If you resell a rental investment or a second home, you will be taxed on the capital gain on the sale. This is, however, exempt from income tax and social security contributions if you resell your main residence. A difference in tax treatment at the origin of “speculative somersaults” denounced by socialist deputies in the explanatory memorandum of an amendment to the draft budget for 2026, the examination of which by the finance committee of the National Assembly began this Monday, October 20.
These speculative somersaults consist of buying and then reselling, within a short period of time, real estate by declaring it as a primary residence for evade real estate capital gains taxwhen in reality they are accommodation intended to be rented. Mechanisms “particularly developed in tourist areas, where rental tension has led for 20 years to a significant increase in the price of real estate, particularly in the Basque Country”explain the socialist deputies, led by Peio Dufau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).
Rental investment: Depreciation, flat tax… What MPs are proposing in the 2026 budget
Exceptions to the obligation to keep the property for 5 years
Their amendment therefore proposes to condition the exemption of capital gains on the sale of the main residence to a duration of detention of at least five years. Concretely, if this amendment, adopted by the finance committee this Monday, is retained in the initial finance law for 2026 following the parliamentary debates, you will not pay tax on the capital gain on the sale of your main residence only if you have owned it for at least five years. ‘Naturally, this condition would not apply as long as it concerns a sale with a view to acquiring another principal residence»qualify the socialist deputies.
In the same vein, this five-year period “could be lifted when a compelling reason justifies it, such as a professional transfer, long-term hospitalization or entry into a nursing home or even a death or separation”they add.
