If you are a French tax resident and have any foreign bank accounts or investment schemes such as life assurance policies you must declare the existence of these as part of your French income tax declaration this spring.
This is separate to declaring any actual income that was received into them in the French tax year (2024).
The section for declaring these is called the 3916 - 3916 bis (it is the same name both online and on paper) and a downloadable version can be found here.
If this was completed online last year the same accounts will usually be listed for you to check and, if appropriate, carry over this year (reporter). Having said this, there are occasional bugs reported with this, so if they are not showing, you should add them again.
Accounts concerned are essentially any structures in which you can hold cash, shares or cryptocurrency, that were held by you, your spouse or a dependant during all or part of 2024.
If completing your declaration online, select Comptes à l’étranger under Divers when asked to choose which rubriques (sections) you need.
Once chosen, this will be listed at the top left of your screen (if this is not the case, click the Déclarations annexes button to find the form) and you will have to complete this before signing off your declaration.
If declaring on paper, remember to also cross 8UU (bank accounts) or 8TT (life assurance) at the end of 2042.
Declare online bank accounts
You must declare overseas neobank (online only) accounts. Be sure to check where they are domiciled if you have any doubt.
Revolut is a UK-based company but French residents’ accounts are held with Lithuanian or French subsidiaries (you can tell by the account’s Iban number).
Monese, also UK-based, holds French-based clients’ accounts in France, as for German-based N26, new customers now have French Ibans and existing customers are being transferred to new French accounts.
Read more: Foreign bank accounts: French court clarifies rules after US account case
If this occurred in the tax year, you should declare the closure.
Notes for the form say this concerns accounts habitually receiving deposits of money, shares or equivalents, but one financial expert stated it is safest to declare any form of account ‘capable’ of holding a balance.
Read more: Must neo-bank ‘pots’ of non-euro currencies be declared to French tax authorities?
The declaration relates to accounts or policies you opened, closed or held in 2024 whether you used them or not.
Include online entities such as Wise (formerly Transferwise) or PayPal. There is an exemption if the account is adossé à (linked to) a French bank account and you use it for online purchases or to receive money from selling goods, and the latter does not exceed €10,000/year.
If you forget to declare relevant accounts, we suggest going back into your online declaration to add them or, if this is not possible, telling the tax office about them separately, for example by private online messaging.
If you have not declared an overseas account it is advisable to do so as tax offices may make allowance for genuine mistakes.
Otherwise, penalties for non-declaration can be €1,500 per account.
If declaring several accounts on paper you need multiple copies of the form.
What does each section require?
In the first online or print section, assuming you are an ordinary member of the public, you fill in: surname, first name, date and place of birth, then address.
The next section is only relevant to businesses.
Section 2 is for clarifying what you are declaring, whether a bank account, cryptocurrency account, or an assurance vie or similar investment scheme.
Section 3 is for details of your account(s), which must include the account number, whether it is a current, savings or other type of account, date of opening and/or closing the account, the name of the holding bank or other organisation (désignation de l’organisme gestionnaire) and its address.
You then select the relevant box to say whether you hold the account in your own right or via a power of attorney for someone else’s account.
The next section is for similar information for cryptocurrency accounts, followed by a section in which you are asked if the usage of the account is personal, business or mixed and a section for account holder’s details if you merely have a power of attorney.
The section for life assurance comes next.
If declaring by paper, the form should be signed and dated and the place of signature should be added.
