Must we pay second-home tax on French gîte?

Reader question: As you reported, every resident has to declare all their properties to the tax office. I live in a former Cognac house which has outbuildings that we have converted to classified meubles de tourisme.

We declared a main home and two seasonal holiday lets. They are vacant on January 1 (used as the reference date for local property taxes), as there is little demand then.

However, the system assumes we have them available for our use as second homes. Can we apply for exemption?

There are several considerations with regard to taxe d’habitation exemption for properties used for holiday letting.

Firstly, it is theoretically possible to obtain an exemption by proving a property is purely used for holiday rental and is never available for your own use. Reportedly, this can be difficult but making it available year-round on a booking platform may help.

There is also an exemption that can be applied for – which has to be done each year before March 1 – in communes designated as rural revitalisation zones, and where the municipal council has voted for this. See here for a tool to check areas and see here for the application form.

As of 2027, councils everywhere will be able to opt into this if they wish.

Finally, if a property meets a new definition of a gîte rural, it is exempt. 

For this, it needs to be a separate house or an apartment in a building with at most four dwellings, it must not be situated in the metropolitan area of a major city, and it must be labelled by an organisation such as Gîtes de France or CléVacances. 

A decree clarifying the full labelling rules is still awaited, but this appears to be separate from the ‘classification’ process (with an award of stars).