The French Ski Property VAT Reclaim: How to Recover 20% on a New-Build and Still Use It

One of the most consistently misunderstood features of the French new-build ski property market is also the single most financially material: the ability for a private buyer to reclaim the 20% VAT (TVA) component of a new-build purchase price. On a €600,000 apartment, that’s €100,000 back in the buyer’s pocket — not a marginal tax break, but a transformation of the entire investment case. And yet many British and international buyers arrive at Domosno having never heard of the scheme, or having heard of it in such distorted form that they assume it requires giving up all personal use of the property. It does not. You can have both.

This guide walks through exactly how the French ski property VAT reclaim works in 2026, who qualifies, what you have to do, what the conditions look like in practice, and — crucially — how you can retain meaningful personal use of the property while still claiming the full rebate. We’ll draw on the specific rules laid out by the French tax authority (Direction Générale des Finances Publiques), the latest 2026 Finance Bill changes affecting LMNP landlords, and our internal experience guiding more than 80% of Domosno’s new-build clients through the reclaim process since 2005.

Read this alongside our new-build ski apartments catalogue if you want to see which current developments are structured for a clean VAT-reclaim application, and our the buying process guide for the full VEFA timeline that the reclaim sits inside. The scheme is not a loophole, it is not exotic, and it is not reserved for residents — it is a simple exchange: the French state refunds your VAT in return for a commitment that your property will participate in the classified tourist rental economy for at least 20 years.

Under French tax law, the sale of a new-build property (typically a VEFA off-plan purchase, where ‘new’ extends for up to five years after completion) attracts 20% VAT on the purchase price. Unlike a resale property — where notaire fees of 7–9% include the historical transfer duty — a new-build sale is a fresh taxable supply, and the 20% TVA is embedded in the ‘ttc’ (tax-inclusive) price you see on the developer’s brochure. For a €600,000 ttc apartment, the ‘ht’ (tax-exclusive) price is €500,000 and the VAT is €100,000.

The French state permits the buyer of a new-build tourist-residence apartment to register as a business (typically under the furnished rental regime, LMNP or LMP) and reclaim that €100,000 of VAT, exactly as any commercial operator would recover input VAT on a business asset. In return, the property must be operated as a furnished tourist rental with certain hotel-style services for the first 20 years of its life — this is the mechanism by which the state gets the VAT back through the economic activity of the rental business.

This is not a subsidy and it is not a loophole. It is the ordinary VAT mechanism applied to any commercial property. The only unusual feature is that France deliberately permits individual, non-professional buyers to use the mechanism — including non-residents — because the French government has long recognised the strategic importance of the private-owner model to populating new mountain tourism beds. The 2017 Montagne II Law and subsequent policy reinforcements have all kept this route explicitly open.

The critical practical detail is that the 20% rebate is paid to you in cash, usually within 3–6 months of your commencement of rental activity, via bank transfer from the tax authority. It is not a reduction applied to the purchase price at the point of sale. You pay the full tax-inclusive amount to the developer, and the French state then refunds the VAT into your French bank account on completion of the administrative registration.

To qualify for the reclaim in 2026, four conditions must be met. First, the property must be a new-build (VEFA off-plan or less than five years old from its first sale). Resale properties — even luxury ones — are not eligible regardless of their condition or purpose. Second, the property must be furnished to a standard that allows immediate occupation by short-term guests. This is not a high bar, but the property must have beds, linens, cookware, seating and basic equipment in place from day one.

Third, the property must be operated as a classified tourist residence (résidence de tourisme classée) with at least three ‘para-hotel’ services offered to guests. The services from which you must provide at least three are: welcome and key handover in person, regular cleaning during the stay or at turnover, supply of household linens, and breakfast service. In practice, every professional rental management company operating in the French Alps provides all four as standard, so this condition is met simply by appointing a classified operator. Self-managed letting — you handing keys to guests yourself from the UK — does not qualify because the ‘para-hotel’ services requirement is not met.

Fourth, and this is the condition most frequently overstated, the property must be rented as a tourist residence for at least 20 years. This is the commitment that supports the VAT rebate and it is the reason you will typically sign a 9-year (or longer) commercial lease with a management operator at completion. If you sell the property during the 20-year period to another buyer who continues the rental activity, the obligation transfers cleanly. If you terminate the activity early and put the property to private use, you will owe back a pro-rata portion of the rebate (1/20 per year of shortfall). This is the only real clawback risk in the scheme.

The fourth condition does not prohibit you from using the property yourself. It requires that the property is available for tourist rental for at least 8–9 weeks during the winter season and a few weeks in summer. The rest of the time — including premium weeks — is fundamentally up to you and your operator’s rental calendar, and you can block weeks for personal use subject to the terms you negotiate in your commercial lease. Many Domosno clients reserve 4–6 weeks per year of personal use and still receive the full rebate without issue.

Consider a two-bedroom new-build apartment in Alpe d’Huez with a headline price of €600,000 ttc (tax-inclusive). The underlying ht price is €500,000 and the VAT component is €100,000. You sign a VEFA reservation contract with the developer and commit to the standard staged payment schedule tied to construction milestones — typically 5% on reservation, 30% at foundation, further tranches at roof-out and enclosure, and the final balance at handover (‘livraison’).

At the same time, you appoint a classified rental management company, sign a commercial lease with them committing to a minimum 9-year rental activity, and register as an LMNP business with SIRET number through the French commercial court (greffe du tribunal de commerce). Your fiscal representative, your French mortgage lender, your notaire and your rental operator typically co-ordinate this registration at completion — it is not something you need to organise in isolation.

At handover, you pay the full €600,000 ttc. Immediately after, your fiscal representative files a VAT declaration with the tax authority, claiming the €100,000 input VAT against your new commercial activity. Provided the paperwork is clean, the tax authority refunds the €100,000 to your French bank account within 3–6 months. On a €600,000 apartment financed with a 75% LTV mortgage, the €100,000 rebate effectively covers most of the 25% deposit requirement — meaning the ‘sticker shock’ of the deposit disappears entirely.

For a buyer using our internal team for the rebate process, we target a maximum of eight weeks from completion to cash in the bank. We have clients every year who have moved an entire deposit back out of equity on this timeline. The most common delay is not the tax authority — it’s the client’s own French bank account setup, which can take longer than expected if not started early.

This is the single most important practical question for most buyers, and the answer is less restrictive than many people assume. The VAT-reclaim scheme requires your property to be available for classified tourist rental — it does not require 52-week occupancy by paying guests. In practice, a typical 9-year commercial lease will set out specific rules for owner use, and these rules are a matter of negotiation with your operator, not a fixed legal requirement imposed by the tax authority.

A common and perfectly acceptable pattern is: 3–4 weeks in prime winter season (Christmas, half-term, February school holidays), 2 weeks in summer peak, and unlimited off-season weeks (November, late April, mid-June, late September). Some operators will sweeten the deal further by guaranteeing you a rental discount on any additional weeks you want to take above the contractual allocation. The range is broad, but almost every Domosno client has secured at least 4–6 usable weeks per year at no cash cost.

The key to making this work is choosing the right rental management company. Operators that focus exclusively on maximising rental nights — typically the larger hotel-group-affiliated residences — will give you the least owner flexibility. Independent and boutique operators who run smaller portfolios will typically be more flexible, especially if your property is in a high-demand position where they want to secure inventory in the first place. The commercial lease is a negotiable document and we walk clients through the relevant clauses in detail.

One important nuance: during any week you occupy the property yourself, no VAT is being charged to a tourist guest. This is fine in small volumes but can trigger additional administrative requirements if owner use becomes excessive (more than around 25% of potential rental nights). In practice, 4–6 weeks per year sits comfortably inside the safe zone for both the tax authority and the operator.

The 2026 Finance Bill introduced one meaningful change for LMNP landlords: from 1 January 2026, the social contributions rate (CSG/CRDS/solidarity levy) on certain capital income rises from 17.2% to 18.6%, reflecting a CSG component increase from 9.2% to 10.6%. This applies to LMNP rental income treated as capital income for social contributions purposes. For non-residents whose rental income is subject to the solidarity levy only (the 7.5% element, not the full 18.6%), the change is less material — but for residents and mixed cases it is a modest headwind.

The 20% VAT-reclaim mechanism itself is unchanged by the 2026 Finance Bill. All four qualifying conditions remain in place, the 20-year availability commitment is unchanged, the para-hotel services definition is unchanged, and the practical reclaim process is unchanged. For buyers currently considering a VEFA purchase, the investment case remains substantially the same in 2026 as it has been since the scheme was established.

What the 2026 update does do is modestly tilt the net-yield maths for landlords who are French tax residents. A typical Les Arcs two-bed apartment that might have delivered 3.2% net yield under 2025 rules would now deliver approximately 3.15% under 2026 rules — a difference of 5 basis points, barely noticeable in the bigger picture of capital appreciation and VAT reclaim. Non-resident buyers with the UK-France or Ireland-France double taxation treaties in place are largely unaffected.

Two further items are worth knowing about: the distinct ‘Pinel’ tax-reduction scheme (not the VAT reclaim — a separate programme) was phased out at the end of 2024, and the amortisation-based LMNP deduction rules were tightened modestly for new registrations starting in 2025. Neither of these affects the 20% VAT reclaim. Both are worth discussing with a French tax adviser if you intend to build a multi-property portfolio in the Alps.

The VAT reclaim is a phenomenal deal for investment-oriented buyers, but it is not always the right answer. The most obvious exception is the buyer who wants to use the property as a de facto second home, with 12 weeks or more of personal use per year, minimal rental activity, and no interest in running a furnished-tourist-rental business. For this buyer, the reclaim introduces administrative obligations (annual tax filings, commercial lease, rental operator relationship) that are disproportionate to the value of the cash rebate, and they may prefer to simply pay the full ttc price and enjoy unencumbered use.

A second exception is buyers who intend to flip the property within the first 2–3 years of completion. If you sell inside the 20-year window you either hand the activity to a continuing-use buyer, or pay back pro-rata. If you are purchasing speculatively and intend to exit at VEFA delivery, the reclaim is still marginally favourable but you should budget for the admin complexity of the transfer.

A third exception is buyers who cannot set up a French bank account and a French fiscal representation because of their own circumstances. This is very rare — Domosno has helped buyers from six continents complete the reclaim process — but citizens of certain sanctioned jurisdictions may face additional hurdles. If this might apply to your situation, raise it with your the Domosno team contact at the shortlist stage rather than at completion.

For the overwhelming majority of buyers — 80%+ of Domosno new-build clients — the reclaim is the right move. It unlocks €60,000–€200,000 of cash, materially improves the blended yield of the investment, retains 4–8 weeks of meaningful personal use, and leaves the buyer with a fully documented French business asset that is straightforward to sell on to another buyer when the time comes. The question we help clients answer is not ‘should I do it?’ but ‘which operator and which lease structure is optimal for my specific use pattern?’

The first practical step is shortlisting a new-build VEFA that you actually want to own. The reclaim is not a reason to buy a property you don’t like — it is a mechanism for improving the economics of a property you already want. Browse our new-build ski apartments page for live VEFA inventory, or speak to our team about projects not yet publicly listed. Typical Alps new-build completion timelines run 18–30 months from reservation to handover.

Second, open a French bank account early. This is often the rate-limiting step in the whole timeline, because it needs to be in place before completion to receive the VAT refund. Major French retail banks (BNP, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole, LCL) all offer non-resident accounts, and some international-friendly banks (Hellobank, Boursorama) operate online. Expect 3–6 weeks from initial application to a fully functional account in normal circumstances.

Third, evaluate french mortgage options early if you are financing the purchase. French mortgage underwriting for non-residents typically runs 8–12 weeks, and a mortgage offer (offre de prêt) is required before completion. Rates in April 2026 for non-residents run 3.4–4.25% fixed depending on LTV and profile, meaningfully lower than 2024 peaks. Our French mortgage calculator will walk you through realistic scenarios.

Finally, ask the Domosno team to introduce you to our rental management and LMNP registration partners. We do not charge extra for this — it is part of the standard buying process for new-build clients — and it ensures the commercial lease, SIRET registration and VAT declaration are co-ordinated by people who have done it hundreds of times. The difference between a clean reclaim process and a stressful one is usually just whether you worked with the right specialists from day one.