The French finance bill 2026 is a promulgated statute, not a dinner-table rumour. Loi No. 2026-103 of 19 February 2026, published the following day, is the text that counts. Families who followed the parliamentary theatre (IFI “improductif,” a Zucman-style wealth tax, a 2% levy on all holding assets) need a second reading: several of those ideas did not become law. What did become law for IFI, gifts, and holding companies is narrower, dated, and already in the Code général des impôts. This note sticks to that official perimeter.
It is general information, not a tax opinion, not a mandate, and not personalised advice. Qualification, valuations, and elections depend on the facts of each household and on counsel who can read the return against Légifrance, BOFiP, and the service-public sheets. Vellum is a fee-only multi-family office. The family pays for the inventory, not for a product that “solves” a finance bill.
How to read a finance bill without a brochure
A projet de loi de finances is a political document. A loi de finances is an enacted one. Decision No. 2026-901 DC of 19 February 2026 accompanied promulgation. Open the loi No. 2026-103 on Légifrance, note which CGI articles were rewritten, then open the administration’s pages for the taxes that were not rewritten. Silence in a finance bill is also a fact: the prior rule continues. The ministry summary on economie.gouv.fr is orientation. It does not replace the articles. This note covers IFI, gifts, and holdings (including Dutreil and apport-cession). It does not restate the income-tax scale or social-security finance-law CSG changes.
French finance bill 2026: IFI, what did not move
The finance bill did not rewrite the IFI threshold, the IFI scale, or the 30% abatement for a principal residence held directly. The impots.gouv.fr IFI declaration page states that IFI to declare in 2026 is the situation on 1 January 2026, and that a household is concerned if net taxable real estate exceeds €1,300,000. The 2026 2042-IFI notice repeats that entry test. The service-public sheet on IFI still describes net non-professional real estate, direct and look-through, with debts the statute allows.
Designs for a return of ISF, or a new IFI band on unproductive property, were debated. They are not a new IFI scale in the promulgated text. The tax remains a 1 January real-estate wealth tax, with the 30% principal-residence haircut when its conditions are met. Professional exemptions and look-through of shares were not replaced. For the inventory families still miss, see Vellum’s live note on IFI in 2026.
One IFI interaction did change, inside article 975 rather than in a headline reform. Article 7 adds a VII to article 975 CGI: real-estate assets already subjected to the new holding-company tax (article 235 ter C) for the company’s year closing in the calendar year before 1 January are then exempted from IFI. That is anti-cumulation, not a lower €1.3 million threshold. Families outside 235 ter C should not invent an IFI exemption.
Holdings: article 235 ter C is the new tax
Article 7 of loi No. 2026-103 restores a CGI section titled “Taxe sur les actifs non affectés à une activité opérationnelle des sociétés holdings patrimoniales” and creates article 235 ter C. The tax is due for financial years closing from 31 December 2026. It is not an IFI. It is not a second corporation tax on all passive assets. The enacted base is a list of non-professional assets, and the enacted rate is 20%.
The company gate, at closing of the relevant year, is cumulative: market value of all assets at least €5 million; at least one individual holds 50% or more of voting or financial rights (family grouping and look-through apply) or actually exercises decision power; passive income exceeds 50% of operating and financial income, excluding provision and depreciation reversals. Passive income is defined (dividends, interest, certain royalties, authors’ rights, rents, and certain disposal proceeds). A genuine centralised-treasury arrangement has a carved-out treatment. French companies subject to corporation tax, and equivalent foreign companies with a French-resident individual in the gate, can be in scope. Trusts and entities in non-cooperative states create a presumption of individual ownership that may be rebutted, with limits.
The base is not the whole NAV. Article 235 ter C II lists hunting and fishing assets; non-professional vehicles, touring vehicles, yachts, pleasure boats, and aircraft; jewellery and precious metals (with museum and public-display exclusions); race or competition horses; wines and spirits; and dwellings whose enjoyment is reserved to the controlling individual, including below-market or fictitious rentals. Debts on those dwellings follow a statutory haircut; related-party debt is generally ignored unless a French company shows the loan was not mainly tax-driven. Assets assigned to a real professional activity drop out in proportion. Cash, securities, and operating participations are not the 20% base. The ministry summary matches that restriction: an early 2% idea on non-economic assets was amended toward sumptuary items.
French-seat companies pay the tax themselves, with an annex to the corporation-tax return. It is not deductible from corporation tax. Foreign-seat companies shift the charge onto French-resident individuals, on the fraction of share value that represents the listed assets, with a credit for similar foreign levies and a 75% cap. A Luxembourg HoldCo is not, by itself, an exit. The statute allows a defence where the foreign seat was not mainly designed to circumvent French tax. That defence is a file.
What a holding chart should flag before year-end 2026
Flag every company that might meet the €5 million, 50%, and passive-income tests. Flag dwellings the family occupies through a company, boats, cars, aircraft, horses, wine, and jewellery sitting on a corporate balance sheet. Flag related-party loans used to buy those assets. Flag whether the company is an operating holding with real animation, or a box of rents and dividends. Interest limitation under article 212 bis remains a different overlay: see ATAD interest limitation in 2026. A company can fail 235 ter C and still fail 212 bis, or the reverse. The 2026 output is two schedules, not one “holding tax” cell in a spreadsheet.
Gifts: ordinary allowances that did not change, and the lines that did
Ordinary gift tax is still built on kinship, a 15-year clock, and statutory abatements. The service-public page on gift-tax abatements still presents the €100,000 parent-to-child abatement, renewable over 15 years, and the separate €31,865 family cash-gift exemption (article 790 G) for donors under 80 and adult descendants. This finance bill did not replace those figures with a new universal gift scale.
Service-public also records a temporary exemption for family cash gifts used to buy a home or to fund energy renovation: sums paid from 15 February 2025 until 31 December 2026, capped at €100,000 per donor-donee pair and €300,000 per donee. That device arrived with the 2025 finance law. The 2026 bill did not invent it. It is not a rewrite of the ordinary €100,000 abatement. Charitable dons did receive dated 2026 lines: article 200 is raised to 75% for 2026 gifts toward restoration of the château de Chambord, within €1,000, outside the usual 20% income cap. The ministry page also describes a 75% reduction, within €2,000, for gifts to organisations helping people in difficulty, from 14 October 2025. Those are philanthropy mechanics, not a donation-partage of a company.
The gift file that did move for business families is Dutreil. Article 8 amends article 787 B CGI in two ways. The individual conservation undertaking in 787 B c moves from four years to six (article 787 C makes the same change). The exemption no longer covers the fraction of share value that represents listed non-operating assets (hunting and fishing assets, touring vehicles, yachts, boats, aircraft, jewellery, metals, art except a statutory museum regime, racehorses, wines and spirits, dwellings) unless those assets are exclusively assigned to the professional activity for at least three years before the transfer or since acquisition, and until the end of the undertaking or disposal. Look-through applies. A yacht or pied-à-terre stuffed into the operating holding no longer rides for free.
Holdings again: apport-cession is tighter on new sales
Article 11 rewrites article 150-0 B ter, the deferred-tax regime when founders contribute shares to a holding that later sells. For sales of contributed shares from the day after publication, reinvestment moves from 60% to 70%, the window from two years to three, and assets or shares bought with the proceeds must be kept for at least five years from booking. Eligible-activity language is tightened. Neighbouring clocks in 150-0 B ter II that ran five and ten years move to six and eleven. Article 150-0 D ter (retirement-manager relief) restates that managing one’s own securities or real-estate wealth does not qualify. These rules decide whether a 2026 or later holding sale still enjoys the report families treated as mechanical.
Dates matter. 150-0 B ter changes apply to sales from the day after publication (20 February 2026). Dutreil’s four-to-six change should be dated by counsel against the amended 787 B, not a 2025 slide. The holding tax waits for years closing from 31 December 2026. Mixing those clocks is how a family prepares the wrong year.
What a family office should put on one page
One page for IFI: 1 January photograph, €1.3 million test and 30% abatement unchanged, plus any 235 ter C overlap into article 975 VII. One page for gifts: 15-year kinship abatements and 790 G unchanged, housing-or-renovation cash gift dated to 31 December 2026, Dutreil now six years, luxury assets stripped unless genuinely operating. One page for holdings: 235 ter C gates and the 20% base, 150-0 B ter 70%/three years/five-year hold, 212 bis as a separate test. Then a chart of which dwellings and toys sit in which company.
The Vellum services map is where counsel, notaires, and the family council share that chart. How that differs from a private-bank package is in Vellum versus traditional wealth-management firms. Succession duty is a different statute: see inheritance tax rules by country in 2026.
Conclusion
French finance bill 2026 changed less of IFI than the autumn debate implied, and more of holding companies than a “wealth tax” slogan captured. IFI’s €1.3 million threshold, scale, and principal-residence abatement continue; the new article 975 VII only prevents double counting with the holding tax. Gifts keep their ordinary 15-year abatements; Dutreil’s individual undertaking becomes six years and drops non-operating luxury assets from the relieved fraction. Article 235 ter C taxes listed sumptuary assets in patrimonial holdings at 20% from years closing 31 December 2026, and apport-cession reinvestment tightens to 70% over three years with a five-year hold. The sources are Légifrance, impots.gouv.fr, service-public, and the ministry summary. Families who inventory those articles will have a 2026 file. Families who inventory the rumours will have a 2025 argument.
Discretion. Stability. Prosperity.
Team Vellum
A team of passionate professionals who combine their expertise to bring knowledge through Vellum Finance & Patrimoine blog articles. Each member writes about their own field of expertise, cross referencing with our colleagues own fields to ensure the highest quality of information possible in all our content.
