Sending Money to Children in France from Paraguay: The 2026 Guide

Giving money to one's children is a simple act. It becomes much less so when the parent lives in Paraguay and the child in France. Who taxes it? The donor's country, the beneficiary's country, both, or neither? The answer is not intuitive, and an undeclared donation can result in surcharges and late payment interest years later.

Good news from the start: Paraguay does not tax donations. All the complexity is French. And 2026 is a special year, as an exceptional measure allows for much more to be transferred tax-free than usual, until December 31.

Who has the right to tax?

The French rule

Article 750 ter of the French General Tax Code determines French tax jurisdiction. There are four configurations, only one of which truly concerns you.

Configuration	Does France tax it?
Donor is a French resident	Yes, on all donated assets, wherever they are located, regardless of the beneficiary's residence.
Donor is a non-resident, beneficiary is a French resident for at least 6 of the last 10 years	Yes, on all donated assets, including those located outside France. This is the most frequent configuration for our clients.
Donor is a non-resident, beneficiary is a French resident for less than 6 years	Only on assets located in France: real estate, French bank accounts, shares in civil real estate companies, French life insurance contracts. Funds held outside France are exempt from French taxation.
Both donor and beneficiary are non-residents	Only on assets located in France.

The key takeaway is counter-intuitive: your Paraguayan residence does not protect the donation. If your child has lived in France for more than six years, France taxes it, even if you are in Asunción and the funds come from an account in the United States. It is the beneficiary's length of residency that dictates, not yours or the location of the money.

The Paraguayan rule

It's a single line: Paraguay does not apply any gift tax. Neither for the donor nor for the recipient. No form to file with the DNIT, no income tax triggered, no tax formalities. You can transfer one million euros from Paraguay without any guarani being owed locally.

Only one obligation remains, and it is not fiscal: international transfers exceeding the equivalent of 10,000 dollars are reported by the financial institution to the national money laundering prevention mechanism. This is an automatic bank declaration, not a step you need to take, and it poses no difficulty as long as the origin of the funds is documented.

Lack of convention

There is no tax treaty between France and Paraguay. In theory, this could lead to double taxation. In practice, since Paraguay doesn't tax anything, there's nothing to double: only France levies tax when it has jurisdiction. The downside is that no tax credit will reduce French duties, unlike what a treaty would allow.

French allowances, and what they allow in 2026

Standard allowance

Relationship	Allowance
Parent to child	€100,000 per child and per parent
Grandparent to grandchild	€31,865
Great-grandparent to great-grandchild	€5,310
Between spouses or PACS partners	€80,724
Brother or sister	€15,932
Nephew or niece	€7,967
No family relation	None. Taxed from the first euro, at a rate of 60%.

These allowances are renewed every fifteen years.

Family gift of money

Article 790 G adds €31,865 per child and per parent, reserved for gifts of money, cash, cheque or transfer. Two conditions: the donor must be under 80 years old and the beneficiary must be of legal age. Also renewable every fifteen years, and cumulative with the standard allowance.

The temporary scheme for 2026, not to be missed

This is the element most guides haven't integrated. The 2025 Finance Law created article 790 A bis, which exempts an additional €100,000 per donor, up to a limit of €300,000 per beneficiary from all donors combined.

Condition	Details
Period	Donations made between February 15, 2025, and December 31, 2026. An extension is possible but by no means guaranteed.
Eligible donors	Parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. In the absence of direct descendants, uncles and aunts to nephews and nieces.
Mandatory use	The funds must be used within six months, either for the acquisition of a new home or a home under construction, or for energy renovation work in the beneficiary's main residence.
Commitment to retain	The dwelling must remain the beneficiary's main residence, or be rented as a main residence, for five years. Otherwise, the exemption is revoked.
Cumulation	Fully cumulative with the €100,000 allowance and the €31,865 family gift.

The quantitative consequence is considerable. A single parent can transfer to a child, in 2026 and without any duties, €231,865: €100,000 standard allowance, €31,865 family gift, and €100,000 under the temporary measure. For a couple with two children, the total envelope exceeds €900,000, provided that each child respects the €300,000 cap under Article 790 A bis alone and the allocation conditions.

One calendar point deserves attention: a gift made in November 2026 will have to be used by May 2027 at the latest, thus after the expiry of the scheme. This is allowed, but the entire operation, donation and re-investment, must be planned now.

Beyond the allowances

The surplus is taxed according to a progressive scale for direct descendants: 5% up to €8,072, 10% up to €12,109, 15% up to €15,932, 20% up to €552,324, then 30%, 40%, and 45% beyond €1,805,677. The 20% bracket covers a very wide range, and in practice determines the cost of a significant donation.

The obligation to declare

Any donation to a French tax resident must be declared, even when the duties are zero. There are three reasons for this: to record the consumption of the allowance, to calculate and pay any eventual duties, and especially to start the fifteen-year period. A declared donation falls outside of tax recall after fifteen years. An undeclared donation can be recalled without time limit.

Nature	Formality	Who declares	Deadline
Cash gift, including under Articles 790 G and 790 A bis	Form 2735, filed with the beneficiary's individual tax department, or directly online from their personal space on impots.gouv.fr, under the gift declaration section.	The beneficiary, never the donor. It is your child who completes the formality.	Within one month following the gift, in application of Article 635 A of the CGI.
Donation of assets, bare ownership, company shares, real estate	Notarized deed. The notary handles registration and filing.	The notary	Within one month following the deed.

The form asks for the identity and address of both parties, the relationship, the amount, the date, the allowances used, and any previous donations made in the last fifteen years. This last point is essential: it allows for checking the remaining allowance balance.

On the Paraguayan side, no declaration is required. Simply keep proof of the transfer.

Organizing the transfer

Start early

Since allowances are renewed every fifteen years, each decade of delay eliminates a cycle. A parent who starts at 45 years old has two complete cycles before 80, the age at which the family gift of €31,865 ceases to be accessible. Someone who starts at 70 will only have one. For two children and with two parents, the difference amounts to hundreds of thousands of euros in untaxed transfer capacity.

Spread out rather than concentrate

The arithmetic is brutal. Transferring €400,000 to a child in one go leaves, after allowances, a taxable base of approximately €268,000 and nearly €52,000 in duties. The same amount spread over three fifteen-year cycles costs only a few hundred euros. Time is the only free lever for transmission.

Combine envelopes

The three schemes use distinct envelopes and do not compete with each other. In addition, there is the present d'usage (customary gift), a gift linked to a specific event, such as a birthday, wedding, or exam success, and proportionate to the donor's means. It is completely exempt, not declared, and does not consume any allowance.

An honest clarification on this last point: no legal threshold exists, and the amounts circulated are merely orders of magnitude derived from specific court decisions. The judge assesses on a case-by-case basis the relationship between the gift, the donor's assets and income, as well as the reality of the occasion. A regular payment without an attributable event will be reclassified as a donation.

Combine with bare ownership

If you own a property in France, the donation of its bare ownership consumes the standard allowance, while a cash gift uses the envelopes under Article 790 G and, this year, Article 790 A bis. Both operations can be combined in the same year. The mechanism is detailed in our guide to bare ownership from Paraguay.

The six-year window

A child who has just moved to France has not yet been a resident for six of the last ten years. During this period, France does not tax donations of assets located outside France. The rule is written in the law and its application is perfectly legitimate.

Two caveats, however, which we prefer to state rather than leave you to discover them. The calculation of the period is not always straightforward when the child's path has been discontinuous, and a very large transaction timed too close to the deadline can attract the attention of the administration. If this configuration is yours, have the timeline validated by a notary or tax lawyer before transferring the funds, not after.

Transferring money: practical points

Three channels exist, with costs varying by a factor of one to one hundred. A classic international bank transfer combines fixed fees on both sides and, more importantly, a bank exchange rate margin often between 1 and 3%, which amounts to one to three thousand euros on one hundred thousand. Specialized transfer services reduce this margin to a few tenths of a point. Conversion via a securities account, if you have one, offers rates closest to the interbank market, but an incoming transfer issued by a broker often triggers compliance questions from the French bank: notify them beforehand and keep statements available.

Regarding traceability, a few simple actions suffice. Indicate an explicit reference on the transfer, such as "family donation from X to Y". Keep the transfer order, the sending account statement, the receiving account statement, and a copy of form 2735 with its acknowledgment of receipt. A short letter signed by both parties, recalling the amount, date, relationship, and allowances used, is not mandatory but resolves many discussions in case of an audit.

Six costly mistakes

• Believing France has no business knowing. This is the most common and most expensive mistake. Money leaves Paraguay, passes through a foreign account, arrives in a French account: the reasoning seems solid and it is false. If the child has been a French resident for more than six years, France has jurisdiction. The automatic exchange of information between tax administrations makes detection commonplace, and penalties can reach 40% in case of deliberate omission, not to mention late interest.
• Confusing donation, child support, and loan. Paying rent, tuition, or medical care for an adult child without resources falls under the parents' obligation of support, as provided by the Civil Code: it is not a donation, there is no form or consumption of allowance. A family loan is not a donation either, but it must be real, in writing, and declared beyond €5,000 via form 2062; a never-repaid loan will be reclassified as a disguised donation. Paying €100,000 for a property down payment, however, is an unambiguous donation.
• Losing track of allowances. They accumulate over rolling fifteen-year periods. A gift of €80,000 in 2020 leaves only €20,000 of the standard allowance available until 2035. Keep a simple table: date, amount, scheme used, remaining balance.
• Transferring without a reference. A six-figure transfer without a reason is an invitation to reclassification. The reference costs ten seconds and proves intent.
• Not briefing your child. The reporting obligation falls on them, not on you. They are also the one who will have to declare in France the income generated by the received funds once invested. Do not assume they know.
• Underestimating the valuation of a Paraguayan property. Donating a property located in Paraguay to a long-term French resident child is taxable in France, at a value that the administration may contest due to a lack of market references. Have an appraisal done by a locally approved expert and attach the report.

Summary

Situation	Paraguay	France
Cash gift to a child who has been a French resident for more than 6 years	0%	Cumulative allowances, up to €231,865 per parent in 2026. Form 2735 mandatory. Progressive scale beyond that.
Cash gift to a child who has been a French resident for less than 6 years	0%	0% on funds held outside France. Normal taxation on assets located in France.
Cash gift to a Paraguayan resident child	0%	0%, except for assets located in France.
Donation of bare ownership of a French asset	0%	Standard allowance, value determined by Article 669 scale. Notarized deed mandatory.
Regular assistance to a child without resources	0%	Maintenance obligation, outside the scope of gift taxes.
Customary gift linked to an event	0%	Exempt, undeclared, no allowance consumed, subject to proportionality.

Conclusion

Transferring from Paraguay to France is simple on one side and technical on the other. Paraguay is fiscally neutral: no duties, no declaration. France applies its rules as soon as your child resides there permanently, but it offers sufficiently generous allowances so that a well-staggered transfer costs almost nothing.

The year 2026 is atypical and this should be stated clearly: the scheme under Article 790 A bis adds an additional €100,000 exempted per donor, subject to allocation to a new dwelling or energy renovation work, and it disappears on December 31 unless extended. If one of your children has a real estate project, the window is closing in a few months.

Three principles hold the whole thing together: start early to multiply the fifteen-year cycles, systematically declare even when nothing is due, and document each transfer. The rest is arithmetic, and it works in your favor. Given the amounts involved and the conditions attached to the temporary scheme, have your plan validated by a notary or a tax lawyer before executing the transfers.

Are you preparing your tax residency in Paraguay? Contact us: Paraguayan tax residency from €1,400, or €1,800 for the Express option which is finalized in a single 2-day trip on site, bank account opening at €250, US LLC creation and DNIT accounting at €30 per month. Write to us on WhatsApp at +595 971 362 302: quick response, in French.