France Withholding tax rates
France Withholding tax rates: no single figure applies. The 4 withholding taxes held run from 0% to 25%, cited to Code général des impôts on Légifrance: art. 119 bis 2 (retenue à la source on distributed income to non-residents, rate fixed by art. 187), art. 187 (rates: taux prévu au deuxième alinéa du I de l'article 219 for legal persons; 12,8 % for individuals; 75 % non-cooperative states), art. 219 I al. 2 ('le taux normal de l'impôt est fixé à 25 %'), art. 125 A III (interest: prélèvement confined to non-cooperative-state payments at 75 %), art. 182 B (royalties/services: rate of art. 219 I al. 2), in force since 1 Jan 2022. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
Official source: Code général des impôts on Légifrance: art. 119 bis 2 · Last checked 2026-08-10 · source fingerprint
The withholding taxes France levies on payments to persons not fiscally domiciled or established in France - dividends and other distributed income, interest, and royalties/services - each at its domestic statutory rate under the Code général des impôts (CGI), before any tax-treaty or EU-directive relief. Administered by the Direction générale des Finances publiques (DGFiP).
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| Current value | 0–25% across 4 withholding taxes — no single rate |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2022-01-01 |
| Official source | Code général des impôts on Légifrance: art. 119 bis 2 (retenue à la source on distributed income to non-residents, rate fixed by art. 187), art. 187 (rates: taux prévu au deuxième alinéa du I de l'article 219 for legal persons; 12,8 % for individuals; 75 % non-cooperative states), art. 219 I al. 2 ('le taux normal de l'impôt est fixé à 25 %'), art. 125 A III (interest: prélèvement confined to non-cooperative-state payments at 75 %), art. 182 B (royalties/services: rate of art. 219 I al. 2) |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
THERE IS NO SINGLE WITHHOLDING TAX RATE, WHICH IS WHY value IS NULL. France applies different withholding regimes per payment type AND per recipient type: dividends to foreign companies bear 25% but dividends to non-resident individuals bear 12.8%, interest bears no withholding at all in the general case, and royalties/services bear 25%. A caller wanting a number must name both the payment type and the recipient type; read withholding_rates rather than expecting a headline figure. ALL RATES ARE DOMESTIC STATUTORY RATES, BEFORE TREATY RELIEF AND BEFORE EU-DIRECTIVE RELIEF. A double-tax treaty can reduce or eliminate any of them, and EU directives operate as additional domestic exemption mechanisms, not as rates: CGI art. 119 ter exempts dividends paid to qualifying EU/EEA parent companies (Parent-Subsidiary Directive, generally 10% holding under French implementation), and CGI art. 119 quater (interest) and art. 182 B bis (royalties) exempt payments between associated EU companies (Interest & Royalties Directive). We do NOT serve treaty rates: they are bilateral, run to thousands of country pairs, and applying one is a legal determination rather than a lookup. A punitive 75% rate applies across dividends (art. 187-2), interest (art. 125 A III) and royalties/services (art. 182 B) when payment is made in/to a non-cooperative state or territory (ETNC, art. 238-0 A), subject to safe-harbour proof. The company dividend rate and the art. 182 B rate are not fixed numbers in the statute: both point at the standard corporate-income-tax rate of art. 219 I al. 2, which has been 25% for financial years opened on or after 1 January 2022 - hence the series effective_from of 2022-01-01, the most recent date on which any served rate changed.
Get it programmatically
curl https://euroref.dev/v1/fr/withholding-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://euroref.dev/v1/fr/withholding-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://euroref.dev/provenance/fr/withholding-taxOther France series: Policy interest rate (ECB deposit facility rate) · Value added tax (TVA) · VAT registration threshold · Statutory minimum wage (SMIC horaire brut) · Public holidays (jours fériés) · Consumer price inflation (IPC, year-on-year) · Corporate income tax (impôt sur les sociétés) · Personal income tax (impôt sur le revenu) · Statutory social-insurance contributions · ECB main refinancing operations rate (fixed rate) · Late-payment interest (EU Late Payment Directive) · Legal interest rate (taux de l'intérêt légal)
The same figure elsewhere: Germany · Greece · Hungary · Iceland · Ireland · all 34