Selling French Property After Aliyah: Plus-Value, Représentant Fiscal, Section 91

France's most valuable relief on a French home is switched on or off by the country you moved to, and Israel sits on the wrong side of the switch.

CGI article 244 bis A, I-1 gives a non-resident a total exemption on the gain from the property that was their principal residence in France at the date they transferred their tax domicile abroad, provided they sell by 31 December of the following year and let nobody else use it, free or paid, in between. That is the ordinary oleh chadash (new immigrant) fact pattern: you lived in the flat, you made aliyah, you sold it a few months later. But the relief reaches you only if you moved to an EU member state, or to a state that has concluded with France both an administrative-assistance convention against fraud and evasion and a mutual assistance convention on recovery of scope similar to Directive 2010/24/EU, and that is not a non-cooperative territory under CGI article 238-0 A (BOFiP BOI-RFPI-PVINR-10-20, published 19 April 2019). ³ DGFiP's annex BOI-ANNX-000508 names "I et IV bis de l'article 244 bis A du CGI" among the provisions needing that recovery clause on top of an exchange-of-information clause, and the same document's country table records Israel as Yes for exchange of information on income tax and No in all four assistance-in-recovery columns, for instruments in force at 1 January 2025 (published 8 October 2025). ⁵ The convention itself shows why: across its thirty articles it carries an exchange-of-information article at 26 and no assistance-in-recovery article at all. ¹⁰ In the same annex table Belgium, the United Kingdom and South Africa are Yes in every column, so the identical seller moving to Antwerp, London or Johannesburg keeps the relief, and BOFiP separately records in prose that sellers who moved their domicile to the United Kingdom qualify. ^{5 3}

*This is general information, not tax, legal, or financial advice. French and Israeli tax interact in complex ways, and a US passport adds a third layer, so consult a qualified cross-border professional before acting.*

The French side: what rate hits a non-resident, and what goes into the gain?

France levies the prélèvement of CGI article 244 bis A at 19% on the plus-value immobilière (the taxable gain on immovable property), and residents of states outside the EU, the EEA and Switzerland owe social levies at a global 17.2%, per impots.gouv.fr, page modified 27 January 2026. ¹ Israel is such a state, so an oleh pays both in full. On the non-resident branch of service-public fiche F2329, verified 30 June 2026, that 17.2% on a plus-value immobilière is CSG 9.2%, CRDS 0.5% and the prélèvement de solidarité 7.5%. ⁹ Do not carry across the 18.6% that appears two headings earlier on the same branch: there 18.6% is the rate on revenus de location meublée non professionnelle, driven by CSG at 10.6%, and it is not the rate on a sale. ⁹

There is a carve-out, and it does not reach you. Gains realised since 1 January 2019 by people affiliated to a compulsory social-security scheme other than the French one within an EEA state or Switzerland are exempt from CSG and CRDS, and British residents kept that exemption after Brexit; a 7.5% solidarity levy still applies (impots.gouv.fr, modified 27 January 2026). ^{1 2} The test is affiliation to a scheme in one of those states, so an oleh insured by Bituach Leumi (Israel's National Insurance Institute) carries the whole 17.2%. Why that is so, and how the levies behave across every other kind of French income, is the subject of the CSG and CRDS explainer.

Building the gain is the part that depends most on paperwork you may have left behind in France. Acquisition costs are taken either at their real justified amount or, at your option, at a flat 7.5% of the acquisition price; works are taken either at their real justified amount or at a flat 15% of the acquisition price, on condition that you sell a built property more than five years after acquiring it (BOFiP BOI-RFPI-PVI-20-10-20-20, published 20 December 2013). ⁸ Ten years after leaving France, the builder's invoices are rarely still to hand. The 15% forfait is the answer to that: BOFiP states you need not establish that the works happened, or their amount, or that you cannot produce receipts, and it is a faculty you claim rather than a default. ⁸ The declaration itself is form 2048-IMM-SD (2048-M-SD for shares in a property-heavy company), and the notaire pays the tax out of the proceeds at completion; if you have other French income subject to French income tax, the gain also goes on form 2042 C, box 3VZ, to set your revenu fiscal de référence. ¹

Why do the two French tapers finish eight years apart?

Because the abattement pour durée de détention (the holding-period allowance) runs on two separate schedules, one for income tax and one for social levies, and only the first is generous. Both are identical for residents and non-residents (impots.gouv.fr, modified 27 January 2026; BOFiP BOI-RFPI-PVI-20-20, published 18 July 2023). ^{1 6}

The eight-year gap is easy to miss. From year 23 the income-tax half is already zero and the entire French bill is social levies alone, shedding nine points of base every year until it disappears beyond 30 years of ownership. ⁶

Which of the two French exemptions can an oleh actually reach?

Realistically only the 150,000 EUR exemption of CGI article 150 U II 2, and only if your passport cooperates. It requires a natural person, non-resident of France, who is a national of an EU member state or of an EEA state with an information-exchange convention with France; who was fiscally domiciled in France continuously for at least two years at some point before the sale; who holds the dwelling directly, so a property held through an SCI (a French property-holding company) is excluded; and who sells by 31 December of the tenth year following the year of the domicile transfer, or at any time if the dwelling has been at your free disposal since at least 1 January of the year before the sale. It is one dwelling per taxpayer, counted once since 1 January 2014, capped at 150,000 EUR of net taxable gain (impots.gouv.fr, page modified 5 July 2022; BOFiP BOI-RFPI-PVINR-10-20, published 19 April 2019). ^{2 3}

Two mechanics inside that cap matter more than the headline. First, nationality, not residence, is the test, and it is assessed at the date of sale: BOFiP's own illustration is that the relief reaches "un Belge demeurant en Australie mais non à un Australien demeurant en Belgique". ³ A French oleh who kept his passport still qualifies from Netanya. An Israeli-only national has to argue BOFiP's tolerance at paragraph 270, which admits the exemption for a national of a third state who can both invoke a conventional non-discrimination clause and show a situation identical to one in which a French national could claim the relief; article 24(1) of the France-Israel convention is a nationality-based non-discrimination clause. ^{3 10} Both halves are on the record and the mechanism plainly exists, but no published French ruling names Israel, so treat it as an argument to put to your accredited representative before the deed is drafted, never as an entitlement. Second, the 150,000 EUR ceiling is applied after the holding-period abattement and separately for the fiscal base and the social base, because the two tapers move at different speeds, so one sale produces two different net-taxable figures and two separate cap tests. ³ Co-owners in indivision, unmarried partners and PACS partners are each tested on their own share; married co-sellers are formally co-cédants, but BOFiP admits treating them like indivisaires, which is how a couple reaches 300,000 EUR on one jointly held flat. That 300,000 EUR is an administrative tolerance in BOFiP, repeated on impots.gouv.fr, rather than statute. ^{2 3}

The other exemption, the former principal residence under article 244 bis A, I-1, is the one your destination closes. Here is the contrast, read off DGFiP's annex for instruments in force at 1 January 2025 (published 8 October 2025): ⁵

The same missing recovery clause reaches further than this sale. The annex lists CGI article 167 bis, the exit tax on securities, among the provisions needing a recovery clause, and Israel's four No entries fall the same way there as they do here, which is what puts an emigrant who falls inside that article on the on-request suspension track with a French representative and a guarantee rather than the automatic one, covered in the France exit tax guide. ⁵ And the two property exemptions are mutually exclusive: anyone who has already used 150 U II 2 on an earlier sale, whatever its date, cannot use 244 bis A I-1, and a seller who has used 244 bis A I-1 on a sale from 1 January 2019 cannot then use 150 U II 2. ³

Do you still need a représentant fiscal when the gain is fully exempt?

Usually yes, and this is the single most expensive surprise on the page. A seller domiciled outside the EU, Iceland and Norway must designate a représentant fiscal accrédité (an accredited fiscal representative) in France, and the prélèvement is then paid under that representative's responsibility; Israel is plainly outside, so the obligation is the default for every oleh (BOFiP BOI-RFPI-PVINR-30-20, dated 22 January 2025). ⁴ Three grounds dispense with the representative automatically, assessed by the drafter of the deed with no application to the administration: a sale price of 150,000 EUR or less; total exemption on holding period alone for income tax and social levies both, meaning beyond 22 years and beyond 30 years respectively, whatever the price; and the former-principal-residence exemption, which you cannot claim. ⁴ The 150,000 EUR gain exemption is not on that list. So the common oleh case is a gain that owes nothing and a representative who must still be appointed and paid.

Note the trap in the two numbers. One 150,000 EUR figure is a sale price that switches off the representative, tested per seller and per share for co-owners in indivision, but for a married couple under any matrimonial regime, and a PACS couple under joint assessment, the couple counts as one seller and the threshold is measured on the whole price, so it does not double. ⁴ The other 150,000 EUR figure is a slice of net gain that escapes tax, and there a couple can reach 300,000 EUR by tolerance. They are unrelated. As to who may serve, the categories are the buyer if fiscally domiciled in France, a bank or credit institution operating in France, or any person accredited for the operation or permanently by the tax administration; notaires and avocats are excluded by impots.gouv.fr, and BOFiP adds experts-comptables to that incompatible list. ^{1 4} If the 2048 form filed with the deed names no accredited representative, the service de publicité foncière refuses the formality and the sale does not register. Designating someone does not relieve you: you remain the legal debtor, both of you can be pursued for the whole amount, and the representative answers for the consequences of any later audit. ⁴

One more French charge sits on top. The surtaxe of CGI article 1609 nonies G is due once the gain taxable to income tax, or to the article 244 bis A prélèvement, exceeds 50,000 EUR after the holding-period abattement, and it then applies from the first euro on a scale rising from 2% to 6% (BOFiP BOI-RFPI-TPVIE-20, published 18 July 2023). ⁷ Its base is identical to the fiscal base of the plus-value, not the wider social base. ^{7 3} For a non-resident using the 150 U II 2 exemption, the 50,000 EUR threshold is measured on the fraction above 150,000 EUR, so BOFiP's own examples give nothing to pay on a 190,000 EUR net taxable gain and a 70,000 EUR base on a 220,000 EUR one. ⁷

The Israeli side: where does this sale get reported, and when is there tax?

Not where a lifelong Israeli would look. The France-Israel convention lists among Israel's covered taxes both the charges levied under the Income Tax Ordinance and, as a separate item, the taxes on gains from the alienation of immovable property levied under the real-estate gains law. ¹⁰ That second item is mas shevach (betterment tax), the track a lifelong Israeli knows from selling an Israeli flat. A French flat does not go there. The Israel Tax Authority's own service page lists "nadlan mi'chutz le'Yisrael", real estate outside Israel, among the section 88 assets reportable on Form 1399, alongside options and virtual currency. The mechanism is mas hachnasa (income tax) machinery: you print Form 1399, sign it, and lodge it at an Income Tax office within 30 days of the sale, paying any tax at the same time, one form per asset, with the same form doubling as an annex to the annual return, Form 1301. The page adds two things people miss: a loss on the sale is reportable too, and where the annual return is filed online the notice is completed inside that return as well as on paper (Israel Tax Authority service page, read 25 August 2026). ¹² The general habit of self-reporting Israeli capital gains once you are taxable is covered in the foreign-brokerage self-reporting guide.

Inside the window there is usually nothing to pay. Section 14 of the Income Tax Ordinance exempts a new immigrant or veteran returning resident who first arrived from 1 January 2007 from tax and from reporting for ten years on income produced abroad or sourced in assets abroad, per the Israel Tax Authority's own 2024 filing guide. ¹⁴ The Authority's explanatory document on Amendment 168, published 16 September 2008 with retroactive effect from 1 January 2007, confirms this covers capital gains on realising foreign assets, and extends to assets bought after aliyah during the exemption years, not only assets owned beforehand. ¹⁵ Form 1399 asks you to state the date you became an Israeli resident, and that date, not the date of the sale, is what starts the ten-year clock. ¹³

After the ten years, the sale does not become fully taxable, it becomes partly taxable. Form 1399's explanatory note 2 states that where the ten years have passed, the part of the real capital gain up to the end of the ten years is exempt and the remainder is taxable at the rate set in section 91(b), and the note to field 22 describes that exempt slice as divided linearly over the holding periods. ¹³ Rates, per the 2023 edition of Form 1399y: up to 25% on the part of the real gain accrued from 1 January 2012, up to 20% for 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2011, marginal rates before that, and 10% on the chargeable inflationary amount. ¹³ The direction of the effect is clear and the mechanism is published; the precise denominator of that linear split is not something to assume, so put your acquisition date, your residency date and your sale date in front of an Israeli accountant before you sign.

Two further Israeli points. The 2026 reform did not remove the ten years: gov.il, updated 23 June 2026, states that the tax exemption on income from abroad for ten years survives, while olim who arrived as of 1 January 2026 must report income earned abroad. ¹¹ Exempt from tax is not the same as exempt from reporting, and for a 2026 arrival the French sale is still untaxed in Israel inside the window but is now reportable. The new graduated benefit for arrivals from 5 November 2025 through the end of 2026, with ceilings of 600,000 NIS in 2026, 1,000,000 NIS in each of 2027 and 2028, 350,000 NIS in 2029 and 150,000 NIS in 2030, applies only to eligible income earned through personal effort, which gov.il defines as employment and business income, and expressly not to passive income, so it does nothing at all for a property gain. ¹¹

And the credit that is not there. The Israeli foreign tax credit is given per income basket against Israeli tax on that income, expressly "provided that this income is not income exempt from tax in Israel", only for a final compulsory payment made abroad no later than 24 months from the end of the tax year for which it is claimed, with fines and interest excluded, capped for special-rate income at the Israeli tax on that special income, with no offsetting between baskets and excess carried forward up to five consecutive years indexed to the madad (Israel Tax Authority 2024 filing guide). ¹⁴ During the exemption years there is no Israeli tax on the gain, so the French 19% and 17.2% have nothing to be credited against. They are simply a final cost.

The treaty side: what does the France-Israel convention settle, and what does it leave open?

It settles that France may tax, and it does not stop Israel from taxing the same gain. Article 13(1)(a) says gains from the alienation of immovable property covered by article 6 "sont imposables" in the state where the property is situated, which is the sharing form, not the exclusive form. ¹⁰ Article 23(2) then has Israel give an ordinary credit for French tax on French-source income, capped at the fraction of Israeli tax corresponding to the ratio of French income to total income, which lands in the same place as the domestic rule above: inside the ten years there is nothing to credit. ¹⁰ Article 24(1) is the nationality-based non-discrimination clause that the 150 U II 2 tolerance hangs on. ¹⁰

What it leaves open is the status of the social levies. Article 2(3)(a) says the current French taxes covered are "notamment" impôt sur le revenu, impôt sur les sociétés, taxe sur les salaires and impôt de solidarité sur la fortune, so the list is expressly non-exhaustive; CSG and CRDS are not among the four, and article 2(4) extends the convention to identical or analogous taxes established after signature. ¹⁰ Pulling the other way, the Israel Tax Authority's guide excludes from the foreign tax credit any payment that is not a direct tax imposed on income, even where it is computed as a percentage of income, and names health tax among the exclusions, while the levies are assessed on income and collected by DGFiP. ¹⁴ That tension is unresolved on the published record, so nobody should tell you the 17.2% is or is not creditable in Israel without looking at your file.

If you also hold a US passport, what changes?

Israeli residence does not take the sale off your US return: the IRS requires you to report a home sale whenever you cannot exclude all of the gain, and the section 121 main-home exclusion shelters at most 250,000 USD of gain, or 500,000 USD on a joint return. The trap for an oleh is the use test: you must have owned the home for at least 24 months and used it as a residence for at least 24 months, both within the five years ending on the date of sale (IRS Topic 701). ¹⁶ Because the window is five years and the use leg needs 24 months inside it, someone who stopped living in the flat at aliyah keeps the exclusion only if the sale comes within about three years of moving out; sell later than that and the exclusion is gone, whatever France does.

French tax on the same gain runs through the foreign tax credit, which the IRS allows only for foreign taxes imposed on you by a foreign country, and generally only for income, war-profits and excess-profits taxes. ¹⁷ On the social levies the IRS has published a position: following a 2019 understanding with France that CSG and CRDS are not social taxes covered by the two countries' social security agreement, the IRS will not challenge foreign tax credits for CSG and CRDS payments on that basis. ¹⁷ That statement names CSG and CRDS; it does not name the prélèvement de solidarité, which is the remaining 7.5 points of the 17.2%.

The structure question is where a US passport genuinely bites. Form 8621 is filed by a US person who is a direct or indirect shareholder of a passive foreign investment company, on certain distributions from it or on a gain recognised when disposing of its stock. ¹⁸ Own the flat in your own name and you are nobody's shareholder, so the question never opens; put an SCI in between and you hold an interest in a foreign entity, and it does. Holding the flat through an SCI therefore does two things at once: it forfeits the French 150,000 EUR exemption, which is refused where the dwelling is held through a company, and it opens a US entity-classification question that no article can answer for a particular company. ^{2 3 18} Note the asymmetry on the French side, since it cuts the other way: the former-principal-residence exemption of 244 bis A I-1, the one Israel closes anyway, does tolerate holding through a société de personnes. ³ Separately, euro sale proceeds landing in a French bank account will usually take your foreign accounts over the FBAR threshold, which is an aggregate value above 10,000 USD at any time in the calendar year, reported on FinCEN Form 114 by 15 April with an automatic extension to 15 October. That is a filing, not a tax. ¹⁹

Is it worth waiting to year 22, or to year 30?

The arithmetic says the first eight years of waiting are worth far more than the last eight, and Israel charges for waiting on a straight line rather than a cliff. Take a flat bought in March 2009 for 180,000 EUR by someone who made aliyah in March 2019. Acquisition costs at the 7.5% forfait are 13,500 EUR; works at the 15% forfait, available because the built flat has been held more than five years, are 27,000 EUR; the adjusted acquisition price is 220,500 EUR. ⁸ Sold in June 2027 for 360,000 EUR, that is a gross gain of 139,500 EUR after 18 complete years of ownership.

On the French side, holding that gross gain constant so the columns compare only the taper:

Rates per impots.gouv.fr, modified 27 January 2026; taper cadences per BOFiP BOI-RFPI-PVI-20-20, published 18 July 2023. ^{1 6} No surtaxe arises at any of these points, because the income-tax base after abattement never exceeds 50,000 EUR and that fiscal base, not the social one, is the surtaxe's base (BOI-RFPI-TPVIE-20, published 18 July 2023). ^{7 3} If the 150 U II 2 conditions are met at the 2027 sale, both bases, 30,690 EUR and 109,577 EUR, sit under the cap, so the whole gain is exempt in France, and a représentant fiscal accrédité is still mandatory because the price is 360,000 EUR and the holding period is only 18 years. ^{2 4}

On the Israeli side, read the same rows from Netanya. At the 2027 sale the seller is in his ninth year of Israeli residence, so there is no Israeli tax on the gain and, having arrived before 1 January 2026, no Israeli reporting duty either. ^{11 14} If instead he keeps the flat to year 23 of ownership, that is 2032 and more than thirteen full years of Israeli residence: the ten years are spent, so Form 1399 note 2 applies, the slice of real gain running to the end of the tenth residence year stays exempt and the rest is taxable at the section 91(b) rate, up to 25% on the part accrued from 1 January 2012. ¹³

That is the whole trade-off in one place: waiting past year 22 kills the larger French half outright and then bleeds the social half at nine points a year ⁶, while the Israeli cost of waiting arrives as a proportional slice rather than a cliff. ¹³ Whether the flat is worth holding for eight more years for that reason is a question about your money, not about the tax code. If you are still letting the flat in the meantime, the rent is taxed on entirely different rules, set out in the French rental property guide; if you are weighing keeping it against selling, the sell-or-rent framework is the place to start; and what happens to the same flat on your death is covered in the French succession guide. Olim selling from other origins can compare the shape of the problem in the Canadian, Australian and South African versions. Wider French holdings, including wealth tax while you still own the flat, sit in the France finance hub, with wrappers in the assurance-vie and PEA guide and retirement income in the French pension guide.

Before you sign anything at the notaire's office, put three dates on one page: the date you bought, the date you became an Israeli resident, and the date you transferred your French tax domicile. Those three dates decide which exemption you can reach, whether a représentant fiscal is unavoidable, and whether Israel is still standing back. Take that page to a cross-border accountant who works on both sides.

Frequently asked questions

France charges 19% under CGI article 244 bis A plus 17.2% social levies on a seller resident outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland (impots.gouv.fr, 27 January 2026). Israel fails France's recovery-convention test, so the former-principal-residence exemption is out of reach (BOI-ANNX-000508). Israel itself charges nothing for ten years, which leaves the French bill final and uncreditable.