Property tax in Saint-Denis in 2026: what the merger with Pierrefitte changed

1. What is the property tax rate in Saint-Denis in 2026?

The Saint-Denis notice has five lines, four of which are marginal and common to the whole of the Île-de-France.

The 0,709 point of additional taxes is identical across the whole region: an owner in Boulogne-Billancourt pays it to the cent, just like an owner in Saint-Denis. In Saint-Denis, it represents 1,5 % of the bill. In a municipality with a very low municipal rate, it weighs close to 5 %.

2. Why do Pierrefitte owners pay less since the merger?

A merger of municipalities imposes nothing in terms of rates: the law allows either an immediate single rate, or a convergence spread over twelve years. Saint-Denis and Pierrefitte chose the first option, in the direction favourable to the taxpayer.

For an owner in Pierrefitte, the effect is immediate and significant: on a tax base of 2 000 €, the bill goes from around 1 129 € to 933 € a year, household waste included. On a base of 3 000 €, the annual gap exceeds 290 €.

This cut has a cost for the local authority. The built property tax bases of Pierrefitte amounted to 36,5 M€ in 2024: giving up 8,90 points on that base represents around 3,2 M€ less in annual revenue, to be compared with a municipal yield from built property of 111,2 M€ on the Saint-Denis side the same year (individual accounts of municipalities, DGFiP).

In return, the merger brings a grant advantage. The 2026 initial budget states that the new municipality receives a start-up grant of 2,2 M€ and benefits from a rise of nearly 1 % in its general operating grant (dotation globale de fonctionnement), whereas the two separate municipalities would have seen theirs fall by more than 2 %. That is the arithmetic that made the operation sustainable.

3. If the rate does not move, why does revenue rise?

It is the least understood mechanism of the property tax, and in Saint-Denis it weighs more heavily than elsewhere. Your tax is the product of two terms: a rate, voted by elected officials, and a base, set by the tax administration. The Saint-Denis rate has been frozen since 2021. The base, on the other hand, rises for two distinct reasons.

The first is national. Every year, cadastral rental values are revalued by a coefficient pegged to inflation. After strong years, the pace has calmed down markedly.

The 2021 jump has nothing to do with Saint-Denis itself: it corresponds to the transfer of the departmental share of the property tax on built property to municipalities, as compensation for the abolition of the residence tax (taxe d'habitation) on main residences. Comparing a notice from before 2021 with a current notice without neutralising this transfer makes no sense.

The second reason is local, and it is what sets Saint-Denis apart. In the 2026 budget, the town assumes a physical revaluation of 1,5 %, that is the entry into the tax base of homes and premises that did not exist the previous year. The budget document explicitly names the two drivers: the Pleyel neighbourhood and the Olympic Village.

The consequence is clear for the town. The total yield of local direct taxation goes from 135,3 M€ in 2025 to 139,6 M€ in 2026, that is 4,3 M€ more. At budget level, gross savings stand at 23,6 M€, outstanding debt at 160,4 M€ and the debt repayment capacity at 6,78 years, below the alert threshold of 12 years. The town plans 60 M€ of capital expenditure.

4. Is Saint-Denis a heavily taxed municipality?

The contrast with neighbouring municipalities speaks louder than a national ranking.

What weighs in Saint-Denis, then, is not the municipal rate taken in isolation. It is the ratio between that rate and the value of properties. We come back to this below.

One point deserves the attention of owners who do not live in their property: since 2024 the town has applied the maximum 60 % surcharge on the residence tax on second homes, on a municipal rate of 21,48 %. The yield remains anecdotal, 432 860 € entered in the 2026 budget, because Saint-Denis has only 866 second homes, that is 1,3 % of its stock of 64 879 homes (INSEE, the French statistics institute, 2023 census). The measure is a statement of principle on housing, not a revenue line.

5. Simulator: what the merger changed on your notice

6. How much do you pay, profile by profile?

The amounts below are orders of magnitude built from typical profiles anchored on real neighbourhoods of Saint-Denis and on the prices per m² from our processing of DVF data, the French notarised sales database.

The gap between the first and the last profile is not only a matter of surface area. A recent home is placed in a cadastral category more favourable to the tax authorities than a 1960s building: for the same surface area, its rental value is higher. That is also why the new neighbourhoods of Saint-Denis weigh so much in the growth of municipal revenue.

Saint-Denis is a town of flats and tenants: flats make up 85,8 % of its stock of 64 879 homes, and owner-occupiers account for only 22,8 % of the 59 369 main residences, against 74,9 % tenants (INSEE, 2023 census). Property tax there therefore concerns a minority of resident households, and many landlords.

7. Is the merger settled for the future?

The vote of 15 March 2026 was decided in a single round. The list led by Bally Bagayoko, backed by La France insoumise and the Parti communiste, the French Communist Party, won 13 506 votes and 47 seats out of 59, against 8 698 votes and 10 seats for the list of Mathieu Hanotin, the outgoing mayor, and 1 894 votes and 2 seats for that of Elsa Marcel. Turnout stood at 42,84 %, that is 27 377 voters out of 63 901 registered. The council elected the new mayor on 21 March 2026.

This result is notable beyond Saint-Denis: it is the first municipality of more than 100 000 inhabitants won by La France insoumise.

For an owner, the useful information lies elsewhere: the first budget of the new majority will be the 2027 budget, voted at the end of 2026 or the start of 2027. It is that document, and that document alone, that will say whether the rate of 38,94 % survives the change of majority. The margins are narrow: the gross savings of the town went from 27,6 M€ in the 2025 budget to 23,6 M€ in the 2026 budget, and the gross savings rate from 8,5 % to 7,3 %.

8. What effect on the value of your property in Saint-Denis?

It is the reading that puts the Saint-Denis rate in perspective. The average price of a flat is around 3 907 €/m² (Immover processing, DVF data), with a ratio of 1 to 1,8 between Delaunay-Belleville, at around 2 783 €/m², and Pleyel, at around 4 952 €/m². The market peaked at 4 344 €/m² in 2022 before falling back to 3 860 €/m² in 2025, then stabilising.

On a 3-room flat of 65 m² in the Gare area, valued at around 250 000 €, a property tax of 1 130 € represents 0,45 % of the value per year. The same reasoning in Boulogne-Billancourt, where the overall rate only reaches 15,80 % and prices are twice as high, gives around 0,17 %. In other words: the owner in Saint-Denis pays proportionally nearly three times more to hold their property than their neighbour in the west of Paris.

It is a point few buyers take into account when comparing two municipalities of the metropolis on an equal budget. It is not enough to explain the decline of the Saint-Denis market, which stems first from mortgage rates and the general correction in the Île-de-France, but it weighs on the net yield of a buy-to-let investment.

The gaps between neighbourhoods remain the real determining factor. Delaunay-Belleville (+10,6 %) and Franc-Moisin (+7,7 %) rose over twelve months while Langevin (-5,4 %) and the Basilique fell back. An estimate calibrated at neighbourhood level is worth more than a municipal average:

For the breakdown by area, our page on property prices per m² in Saint-Denis gives the price of each of the ten neighbourhoods covered.