France sells close to a million homes a year, and foreign buyers take a healthy slice of them. Nobody checks your passport at the door: France places no restrictions on non-resident purchasers, whoever they are and wherever their money was earned. An American retiree, a Norwegian investor and a Parisian couple all buy under exactly the same rules. What France does impose is its own way of closing a deal, built around a public official called the notaire, a two-contract structure, and a fee system that confuses almost every first-time buyer.
This guide takes the machine apart piece by piece: the offer, the compromis de vente, the ten-day escape hatch, the money, the mortgage, and the taxes that keep arriving long after completion. Count on two to three months between a signed offer and the keys. Use that time well.
No restrictions, but a very French process
Start with the good news. There's no foreign-buyer approval, no extra stamp duty for overseas purchasers, no quota of the kind Singapore or parts of Canada apply. You don't need residency, and you can complete a purchase without ever having set foot in the country, by giving power of attorney for the signings.
The practical hurdles are administrative. Every document will be in French. If you don't speak the language, the notaire will usually insist on a sworn translator at the final signing, at your cost (budget €150–300). And every wire you send passes through anti-money-laundering checks, so keep clean paperwork on where your funds came from. Selling shares to fund the deposit? Save the broker statement.
The notaire runs the whole show
Forget the Anglo model of two lawyers arguing for their clients. A French sale is run by a notaire: a state-appointed public officer who is required by law to be impartial. The notaire verifies the seller's title back through thirty years of ownership, pulls the planning file from the town hall, checks for easements, purges pre-emption rights, collects the purchase taxes on behalf of the state and registers the deed at the land registry. Nothing transfers without them.
Pre-emption deserves a word, because it baffles newcomers. In much of urban France the commune holds a droit de préemption: it can step in and buy the property at your agreed price. Rural land can trigger a similar right for SAFER, the agricultural land agency. These rights are waived in the vast majority of sales, but the notaire has to ask, and the commune gets two months to answer. That's a big part of why French completions take as long as they do.
Here's the nuance most guides miss. One notaire can lawfully act for both buyer and seller, and in most French sales that's exactly what happens. But you're free to appoint your own. If you do, the two notaires split the regulated fee between them. The cost to you doesn't change by a single euro. For a foreign buyer who wants someone walking them through each clause with their interests in mind, a second notaire is the cheapest insurance in the entire transaction.
Offer to keys, step by step
- You make a written offre d'achat at or below the asking price. Once the seller signs it, they're committed; you effectively aren't yet, because of what comes next.
- One to three weeks later, both sides sign the compromis de vente (sometimes a promesse de vente), the real contract. Every condition you want must be written into it.
- You then get a ten-day cooling-off period. You can walk away without giving a reason and lose nothing. The seller gets no such right.
- You pay a deposit, usually 5–10% of the price, into the notaire's escrow account. Never to the seller directly.
- The conditions suspensives run their course. The one that matters most is the mortgage clause: if a bank refuses your loan on the terms written into the compromis, the deal dissolves and your deposit comes back.
- The notaire spends the next couple of months on searches: title, planning, pre-emption, unpaid charges secured on the property.
- Two to three months after the compromis, you sign the acte authentique at the notaire's office, having wired the balance and fees a few days before. The keys change hands at the table.
That ten-day window is worth dwelling on. French law hands residential buyers a statutory right of withdrawal after signing a binding contract, deposit refunded in full, no questions asked. Few countries protect buyers this way. Spend the ten days re-reading the technical reports, and if anything smells wrong, leave.
About those reports: before the compromis, the seller must produce a diagnostic file covering asbestos, lead, termites, electrics, natural risks and the DPE energy rating. Read the DPE twice if you plan to rent the place out. Homes rated G are already banned from the long-term rental market, F follows in 2028, and a romantic stone farmhouse with single glazing is exactly the kind of purchase this rule catches.
One rule to tattoo somewhere visible: money moves through the notaire, full stop. Any request to pay a deposit, a "reservation fee" or the balance into a private account is a fraud attempt, and a common one on international deals.
What notaire fees really are: mostly tax
On a resale property, completion costs run 7–8% of the price. France files these under "frais de notaire" — a naming accident that scares buyers and flatters nobody, because almost all of that money goes to the state, not to the notaire.
Take a €300,000 resale. The bill splits roughly like this:
- Transfer duties (droits de mutation) of around 5.8%, and a touch more in the many departments that took up the option to raise the rate from 2025: about €17,500.
- The notaire's own regulated fee, a sliding scale that lands near 1% at this price level: about €3,000 plus VAT.
- Disbursements and the land-registry levy: another €1,000–1,500 for searches, document fees and the 0.1% registration charge.
New builds work differently. Buy off-plan, or a home less than five years old on its first resale, and completion costs drop to 2–3%. The catch is that the price you agreed already contains 20% French VAT. The developer's number is the gross number.
Agency commission is the other big line: 4–8%, and proportionally higher on cheap rural houses than on Paris apartments. French listings almost always advertise the price FAI, frais d'agence inclus, so the figure you see is the figure you compare. It's still worth checking who formally pays the agent, because transfer duty is calculated on the price net of commission when the buyer carries it. On a €300,000 purchase that detail alone saves several hundred euros.
Mortgages for non-residents: possible, with paperwork
French banks lend to non-residents, and at French rates rather than a penalty tier. What changes is the deposit. EU residents can generally borrow 70–80% of the price; buyers from outside the EU are more often offered 50–70%. Americans face an extra hurdle, since FATCA reporting pushes some French banks to decline US clients outright; a broker will know which ones still say yes.
Two French habits shape every application. First, the regulator caps total debt service at 35% of income, assessed conservatively, on fixed-rate loans of up to 25 years. Second, banks want borrower's life insurance wrapped around the loan, medical questionnaire included; French lenders are devoted to this product, and for older borrowers it can cost more than the interest-rate margin. Smaller loans repaid before age 60 are now exempt from the questionnaire, which helps.
Sequence matters. Get a written pre-approval before you sign a compromis, then make sure the mortgage clause mirrors the loan you actually applied for: amount, rate ceiling, term. If the bank says no, that clause is what brings your deposit home. We've written a separate guide to getting a mortgage abroad as a non-resident that covers the ground in more detail.
Paying in dollars or pounds? The price is fixed in euros on the day you sign the compromis, and a 3% currency swing during the two-month wait moves your bill by more than the notaire's entire fee. Forward contracts exist for exactly this situation.
Owning costs: the taxes that follow the keys
Two local taxes matter. Taxe foncière is the owner's tax, billed every autumn, and it varies enormously by commune: the same four-bedroom house can cost €600 a year in one village and €2,500 in a town twenty minutes away. Rates have been climbing since communes lost their main-residence revenue, and Paris alone raised its share by over half in 2023. Ask the seller for their last avis de taxe foncière before you offer. It's a normal request.
Taxe d'habitation, the old residence tax, was abolished for main homes in 2023 but survives on second homes. Here's the trap that catches holiday-home buyers: in zones tendues, the officially designated tight-market zones covering thousands of communes including Paris, Nice, Bordeaux and most of the Côte d'Azur, councils may stack a surcharge of 5–60% on top, and plenty of tourist towns apply the full 60%. Put this line in the budget before you fall for the view.
Apartment owners also pay copropriété service charges. Anyone whose net French property wealth passes €1.3 million meets the IFI wealth tax, and rental income is taxable in France from the first euro, resident or not.
A deed is not a visa
Buying a French home gives you no right to live in France. EU and EEA citizens can simply move. Everyone else, Brits included since Brexit, is limited to 90 days in any 180 under Schengen rules. Owners who want more apply for the long-stay visitor visa: proof of stable passive income at roughly French minimum-wage level, full private health cover, and a signed commitment not to work in France. It's renewable year after year, and after five years of residence it can convert into a long-term card. The house strengthens your file as proof of accommodation. It just doesn't replace the visa.
Where to buy: a quick tour of the regions
The Côte d'Azur is the premium market: Nice, Antibes and Cannes trade at roughly €6,000–15,000 per square metre, the trophy capes far beyond that, and there's always another international buyer behind you at resale. Paris is the liquidity play; at €9,500–11,500 per square metre it isn't cheap, but nothing in France sells faster or rents more predictably. The Alps are a bet on seasonality: dual-season resorts like Chamonix earn most of the year, while purely winter stations live off fourteen weeks of snow. Value hunters should look at Provence beyond the famous villages, at Occitanie, and at the Dordogne, where livable rural houses still change hands at €1,500–2,500 per square metre. Our France country page tracks these markets, and you can filter current listings on HomeNSearch by region and budget.
The French process looks slow from the outside, and it is. It's also among the safest anywhere: a state officer checks everything, your deposit sits in escrow, and the law hands you ten days to change your mind. Slow is part of the protection.
FAQ
Can foreigners buy property in France?
Yes, without restrictions. France makes no distinction between resident, non-resident, EU or non-EU buyers; the process is identical for everyone. The only extras worth budgeting are a sworn translator at the signing and, for buyers outside the eurozone, a currency transfer service.
How much are notaire fees in France?
Budget 7–8% of the price on a resale home and 2–3% on a new build. On resales, most of that sum is state transfer duty; the notaire's own regulated fee works out near 1%. Appointing a second notaire to represent you costs nothing extra, because the two split the same fee.
How long does buying a house in France take?
Usually two to three months from the compromis de vente to the acte authentique, sometimes four. The pace is set by the pre-emption check, where the commune has up to two months to respond, and by the mortgage condition. A cash purchase with the loan clause waived completes faster.
Does buying property in France give you residency?
No. Ownership carries no immigration rights, so non-EU owners stay within the 90/180-day Schengen limit unless they hold a visa. The long-stay visitor visa suits most second-home owners: it requires passive income and health cover, excludes work, and renews annually. After five years of legal residence you can apply for a long-term card.