 months irrevocable, in exchange for full marketing effort). For a seller abroad, an exclusive mandate with a strong local agency is usually the rational choice : you need one accountable point of contact who can run visits, collect documents and chase the notaire in your absence — not five agencies each waiting for the others to do the work.

French law requires a bundle of technical surveys — the DDT (dossier de diagnostic technique) — before the property can even be marketed properly. Depending on the property's age and location it includes : the energy performance certificate (DPE, valid 10 years and now a major price factor — poorly rated homes negotiate 5-15% lower), asbestos, lead, electrical and gas installations (if over 15 years old), termites, natural-risk zoning, and septic-system compliance for rural homes.

Count €300-700 for the full bundle, one to two weeks to schedule. As a remote seller you do not need to attend : your agent books the certified surveyor, lets them in, and uploads the reports. Two more documents to gather early, because they routinely delay compromis signings :

• Title deed (titre de propriété) — the notaire who handled your purchase keeps it on file ;
• Co-ownership documents for apartments : the last three AGM minutes, charge statements and the règlement de copropriété, requested from the managing agent (syndic) — allow 2-3 weeks and a small fee.

If the property is currently rented, selling is still possible — either with the tenant in place (investors buy tenanted property, usually at a discount) or by serving notice for sale, which in France must respect the tenant's right of first refusal and a 6-month notice aligned with the lease end. Factor this into your timeline before marketing.

Once an offer is accepted, the notaire drafts the compromis de vente. The buyer pays a deposit of 5-10% into the notaire's escrow account and gets a 10-day cooling-off period ; the seller has none — from signature, you are committed. The contract normally carries a mortgage condition (condition suspensive) : if the buyer's loan is refused, the sale collapses and the deposit is returned, which is why cash buyers are worth a small price concession.

The procuration : how you sign without flying to France

Both the compromis and the final deed can be signed through a power of attorney (procuration) given to a clerk at the notaire's office — standard practice, at no meaningful extra cost. The mechanics depend on the document :

• For the compromis, a private-form procuration (signed at home, scanned original posted) is generally accepted ;
• For the acte authentique, the procuration must be authenticated : signed before a local notary public and, for most countries outside the EU, apostilled (the Hague-convention legalisation stamp). US, UK, Canadian and Australian sellers should budget 1-3 weeks for the notary-plus-apostille round trip — start it as soon as the completion date is set ;
• Some French consulates still offer notarial services for this, and a growing number of notaires accept remote signing by secure video with an electronic procuration — ask yours early which route they support.

Send certified copies of your passport and proof of address with the procuration ; the notaire runs anti-money-laundering checks on sellers too, and missing ID paperwork is a classic completion-day delay.

Non-residents pay French capital gains tax on the sale of French property : 19% income tax plus social levies on the net gain. The social-levy rate is the detail most guides get wrong :

• 7.5% (solidarity levy only) if you are covered by the social security system of an EU/EEA country, Switzerland — or the UK, whose residents keep this reduced rate after Brexit thanks to the Withdrawal Agreement ;
• 17.2% for everyone else (US, Canada, Australia, Gulf states…).

Taper relief (abattement pour durée de détention) then erodes the taxable gain over time : full exemption from the 19% income tax after 22 years of ownership, and from social levies after 30 years. An additional surtax of 2-6% applies to net gains above €50,000. Two exemptions worth checking before you assume you owe tax :

• Former main residence : sell by 31 December of the year after you left France (or within 10 years under the specific ex-resident regime) and conditions are met — the gain can be exempt ;
• The €150,000 ex-resident allowance : if you were French tax resident for at least 2 years at any point, a one-time exemption shelters up to €150,000 of net gain.

To cut the taxable gain, you can add documented renovation works to your purchase price — but only invoices from registered French building firms count. DIY materials and foreign contractors are excluded ; after 5 years of ownership you may instead apply a flat 15% works allowance with no invoices at all. Dig out those artisan invoices before the notaire computes the tax — it is the single most valuable piece of paper hunting a remote seller can do. The full mechanics, rates and worked examples are in our dedicated guide to capital gains tax on French property ; if you are selling a property you inherited, the rules on acquisition value differ — see selling inherited property in France.

One housekeeping point : taxe foncière stays legally yours for the whole sale year, but the compromis routinely prorates it between seller and buyer at completion — make sure the clause is in.

Here is the step that surprises almost every non-resident seller. If you live outside the EU (plus Iceland and Norway), France requires you to appoint an accredited représentant fiscal — a licensed firm that computes your capital gains tax, signs the tax return and guarantees payment to the French Treasury. Since Brexit this includes UK residents, and it applies to Swiss residents too — the reduced 7.5% social levy and the fiscal-representative obligation are two separate rules that many competitor guides conflate.

You are automatically exempt in three cases :

• Sale price of €150,000 or less per seller (a couple selling at €280,000 as separate co-owners can fall under the threshold — check with the notaire how your ownership is structured) ;
• Ownership of 30 years or more, which fully exempts the gain from both income tax and social levies ;
• A gain fully exempt under the former-main-residence rules.

The representative files form 2048-IMM, and the notaire withholds the tax at source from the sale proceeds — you receive the net amount, nothing to pay later in France. The fee is negotiable and typically 0.4-1% of the sale price. Practical advice that saves weeks : appoint the représentant fiscal when you sign the mandat, not after the compromis. The representative needs your purchase deed, works invoices and ID to compute the gain, and a file opened late is the most common cause of postponed completions for non-EU sellers.

On completion day the buyer's funds land in the notaire's escrow account before signature. The notaire then deducts the capital gains tax (via the 2048-IMM), the agency fee if routed through them, and any mortgage balance, and wires you the net proceeds. To a French account it arrives in 2-5 business days ; international SEPA and SWIFT transfers work fine — give the notaire your IBAN early and expect standard compliance questions on the destination account. On six-figure currency conversions, a specialist FX broker typically saves 1-2% versus a high-street bank — real money on a €400,000 sale.

The realistic calendar for a remote seller, from mandate to money :

Call it 90 days of legal process once a buyer is found, plus marketing time — and the two levers that compress it are both in your hands at the start : a data-based asking price, and a représentant fiscal appointed on day one. If you are replacing the property rather than exiting France, our guide to buying a house in France as a foreigner covers the other side of the table.