Property gains tax in the canton of Vaud: what you will really pay

By Stanislas Roux, founder of OFFER

In the canton of Vaud, every property sale triggers a specific tax: the property gains tax. Its amount depends neither on your income nor on your wealth, but on a single factor — how long you have owned the property. Well understood, the mechanism can be managed; ignored, it can cost tens of thousands of francs that could have been avoided.

How does the Vaud property gains tax work?

The principle is simple: the canton taxes the difference between your sale price and your purchase price, plus your allowable costs (impenses) — the value-enhancing works you can document (renovation, extension, lasting improvements), the notary fees and transfer duties paid on purchase, and the brokerage commission on sale. Keeping every invoice for works is therefore not administrative obsession: it is tax saved, franc for franc.

Unlike in other cantons, the Vaud scale does not depend on the size of the gain: only time counts. That is what makes planning so effective — and so little known.

The scale: from 30% to 7% depending on the holding period

The rate starts at 30% for ownership of less than a year — the canton discourages speculation — then falls in steps down to the floor rate of 7% from 24 years of ownership. Beware of a common misconception: the decrease is not regular. Up to eight years, every year counts; beyond that, the scale stays flat every other year — 15% at eight as at nine years, 14% at ten as at eleven, and so on. Here is the official scale, reproduced in full.

By comparison, Geneva applies much heavier rates over short periods — 50% below two years — and falls to 2% from 25 years of ownership since 1 January 2025. Until the end of 2024 that rate was 0%: long ownership is therefore no longer exempt there.

The rule almost nobody knows: your years of occupation count double

A decisive Vaud specificity: the years during which you have personally occupied the property continuously count double when calculating the relevant holding period. In practice, twelve years in your main residence are worth twenty-four years in the eyes of the scale — the floor rate of 7%. An owner-occupier therefore reaches the best rate twice as fast as an investor. Conversely, for a let property, only the actual years count.

A worked example: a villa in Founex

Take a villa bought in 2014 for CHF 1'800'000, occupied since then by its owners, with CHF 200'000 of documented value-enhancing works, sold today for CHF 2'600'000.

The same property held for twelve years without personal occupation — a second home or a let property — would be taxed on the actual holding period, at a rate close to double. On a gain of CHF 600'000, the difference runs into tens of thousands of francs: that is why the first question in a good sale strategy is a tax question, not a property one.

Timing: when a few months are worth a great deal

It is the date of the notarised deed (acte authentique) that counts. Moving a signing by a few weeks can therefore take you over a threshold and cut the tax by several thousand francs — but since the scale stays flat every other year beyond eight years, this lever does not work every year. Crossing the ten-year mark takes you from 15% to 14%; crossing the eleven-year mark changes nothing. Hence the value of checking the table above before setting a date, rather than assuming that waiting always pays. The simulator shows where your property stands relative to the next threshold in thirty seconds.

Another major lever: reinvestment relief (remploi) (guide in French). If you sell your main residence and reinvest the proceeds in a new home used for the same purpose in Switzerland, within an appropriate period (art. 65 LI), taxation of the gain is deferred until the new property is sold. The deferral applies only to the share of the price that is reinvested: the share not reinvested is taxed immediately, to the extent that it represents a gain. If the new home is in another canton, that canton will tax the deferred gain on resale.

The return: form 21020, and thirty days to file it

This is the part everyone discovers too late. Article 198 LI is unambiguous: for every disposal of real estate, the taxpayer must complete a return on the form issued by the Cantonal Tax Administration, and send it within thirty days to the tax authority designated on the form, with the required supporting documents. The deadline runs from the sale, not from the moment you think of it.

The main document is the property gains tax return, form 21020. Three appendices accompany it depending on the situation: the declaration of consent 21021-1 (FA01), for deferral cases under article 65 letter b; the tax deferral form 21021-2 (FA02), for letters e and f of the same article — the reinvestment relief form; and the supplementary list of allowable costs 21021-3 (FA03), based on article 70, when the value-enhancing works do not fit in the space provided. The administration publishes each form in two versions: one to print and fill in by hand, and an interactive one with automatic calculations.

This list of allowable costs is the form that pays the most. Every invoice for value-enhancing works you enter on it reduces the taxable gain franc for franc. It is also the one most often filled in badly, for lack of having kept the documents — which is why it is better to build the file while you own the property, not in the month of the sale.

Once the assessment has been notified, the tax bill must be paid within thirty days of its notification or due date (article 222 LI). And if you contest it, there is a trap: the objection must be signed and submitted by post, within thirty days of notification. The Cantonal Tax Administration is explicit — an objection sent by email or through a contact form is inadmissible. The deadline, meanwhile, keeps running.

Before filling in anything, it helps to know where you will land. Our net-seller calculator works out what you will have left after tax, commission and the mortgage balance, and the property gains tax simulator applies the scale above to your situation, for Vaud as for Geneva.

Who pays, when — and the traps to know

The tax is owed by the seller, and the tax authority has a statutory security over the property: on the day of the deed, 5% of the sale price is held back by the notary (art. 237 LI), and the balance is returned to you after the assessment — in the Founex example above, CHF 130'000 is thus held at signing for a tax of CHF 42'000. Plan for it in your cash calculation: the net proceeds available on signing day are always lower than the sale price. Finally, in the case of an inheritance or a gift, taxation is deferred: the heir takes over the deceased’s holding period, which often leads to the floor rate for family properties held for a long time. We devote a full guide to this: selling a property as part of an estate (in French).

To put a figure on your case in thirty seconds: our property gains tax simulator (Vaud & Geneva). And to reason not on the asking price but on what you will actually receive: our net-seller calculator includes property gains tax canton by canton. And to place your property in its market: the 2026 off-market report.