Renovating a house or apartment on the Cote d'Azur, with English-speaking contractors

The first surprise for most British, Irish or German owners is the devis. In the UK a quote is an opening position. In France a signed devis is the contract: the price is fixed, the scope is fixed, and any change needs a written avenant. That protects you from the invoice that grows by 40%. It also means the document deserves an hour of your attention before you sign it, because you can't renegotiate afterwards.

The second is the deposit. Nobody regulates the amount. A deposit at signature, often around a third, is the trade norm, followed by stage payments as the work advances. One rule does bite: a devis signed at your kitchen table is a contrat hors établissement, and the contractor may not take a cent for 7 days afterwards. If someone asks for a cheque on the spot, that alone tells you something.

Third, who you hire. An artisan is a single trade: the plombier, the carreleur (tiler), the électricien. An entreprise générale takes the whole job, subcontracts the lots (the trade packages) it doesn't do in-house, and answers to you for the result. For a bathroom, one artisan and a tiler may be all you need. For a whole apartment, somebody has to sequence six trades, and if that somebody is you, from Manchester or Munich, expect the schedule to slip.

Fourth, RGE. Owners arriving from the heating and solar side of this site ask whether their kitchen fitter needs it. No. RGE is the label that unlocks MaPrimeRénov' and CEE credits on energy work. The 5.5% TVA rate does not depend on it. A new bathroom, a re-plumb or a knocked-through wall is not energy work, so the label is irrelevant. What does matter for every trade is the garantie décennale, the 10-year liability cover the contractor must hold, and the dommages-ouvrage policy that French law expects you to hold. Both get their own section below.

Three rates, and a devis with the wrong one on it is common enough to be worth checking. On a dwelling completed more than two years ago, improvement, conversion, fit-out and maintenance work is taxed at 10%. That covers a kitchen, a bathroom, a re-plumb, new floors, plastering and painting, and the labour that goes with them. Energy renovation (insulation, an air-to-water heat pump, a solar water heater, the ventilation that goes with it) drops to 5.5%. Everything else is 20%.

"Everything else" includes more than you might expect. New build is 20%. So is an extension or a raised roof that adds more than 10% to the surface de plancher, and a renovation so heavy that the tax office treats it as a reconstruction (most of the foundations, or most of the load-bearing structure, or most of the facade, replaced). A gas or oil boiler installed since 1 March 2025 is at 20% too, and it drags the related pipework with it. Appliances, freestanding furniture and some large equipment stay at 20% even inside a 10% job, which is why a good kitchen devis carries two TVA lines.

The old separate Cerfa attestation was dropped in early 2025 (loi de finances 2025); you now certify on the devis or invoice itself that the building is residential and over two years old. Read that sentence before you sign it. If the reduced rate turns out to have been wrongly applied because your certification was false, the tax office comes to you for the difference, jointly with the contractor.

The saving is real but smaller than French comparison sites claim. They quote the gap between 5.5% and 20%. On an existing home, the rate you'd otherwise pay is 10%, so on a 30,000 EUR bathroom and kitchen job the 10% rate is worth about 2,700 EUR against the standard rate, and there's no 5.5% to reach for unless energy work is in the mix. Second-home owners get the reduced rate on the same terms as residents: the only test is the building's age.

A one-page devis that says "rénovation salle de bain, 12,000 EUR TTC" is legal to issue and useless to you. You can't compare it with the next quote, you can't tell which TVA rate was applied, and when the tiler swaps the porcelain you chose for something cheaper, you have nothing to point at. Ask for a revised version and don't sign until you get it.

A devis you can use is broken down by lot: démolition, plomberie, électricité, carrelage, peinture, each with quantities and unit prices. Materials carry a brand and a reference, so "carrelage 60x60" becomes a named tile at a named price per square metre and you can check it online.

The TVA appears per rate, a 10% subtotal and a 20% subtotal, with the certification sentence about the building's age for you to sign.

The payment schedule says what percentage is due at signature, at which stages, and at handover. A start date and an expected duration are written down, because a devis without dates gives you no lever when the crew doesn't turn up. And the contractor's décennale insurer, policy number and the geographical scope of the cover are printed on it, as French law requires.

The devis glossary entry lists the identity and price mentions French consumer law requires on every quote. For dépannage, repair and maintenance jobs, the arrêté of 24 January 2017 makes a written devis mandatory whatever the amount, so the plumber who "doesn't do paperwork for small jobs" is wrong. For the electrical side of a renovation, from a new tableau to a full rewire, see general electrical work.