Tax in Monaco: what the Principality taxes, and what it does not

Monaco levies no income tax on individuals, which the Government traces to an ordinance of Prince Charles III in 1869; French nationals fall under the convention of 18 May 1963. The only direct tax is the profits tax at 25% for financial years opened from 1 January 2022. VAT, registration duties and succession duty on Monaco assets remain.

Monaco is not a jurisdiction without taxes, and the Government's own wording is narrower than the question's. The only direct tax in the Principality is the tax on the profits of industrial and commercial activities, and there is no wealth tax, no annual property tax and no council tax (La fiscalité monégasque, updated 27/08/2026). Beside it sit value added tax, succession duty on Monaco-situated assets, registration duties at usual rates the Government puts between 0.5% and 7.5%, stamp duty and duties on alcohol, insurance and precious metals.

Every page on this subject gives the date and almost none gives a source. The Government does: the absence of any income tax follows from an ordinance taken in 1869 by Prince Charles III. We never located the text of that ordinance, so the attribution is the Government's wording, not a quotation from an article.

Who Monaco does not tax on income, and the exception a treaty carves out.

Article 7 of the convention of 18 May 1963 is the text, and no page in the top ten quotes it. Paragraph 1 makes French nationals liable in France to personal income tax, as if they had their home there, in two cases: they transferred their home or residence to Monaco, or they cannot prove five years of habitual residence in Monaco on 13 October 1962. Two groups sit outside that rule: persons belonging to or attached to the Sovereign House, and the civil servants, agents and employees of the Principality's public services habitually resident in Monaco before 13 October 1962.

The profits tax begins in Article 1er of the 1963 convention, where Monaco undertook to create it. Ordonnance Souveraine n° 3.152 of 19 March 1964 did so, and Article 21 carries the rate. From 1 January 2022 the normal rate is 25%, and a financial year opened in 2026 bears 25%.

Two wordings are in circulation and they are not the same rule. The ordinance and the convention put a business inside the tax when its turnover comes à concurrence de 25 % au moins, at least 25%, from operations outside Monaco. The Government's profits-tax page says plus de 25%, more than 25%. At exactly 25% outside, the statute catches the business and the explainer does not, so the statute controls and both appear here.

Four rates, not three. Value added tax applies on the same bases and at the same rates as in France, the intra-Community regime has applied since 1 January 1993, and Monaco sits inside the European customs territory while remaining a third State to the Union. The standard rate is 20%, the reduced rate 10%, and essential goods bear 5.5%. A fourth rate of 2.10% sits in the turnover-tax code: first performances of newly created stage works and certain circus shows (Art. 58), reimbursable medicines (Art. 59), qualifying press and online press (Art. 95). Each rate with its own article is the subject of the VAT guide.

Three absences, and they are not the same kind of statement. The Government states in terms that there is no wealth tax, no annual property tax and no council tax. Capital gains are different: no official Monegasque text we read names an individual's capital gains. What the Government does say is that the only direct tax is the tax on the profits of industrial and commercial activities, and the absence of a capital gains tax follows from that sentence as a reading, not a quotation.

Pages on this subject assert an answer in both directions and source neither. What the official texts contain is this. Withholding tax appears nowhere among the taxes the Government lists, including on the English "Tax in Monaco" page updated 27/08/2026. In Ordonnance Souveraine n° 3.152, retenue à la source, withholding at source, appears only in Article 22, which credits foreign tax already withheld on income a Monegasque business receives.

1. The residence card comes first. Staying more than three months a year in Monaco requires one, which is what a Monegasque residence permit covers.

Three facts answer it, and they point in different directions. Monaco signed the multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters on 13 October 2014; it entered into force on 1 January 2017, and the first automatic exchange came in 2018 on 2017 data. Monaco remains on the FATF list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring, whose statement of 19 June 2026 records an action plan substantially completed and an on-site assessment warranted. The European Union's two lists differ: Monaco has been on the anti-money-laundering high-risk list since 5 August 2025, while the EU tax lists of 17 February 2026 treat it as cooperative with no pending commitments. The Government's English heading that Monaco appears on no EU list is true of the tax lists only. The label and the list history belong to Monaco as a tax haven.