Buying a House in France as a Danish Buyer: No Permission Needed

Denmark decides whether you are allowed to own a home before it lets you have one. France never asks.

Both countries put a gate on a house purchase, in different places. Denmark's stands in front of the buyer, where Civilstyrelsen grants or refuses permission on residence grounds. France's stands on the document, where a public officer authenticates the deed. Almost everything else a Danish buyer meets follows from that.

Duty on the transfer itself, France against Denmark

Duty charged	Rate (%)
France, after a 5% vote		6.32%
France, published maximum		5.81%
Denmark, ejerskifte (transfer)		0.60%

Denmark vets the buyer. France vets the deed.

The permission a Dane takes for granted at home has no French counterpart. Civilstyrelsen, the Danish Civil Affairs Agency, requires anyone who lacks residence in Denmark, or who has not had residence there for at least five years, to apply for permission before acquiring Danish real property. For a secondary residence the bar rises again: the agency grants permission only where the applicant has a particularly strong connection to Denmark, weighed case by case.

Nothing in the French material works like that. Neither the tax administration's page on buying an existing home nor Service-Public's page on the preliminary contract makes nationality or residence a condition of anything. What France puts in the way is an office instead. The notaire is a public officer, and Service-Public, the French government's public information service, describes that office drawing up the acte authentique, the final deed, and holding the buyer's money in a compte séquestre, an escrow account, until completion.

A Dane therefore lands in France with the wrong opening question. "Am I permitted to buy this?" needs a caseworker at home and answers itself here. What earns its keep in France is the deed and the copropriété records.

Six business days in Denmark, ten days in France, and only one of them costs money

Denmark's withdrawal right is the shorter one, and it is not free. Under lov om forbrugerbeskyttelse ved erhvervelse af fast ejendom, the consumer protection act on acquiring real property, § 8 makes the right conditional on written notice reaching the seller no later than 6 hverdage, six business days, after the agreement is concluded. § 11 then makes it conditional on the buyer paying the seller a godtgørelse, a compensation, of 1 per cent of the purchase sum, waived only where the seller built the property for sale or sells property for a living.

France runs longer and asks for nothing at signature. Service-Public puts the window at 10 days from the day after the registered letter notifying the preliminary contract is first presented, and states that in principle the acquirer hands the seller no money when signing the compromis de vente, though a deposit of around 10% is usual in practice.

Price both at 400,000 euro. Stepping back inside the Danish window costs 4,000 euro under § 11. Stepping back inside the French one costs the ten days.

Why do Danish sources quote both 1,825 and 1,850?

Danish registration duty attaches to a document rather than a transaction, so a purchase financed with a loan produces two. The change of owner is one; the charge over the property is a second. The Skatteministeriet rate table prices the first, an ejerskifte, at 0.6% of the purchase sum plus 1,850 DKK, and the second, a pant in real property, at 1.25% plus 1,825 DKK. The variable half of the mortgage duty fell from 1.45% to 1.25% on 1 January 2026 while its fixed 1,825 DKK stayed put, so writing about that change quotes 1,825 and writing about a house purchase quotes 1,850. Both are current, and they are different fees.

What France charges in place of 0.6%

A stack of three charges, with a local council controlling only the largest. Droits de mutation à titre onéreux, shortened by everyone to DMTO, are the duties a French buyer owes when property changes hands for money. The Direction générale des Finances publiques puts the departmental share at 1.20% to 4.50%, usually 4.50%, adds 1.20% for the commune and 2.37% of that share for the state, and publishes a maximum of 5.81%. The Bulletin officiel des finances publiques records that the 2025 finance law lets a département go to 5% for three years from 1 April 2025, which on the same stack is about 6.32% by arithmetic.

On the 400,000 euro purchase that is 23,240 euro to 25,280 euro, against 2,400 euro plus 1,850 DKK at home. Then come the annual ones: taxe foncière for whoever owns on 1 January, taxe d'habitation on second homes, a 20% minimum rate if it is let, and the IFI, the impôt sur la fortune immobilière, above 1,300,000 euro of net French property.

Does anyone count Danish buyers in France?

Not on their own, and that is a finding rather than a hole in our research. Notaires de France puts non resident foreigners at roughly 2% of existing home purchases on average over 2005 to 2015, easing to 1.5% over 2010 to 2015, then breaks them down by nationality. Denmark never gets a line of its own: it is folded into a category the notaries label Scandinaves, shared with Sweden and Norway, together worth 5% of non resident foreign buyers in 2015.

We do not give buying or selling advice, and nothing here is a view on French property. Everything above is checkable at its source: permission to buy is a Danish question with no French equivalent, six business days plus 1 per cent against ten days and nothing, and 0.6% plus 1,850 DKK against a published French maximum of 5.81%. Our piece on how a département sets your transfer bill covers the local vote, and the Spanish version runs the comparison into a market with regional rates.

AiMYNDi reads the listing, the copropriété accounts and the legal paperwork for a specific property, so a charge or a voted works programme shows up before the compromis rather than after it. You can see an example of what a report looks like first.