语言
Among the questions we field from international buyers considering a significant purchase in Paris, one comes up more often than you'd expect from clients whose primary language isn't French: "Should I buy this through an SCI?" It's a legitimate question, and for the right buyer profile, the answer is often yes. Here's what an SCI actually does, what it costs, and when it genuinely makes sense.
An SCI (Société Civile Immobilière) is a French legal structure that lets you hold real estate through a company rather than in your personal name. Instead of owning the apartment directly, you and at least one other associate (an SCI requires a minimum of two) each hold shares in a company that owns the property.
This isn't a workaround or a loophole — it's a well-established structure used regularly by both French and international buyers, particularly for properties intended to stay in the family across generations.
1. Inheritance planning. This is usually the primary motivation. Rather than transferring an entire property at once — which can trigger significant inheritance tax exposure — an SCI lets you transfer shares progressively. Under current French rules, each parent can transfer 100,000 euros in share value per child every 15 years free of gift tax. For a family planning to hold a Paris property long-term, this can meaningfully reduce the eventual transfer tax burden compared to a direct inheritance.
2. Remote governance. SCI decisions are made at general meetings, which can be held remotely — a genuine practical advantage if you're not planning to live in Paris full-time, especially if the property is intended to generate rental income while you're based elsewhere. It's also generally simpler to manage than joint ownership between family members (indivision), which requires unanimous agreement for most significant decisions.
3. Asset separation. The SCI keeps the property legally separate from your personal assets — relevant in the event of financial difficulties, and a structure many buyers find useful for cleaner estate and succession planning generally.
Creating an SCI from abroad is entirely feasible:
One detail worth knowing before you fall in love with a listing: the SCI should generally be created before the purchase, not after. Contributing an already-purchased property into an SCI afterward triggers transfer duties of around 5% — an avoidable cost if the structure is set up first.
An SCI isn't the right answer for every buyer, and it comes with real trade-offs:
As a general pattern, an SCI tends to make the most sense when:
It tends to matter less for a straightforward pied-à-terre purchased for personal use with no immediate succession planning need — in which case buying in your own name is often simpler and avoids the ongoing administrative cost.
This is genuinely a decision to make with a French notary and a tax advisor familiar with your country of residence's tax treaty with France — the right structure depends on specifics an article can't fully capture. But knowing the question exists, and roughly what it involves, means you can raise it early rather than after you've already found the apartment.
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Considering how to structure a purchase? We regularly work alongside notaries and tax advisors experienced with international buyers, and can point you toward the right conversation before you're deep into a transaction.