About 3,700 French towns in touristic areas will have new tax tools starting this fall to apply to vacant secondary residences and furnished Airbnb-type short-term rentals.
The French government this week published a pamphlet including 14 measures to help more towns fight what it calls “attrition” of permanent residences in the country’s touristic zones.
France’s 2023 budget law included new criteria that will allow more local governments to apply an existing national tax on vacant housing. The new rules increase the number of local governments that can apply the tax, and it allows them to increase the tax on vacant housing by as much as 60%.
“This measure in particular aims to give an additional tax leverage to leaders of touristic towns that in recent years have seen a large increase in the number of secondary residences,” to the detriment of primary residences, the pamphlet said.
