In Paris, property tax jumped by 60.8%. Jean-Christophe MARMARA/Le Figaro
Despite some spectacular increases, only 35 of the top 200 municipalities raised rates.
In France’s 200 largest cities, property tax rose by 9.3% in one year, the National Union of Property Owners (UNPI) reported this Wednesday in its “National Property Tax Observatory”. This report indicates an increase of 26.3% between 2012 and 2022, “i.e. quadruple rent increase’ which grew by 6.7% over the same period. Despite some spectacular increases, such as in Paris (60.8% overall increase) and Grenoble (+32.9%), only 35 of the 200 largest municipalities increased their rates, an average of 3.2 points compared to 24 municipalities last year.
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The president of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) David Lisnard, interviewed by Franceinfo on Wednesday, confirmed that 86% of municipalities did not increase the rate for 2023. “Across France, it’s mainly the 7.1% rise in rental value (to which the rates apply), the highest in thirty-seven years, that explains the rise in taxes,” analyzed by the UNPI. Critical association “unfair rules” and particularly regrets that since 2018 rent values are indexed to the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) and not to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), i.e. inflation, who “growing less rapidly”. “Why are even the rental values, which are supposed to represent the annual rent of each building, indexed to inflation?” asks the association. The association demands “at least a hat” estate tax, a measure that was seriously mentioned during the 2023 budget debates but did not actually appear for the 2024 budget.
For next year, the UNPI predicts a rent increase of 4.2%, which would mean an increase of around 15% in three years “no rate hike” municipalities voted, the association clarifies.