The Cost of Buying Property in France
You have found the house, agreed a price and shaken hands. Then the notaire sends the provisional statement, and the figure at the bottom is tens of thousands of euros higher than the one you negotiated. On an existing property in France, acquisition costs add roughly 7% to 8% to the price, payable in full on the day the deed is signed, and most of that money is tax rather than fees. Americans call these closing costs and the British call them stamp duty; the French call them frais de notaire, a name that hides almost everything about what they really are. This guide takes them apart, line by line. For the purchase process itself, see our guide to buying property in France as a foreigner.
In brief
- Existing property: acquisition costs of about 7% to 8% of the price.
- New build from a developer: about 2% to 3%, because VAT is already included.
- Around four fifths of the so-called notary fees are transfer taxes paid to the state and local authorities.
- The agency fee is usually included in the advertised price, marked FAI.
- A buyer’s agent is paid by you: at Homelike Home, from 2.90% down to 1.00%, only on completion.
- On a €600,000 apartment, plan for roughly €42,000 to €48,000 on top of the price, in cash.
Notary fees are mostly not fees
The notaire is a public officer appointed by the state, whose job is to draft the deed, check the title, register the sale and collect the taxes due on it, keeping only a regulated share as remuneration. The total you pay therefore combines four very different things.
The largest by far is the transfer tax, the droits de mutation à titre onéreux, which goes to the département, the commune and the state. Next comes the notaire’s own remuneration, the émoluments, calculated on a regressive scale fixed by decree and subject to 20% VAT. Then the débours, the sums the notaire advances on your behalf for land registry extracts, planning certificates and copies of documents. Finally, the contribution de sécurité immobilière, a land registration levy of 0.10% of the price. Of all this, only the émoluments actually pay the notaire. The rest passes straight through the notaire’s office.
Transfer taxes, the heart of the bill
Under the standard rates, transfer taxes on an existing property come to about 5.8% of the price: 4.5% for the département, 1.2% for the commune and a state collection charge on top.
The 2025 finance act allowed départements to raise their share to 5% for three years, until 2028, and most of them have done so. The total then reaches about 6.3%, which is why acquisition costs currently sit at the top of their historical range. First-time buyers of a main residence are spared the increase. A foreign buyer acquiring a second home is not.
Because these taxes are proportional to the price, every euro you negotiate off the price also comes off the tax, a detail that makes a firm negotiation doubly valuable. And because the rate is set by each département, the same house can cost slightly more to buy on one side of an administrative boundary than on the other.
Why new build costs so much less
Buy a new property from a developer, under a VEFA contract (vente en l’état futur d’achèvement, the French off-plan purchase), and the arithmetic changes. The price already includes 20% VAT, and the transfer taxes then fall to a reduced rate of around 0.7%. Total acquisition costs drop to about 2% to 3%. The advertised price is higher, but much less is added on top of it.
A worked example: a €600,000 apartment
Take an existing apartment in an older Paris building, in a département applying the 5% rate. The orders of magnitude look like this:
| Item | Approximate amount |
|---|---|
| Transfer taxes (about 6.3%) | €38,000 |
| Notaire’s émoluments, including VAT | €6,000 |
| Land registration levy (0.10%) | €600 |
| Disbursements | €1,000 to €1,500 |
| Total on top of the price | about €45,000 to €46,000 |
That sits comfortably within the 7% to 8% range. The detail that catches many foreign buyers out is not the amount but the method of payment: French banks rarely finance these costs. They have to be paid in cash, alongside your deposit, and money spent on transfer taxes is money you will not see again when you sell.
The agency fee, and whose side the agent is on
In France the estate agent, the agent immobilier, is instructed by the seller. The fee, commonly between 4% and 8% of the price depending on the agency and the budget, is usually already built into the advertised price. Listings then carry the letters FAI, for frais d’agence inclus. When they do not, check whether the fee will be added on top.
This arrangement explains something that puzzles American buyers. The agent who shows you round, answers your questions and encourages you to make an offer is paid from the seller’s proceeds, and works for the seller. At that viewing, nobody represents your side of the table unless you bring someone who does. We explain the difference in detail in buyer’s agent versus estate agent in France.
What a buyer’s agent costs, and what it brings
A buyer’s agent, or chasseur immobilier, is paid by you, which is the entire point: their only interest is yours. At Homelike Home the fee follows a decreasing scale, from 2.90% down to 1.00% on the largest budgets, and it falls due only when the final deed is signed. No purchase, no fee.
Whether it pays for itself depends on what it changes. Access to properties that never reach the portals, a negotiation built on what comparable houses really sold for rather than on asking prices, and the transatlantic flights you no longer need to take all have a value. Facing an off-market property, or a seller still pricing as if it were two years ago, the fee usually covers itself several times over.
Borrowing: the costs around the rate
If you finance the purchase with a French loan, the interest is only part of the cost. The bank will require a guarantee, either a mortgage registration or a guarantee from a specialist organisation, will usually charge an arrangement fee, and will in practice insist on borrower insurance priced according to your age and health.
That is why loan offers should be compared on the TAEG, the French equivalent of the APR, which folds all of these into a single figure, rather than on the headline rate. For reference, average 20-year rates in France stood at around 3.5% in September 2026, although conditions for non-residents differ. What an American buyer can realistically obtain is covered in our guide to French mortgages for Americans.
Diagnostics, surveys and the cost of works
The seller pays for the mandatory technical reports, the diagnostics, which cover energy performance (the DPE), asbestos, lead, electrical and gas installations and, depending on the area, termites. They protect you against specific, listed risks. What France does not have is a tradition of systematic structural surveys, and nobody is obliged to tell you that the roof has ten years left in it.
On an older house, the best money you will spend in the entire transaction is the fee of an architect or a trusted builder who inspects the property before you sign. Price the works before you make an offer, never after: once the compromis de vente is signed, the number belongs to you.
What you can negotiate, and what you cannot
Transfer taxes, the registration levy and disbursements are fixed by law and cannot be negotiated. The notaire’s own fee offers a little room: on transactions above €150,000, the notaire may grant a partial discount on the émoluments. The real room lies elsewhere, in the price itself, and therefore in every tax calculated on it, sometimes in the agency fee, and in bank charges and borrower insurance, which you are free to take out with another insurer.
The costs that begin on completion day
Acquisition is a one-off bill. Ownership is an annual one, made of property tax, the residence tax still charged on second homes, insurance, heating and maintenance. For a property you will not occupy full time, those are detailed in French property taxes for foreign owners and in our page on second home management.
None of this is a reason not to buy. It is a reason to calculate the real total before falling in love with a house, which is the order most buyers get wrong. Our teams build that figure into every search, because a property that is affordable at the asking price is not always affordable at the real one.
Sources
The official breakdown of notary fees is published by the French government on Service-Public.fr, in French. Rates are given as of 2026; the departmental transfer tax option runs until 2028 and rates are revised by each finance act, so confirm current figures with the notaire before committing.
