🇲🇨Monaco: Tax Regime for Residents and the Carte de Séjour

Concept

Monaco is one of the few places in Europe where a resident pays no income tax at all. The Principality abolished the tax on personal income back in 1869: the gaming concession of the Société des Bains de Mer filled the treasury at the time, and taxing residents became unnecessary. Since then there has been no income tax, no wealth tax, and no property tax. There is a single exception — French citizens — and it is precisely this detail that determines whom Monaco actually suits.

Zero Income Tax

A Monaco resident pays no income tax on salary, investment income, or capital gains. There is no net-asset tax and no municipal tax on housing. The treasury runs on VAT at a standard rate of 20%, levies on the gaming sector, and a profits tax on companies that earn a significant part of their turnover outside the Principality. For private capital the meaning is simple: income routed through Monaco residence is not reduced by any local tax. The one regular deduction from employment income is social contributions: roughly 30% paid by the employer (CCSS 13.15% + CAR 8.33% + unemployment insurance 4% + CMRC) and roughly 13% withheld from the employee, at the Caisses Sociales de Monaco rates effective 1 October 2025 and 1 January 2026. These are social-fund contributions rather than income tax, and they do not reach investment income, dividends or capital gains.

Exception for French Citizens

The 1963 treaty between France and Monaco closed this door to French nationals. A French citizen who became a Monaco resident after 13 October 1957 continues to pay French income tax on worldwide income — as though still living in France. The only exemption covers those who had already lived in the Principality for five years by October 1962. This is a rare instance of tax domicile fixed by citizenship; because of it, Monaco appeals first of all to non-French residents.

Inheritance and Gifts

Inheritance and gift tax is tied to the location of the assets: only property physically situated in Monaco is charged. Transfers in the direct line — between spouses, and between parents and children — pass at a zero rate. Beyond that, the rate rises with the distance of kinship: 8% between brothers and sisters, 10% for uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces, 13% for other relatives, and 16% for unrelated persons. Property outside the Principality is not touched by this tax.

Carte de Séjour: the Monaco Residence Card

The carte de séjour is Monaco's residence permit: anyone aged 16 or over who wishes to stay in the Principality for more than three months in a year, or to set up home there, must apply for one (MonServicePublic). The duty turns on the length of stay rather than on nationality, so it binds EU and EEA citizens as well; they are spared only the long-stay D visa. The file is examined by the Residents Section of the Public Security Department (Direction de la Sûreté Publique), and the card also serves for travel within the Schengen area and as a digital identity for Monaco's online services (MonServicePublic, the residence permit).

The financial limb is an evidence test, and no rule states a figure. Sovereign Ordinance No. 3.153 of 19 March 1964 on the conditions for entry and residence of foreign nationals in the Principality requires proof of "moyens suffisants d'existence" for a first card (art. 6) and of "ressources suffisantes" on renewal (art. 7), with no monetary threshold.

The MonServicePublic procedure How to apply for a residence permit lists the evidence as alternatives: a salary, professional income, a pension, support by a close relative, spouse or partner, or sufficient savings — and states expressly that in the savings case the sum judged sufficient depends on the banking establishment in Monaco providing the reference (an attestation bancaire less than one month old). The exhaustive list of those institutions is the AMAF membership register (Association Monégasque des Activités Financières), which MonServicePublic itself points to as the list of the Principality's banks; a bank outside that register cannot issue the reference. A deposit of around €500,000 is a benchmark of bank practice, not a legal requirement, and some institutions set the bar higher.

A separate route is to open a company in the Principality. To this are added owned or long-term rented housing and a certificate of no criminal record; the whole process usually takes three to six months. Accommodation is an evidence test rather than an investment: ownership, a tenancy agreement registered with the Direction des Services Fiscaux, or housing provided by a close relative, spouse or partner with whom the applicant lives as a couple. The criminal-record extract must be issued by the authorities of each country in which the applicant resided during the five years before arrival and be less than three months old, and documents not drawn up in French, English or Italian require a sworn translation.

Entry rights are a separate and prior question: where a long-stay D visa is required it is requested through the French consulate closest to the applicant's most recent place of residence, or, for someone already in France for more than a year, as a transfer of residency through the French Embassy in Monaco under article 5 of the Franco-Monegasque neighbourhood convention.

The category of card rises with the length of residence; MonServicePublic sets out the categories, conditions and fees:

A resident leaving Monaco must return the permit eight days before departure. Naturalisation is possible no earlier than after ten years and remains a rare, discretionary decision of the Prince: the Principality keeps a small population — 38,857 residents at the IMSEE 2025 census — and reserves citizenship for the native population.

Companies and Corporate Profits Tax

Individuals themselves pay no tax in Monaco, but companies are subject to a profits tax — impôt sur les bénéfices. Since 2022 its rate has been 25% (previously it reached 33⅓%). It captures companies that carry on industrial or commercial activity and earn more than 25% of their turnover outside the Principality, as well as those whose income consists mainly of royalties and patents. A local business, and a quiet holding of family capital, generally fall outside it. VAT is charged on the French system at a standard rate of 20%. The corporate perimeter is examined in detail in Monaco Company.

Tax Residency Certificate

The residence card and tax residence are two different statuses. The carte de séjour merely permits living in the Principality; residence is evidenced to other states by a separate document — the certificat de résidence à des fins de formalités fiscales — which MonServicePublic issues on any one of three alternative conditions: more than 183 days in Monaco during the year, the principal centre of activity in the Principality, or the longest stay of the year spent there. The conditions are genuine alternatives: 183 days is one of three routes, not a mandatory minimum. An applicant resident for less than six months obtains it only against documents evidencing an exemption, and the issue fee is EUR 600 (MonServicePublic, updated 23 December 2024).

This matters because of automatic exchange: Monaco takes part in CRS and, since 2018, has reported account data to its holders' countries of tax residence. So an address in the Principality alone is not enough — without actual presence the former country will assert its claim to tax, and where that country has CFC rules, they apply on top. The basic criteria are set out in Tax Residency Basics.

Who Monaco Suits

Monaco makes sense for those ready to genuinely move the centre of their life to the Riviera: entrepreneurs who have sold a business, investors living off capital, and high-earning athletes and artists. For French citizens there is almost no benefit — the 1963 convention stands in the way. Those who want zero or low tax with more flexibility weigh Monaco against the lump-sum tax in Switzerland, passive residence in Andorra and the Category 2 regime in Gibraltar. All four, together with Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and the UAE, sit on one grid of entry price, presence, personal tax and treaty network in special tax regimes; Monaco, Andorra and Switzerland are also set against the European investor programmes, with the non-recoverable outlay for a family of four, in investor routes in Europe. The programme-by-programme index is in golden visas.

The Touring Professional's Base: Athletes, Drivers and Performers

Monaco works as a base jurisdiction for touring professionals — tennis players, Formula 1 drivers, a slice of the footballing world — for three reasons at once. First, a non-Monegasque resident pays no personal income tax at all, so prize money, appearance fees, sponsorship and image payments are not reduced by any local charge: the Direction des Services Fiscaux administers VAT, the profits tax (ISB), registration and succession duties — but no tax on the income of individuals. The single exception is French nationals: Article 7 of the convention of 18 May 1963 (in force from 19 August 1963) keeps them inside French income tax unless they can show five years of habitual residence in the Principality as at 13 October 1962. Second, compactness — 2 km² on the border with Nice, minutes from an international airport, which is what makes 25–30 flights a season bearable. Third, infrastructure — clubs, courts, sports medicine, management and banks accustomed to lumpy, seasonal income.

The flip side is the treaty network. On the Monaco Government's own list the Principality has signed 36 bilateral tax instruments, but the overwhelming majority are tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs). Only around a dozen entries are marked as conventions for the avoidance of double taxation: France (1963), Luxembourg, Qatar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Seychelles, Mauritius, Guernsey, Mali, Liechtenstein (in force from 13 December 2017), Malta, Montenegro (in force from 9 March 2023) and the UAE (2021) — and several of those are limited in scope. There is no full double tax convention with the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain or Australia — only TIEAs.

The practical arithmetic follows from that. When the country of performance withholds under the logic of Article 17 of the OECD Model Tax Convention ("entertainers and sportspersons": income from personal activities is taxable where the activity is actually exercised), a Monaco resident can neither invoke a treaty to reduce the rate or open a mutual agreement procedure, nor credit the tax withheld — Monaco levies no personal income tax, so there is no residence-state liability to credit it against. The withholding becomes the final tax. The United Kingdom is the clearest illustration: the payer must deduct tax at the basic rate of 20% from payments to a non-resident performer above the personal allowance, report to the Foreign Entertainers Unit on form FEU1, issue the performer a FEU2 certificate and remit the tax within 14 days of the quarter end (HMRC). The mechanics of Article 17 are unpacked in Article 17: Sportspersons and Entertainers, and the presence calendar on a dense tour in Touring Tax Residency.

FATF, Transparency and Data Exchange

On 28 June 2024 the FATF added Monaco to the grey list — under increased monitoring for weaknesses in its anti-money-laundering system. The Principality adopted a reform plan with a deadline of January 2026 and interim checkpoints in May and September 2025; a combined financial-intelligence and supervision authority (AMSF) was created. At its June 2026 plenary the FATF assessed the action plan as substantially completed and scheduled an on-site visit — the final step before delisting; formally Monaco had not left the grey list as of mid-2026. For a private client this means a deeper check of the source of funds when opening an account, while EU banks apply enhanced due diligence to transactions on the Monaco side. Together with CRS, transparency is becoming the norm, and genuine presence together with careful compliance matter more than ever. Client due-diligence requirements are examined in AML/KYC.