Simulate Your French Capital Gains Tax and Social Charges Before You Sign

Enter your acquisition price, sale price, works, and holding period. The simulator applies the statutory taper tables and returns your taxable gain, income-tax CGT, social charges, and total tax bill.

1. Purchase Acquisition price (EUR) Acquisition costs (notaire fees, registration), EUR

2. Works Documented renovation invoices (EUR) No invoices, apply the 15% statutory flat allowance (after 5 years of holding)

3. Sale Sale price (EUR) Selling expenses (diagnostics, agent, representative fee), EUR

4. Holding period Full years since purchase

5. Social-charges regime 7.5% (EU/EEA/CH or UK resident affiliated to home social security) 17.2% (everyone else, including US, Canada, Monaco, UAE, Singapore)

6. Surtax on high gains Apply the progressive surtax on gains above €50,000 (standard rule)

Indicative only. Edge cases (principal residence for former residents, démembrement, SPI shares, inheritance tie-ins) are not covered here. Confirm every figure with your notaire and your representative.

How this simulator works

The computation follows the order your fiscal representative uses on Form 2048-IMM. Starting point, the gross gain: sale price minus selling costs, minus acquisition price plus acquisition costs (either your actual invoices or the 7.5 percent flat allowance if you tick the relevant box), minus works (either your documented invoices or the 15 percent flat allowance once you pass five years of holding). The result is the raw gain. Two independent tapers then apply: the income-tax taper reduces the gain by 6 percent per year between years 6 and 21, then 4 percent in year 22, taking you to full exemption at 22; the social-charges taper is slower, 1.65 percent per year from year 6 to 21, 1.6 percent in year 22, and 9 percent per year from year 23 to 30, reaching full exemption at 30. Income-tax CGT is 19 percent of the post-taper income-tax base; social charges are 7.5 or 17.2 percent of the post-taper social-charges base, depending on your regime. The progressive surtax on gains above €50,000 is added on top when the box is ticked, following the statutory scale that runs from 2 to 6 percent.

What this simulator does not do

No simulator captures every edge case. This one does not model the principal-residence exemption for former residents (valid for one sale within the ten years following departure and capped at €150,000 of gain), the dependency exemption for long-term care residents, SCI share sales with depreciable basis, or donation-sale combinations. It also assumes a standard non-resident scenario without tax-treaty carve-outs. If your situation looks atypical, run the number here as a benchmark and then have a representative confirm.

A worked example

Mark, a Canadian resident, sells a Paris studio for €510,000 bought in 2005 for €240,000, with €22,000 of documented works and €6,500 of selling expenses. Twenty years of holding. The simulator returns: gross gain of €241,500, income-tax base after taper roughly €80,000 (the 6 percent per year between years 6 and 21 has taken the base down by about 67 percent), income-tax CGT of €15,200, social charges at 17.2 percent of roughly €30,700 on a less-tapered base, surtax of around €1,800. Total tax bill: about €47,700. That is the figure the representative will secure with their guarantee; budget that number before you even sign the compromis.

Pitfall to avoid

Two taper tables, not one. Readers routinely underestimate tax because they apply the income-tax taper to both income tax and social charges. That gives them full exemption at year 22, which is the correct income-tax answer but wrong on social charges. The social-charges taper is materially slower and reaches full exemption only at year 30. In years 22 to 29, you pay zero income-tax CGT but still owe social charges, often at 17.2 percent, on a partially tapered base. Budget for it.