Property tax in Avignon in 2026: a frozen but high rate

1. What the city council voted for 2026

The resolution renewing the rates was adopted on 20 December 2025, the last budget vote of Cécile Helle's term before the municipal elections of March 2026. It keeps the three municipal rates voted the previous year unchanged.

On top of this municipal rate, your notice adds an inter-municipal share collected by the Grand Avignon urban community and the household waste collection tax (taxe d'enlèvement des ordures ménagères). The municipality only acts directly on its own share, by far the heaviest.

2. Why is the rate so high in Avignon ?

The property tax rate varies widely from one municipality to another. In 2025, the range ran from about 20,50 % in Paris to 52,80 % in Montpellier for the municipal share alone, while on the overall rate (all shares added together) Grenoble held the national record at 67,92 %, ahead of Angers (56,42 %) and Amiens (56,05 %). Avignon sits at the top of that ranking, at the level of the core cities that carry the burden of centrality.

Two structural factors explain this level. On the one hand, the core city of Avignon concentrates a population with more modest incomes than its outskirts, with an old housing stock inside the walls that generates limited rental values : for the same revenue need, a higher rate is required. On the other hand, Avignon bears the costs of centrality (listed heritage, festival, cultural facilities) that benefit the whole urban area, without the taxation of the neighbouring municipalities contributing directly to them.

3. Twelve years without a rise : the end of the Cécile Helle era

The rate freeze is not new in 2026, it is a constant. In 2023, when the state imposed a +7,1 % revaluation of the bases, the mayor restated her position : she would not pull the tax lever, a commitment she said she had made in 2014. That year, only 19 % of the large cities of more than 40 000 inhabitants had raised their rate ; Avignon was not among them.

The municipal elections of March 2026 closed that chapter. Cécile Helle was not a candidate to succeed herself. In the second round, on 22 March 2026, the list of Olivier Galzi (centre-right, « Le bon sens pour Avignon ») won with 40,62 % of the vote and 38 of the 53 council seats, ahead of the united left list of David Fournier (38,01 %) and that of the Rassemblement national led by Anne-Sophie Rigault (21,37 %).

4. How much do you pay depending on your profile ?

The cadastral rental value depends on the floor area, the address, the standing and the condition of the home. The orders of magnitude below are indicative ; your exact amount appears on your notice. The « 2026 rise » column is due only to the national revaluation of the bases (+0,8 %), the municipal rate being unchanged.

The lesson of this table is the contrast : in Avignon the rate does not move, so the annual rise is small and predictable, a few euros to a few tens of euros. That is precisely the opposite of the cities that have voted rate rises in recent years, where the bill has sometimes climbed by several hundred euros at once.

5. Simulator : your 2026 property tax

6. What the freeze never prevented : the revaluation of the bases

The property tax is calculated by multiplying a rate (voted locally) by a base (the cadastral rental value, set by the tax administration). The municipality only controls the rate. The base is revalued every 1 January by the state, in line with the change in the harmonised index of consumer prices recorded in November of the previous year.

The cumulative effect speaks for itself : between 2023 and 2026, an Avignon owner saw their base climb by nearly 14 % through the national revaluation alone, without a single cent of rate rise being voted locally. The good news for 2026 is that the coefficient of +0,8 % is the lowest since 2021, inflation having slowed markedly.

7. Property tax and the value of your property in Avignon

Local taxation is part of the annual cost of holding a property. For a buyer hesitating between Avignon and a neighbouring municipality of Grand Avignon with a lower rate, the property tax gap is an argument, but rarely a decisive one : it amounts to a few hundred euros a year against a purchase price of several hundred thousand euros. The real drivers of value remain the district (inside the walls and its surroundings trade well above the outskirts), the quality of the older building stock and energy performance.

Before any decision to sell or buy, the starting point remains the real value of your property, calibrated on the transactions signed in your district. You can estimate it free of charge below, from Avignon market data.