Deducting furniture from French notary fees: what is allowed, what it saves, what is risky
A legal lever, as long as every item exists and its value stands up.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy
Furniture sold with a home in France is not real estate: if it is listed and valued in the deed of sale, its value comes out of the base for transfer tax, the notary’s proportional emoluments and the land registry contribution. In a 5% département, every thousand euros of furniture saves about €63 of tax, a little more with the emoluments. On a €320,000 purchase in Nantes with €12,000 of furniture, the total saving reaches €885. The mechanism has limits: only movable items count, the value must be second-hand rather than new, and an inflated list exposes you to a reassessment with interest and possibly a penalty. The calculator’s advanced options let you enter the value of the furniture and see the effect on every line.
What a furniture list saves
Saving on fees
€885
| Of which transfer tax | €758 |
| Fees without a list | €24,992 |
| Fees with a list | €24,106 |
What a furniture list saves
| Property price | Furniture listed | Total saving | of which transfer tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| €200,000 | €5,000 | €369 | €316 |
| €250,000 | €8,000 | €590 | €505 |
| €320,000 | €12,000 | €885 | €758 |
| €400,000 | €15,000 | €1,107 | €948 |
| €600,000 | €20,000 | €1,475 | €1,264 |
Movable or not: where the line runs
French civil law distinguishes movable property, which can be moved, from real estate, which is fixed to the ground or attached to it permanently. For the list attached to the deed, the practical question is simple: can the item leave with the seller without damaging the home? A free-standing fridge, a table, a sofa, hanging lights, a washing machine: yes. A fitted kitchen whose units are screwed to the wall and whose worktop was cut to measure: debatable, and the tax office often treats it as built-in equipment. A boiler, a bath, a wooden floor, roller shutters, fixed air-conditioning: no.
The right value
The value to enter is the second-hand value on the day of the sale. A kitchen bought for €15,000 ten years ago is no longer worth that; nor is a five-year-old appliance. A cautious approach is to start from the purchase price, apply a discount for age and wear, and keep invoices and dated photos. The notary may refuse to write in a value that is obviously inflated, since drafting the deed engages their liability.
The tax check
The tax office can challenge the split of the price between property and furniture and add the excess back to the taxable base. It is all the more likely to do so when the furniture share is large, the list is vague (“various furniture”) or the home was sold empty. The recovery covers the difference in tax plus late-payment interest, with a penalty if the understatement was deliberate. The saving, about 6% of the furniture’s value, is not worth that risk if the figures do not hold up.
On a new build, almost nothing to gain
On a VAT-able sale, land publicity tax is only 0.715 %: deducting €10,000 of furniture saves only about €71 of tax, plus a few euros of emoluments. The lever only makes sense on resale homes, and it is worth more where the départemental rate is higher: slightly more in Paris than in Châteauroux, where the départemental rate is 3.80%.