Wealth Tax (IFI) & Succession Rules: How French HNWIs Protect Assets with a Dubai Holding Company

You spent a lifetime building your wealth. In France, holding and passing it on can be costly. According to the French tax authority, impots.gouv.fr, the IFI wealth tax applies every year to real estate wealth above €1.3 million, and direct-line succession tax can climb to 45% after allowances.¹

So more French HNWIs and families are looking beyond France, and increasingly at Dubai. Henley & Partners reports the UAE was the world's top destination for relocating millionaires in 2025, with a record net inflow of around 9,800.² The draw is a clean tax base: no personal income tax, no corporate tax on qualifying income, no capital gains tax and no wealth or inheritance tax for residents.

For those making the move, one structure does the heavy lifting: a Dubai holding company. Set up properly, a holding company or SPV in Dubai for French founders can consolidate assets, hold shares and IP, and anchor a long-term succession plan. With Meydan Free Zone, your holding company can be established remotely, in under a day, completely online. 

How France Taxes Wealth at Every Stage

• While you hold it: the IFI wealth tax applies every year to real estate wealth above €1.3 million, on a progressive scale up to 1.5%
• When you pass it on: direct-line succession tax runs through bands from 5% to 45% between parents and children, and up to 60% for unrelated heirs, after a €100,000 per-child allowance that renews every 15 years
• If you leave: the exit tax (Article 167 bis) can apply to unrealised gains on your shares when you move your tax residence abroad, taxed at the 31.4% flat rate
• However you plan it: forced heirship reserves 50% for one child, two-thirds for two, and 75% for three or more, by law, whatever your will says

One more layer catches most founders by surprise. As a French tax resident, your worldwide assets are in scope, not just what sits in France. Moving assets into a foreign company does not, by itself, take them out of that net.

Source: impots.gouv.fr Property Wealth Tax and Succession Tax 2026, and UAE Federal Tax Authority, via impots.gouv.fr

Why the UAE Works for Wealth

France taxes wealth at several stages. The UAE mostly does not. At the individual level, the list of what you owe is short:

• Wealth tax: none, holding assets costs you nothing each year
• Inheritance tax: none, wealth passes on with no UAE charge
• Capital gains tax: none for residents, growth stays yours
• Income tax: none, what you draw is untaxed at the UAE level

The company that holds it gets the same treatment. Because Meydan Free Zone is a designated qualifying free zone, a holding company that meets the Qualifying Free Zone Person conditions pays:

• 0% corporate tax on qualifying income, including dividends and capital gains
• 9% only on non-qualifying income, and only above AED 375,000

Two things decide whether French tax still reaches you: where you are tax resident, and where the asset sits.

Becoming a UAE tax resident is not automatic. For a Tax Residency Certificate, you generally need to meet one of:

• 183+ days in the UAE in a 12-month period, or
• 90+ days with a permanent home or business here, plus UAE residency, or
• Your centre of life (home, family, main interests) genuinely in the UAE

Meet that, and your global, movable wealth, shares, IP, investments, moves into the UAE's 0% environment. French real estate, though, stays within French IFI and succession tax wherever you live, and forced heirship still governs French assets.

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What a Dubai Holding Company Actually Does

For a founder, wealth rarely sits neatly, an operating company, IP, exit proceeds, investments and property across different entities and countries. A Dubai holding company puts one ownership layer above it all. Think of it as the umbrella. An SPV sits beneath it to ring-fence a single asset, so risk on one never touches the rest.

Take a French SaaS founder: 70% of a French operating company, the product IP, a UAE expansion, future exit proceeds, and investments abroad. Left alone, each sits separately. Under a Dubai holding company, they line up:

What a Dubai Holding Company Can and Cannot Do for French HNWIs

A Dubai holding company gives French HNWIs a cleaner structure, but it does not erase French rules by default. The value is in the ownership layer, aligned with residence, asset location and succession advice.

How Meydan Free Zone Sets Up Your Holding Company

Meydan Free Zone handles the UAE side, so you can set the structure up from France before you move. While you handle the tax and succession plan; Meydan Free Zone builds and maintains the company. The structure is straightforward:

• Parent company: your main holding entity, registered in Meydan Free Zone
• Subsidiaries: your businesses and assets, in any industry, in France, the UAE or elsewhere
• Ownership and control: stays with the parent, giving you one place to oversee everything from wherever you are

The setup itself is fast and fully online, no need to fly in:

• Choose your license, a Regular license from €2,971 (AED 12,500), or Fawri for an instant license in under 60 minutes from €3,566 (AED 15,000)
• Select up to three business activity groups under one license, so a mix of holdings sits in one entity
• Set up banking and residency, a guaranteed corporate bank account via bank-fit matching across 26+ partner banks, plus visa support through mResidency for you and your family

Where it matters most for a French founder is keeping the structure qualifying:

• QFZP compliance: mPlus maintains audit-ready financials, UBO records and your Tax Residency Certificate file
• De minimis monitoring: Meydan Free Zone monitors and helps keep non-qualifying income under the limit, 5% of revenue or AED 5 million, whichever is lower, so the 0% is not lost

In Conclusion

It comes down to one line: a Dubai holding company works on your global wealth once you genuinely move, and it never touches French property or French heirs. Get that right, and it is one of the cleanest ways a French founder can hold and pass on wealth. Get it wrong, and it is just an expensive company. The difference is in how it is built, and who you build it with.

If you are exploring a holding company or SPV in Dubai, book a free consultation with a setup advisor at Meydan Free Zone to build the structure the right way, with the UAE side handled properly.

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Footnotes

¹ impots.gouv.fr, Property Wealth Tax (IFI) for Non-Residents, IFI applies to real estate wealth above €1.3 million, 2026.

² Henley & Partners, Private Wealth Migration Report 2025, UAE record net inflow of about 9,800 millionaires in 2025, 2025.