What you pay every year for a house you use for six weeks

The abolition of council tax on main residences, completed in 2023, left second homes untouched. It even produced a mechanical effect: it concentrated on second homes a growing share of a fiscal lever that has become rare for communes.

Around Arcachon Bay, where second homes exceed half the housing stock in some communes, the local budgetary stakes are considerable.

I. The two taxes, and what separates them

Property tax on built land. Payable by the owner, whatever the use. It is based on the cadastral rental value, revalued each year by a national coefficient indexed to inflation, to which the rates voted by the commune and the intercommunal authority are applied.

Second-home council tax. Payable by whoever has the property at their disposal on 1 January — so by the owner for a house kept for their own use. It is based on the same cadastral rental value, with communal and intercommunal rates.

The two are cumulative. It is that cumulation, more than either line alone, that surprises buyers from elsewhere.

II. The high-pressure-area surcharge

This is the least understood point, and the one that explains the striking differences between neighbouring communes.

The mechanism. Communes classified as high-pressure housing areas — those with a marked imbalance between housing supply and demand — may, by council decision, increase the communal share of second-home council tax by between 5% and 60%.

The perimeter of high-pressure areas was considerably widened by a 2023 decree, which brought in many coastal and tourist communes, several of them on Arcachon Bay.

On the Bay. Several communes have voted a surcharge, at widely varying rates: some have adopted the 60% ceiling, others intermediate rates. These decisions can be revised annually.

III. Grounds for relief

The surcharge is not payable in every situation. The French tax code provides for relief, on application, in particular where:

• The property is near where you carry on your professional activity and obliges you to keep a second home.
• You occupied the property as a main residence before moving permanently into long-term care.
• The property cannot be used as a dwelling for reasons beyond your control — major works, ongoing proceedings, damage.

These reliefs are not automatic. They are obtained by application to the tax office within the applicable time limits. Many eligible owners never claim them, simply because they do not know they exist.

IV. If you let: tourist tax and the rest

Letting changes the tax position on several fronts.

Tourist tax is collected from guests and passed to the local authority. Platforms generally collect it on the host's behalf, but responsibility for declaring it remains with the host.

Rental income falls under industrial and commercial profits, with rules substantially altered by the law of 19 November 2024, known as the loi Le Meur. We cover this in Letting your villa for a few weeks: the rules since the loi Le Meur.

Business property tax may be payable in some cases, particularly where furnished letting is carried on habitually. The point deserves professional advice.

Watch a counter-intuitive effect: letting a property does not necessarily take it outside the scope of second-home council tax. A dwelling kept partly at your own disposal remains taxable. Some communes also apply specific rules to furnished tourist accommodation.

V. The trend, and what it means

It should be said plainly: the tax burden on coastal second homes is rising, and nothing suggests a reversal.

Three forces converge. Coastal communes have lost council tax on main residences and are looking for revenue. Pressure on housing for local workers has become a major political issue around the Bay, where land prices have excluded part of the working population. And the surcharge is at once available, lawful and politically inexpensive, since it falls on taxpayers who do not vote locally.

For an owner the practical consequence is simple: local taxation belongs in the ownership budget as a line expected to grow faster than inflation, not as a stable figure. We have costed it in What a villa on the Bay really costs.