If you live outside the European Union and you shop in Paris, France will refund part of the tax on what you bought. The scheme is called détaxe, and it is worth real money: on a single handbag at €4,000, the sum at stake is several hundred euros. Yet a large share of visitors either never claim it or lose it at the airport on a technicality.
This guide sets out the rules as the French customs administration states them, explains the arithmetic that surprises almost everyone, and flags the two points where claims actually fail. It is written for the visitor who is spending enough for this to matter.
Four conditions, all of which must hold:
You prove residence with your passport, which the shop will ask to see and record. Bring it with you when you shop — a photograph of it on your phone is not always accepted.
Explicitly excluded: residents of the EU and of Monaco, diplomatic personnel, students and trainees staying six months or more, transport company employees travelling on duty, and residents of the French overseas departments.
Your purchases must come to more than €100 including tax, in the same shop, on the same day. The figure is usually quoted as €100.01.
Each part of that sentence matters, and each one catches people out:
Department stores are the useful exception in practice: because Galeries Lafayette or Le Bon Marché are a single point of sale, purchases made across different departments on the same day are added together, and the store issues one slip at its tax refund desk.
French VAT is 20% on most goods. Almost every visitor assumes this means a 20% refund. It does not, for two separate reasons.
First, the arithmetic. The 20% is applied to the pre-tax price, not to the price you paid. An item priced at €1,200 in the window consists of €1,000 of goods plus €200 of tax. The tax you paid is therefore €200 on €1,200 — which is 16.67% of the ticket price, not 20%.
Second, the commission. Refunds are processed by private operators, and they take a share. What reaches you is the figure printed in box D of your slip, which is meaningfully less than the full tax.
| Ticket price you pay | VAT contained in it (16.67%) | Typical refund received |
|---|---|---|
| €500 | €83 | around €60 |
| €1,200 | €200 | around €145 |
| €4,000 | €667 | around €480 |
| €10,000 | €1,667 | around €1,200 |
The middle column is exact arithmetic on the 20% standard rate. The right-hand column is indicative only: commission varies between operators and between shops, so treat it as an order of magnitude. The binding figure is the one in box D of your own slip — read it before you sign.
One consequence worth knowing: a shop that offers to pay you the refund immediately, in cash, at its own desk will generally hand over less than a card refund processed after validation. You are paying for the convenience, and on a large purchase the gap is not trivial.
Validation is done at a PABLO kiosk, located near the customs desk in the departures area of your terminal. You scan the barcode on the slip; the screen returns « OK Validated voucher ». That message is the customs stamp — there is nothing further to collect and no queue to join, provided the kiosk accepts the slip.
Two rules decide whether this works:
Validate before you check your luggage in. Customs are entitled to ask to see the goods. If the handbag is already in the hold, they cannot, and the claim fails. Go to the kiosk first, with the purchases still on you.
Leave time. The kiosk itself takes a minute, but it sits in the terminal's landside area, sometimes far from your check-in row, and it is busiest exactly when everyone else is flying home. Treat it as a separate errand and add at least thirty minutes to your usual airport arrival, more in the summer.
If the kiosk rejects the slip — a damaged barcode, a data error, an expired form — you must see a customs officer in person while you are still landside. That is another reason not to arrive at the last minute.
Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Beauvais all have kiosks, but the terminals are large and the layouts differ; confirm the location for your terminal when you check your departure gate, not before.
You validate where you leave the European Union, not where you leave France. Fly Paris–Amsterdam–Chicago and your slips are validated by Dutch customs at Schiphol. This is worth checking against your itinerary in advance, because a short European connection frequently does not leave enough time to find a kiosk, and the refund is then simply lost.
The slip must be validated before the end of the third month following the month of purchase.
There is no discretion and no appeal after the date. If you buy in Paris and fly home from Nice two weeks later, you are comfortably inside the window; if you buy on one trip intending to validate on the next, check the calendar carefully.
The scheme covers goods, never services. Hotel nights, restaurant meals, museum tickets, car hire and chauffeur services are all outside it, whatever their value.
Among goods, these cannot be claimed:
The Washington Convention exclusion is the one that surprises luxury shoppers: it reaches certain exotic leathers and shells. If you are buying a piece in crocodile, alligator or python, ask the boutique to confirm in writing both its CITES export documentation and its détaxe eligibility before you pay.
Détaxe rewards concentrating your spending: more in one shop, on one day, beats the same total spread across a week. That tends to mean a day built around a small number of addresses — the Rue Saint-Honoré, the Avenue Montaigne, one of the department stores — with bags accumulating as you go.
Two practical points follow. Purchases that stay with the car rather than being carried are easier to present at the kiosk later. And on departure day, the airport run has to allow for validation before check-in, which is the opposite of the usual advice to arrive just in time.
If it helps to have a car and driver waiting through the day, our Paris car service covers hourly hire on that basis, and our airport transfers can be timed to leave room for the PABLO kiosk. Planning a day outside the city instead? See our private Champagne tour or a private tour to Normandy. Choosing dates? See the best time of year to come. Buying wine at source? See a day in Champagne. And if a guided visit is involved, guide or driver — which you actually need.
The rules above follow the French customs administration (Direction générale des douanes et droits indirects): Tax exemption in France for tourists — PABLO and Vous achetez des marchandises en détaxe. This page is general information, not tax advice; thresholds and procedures can change, and the customs site is the authority.
Tell us the addresses and the flight time. We will confirm the car and the price before you travel.