The French government is facing accusations of orchestrating a stealth tax grab after deciding to quietly revise the data used to calculate property taxes for tens of millions of homes.
According to an exclusive in Le Parisien, the Ministry of Economy plans to update amenity records for 32 million dwellings, a move that will automatically raise tax bills for a large share of homeowners.
The revision centers on so-called “comfort elements” — features such as running water, electricity, toilets, sinks, showers, bathtubs, and heating or air conditioning. Each of these adds a fixed number of square feet to a home’s taxable surface area for the purposes of determining the amount paid in property tax.
The rules date back more than five decades, but the underlying records have barely been updated since they were first created.
Internal documents from the Directorate General of Public Finances (DGFiP) show that in 7.4 million homes across France, at least one of these amenities is missing from the official data. The tax authority now assumes that such omissions simply reflect outdated paperwork, not the actual condition of the property. Missing items will therefore be added automatically, without owners being asked to verify or amend the information themselves. The result will be an increase in property tax for millions of homes, based purely on assumptions without any formal assessment.
Only households experiencing the most significant adjustments will receive a notification of the changes, and revised tax notices will commence in August.
The vast majority of houses won’t be reassessed. While 60 percent of homes in the Haute-Corse region are earmarked for inspection, a minority in each other major French regions will be checked to ensure the tax increase is justified. In Paris, just one quarter of homes will be inspected, while the share drops to around 10 percent in more rural regions like Indre-et-Loire and Isère.
According to the French newspaper, the DGFiP expects an average increase in property tax of €63 for 7.4 million homes, raking in over €460 million.
“This is simply a matter of generalizing a rule that should have already been generalized before,” a government spokesperson, as cited by Money Vox, insisted, but the decision has been heavily criticized by political leaders.
Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, claimed that property owners had “become the cash cows” of the government, which, according to him, had “tried to surreptitiously impose this measure behind the backs of the National Assembly.” He further called on the government to reverse its decision and stop “stabbing French property owners in the back.”
On the political left, Mathilde Panot, leader of the La France Insoumise deputies, said, “We are totally opposed to this new scheme which aims once again to take money from the pockets of French men and women and to refuse to make the richest in this country contribute.”
Even among the centrists, the plan was criticized. Former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who served under President Macron, said that he would never have allowed such a move had he still been in office, and suggested that the policies affecting real estate and housing in recent years have, “objectively, been a failure.”
The plan has also drawn strong criticism from unions. “The government is speculating on convenience features without any proof,” Frédéric Scalbert, general secretary of the CGT public finance union told the newspaper. He warned that many older or rural homes still lack full heating or bathroom facilities, meaning low-income households could be hit hardest by a reclassification that assumes amenities they do not actually have.
Property-owner organizations also object to the lack of verification. “I don’t see how the tax authority can move ahead like this. It will trigger countless disputes,” said Sylvain Grataloup, president of the National Union of Property Owners (UNPI).
Property-tax bills have already grown at twice the pace of inflation over the past decade, averaging €1,072 for houses and €851 for apartments last year.
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