Nice, Cannes, Menton, Antibes, Mougins, St Tropez, Eze, St Jean Cap Ferrat, Mandelieu la Napoule, Villeneuve Loubet, Villefranche sur Mer, Beaulieu sur Mer. Read that list again and you will notice something nobody mentions in the glossy brochures: it crosses a departmental border, and that border now costs money.
What this guide covers
- Which Riviera towns suit flats, and which ones suit villas.
- Why buying in St Tropez carries a higher transfer tax than buying in Cannes since 2025.
- What the purchase costs on top of the asking price, in real percentages.
- When renting beats buying, and the questions to settle before either.
On the Côte d’Azur, the town decides the type of property and the department decides part of the bill. Cannes, Nice and Antibes are where the luxury apartments are. The villas sit in the smaller communities just inland or along the capes. And since 2025 the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes no longer charge the same transfer duties, which changes the arithmetic on any large purchase.
The border that runs through your shortlist
Most of that opening list sits in the Alpes-Maritimes. St Tropez does not; it is in the Var. That distinction used to be trivia. It is not any more.
The 2025 finance law let departments raise their share of the droits de mutation, the transfer duties paid on a resale purchase, from 4.5 to 5 percent for acquisitions between April 2025 and March 2028. The large majority took it. According to notary fee trackers consulted in 2026, the Alpes-Maritimes is one of only thirteen departments that did not, holding a total transfer rate of about 5.81 percent, while the Var applies the raised rate of roughly 6.32 percent.
On a two million euro resale, that gap of around half a percentage point is roughly ten thousand euros of tax, before a single euro of anything else. It will not change anyone’s mind about a house they love. It should absolutely be in the spreadsheet.
What the asking price is not
Purchase costs on an older property in France run to 7 to 8 percent of the price, against 2 to 3 percent on a new build, with transfer duties making up the bulk of it. That is the single number most foreign buyers underestimate, because in several other countries the equivalent figure is closer to two.
| Line item | Order of magnitude | Where it bites |
|---|---|---|
| Transfer duties, Alpes-Maritimes | About 5.81% of the price | Cannes, Nice, Antibes, the capes |
| Transfer duties, Var | About 6.32% of the price | St Tropez and the western coast |
| Total notary costs, resale | 7% to 8% of the price | Any older villa or apartment |
| Total notary costs, new build | 2% to 3% of the price | New developments in Nice, Cannes |
Rates are those published for 2026 and are set department by department, so confirm the current figure with the notary handling your sale rather than with the agency selling you the property.
Apartments in the cities, villas just outside them
The rule of thumb has not changed in twenty years. If you want a luxury apartment, look at Cannes, Nice and Antibes, where the stock exists in volume and the seafront boulevards concentrate the best of it. If you want a villa, the smaller communities deliver: Mougins, St Paul de Vence, Villefranche sur Mer, Beaulieu sur Mer, and the capes.
Those villages hold their value for a practical reason rather than a romantic one. They give you quiet and a garden while keeping you fifteen or twenty minutes from an airport, a station and a hospital. That balance is what buyers pay for, and it is why the same handful of names keep reappearing on every agency’s books. Our shortlist of Riviera towns for a villa rental is a reasonable way to test a few of them for a week before committing to anything.
On price, the reference points published in 2026 give a median around 4,861 euros per square metre for apartments and 5,611 euros for houses across the whole of the Alpes-Maritimes, according to the SeLoger index. The prestige segment sits far above that: agency figures put Cannes averages in the 6,500 to 7,000 euro range, with seafront apartments quoted between 12,000 and 20,000 euros per square metre, and Cap d’Antibes reaching similar levels. Treat those as orientation, not valuation. Two villas on the same road can differ by a factor of three.
Renting instead, and why plenty of people do
Renting is not the consolation prize here. A large share of the people who spend time on this coast are only in place for days or weeks at a time, with the means to be comfortable and no interest in owning the maintenance, the taxe foncière and the empty months that come with a second home.
If you are on the other side of that trade, owning and letting, the seasonal rental market is genuinely strong, and the same qualities that make a property pleasant to live in make it easy to let. The rules changed recently, though, and this is the part to get right. French law 2024-1039 of 19 November 2024, known as the loi Le Meur, extended compulsory registration of furnished tourist rentals to every commune, including for a main residence, and reinforced what mayors can restrict locally. A national registration service was then finalised by decree in March 2026. In practice: register the property, and check what your specific commune allows before you build any budget on rental income.
What I would settle before signing anything
- Which department the property is in, and therefore which transfer rate applies. Ask for the figure in euros, not in percent.
- Whether the price you were quoted includes the notary costs. On a resale it almost never does.
- What the commune allows in terms of short-term letting, in writing, if rental income is part of your reasoning.
- How the property performs in February, not in August. Damp, access, wind exposure and how many neighbours are still there in winter tell you more than any summer viewing.
- Who represents you. The agency represents the seller. A notary or a buying agent working for you is the cheapest insurance in this whole process.
The Côte d’Azur is not a market that needs defending. The climate, the landscape and the airport at Nice have kept demand here through cycles that flattened other regions, and prestige stock in the Alpes-Maritimes was still reported as resilient through 2025 and into 2026. But resilience is not a promise of return, and a property is only a good investment at the price you actually paid, all costs included.
Last updated: August 2026. Transfer duty rates, notary costs and price levels quoted here come from 2026 published sources and change regularly. This article is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice: consult a notary and a qualified tax adviser before any purchase or rental commitment on the Côte d’Azur.
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