Six months before France's presidential election, the tax on capital comes up in every budget debate. For someone saving to live off their investments one day, the question is practical: if the rate changes, how many more years of work, or how many fewer?
This article makes no forecast and takes no side. It sets out what applies now, what has actually been proposed, in what form and with what outcome, then puts each scenario through the same profile. None of what follows is decided: a manifesto is not a law, nor is a rejected amendment, and a finance bill needs a majority in the National Assembly whoever wins the presidency.
What applies in 2026
Since 1 January 2026, France's flat tax on investment income, the PFU (prélèvement forfaitaire unique), has been 31.4%: 12.8% income tax plus 18.6% social charges. The social charges break down into 10.6% CSG, 0.5% CRDS and a 7.5% solidarity levy. The increase comes from article 12 of the 2026 social security financing act (law no. 2025-1403 of 30 December 2025), which raised the CSG on this income from 9.2% to 10.6%. It is also the rate IgniFI's engine has applied since January.
Not all capital is covered. Life insurance (assurance-vie), the PEL, CEL and PEP housing and savings plans, rental income and property gains stay at 17.2% of social charges, according to the official service-public.fr. The PEA equity savings plan is not on that list.
| Account | Income tax on gains | Social charges | Total on gains |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ordinary brokerage account (CTO), by default | 12.8% | 18.6% | 31.4% |
| PEA held more than 5 years | exempt | 18.6% | 18.6% |
| Assurance-vie held more than 8 years, premiums up to €150,000 | 7.5% above €4,600 of gains a year (€9,200 for a couple) | 17.2% | between 17.2% and 24.7% |
| Livret A, LDDS, LEP savings accounts | exempt | none | 0% |
Sources: service-public.fr (social charges, updated for 2026); French tax code.
Two points matter for what follows. Tax only falls on the gain portion of each withdrawal, not the whole withdrawal. And the PFU is only a default: each year a household can opt for the progressive income tax scale on all its investment income instead, which changes everything when taxable income is low.
Where the last change came from
The 1.4-point rise started as an amendment from Socialist MP Jérôme Guedj, passed on 5 November 2025 by 168 votes to 140, according to AFP as carried by France 24. The left and many Renaissance and MoDem MPs voted for it; Les Républicains, Horizons and the Rassemblement national voted against. The government gave a "favourable but particularly reserved" opinion, with the public accounts minister Amélie de Montchalin saying: "What has been voted is not a tax increase." In the version finally enacted, the rise does not apply to life insurance, housing savings plans or property income.
It is a useful reminder of how capital taxation actually moves in France: less through grand promises than through amendments, budget after budget, often on social charges rather than on income tax.
What has been proposed, and in what form
The table only includes bills and amendments that were tabled, votes, and documents the parties published themselves. Campaign statements, of which there are many, will shift before the spring.
| Who | Measure | Type of text | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nouveau Front populaire (LFI, PS, Greens, PCF) | "Abolish the flat tax and restore the exit tax"; restore a wealth tax (ISF) "strengthened with a climate component"; 14 income tax bands; progressive CSG | Manifesto for the June 2024 parliamentary elections | Not implemented |
| La France insoumise | Income tax part of the PFU raised from 12.8% to 15.8% on dividends, 34.4% in total; presented as a fallback, abolishing the PFU remaining the authors' preference | Amendment I-CF847 to the 2027 finance bill, tabled on 4 October 2026 | Rejected in the finance committee on 7 October 2026 |
| Parti socialiste | CSG on investment income raised from 9.2% to 10.6% | Amendment to the 2026 social security budget | In force since 1 January 2026, excluding life insurance and property |
| Parti socialiste | Zucman tax of 2% on fortunes above €100 million; CSG on very large inheritances | Counter-budget for 2027 presented on 16 September 2026, not binding | No legal effect |
| Rassemblement national | Replace the property wealth tax (IFI) with a tax on financial wealth: €1.3 million threshold, main home and business assets excluded (2023); 1.5% rate and property removed from the base (2025) | Amendments to the 2024 budget and to the Zucman bill; idea defended by Marine Le Pen in September 2025 | Rejected |
| The left, National Assembly | Minimum tax of 2% on fortunes above €100 million | Private member's bill, then amendment to the 2026 budget | Passed by the Assembly on 20 February 2025, rejected by the Senate on 12 June 2025; amendment rejected on 31 October 2025 by 228 votes to 172 |
| Government | No change to the PFU rate announced; life insurance tax treatment withdrawn from contracts funded with securities or backed by a dedicated fund holding the policyholder's own assets | 2027 finance bill, presented on 1 October 2026 | Under debate |
Sources at the end of the article. In the vote of 31 October 2025, the four left-wing groups voted for; Ensemble pour la République, Les Démocrates, Horizons, Les Républicains and the Rassemblement national voted against (LCP).
The documents reviewed for this article contain no costed proposal on the PFU rate from the Rassemblement national, Les Républicains, Renaissance, the MoDem or Horizons. Their 2025 votes, set out above, are the only public and checkable indication used here.
The profile, in numbers
A single person with no other income has €400,000 invested, of which €150,000 was paid in over the years: 62.5% of every withdrawal is therefore gain. They want €2,000 a month after tax, €24,000 a year. Their FIRE target is 25 times the gross annual withdrawal needed, which is the 4% rule. Until they get there, they save €1,500 a month at a 4% real return.
The sum, once, for a CTO at the default rate. On a gross withdrawal W, the gain is 0.625 × W and pays 31.4%, so the tax is 19.6% of the withdrawal. You need W × (1 − 0.19625) = €24,000, so W = €29,860, and a target of 25 × 29,860 = €746,500. The 31.4% flat tax becomes a 19.6% levy on what leaves the account.
| Scenario | Status | CTO | PEA over 5 years | Assurance-vie over 8 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No tax at all (benchmark) | €600,000 | €600,000 | €600,000 | |
| 2025 rules: PFU at 30%, social charges at 17.2% | former law | €738,500 | €672,300 | €699,300 |
| 2026, default rates | in force | €746,500 | €678,900 | €699,300 |
| 2026, opting for the income tax scale | in force, by election | €697,100 | not affected | €674,300 |
| Dividends at 34.4% | LFI amendment, rejected | €764,300 (a) | not affected | not affected |
| End of the PFU, gains on the income tax scale | NFP manifesto, 2024 | €697,100; €861,800 at 30% (b) | not targeted | not specified |
| 1.4 more points of social charges, every account | modelling assumption, not a proposal | €754,700 | €685,700 | €706,600 |
| Tax on financial wealth, Zucman tax | rejected | unchanged | unchanged | unchanged |
FIRE target = 25 times the gross annual withdrawal that leaves €24,000 net. Gain share held constant at 62.5%. 2026 income tax scale for one tax share (0% up to €11,600, 11% up to €29,579, 30% above), without the low-income reduction (décote) or deductible CSG, both of which would lower the tax further. Each column applies one regime to the whole portfolio: in practice a full PEA sends new savings elsewhere. (a) If every withdrawal is a dividend; for selling units of an accumulating fund, the amendment changes nothing. (b) For a household whose gains fall in the 30% band, for example because of other income; with no published scale for the 14 proposed bands, today's scale is used as an approximation. IgniFI calculations.
Profile from the table: €2,000 a month net wanted, 62.5% gain in every withdrawal, €1,500 saved a month, 4% real return. A missing bar means the account is not affected by that scenario. "Gains at 30% + 18.6%" applies to a household whose gains fall in the 30% band. IgniFI calculations, month by month.
Three results stand out, and not all of them are intuitive.
The 2026 rise cost two months. For this profile, going from a 30% to a 31.4% PFU adds €8,000 to the target in a CTO and €6,700 in a PEA. Two more months of saving. By comparison, €100 a month of extra spending adds €30,000 to the same target, as our piece on no-buy years shows.
On a modest taxable income, the PFU is not the rate that matters. Someone living on €24,000 a year after tax, with no other income, declares about €17,400 of gains from a CTO. On the progressive scale that is barely €640 of income tax before the décote, against €2,230 at the PFU on the same gains. The option already exists, every year. That is why abolishing the PFU, as written in the 2024 manifesto, changes nothing for this profile, and changes a lot for a more heavily taxed household: a target of €861,800 instead of €746,500, two years and four months more.
The wealth taxes on the table do not reach this profile. The €1.3 million threshold of the tax on financial wealth the RN proposed in 2023, and the €100 million of the Zucman tax, are a long way from €400,000. For a sense of scale higher up: on the IFI scale, which the RN proposes to keep according to Public Sénat, €1.5 million of financial assets would pay (1,300,000 − 800,000) × 0.5% + (1,500,000 − 1,300,000) × 0.7% = €3,900 a year, or 0.26% of the capital.
What holds whatever happens
Tax falls on the gain portion. The headline rates, 31.4% or 34.4%, apply to the gain, and the gain is only part of each withdrawal. The sooner money comes out after it went in, the smaller that part. The effective rate on the withdrawal, 19.6% here, is the one that matters for a FIRE target.
Account clocks start at opening. A PEA is free of income tax after five years; an assurance-vie gets its €4,600 allowance and 7.5% rate after eight. Those periods run from the day the account was opened, whatever was paid in that day. In every scenario modelled here, that seniority keeps its value.
Tax wrappers shield from income tax, not from social charges. The last change went through social charges, and the PEA was caught by it just like the CTO. Life insurance escaped in 2026; nothing guarantees it escapes in every budget.
Several accounts mean several options. Wealth spread across a CTO, a PEA and an assurance-vie lets you choose each year where withdrawals come from: the life insurance allowance first, the progressive scale when income is low, the PEA when its gains are exempt. None of the texts listed above touches all three at once.
Everything else weighs more. In a CTO, the gap between the most and least favourable scenarios in the table, leaving out the household taxed at 30%, is a year and a half; in a PEA, three months. For the same profile at default rates, a 3% real return instead of 4% adds sixteen months, and €200 a month of extra spending, taken out of savings, adds twenty-six.
How to vote is for each reader to decide, for their own reasons, and the taxation of savings is only one of them. This article has no view on it.
Where IgniFI fits
IgniFI's withdrawal plan works out tax account by account at 2026 rates: 31.4% on a CTO, 18.6% on a PEA over five years, 17.2% plus 7.5% above the allowance on an assurance-vie over eight years, taxing only the gain portion of each withdrawal. Those rates are declared in one place in the code. If a law changes them, the projection changes with it, and the effect on your own FIRE date can be read directly.
Sources
- Service-public.fr, social charges on investment and property income (in French), checked 30 June 2026; income tax scale (in French).
- Law no. 2025-1403 of 30 December 2025 on social security financing for 2026, article 12.
- France 24 (AFP), "À l'Assemblée, les socialistes obtiennent une victoire sur la CSG sur le capital" (in French), 5 November 2025.
- National Assembly, amendment no. I-CF847 to the 2027 finance bill (in French), tabled 4 October 2026, rejected 7 October 2026.
- Nouveau Front populaire, "Contrat de législature" (in French), June 2024, section "Abolir les privilèges des milliardaires".
- Selectra, the Socialist MPs' 2027 counter-budget in detail (in French), 17 September 2026.
- National Assembly, amendments from the Rassemblement national group: no. I-2735 to the 2024 finance bill (13 October 2023), no. CF10 and no. CF11 to bill no. 768 (7 February 2025).
- Public Sénat, "L'impôt sur la fortune financière proposé par le RN" (in French), 16 September 2025.
- LCP, "Budget 2026 : la taxe Zucman rejetée par l'Assemblée nationale" (in French), 31 October 2025; National Assembly and Senate votes of 20 February and 12 June 2025.
- Légifiscal, summary table of the 2027 finance and social security bills (in French); France Épargne, article 6 of the 2027 finance bill and life insurance (in French), 6 October 2026.