Car tax France - carte grise and malus explained

France taxes a car when it is registered, not while you own it. There are two registration taxes — the malus CO₂ and the malus masse — collected as part of the carte grise, and for a privately owned car that is the end of it. There is no annual road tax. Businesses are the exception, and pay two annual taxes instead.

The two registration taxes

Both are charged once, on a vehicle's first registration in France as a passenger vehicle, new or imported used. Both are settled with the carte grise: the dealer bills them with the invoice, or you pay them when you apply through ANTS.

Because the trigger is the first registration in France, an imported used car pays them on arrival even though it has been on the road for years elsewhere.

Malus CO₂

Charged on the CO₂ figure in box V7 of the carte grise, measured under WLTP. For 2026 the scale starts at 108 gCO₂/km and climbs very steeply:

Below 108 g — nothing
108 g — €50
120 g — €310
130 g — €983
150 g — €4,279
170 g — €22,380
190 g — €76,800
Above 191 g — €80,000

A car that never had European type approval is taxed on its administrative power instead, from €500 at 3 CV to €80,000 at 15 CV and above.

Malus masse

Charged on the mass in running order, box G of the carte grise. It is worked out band by band and the results added, not applied as a single rate to the whole mass. For 2026:

Up to 1,499 kg — €0
1,500 to 1,699 kg — €10 per kg
1,700 to 1,799 kg — €15 per kg
1,800 to 1,899 kg — €20 per kg
1,900 to 1,999 kg — €25 per kg
From 2,000 kg — €30 per kg

So a 1,950 kg car registered new in 2026 pays €6,775 — €2,000 + €1,500 + €2,000 + €1,275 across the four bands it spans.

The two malus combined are capped at the top of the CO₂ scale, €80,000. If the CO₂ malus already reaches that, no mass malus is added.

Which scale applies, and the age discount

This is the part that decides what an imported car costs, and it does not work like the age reductions in Portugal or Spain.

The scale used is the one in force in the year of the vehicle's first registration, whether that happened in France or abroad — not the current year's. So a car first registered abroad in 2022 is taxed on the 2022 scale. The exemptions and abatements are likewise those of that date. Mycarro's calculator prices cars first registered from 2021 onwards.

On top of that, a vehicle already registered somewhere else gets a décote based on its age in months, counted from that first registration and rounded up. Since March 2025 this is a fixed table, replacing the old flat 10% a year:

1–3 months — 3% · 10–12 months — 12% · 19–24 months — 20%
25–36 months — 28% · 49–60 months — 38% · 73–84 months — 48%
109–120 months — 64% · 145–156 months — 82%
From 181 months — 100%

The last line is the one to remember: a car more than fifteen years old pays no malus at all, and neither does one first registered before 1 January 2015. The mass malus only began on 1 January 2022, so a car first registered before then never pays it.

The carte grise itself

Issuing a certificat d'immatriculation carries four taxes and one charge:

The regional tax, set by the région where the applicant lives and calculated on the vehicle's fiscal horsepower — so the same car costs different amounts either side of a regional boundary
A tax on transport vehicles
The malus on the most polluting passenger vehicles
A fixed tax of €11
A delivery charge of €2.76

The official simulator on service-public.fr prices the whole thing before you commit.

Exemptions and reductions

Electric and hydrogen vehicles are exempt from both malus
Superethanol E85 cuts the CO₂ figure by 40%, unless emissions exceed 250 g/km — on the administrative-power scale it is 2 CV, unless the car is above 12 CV
Hybrids get a mass abatement: 200 kg for a plug-in first registered from 2025, capped at 15% of the mass, while one first registered from 2022 to 2024 is exempt; 100 kg for other hybrids and micro-hybrids first registered from 2024
Disability — a vehicle held by someone with a carte mobilité inclusion marked "invalidité", or a military invalidity card, is exempt from both malus, as is one held by a person with such a child in their household. One vehicle per beneficiary, long-term leases included
Wheelchair-accessible vehicles are exempt
Large families — a household supporting at least three children gets 20 gCO₂/km off per child on a vehicle of five seats or more, and a mass reduction as well

There is no annual road tax

For a privately owned car in France there is nothing to pay each year. The old vignette was abolished in 2001 and nothing replaced it. Budget for fuel, insurance and the contrôle technique, and no more.

This is a real difference from Portugal and Spain, where the annual tax is a permanent running cost. In France the whole tax burden sits at the moment of registration — which makes the malus worth calculating carefully before you buy, because you will never get another chance to be surprised by it.

Annual taxes on business vehicles

The exception is a passenger vehicle used for business purposes, which attracts two annual taxes — the successors to the TVS, replaced in 2022:

The annual CO₂ tax, on a progressive scale worked out from emissions, or from fiscal horsepower for a vehicle without European type approval
The annual pollutant tax, on categories aligned with the Crit'Air sticker: €0 for electric and hydrogen, €130 for petrol, gas and hybrids meeting Euro 5 or Euro 6, and €650 for everything else since 1 March 2026, rising to €160 and €800 on 1 January 2027

Both are pro-rated by how much of the year the vehicle is put to business use. Where a company reimburses an employee's costs for a car it does not own, the combined bill is reduced by €15,000 per taxpayer.

What you will need

The carte grise, which carries every figure the taxes depend on: CO₂ in box V7, mass in box G, category in box J, energy source in box P3
The date of first registration, in France or abroad — it fixes both the scale and the décote
A certificate of conformity for a vehicle from abroad, and the quitus fiscal
Proof of any exemption — the invalidity card, or evidence of dependent children

Before you buy

Work out the malus before you commit, especially on an import. The CO₂ scale is not a gentle slope: between 150 and 170 gCO₂/km the bill goes from about €4,000 to over €22,000, so two cars that feel similar to drive can be €18,000 apart on the day they are registered.

Age is the strongest lever you have. The décote is generous and reaches 100%, so an older import can arrive with no malus at all where the same model a few years newer would carry thousands.

The scales are reset each January. The figures above are those in force from 1 January 2026.

Vehicle tax in France