When France abolished the taxe d'habitation for primary residences in January 2023, the headline wrote itself. What received rather less coverage was the part that directly affects every non-resident buyer in the French Alps: the abolition applies only to main homes. If your ski property is not your principal residence — which is the case for the vast majority of international buyers — you are still paying it, and in a growing number of Alpine resort communes the bill is now higher than it was a few years ago.
This guide covers exactly how the taxe d'habitation sur les résidences secondaires (THRS) works in 2026, what the zone tendue surcharge means in practice for buyers in Savoie and Haute-Savoie, and how THRS sits alongside taxe foncière as part of a realistic annual holding-cost budget.
Who Pays, and on What
THRS applies to any furnished dwelling that is not the owner's principal residence. Holiday apartments, chalets, pieds-à-terre, seasonal rentals: all are within scope. The furnished requirement matters — an unfurnished vacant property falls under the separate taxe sur les logements vacants rather than THRS.
Liability is assessed on 1 January of the tax year. If you own the property on that date, you owe the full year's THRS regardless of when you later sell, how many nights you actually spend there, or whether the property is let out. The assessment notice arrives during the final quarter of the year — accessible via your impots.gouv.fr account — with payment typically due by mid-November. There is no automatic monthly payment option for THRS the way there is for taxe foncière.
The French government's official guide to housing tax on second homes (updated March 2026) confirms the only standard exemption is for owners who have moved permanently into a residential care facility, whose former home becomes secondary by default. International buyers of ski property have no exemption route from the base tax.
How the Tax Is Calculated
THRS has two components: the valeur locative cadastrale (VLC) of your property, and the tax rate voted annually by your commune and intercommunal authority (EPCI). The two are multiplied together to produce your bill.
The VLC is a notional rental value assigned by the tax authority — not a market rent, and not directly connected to actual rental yields. It is revised nationally each year. For 2026, the revaluation coefficient is +0.8%, a significant deceleration from +3.9% in 2024 and +7.1% in 2023, reflecting the easing of French consumer price inflation in late 2025. The slower growth rate in 2026 means the tax base compounds less aggressively this year.
The commune rate is set locally and varies widely. Nationally, municipal rates on built properties range from roughly 15% to over 80%. Alpine resort communes sit across that range, and many have increased their rates in recent years to fund resort infrastructure improvements — including projects linked to the 2030 Winter Olympics. In Savoie, 64 communes have increased their local property tax rates in recent years; in Haute-Savoie, 66 communes have done the same.
Your THRS bill equals: VLC × (commune rate + EPCI rate). The most reliable way to forecast your exposure is to obtain the last two years of tax notices from the current owner before exchanging — these show both the actual amount and the direction of travel.
The Zone Tendue Surcharge: How It Works and Who It Hits
This is where the picture has changed materially for ski property owners since 2022, and it deserves particular attention from any buyer approaching the market today.
Communes classified as zones tendues — areas of acute housing pressure — are legally entitled to add a surcharge of 5% to 60% on top of the base THRS, subject to a council vote. Originally, this mechanism was restricted to large urban agglomerations. The eligibility criteria were progressively widened, and from January 2024 a second category was added to the definition: municipalities which have a high proportion of dwellings not allocated to the principal residence.
That new category is a near-exact description of a French ski resort. In most major Alpine resorts, second homes account for 60–80% of the entire housing stock. The policy consequence: the overwhelming majority of established French Alps resort communes now fall within the zone tendue definition or are eligible to seek it.
Scale of Application in the French Alps
More than 1,450 communes across France currently apply the surcharge, with a national average rate of 41%. In the Alps specifically, 162 communes in Savoie and 182 communes in Haute-Savoie have been identified as eligible to apply it — a list covering most named resorts, including Chamonix, Megève, Morzine, Les Gets, Méribel, Courchevel, Val d'Isère and Tignes. The Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, which encompasses the French Alps, has around 339 communes applying or eligible to apply the surcharge — the highest concentration of any region in France.
Eligibility does not mean automatic application: each commune must pass a deliberation. But the trend is clearly toward broader adoption, and buyers should treat the surcharge as a baseline assumption for an established resort purchase rather than an unlikely edge case.
What the Surcharge Adds in Practice
A worked example: a two-bedroom Alpine apartment with a VLC of €2,400, a combined commune and EPCI rate of 24%. The base THRS is €576 per year. At the 41% national average surcharge, the bill rises to approximately €812. At the maximum 60%, it reaches €922. These are not alarming figures in isolation, but they are a recurring annual cost that compounds alongside taxe foncière, service charges, and other ownership expenses.
Taxe Foncière: The Parallel Annual Tax
The taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties is entirely separate from THRS and operates on different terms. It is paid by the owner regardless of occupation or rental status — main home, second home, empty, or tenanted. It uses the same VLC base as THRS but typically produces a larger bill for the same property.
The 2026 national revaluation of +0.8% applies to the taxe foncière base identically to THRS. But communes set their rates independently: a commune can increase its taxe foncière rate while holding THRS stable, or raise both simultaneously. The two bills arrive separately and are paid separately.
For budget purposes, realistic combined annual local-tax exposure on a typical two-bedroom Alpine apartment — taxe foncière plus THRS including zone tendue surcharge where applicable — falls roughly in the range of €1,500 to €3,500 per year. Larger properties, higher-value communes, and properties with garages or parking outbuildings included in the VLC assessment will sit above that range.
How Rental Status Affects Your THRS Position
If your property is let long-term to a permanent tenant who occupies it as their principal residence on 1 January, the tenant pays THRS rather than you. This scenario does not apply to seasonal ski rentals, where the property reverts to the owner between lets and the owner is therefore the liable party on 1 January.
A more practically relevant consideration for owners operating as short-term rentals: properties located in a zone France Ruralités Revitalisation (ZFRR) — covering roughly 60% of rural France — can be exempted from THRS by a commune vote, where the property is formally classified as meublé de tourisme classé. Critically, from the 2027 tax year this exemption extends beyond ZFRR to any municipality in France, provided the commune passes the relevant deliberation before 1 October 2026. Some lower-altitude Alpine villages fall within ZFRR boundaries, making this a live planning consideration for owners with classified furnished rentals who want to act before the deadline closes.
The rental registration picture — including the mandatory registration requirements introduced under the Loi Le Meur in 2026 — is a connected compliance layer. Owners who are not yet registered as a meublé de tourisme close off the THRS exemption route before it is even reached.
The Annual Declaration You Must File
All owners of French property are required to submit a déclaration d'occupation each year via their impots.gouv.fr account, before 1 July. The declaration states whether you occupy the property yourself (and if so, as main home, second home, or vacant) or whether it is occupied by a third party. Failure to file or filing inaccurately carries a penalty of €150 per property.
For second-home owners, this is the annual mechanism by which THRS liability is confirmed. It also feeds the data used to assess whether a commune's proportion of non-principal residences qualifies it for zone tendue status. A full walkthrough of the process is in the French property usage declaration guide.
Exemption from the Surcharge: The Narrow Grounds
You can apply to the relevant tax centre for an exemption specifically from the zone tendue surcharge — not from base THRS — in one of three circumstances:
- Your professional activity requires you to live close to the second home rather than your primary residence, making dual occupancy genuinely necessary.
- Your principal residence is now a care or nursing facility, and your former home has become secondary by default of that move.
- The property is genuinely uninhabitable for reasons entirely outside your control — structural works needed to make it decently habitable, for example.
These are narrow grounds. A ski property used for holidays does not meet any of them. They are procedural protections, not planning tools.
Putting It Together: What to Do Before You Buy
Local property taxes in the French Alps are a predictable, manageable component of overall ownership costs — not a reason to hesitate on a well-chosen purchase, but a figure that belongs in your financial model from the outset. The combined THRS and taxe foncière position is the same for new-build and resale properties: both are assessed on VLC and local commune rates. The difference between the two market types lies in the purchase-stage tax treatment, where new-build attracts lower notaire fees and may qualify for VAT recovery.
Before exchanging, request the last two years of both taxe foncière and THRS notices from the current owner. Check the commune's recent council deliberations for any surcharge decisions. If you are buying with a view to running a classified furnished rental, confirm whether the property's commune falls in a ZFRR zone and whether a THRS exemption deliberation has been passed — or is likely before October 2026. For the practicalities of paying annual bills once they arrive, the guide to paying French property tax covers the process step by step.
To explore current new-build opportunities across the French Alps — with resort-level pricing data and guidance on full holding costs — browse the Domosno new-build listings or speak with the team about the total cost of ownership for any specific property or resort you are considering.
