Buying a House in France as a Dutch Buyer: 6.32% Against 8%

The Netherlands cut its transfer tax on a second home to 8% on 1 January 2026. A French second home still costs less than that.

An existing French home carries 5.81% to 6.32% in transfer duty depending on the département, against 8% on a Dutch home you will not live in yourself. France also hands the buyer 10 calendar days to walk away after signing, where Dutch law gives three. The catch sits elsewhere: the French bill arrives with a wealth tax attached.

Transfer tax on a home you will not live in

Where you buy	Rate (%)
Netherlands, own home		2.00%
France, département at 4.50%		5.81%
France, département at 5.00%		6.32%
Netherlands, second home 2026		8.00%
Netherlands, second home 2025		10.40%

Is France really cheaper than a Dutch second home?

On the purchase tax alone, yes, and the gap survived the 2026 cut. The Belastingdienst, the Dutch tax administration, sets the overdrachtsbelasting rates at 2% for a home you live in yourself, 8% in 2026 for one you do not, down from 10.4% in 2025, 10.4% for property that is not a dwelling, and 0% for a qualifying starter. France applies no such split. Nothing in the French duty depends on whether you will live in the house, on your nationality, or on where you are resident.

The two systems diverge because they tax different things. The Netherlands taxes intended use. France taxes the transfer, then charges for use separately through the annual taxe foncière and, on a second home, the taxe d'habitation.

What is actually inside frais de notaire?

Tax, mostly, in the same way kosten koper is mostly tax rather than the notaris. The Direction générale des Finances publiques, the French public finances directorate, sets out on its page for buying an existing property that the droits de mutation à titre onéreux, the duties charged when a property changes hands, consist of a departmental duty of between 1.20% and 4.50% of the price with 4.50% the most widespread, an additional 1.20% for the communes, and an assessment and collection charge for the state worth 2.37% of the departmental duty. It puts the maximum overall rate at 5.81%, plus a contribution de sécurité immobilière of 0.10%. 5.81% is the ceiling the tax administration publishes, calculated on a 4.50% departmental duty. Applying the same components to a 5.00% departmental duty gives 6.32%, which is arithmetic on those parts rather than a published figure.

On a 300,000 euro house that is 17,430 euro at 5.81% and 18,960 euro at 6.32%. The same house bought as a Dutch second home would carry 24,000 euro at 8%. Those are calculations on the two administrations' published rates.

Which département you buy in is a live variable, not a footnote. The French tax administration's official doctrine, BOFiP, records that départements may raise the rate set by article 1594 D of the Code général des impôts above 4.50% and up to 5%, for three years from 1 April 2025. Service-Public.gouv.fr, the French government's public information service, puts the end date at 30 April 2028 and states each rise must be voted by the conseil départemental. We set out that vote in our piece on French transfer duties.

How long is the French bedenktijd?

Ten calendar days, more than three times the Dutch one. Rijksoverheid, the Dutch central government portal, states that a buyer has three days of statutory bedenktijd after the koopovereenkomst, at least two of which must not be a Saturday, Sunday or recognised holiday, starting the day after the signed contract is received, with no reason and no compensation owed to the seller.

Service-Public.gouv.fr gives the French figure as 10 calendar days for a non-professional buyer of a home, running from the day after the signed compromis or promesse de vente is first presented to them. The seller has no equivalent right, and the deposit is commonly 10% of the price.

Ten days is also the window in which the seller's paperwork has to be read. Service-Public lists the diagnostics a French seller must supply in the dossier de diagnostic technique: the diagnostic de performance énergétique, the French energy label known as the DPE, from 50 square metres of floor area, with an energy audit at rating E, F or G; a lead statement for a building predating 1 January 1949; an asbestos statement where the building permit predates 1 July 1997; and the state of the interior electrical installation once it is over 15 years old.

What the French numbers do not say

No French source publishes how many Dutch buyers there are. The Notaires de France studied non-resident foreign buyers using the BIEN and Perval databases their profession maintains, covering 2005 to 2015, and put that whole group at about 2% of existing-home purchases on average, 2.6% for 2005 to 2009 and 1.5% after that, roughly 8,380 a year. The shares it publishes cover the British, Belgians, Italians, Swiss and a combined Scandinavian group. There is no standalone Dutch line, and we would rather say so than borrow a number from somewhere else.

The recurring cost is where France asks more. Ownership brings the Impôt sur la Fortune Immobilière, the French wealth tax on property: the tax administration states that a person domiciled outside France is liable on French property and property rights alone, above 1.3 million euro of net value at 1 January. Letting the house is caught too. The administration sets a minimum rate of tax on French-source income for non-residents of 20%, rising to 30% above 29,579 euro of net taxable income for income received in 2025, with the option of the lower taux moyen where the taxpayer can show their worldwide rate is lower.

We do not give buying or selling advice, and nothing here says whether a French house is worth owning. What the sources support is checkable: 5.81% to 6.32% against 8% at home, ten days to withdraw instead of three, a prescribed diagnostics file, a wealth tax from 1.3 million euro, and a 20% floor on French rental income. We covered the Dutch side of that comparison in our piece on the 2026 transfer tax cut. AiMYNDi reads the listing, the copropriété accounts and the diagnostics for a specific property, so what is in them lands inside the ten days rather than after. You can see an example of what a report looks like first.