PACS in France: How Civil Partnership Works, and What It Does Not Give You

A PACS (pacte civil de solidarite) lets two adults register a legal partnership with the French state, without marrying. It brings joint tax filing and full exemption from French inheritance tax for a named partner, but it does not make partners automatic heirs of each other, and it does not carry every right marriage does.

Information last verified on 19 July 2026. This article presents general legal information, not legal advice.

Jurisdiction scope: This article covers the pacte civil de solidarite (PACS) under French national law (the Code civil) as it applies in mainland France. It does not address partnership or cohabitation law in any other country.

What Is a PACS

A PACS, short for pacte civil de solidarite, is a contract between two adults who want to organize their life together without marrying. Under Code civil Article 515-1, the two partners can be of the same sex or different sexes. The contract creates mutual obligations, but it is a distinct legal status from marriage, with its own rules on property, taxes, and what happens if the relationship ends.

France introduced the PACS in 1999, and it has since become a common alternative to marriage. Many couples choose it because registration is simpler and faster than a wedding, and because it still delivers meaningful legal and tax benefits. It is not, however, a lesser version of marriage in every respect; some rights point the other way, and some are genuinely equal.

PACS, Marriage, or Cohabitation: How They Compare

Three legal statuses exist for a French couple: informal cohabitation (concubinage), a PACS, and marriage. Each carries a different set of rights.

Concubinage requires no registration and creates almost no legal obligations between partners. A PACS sits in the middle: it is a registered, contractual status with real tax and inheritance-tax consequences, but it does not automatically create inheritance rights or a right to a survivor's pension. Marriage remains the only status that provides both.

The gap between PACS and marriage has narrowed over the years. Joint adoption, discussed further below, used to be reserved for married couples; that changed for PACS partners in February 2022. Two gaps that remain wide are the pension de reversion and automatic inheritance rights, both covered below, which a PACS still does not create.

How to Register a PACS: Formalities and Where to Sign

Under Code civil Article 515-3, a PACS is registered at the mairie serving the couple's shared residence. Registering at the mairie is free. Couples can instead register through a notaire, a paid option, and the notaire then keeps the original signed contract. A PACS can also be registered at a French consulate or embassy by couples living abroad.

Registration requires proof of identity for both partners, a signed PACS contract, and a joint declaration confirming the partners are not closely related and share a residence together. Once registered, the PACS is noted on both partners' birth certificates.

Property During a PACS: Separation by Default, or Indivision

Since 1 January 2007, the default property regime for a PACS is separation des biens: each partner keeps sole ownership and management of whatever they individually hold, whether acquired before or during the PACS. Nothing is automatically shared.

Partners who prefer a shared-property arrangement can opt into an indivision regime instead, written into the PACS contract at registration. Under indivision, property acquired during the PACS, with some exceptions set out in the contract, is jointly owned by both partners in equal shares, regardless of who actually paid for it.

Choosing between the two regimes is worth doing deliberately rather than by default, since it affects both what happens if the couple splits up and, to a lesser extent, what happens if one partner dies while still PACSed.

PACS and Taxes: The Joint Return

PACS partners are taxed as a single household from the year the PACS is registered. Rather than each partner filing an individual return, the couple files one joint return covering both partners' income for that year.

There is a narrow exception for the registration year itself: partners may elect separate returns just for that first year. From the following year onward, joint filing becomes mandatory and the separate-filing option no longer applies.

PACS and Inheritance: Full Tax Exemption, But Not Automatic Heirship

This is where a PACS surprises many people, because it pulls in two different directions at once.

First, the part that protects a surviving partner financially: under CGI Article 796-0 bis, a surviving PACS partner named as legatee in a will is fully exempt from droits de succession, the French inheritance tax. This exemption is identical to the one given to a surviving spouse. Whatever is left to a PACS partner by will passes to them without any inheritance tax owed on it.

Second, the part that catches people out: a PACS does not, by itself, make either partner an heir of the other. Under French succession law, without a will a PACS partner has no legal claim on their deceased partner's estate at all, no matter how long the partnership lasted. A will is the only way to leave a PACS partner anything from the estate. This is worth acting on well before it matters, since it cannot be fixed after the fact. For a fuller picture of how French succession law treats wills, heirs, and different family situations, see the inheritance overview for France.

The One Year Temporary Housing Right

Separate from the will requirement, a surviving PACS partner keeps an automatic right to remain in the couple's shared principal residence for one year after the other partner's death. This right applies regardless of whether a will exists. The surviving partner can stay in the home free of charge during that year, and any rent that comes due on the property during that period is paid out of the estate rather than by the surviving partner.

This one-year right is temporary by design. It gives the surviving partner breathing room immediately after a death, not a permanent claim to the property itself.

What a PACS Still Does Not Give You, and What It Does Give You Now

Two gaps between PACS and marriage are worth naming precisely, because getting them wrong in either direction causes real problems.

A PACS never gives a right to a pension de reversion, a survivor's pension paid by a deceased person's pension scheme. This is true across every pension scheme in France; only marriage opens that right, and neither a PACS nor informal cohabitation ever qualifies, no matter how long the relationship lasted.

A PACS also does not, on its own, create automatic inheritance rights, as covered above.

One gap that used to exist has closed. Older guidance often listed adoption as marriage-only. That is no longer accurate. Loi n. 2022-219 of 21 February 2022, in force from 23 February 2022, opened joint adoption to PACS partners, and to unmarried cohabiting couples as well, under the same conditions that already applied to married couples: proof of at least one year of shared life together, or both partners over the age of 26. A couple weighing whether to also formalize parental authority arrangements for a child should treat PACS status as no longer a barrier to a joint adoption request.

How to End a PACS

A PACS can end in three ways. Partners who agree to end it together file a joint declaration, using Cerfa form no. 15789, with whichever authority registered the PACS: the mairie, the notaire, or the consulate.

A partner who wants to end the PACS without the other's agreement can do so unilaterally, by having a commissaire de justice formally notify the other partner. This route works regardless of which authority originally registered the PACS, though it involves a fee for the commissaire de justice's services.

The third route requires no filing at all: a PACS dissolves automatically the moment either partner marries, whether to each other or to someone else. Ending a PACS by marriage means the couple's legal status shifts overnight from PACS rules to marriage rules, which is a good moment to compare how the two systems differ, including how a marriage would later be dissolved under a process such as divorce by mutual consent.

For a broader look at how PACS fits alongside other France family law topics, see the France hub.

Disclaimer

This article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. PACS registration, property regimes, and inheritance rules can be affected by individual circumstances, subsequent legal reforms, and the specific wording of a will or PACS contract. Anyone making decisions about registering, modifying, or ending a PACS, or about inheritance planning, should consult a qualified French notaire or family law attorney.