Reselling an apartment in Dubai can generate a substantial gain. Where is it taxed, and what must a French tax resident declare? A subject to frame before you buy, not on the way out.
The capital gain on the disposal of a property located in Dubai is, under the France-UAE treaty of 19 July 1989, taxable where the property is located — where there is no capital-gains tax on individuals. For a French tax resident, the treaty allocates the taxation of real-estate gains to the State where the property is situated (article 11, § 1) and double taxation is eliminated by a tax credit equal to the tax paid in the UAE (article 19, § 1); as the Emirates levy no capital-gains tax on individuals, that credit is nil in practice: the gain therefore remains effectively taxed in France (19% under article 200 B of the CGI, 17.2% social levies and, where applicable, the surtax of article 1609 nonies G of the CGI above €50,000 of taxable gain), and must be declared. The exact treatment — base, allowances, social levies — depends closely on your situation and must be checked case by case before the transaction.
As with rent, the treaty allocates the taxation of gains from the alienation of immovable property to the State where the property is located. A gain realised on a Dubai property therefore falls under Emirati taxation, which does not tax individuals' real-estate gains. This finding does not end the analysis for a French resident.
For a French resident, the treaty allocates the taxation of real-estate gains to the State where the property is situated (article 11, § 1) and double taxation is eliminated by a tax credit equal to the tax paid in the UAE (article 19, § 1). As the Emirates levy no capital-gains tax on individuals, that credit is nil in practice: the gain therefore remains effectively taxed in France — 19% under article 200 B of the CGI, 17.2% social levies and, where applicable, the surtax of article 1609 nonies G of the CGI above €50,000 of taxable gain — and must be brought to the tax authority's knowledge. The treaty mechanism is detailed on the France-UAE treaty page.
The interaction between the treaty, French domestic law on real-estate capital gains (base, holding period, allowances) and the question of social levies is delicate and evolving. Two apparently similar situations can lead to different outcomes. This is a subject to secure upstream, through an individualised analysis, not to discover at the time of resale.
The tax on exit is prepared at entry: the ownership structure (see structuring), your tax residence at the time of disposal and the timing of the transaction all shape the outcome. A prior framing avoids nasty surprises and secures the transaction.
Residence, structure, timing: the parameters that determine the taxation of your gain, studied upstream.
Have my project reviewedThe following example illustrates the mechanics set out above. Assumptions: an apartment bought in Dubai in July 2026 for AED 2,000,000, i.e. approximately €476,000, resold for €650,000 by a seller who is a French tax resident holding the property directly. The gross gain comes to €174,000. As a conservative choice, the calculation is run without any uplift of the acquisition price — the acquisition costs, examined below, would further reduce these amounts. Sums paid in dirhams must moreover be converted into euros in a documented manner, the exchange rate applicable to each transaction deserving careful treatment.
No holding-period allowance applies before the sixth year (CGI, art. 150 VC). The taxable gain is therefore €174,000, for income tax and social levies alike:
A total charge of €69,948, around 40% of the gain — for a transaction which, seen from Dubai, appeared tax-free.
The allowance of article 150 VC runs from the sixth to the fifteenth year, i.e. ten years: 60% for income tax (6% per year) and 16.5% for social levies (1.65% per year):
Total: €39,606. Note that the social levies, whose allowance builds slowly, become the main component of the charge.
At the end of the twenty-second year, the income-tax exemption is acquired (6% per year from the sixth to the twenty-first year, 4% in the twenty-second). The surtax of article 1609 nonies G, assessed on the gain taxable to income tax, disappears with it. The social levies remain, whose allowance by then reaches only 28% (1.65% per year from the sixth to the twenty-first year, 1.60% in the twenty-second): on a base of €125,280, they still amount to €21,548. Full exemption is acquired only at the end of the thirtieth year, the social-levy allowance rising to 9% per year from the twenty-third to the thirtieth year.
| Holding period | Income tax (19%) | Social levies (17.2%) | Surtax 1609 nonies G | Total charge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 years | €33,060 | €29,928 | €6,960 | €69,948 |
| 15 years | €13,224 | €24,990 | €1,392 | €39,606 |
| 22 years | €0 (exempt) | €21,548 | €0 | €21,548 |
| 30 years | €0 | €0 | €0 | €0 |
Gross gain of €174,000, without uplift of the acquisition price. The scale of article 1609 nonies G is progressive, from 2% (taxable gain between €50,001 and €100,000) to 6% above €260,000 (smoothing between €250,001 and €260,000), with a smoothing mechanism at the entry of each band (BOI-RFPI-TPVIE-20, § 70).
The acquisition price is increased by the costs relating to the acquisition for value (CGI, art. 150 VB, II), taken either at their actual amount with supporting evidence, or at a flat 7.5% of the acquisition price (BOI-RFPI-PVI-20-10-20-20, § 30 and 70). For a Dubai purchase, the actual costs notably include the 4% registration fee collected by the Dubai Land Department — €19,040 in our example — and, where applicable, the agency commission borne by the buyer. The 7.5% flat rate would here represent €35,700: where the flat rate exceeds the actual costs, it is in principle more favourable, but its application to an acquisition made abroad must be secured case by case, documents in hand. The rules also provide, for built properties held for more than five years, a flat 15% works allowance on the acquisition price, as an alternative to actual substantiated expenditure. All these parameters reduce the taxable gain — provided a usable file of supporting documents has been kept from the moment of purchase (see securing the purchase).
The Dubai market features a significant volume of off-plan resales, before completion: the initial buyer assigns the sale contract to a third party, usually for a premium, with the developer's consent (No Objection Certificate) and the update of the provisional Oqood registration with the Dubai Land Department. On the Emirati side, the analysis is unchanged: no tax is levied on the gain realised by the individual.
On the French side, the characterisation calls for caution. The seller is not selling a completed building but contractual rights over a property to be built. If those rights qualify as rights relating to immovable property, the gain is intended to fall within the individuals' real-estate capital-gains regime (CGI, art. 150 U et seq.), the treaty covering gains from the alienation of immovable property and rights relating thereto (article 11, § 1) — with the same practical conclusion as on the resale of a completed unit: effective taxation in France. The exact characterisation nevertheless depends on the nature of the rights conferred by the Emirati-law contract and is assessed case by case. Two points of vigilance: the holding period is by construction short, hence with no allowance at all, and the premium received may cross the €50,000 threshold triggering the surtax of article 1609 nonies G. An off-plan flip, routine in Dubai, therefore deserves a French tax framing before signing.
The Dubai property market is cyclical and a resale at a loss is far from theoretical. The French treatment is then asymmetrical: while the gain is taxed, the loss is lost for tax purposes. Article 150 VD of the CGI lays down the principle that the gross loss realised on the disposal of an asset is not taken into account: it can be set off neither against gains realised on other assets, in the same year or in later years, nor against the seller's overall income.
The only statutory exception concerns the block sale of a property acquired in successive fractions, recorded in the same deed and between the same parties: in that specific case, gross losses are set off against gross gains adjusted for the holding-period allowance. Outside that hypothesis, an investor who in the same year resells one asset at a gain and another at a loss will be taxed on the whole of the former, without offset. No consequence on the Emirati side, in the absence of tax; on the French side, the absence of taxation does not remove the filing obligations attached to the disposal. This dead-loss risk is a parameter to build into the timing of disposals and, upstream, into the ownership structuring.
Nothing in the French regime above applies to a seller who is not a French tax resident. What replaces it depends on your State of residence. A UK resident is in principle taxed in the United Kingdom on capital gains on worldwide disposals, a Dubai property included, under the UK's own computation and relief rules; the UK's temporary non-residence rules can also catch gains realised during a short spell of non-residence upon return. A US person (citizen or resident) remains taxable in the United States on worldwide income, gains on Dubai real estate included — see our dedicated page: US persons moving to the UAE. For other jurisdictions, the analysis follows the same two-step logic as for a French resident: the State where the property is situated, then the State of residence, whose domestic law and treaty with the UAE, where one exists, determine the outcome.
One constant for everyone: the UAE levy no capital-gains tax on individuals, resident or not. A "tax-free" gain in Dubai is therefore only ever tax-free where the seller's State of residence does not tax it — a question to answer before buying, case by case.
References current as at 19 July 2026. Any application to a specific situation requires an individualised analysis.