Can retirees get a mortgage in France in 2026?

Yes, a retiree can obtain a mortgage in 2026, provided they can demonstrate stable, documented income and meet the bank’s lending criteria. Retirement pensions, corporate pensions, military pensions, and, depending on the financial institution, certain income from foreign retirement savings plans may be taken into account during the application review.

The principle is the same as for other borrowers: the debt-to-income ratio should generally not exceed 35% of income, including mortgage insurance, and the loan term is governed by the rules of the High Council for Financial Stability (HCSF), which have been in effect since January 1, 2022.

But for a retiree, the real issue isn’t simply the pension amount. The borrower’s age at the loan’s final payment date, the desired loan term, the cost of loan insurance, and the nature of the income received become particularly important. For a retired expatriate returning to France, the situation can also be more complex when income is paid from abroad, in a different currency, or comes from retirement plans such as a U.S. 401(k) or a British pension.

In this guide, we explain how French banks evaluate a mortgage application for retirees or expatriates returning to France, what types of income may be considered, why age and mortgage insurance can limit the loan term, and what precautions to take when part of your income comes from abroad.

Key Points to Remember

• The same 35% HCSF debt-to-income ratio applies to pension income as it does to a salary, but your age at loan maturity matters more here than it does for a working borrower: banks generally want the loan fully repaid by age 75, and if a health condition complicates your file, the AERAS convention guarantees a multi-level review as long as the loan stays under €420,000 and ends before your 71st birthday, while a separate law (the loi Lemoine) waives the health questionnaire entirely under €200,000, repaid before 60.
• Not all retirement income reads the same way to a bank. A state or company pension looks like a stable salary. A 401(k) or IRA balance doesn’t: it’s a lump sum sitting in an account, not a recurring deposit, so it has to be turned into a documented income stream before it counts toward what you can borrow.
• To bypass age-based restrictions entirely, you could purchase your retirement property while still in the workforce and rent it out in the period before retirement.

What counts as “income” once you’re retired?

A French bank underwriting a retiree’s file is looking for the same thing it looks for in a salaried file: money that shows up reliably, on a schedule, and that will keep showing up for the life of the loan. A state pension or a company pension clears that bar without much friction, since it already arrives monthly and is backed by a pension provider’s own paperwork.

A 401(k) or an IRA is a different animal. It’s capital you’ve accumulated, not income you’re paid, so a bank won’t simply count the balance or an occasional withdrawal as recurring income. In practice, this means showing either a required minimum distribution schedule or a self-elected drawdown you’ve actually been following, ideally with two to three years of statements behind it, the same kind of track record a self-employed applicant would need to provide to prove that their variable income is actually stable. A military or government pension usually reads more like a state pension for this purpose, though as covered below, it comes with its own tax treatment that has nothing to do with the mortgage itself.

How does my age complicate things?

The debt-to-income ratio cap does not provide for any exceptions for retirees. Whether your application reflects a salary or a pension, French lenders cap total monthly payments—including those for this loan—at 35 percent of net income, in accordance with HCSF guidelines. What changes, however, is everything surrounding that figure.

Every mortgage in France needs assurance emprunteur, borrower’s insurance covering at minimum death and total permanent incapacity. There’s no legal age cap, but as a matter of practice, banks generally want the loan fully repaid by the time you turn 75, and pricing climbs noticeably as you get closer to that age. Treat it as a rule of thumb rather than a hard number, since it varies by lender, and get it confirmed by your broker before you count on it.

Two separate provisions can also work in your favour if a health condition is in the picture. The AERAS convention guarantees your file gets reviewed at multiple levels (standard underwriting, then a specialized medical service, then a national pool of insurers), as long as the insurance ends before your 71st birthday and the insured amount stays under €420,000. Separately, the loi Lemoine, passed in February 2022, waives the health questionnaire outright, no AERAS process required, as long as the insured amount is under €200,000 per borrower and the loan is repaid before you turn 60.

The other wrinkle is whose retirement age a bank actually uses. Some lenders size the loan term around France’s own legal retirement age. Following the suspension of the 2023 pension reform, enacted through the 2026 Social Security financing law, this now runs, for pensions taking effect from September 1, 2026 onward, between 62 years and 9 months and 64, depending on your birth year, with the climb toward 64 frozen until January 2028 (if you followed French news in 2023, you’ll remember this is the reform that emptied the streets into protests for months, before getting put on ice this way). Other banks look past that entirely and size the loan around the insurer’s own maximum age instead, regardless of when you’re actually entitled to stop working back home. There’s no single rule here, which is exactly the kind of detail a broker who places these files regularly will already know before you apply.

What complicates the picture for American retirees?

For American retirees, FATCA (the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) doesn’t ease up just because you’re no longer working. Any US person with foreign financial accounts above the relevant threshold still has ongoing reporting obligations to the IRS, per the IRS’s own FATCA summary, and that same law is why some French banks are reluctant to open accounts for US citizens in the first place, retired or not.

The tax treatment of the pension itself depends on what kind of pension it is, and the answer here surprises a lot of people. Under Article 18 of the US-France tax treaty, private pensions and 401(k)/IRA distributions are generally taxable only in your country of residence. If you actually move to France and become a French tax resident, that would point to France taxing the withdrawals, not the US.

Except the treaty has a “saving clause” (Article 29) that lets the United States keep taxing its own citizens as if the treaty didn’t exist, and Article 18 is specifically not shielded from that clause. In plain terms: becoming a French tax resident doesn’t get a US citizen out of US tax on 401(k) or IRA withdrawals. Most American retirees in France end up filing tax returns, and often owing something, in both countries. The treaty’s double-taxation relief provisions keep them from paying full tax twice on the same income, but they don’t eliminate the double filing itself. Military and government pensions follow a separate rule again (Article 19): the US keeps the exclusive right to tax those regardless of where you live, unless you’re a French national who isn’t also a US citizen. If you’re only buying a second home as a non-resident, without becoming a French tax resident, France generally isn’t taxing your foreign pension at all, this only becomes relevant once you’re actually living there full time.

How are British pensions taxed?

British pensions split into two tax categories once you’re living in France, and which one you’re in depends on the pension type, not just your residence. Under the UK-France double tax treaty, a UK government or civil service pension, which includes most military pensions, generally stays taxable in the UK if you’re a UK national (the exception is for French nationals who aren’t also UK nationals, whose pension shifts to France instead), per HMRC’s own treaty guidance. The state pension, along with private pensions and annuities, works differently: as a French resident, these are taxed in France, and you can apply to HMRC to have them exempted from UK income tax using the relevant form.

Since Brexit, British retirees also fall into the same non-EU visa track as any other non-resident buyer: the 90-day Schengen rule for shorter stays, and a long-stay visa for anything beyond that.

Can you buy before retirement age to get around the restrictions?

If retirement is still ten or fifteen years out but you already know where you want to end up, there’s a way to sidestep the age-based restrictions almost entirely: buy and finance the property now, while you’re still well inside the insurers’ comfort zone, and rent it out until you’re ready to move in yourself. A borrower in their 40s or early 50s can access a full 25-year loan term and standard insurance pricing that simply won’t be on the table applying at 65.

In the meantime, French banks typically count around 70% of the projected rental income toward your borrowing capacity, in line with standard market practice, which offsets a meaningful chunk of the new loan’s weight on your 35% debt ratio. Note that this might make your project an investment project rather than a second home project, which would affect the down payment banks require. By the time retirement actually arrives, the property is already paid down, already familiar, and you’re not walking into a bank at the exact age when your options are narrowest.

How does Opeongo Finance support you through this process?

Most of what trips up a retiree’s file isn’t the pension amount, it’s the shape of it: income a bank can’t yet read as recurring, an age that quietly rules out the loan term you assumed you’d get, or a visa question left for after the keys change hands.

At Opeongo Finance, we help retirees and returning expatriates build a financing file that already speaks the language French lenders expect, and match it with banks that actually have appetite for a retirement-income profile like yours.

Updated on September 21, 2026, by Paul Desjardins, mortgage broker specializing in international clients (ORIAS No. 25 010 121).

Paul Desjardins assists expatriate buyers, non-residents, and international investors with their real estate financing projects in France. More than 60% of his clients live abroad: he advises them in French and English, from the initial review of their application through to the signing at the notary’s office. He writes practical guides for Opeongo Finance aimed at international clients who want to understand the rules of French mortgage lending and secure financing from abroad.