Buying a House in France as a German Buyer: 6.32% Against 6.5%

A German buyer in Bavaria pays 3.5% to change the name on a property. The same buyer in North Rhine-Westphalia pays 6.5%.

France sits between the two. An existing French home costs 5.81% to 6.32% in transfer duty depending on the département, so whether France looks expensive depends entirely on which Bundesland you are comparing it with. The larger adjustment is not the rate at all. It is that nothing binds at the notaire's deed, because you are already bound weeks earlier.

Transfer tax on an existing home

Where you buy	Rate (%)
Bayern		3.50%
France, département at 4.50%		5.81%
France, département at 5.00%		6.32%
Nordrhein-Westfalen		6.50%

Why does the German rate move and the French one barely does?

Two different constitutions put the dial in two different hands. Article 105 paragraph 2a of the Grundgesetz, the German constitution, gives the Länder the power to set the Grunderwerbsteuer rate: the text reads "Sie haben die Befugnis zur Bestimmung des Steuersatzes bei der Grunderwerbsteuer." Where a Land has not moved it, paragraph 11 of the Grunderwerbsteuergesetz leaves it at 3.5%. The Bayerisches Landesamt für Steuern confirms Bavaria still applies 3.5% under that paragraph, while the tax offices of North Rhine-Westphalia state the rate there is 6.5% for every contract notarised since 1 January 2015.

In France the equivalent lever belongs to the département and its travel is half a point. 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.

What is actually inside frais de notaire?

Tax, mostly, and the notaire's fee is the smallest part. 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, 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 in Bavaria would carry 10,500 euro and in North Rhine-Westphalia 19,500 euro. Those are calculations on the four published rates, and they are why the French figure reads as expensive in Munich and cheap in Düsseldorf.

When are you actually bound?

At the compromis de vente, which is signed before the notaire ever drafts the deed. German practice puts the binding moment at the notary: paragraph 311b of the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch requires notarial certification for a contract to transfer ownership of land, so until the Notar reads the Kaufvertrag there is no contract at all.

France reverses the order and then hands the buyer a window. Service-Public.gouv.fr, the French government's public information service, states that a non-professional buyer of a home has 10 calendar days to withdraw from a compromis or promesse de vente, running from the day after the signed document is first presented to them, that the seller has no equivalent right, and that the deposit is commonly 10% of the price. Ten days is the whole of a German buyer's due diligence in France, and it starts before the acte authentique.

What fills those days is prescribed. Service-Public lists the diagnostics a French seller must supply in the dossier de diagnostic technique: the diagnostic de performance énergétique, the French energy rating known as the DPE, where the floor area is 50 square metres or more, with an energy audit where the rating is E, F or G; a lead statement where the building predates 1 January 1949; an asbestos statement where the building permit predates 1 July 1997; and the state of the interior electrical installation where it is more than 15 years old.

What the French numbers do not say

There is no published national figure for German buyers. The Notaires de France studied non-resident foreign buyers from 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. It publishes shares for the British, Belgians, Italians, Swiss and a combined Scandinavian group, and notes that nationals of neighbouring countries lead the ranking in the northeast, the Alps and Provence, Côte d'Azur and Corsica. Its one German figure is regional and deliberately deflating: on the west coast, German buyers are 3% of non-resident foreign buyers, which the study points out is a little over 20 purchases.

Ownership then carries 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. The taxe foncière runs every year underneath it, with the taxe d'habitation on a second home.

The departmental rise is on a clock: Service-Public.gouv.fr states the loi de finances pour 2025 authorised it until 30 April 2028, and that each increase must be voted by the conseil départemental. We set out that vote in our piece on French transfer duties.

We do not give buying or selling advice, and nothing here is a view on French property. What the sources support is checkable: 5.81% to 6.32% against 3.5% in Bavaria and 6.5% in North Rhine-Westphalia, a binding contract before the notaire rather than at it, ten calendar days to change your mind, and a prescribed set of diagnostics the seller owes you. AiMYNDi reads the listing, the copropriété accounts and those 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.