The holding period and the five-year mark
The holding period decides how the gain is taxed. A sale no more than five years after the purchase is speculation, the anniversary day included. The whole gain is then added to the year’s income and taxed on the ordinary scale, with no revaluation and no abatement. A profit under €500 is not taxed. Five years applies to sales from 1 July 2025. Before that it was two years, and a sale up to 30 September 2025 kept the two years if its sale agreement was registered by 30 June 2025.
Past five years the gain is long term, and the tax drops hard. Take a €300,000 property sold for €450,000 in June 2026 by a seller in class 1 with €60,000 of other taxable income. Bought in March 2022, it is speculation: €150,000 goes through the scale, for €59,764 of tax and €4,670 of surtax. Bought in March 2020, it is long term and costs €7,799 and €546. That drop is the step the curve draws.
A long-term gain is taxed at half the global rate, the average rate of the tax on the whole income, gain included. In the example, €55,000 is taxable on top of €60,000, so the whole income is €115,000. The scale’s tax on that total, divided by €115,000 and then halved, gives 14.18%. The rate follows the seller’s other income: on the same sale it is 11.34% with €20,000 of other income and 15.67% with €100,000. For a sale from 1 January 2024 to 30 September 2025, the rate was a quarter of the global rate instead of half.
The decennial abatement and the main residence
Before the abatement comes the revaluation. The purchase price is multiplied by the coefficient the law sets for its year, which accounts for inflation: 1.15 for 2020 in the 2026 table, so €300,000 becomes €345,000. The gain is measured from that figure. The ten-year abatement then takes €50,000 off, or €100,000 for spouses taxed jointly, less what was already used in the ten previous years. This page counts a single seller who has used none.
On the property bought in 2020, a sale at €385,000 leaves a revalued gain of €40,000, entirely covered by the abatement, so no tax. At €395,000 the €50,000 gain is covered too. At €405,000, €10,000 is taxable: €1,076 of tax and €75 of surtax with €60,000 of other income. As long as the sale price stays under the revalued price plus the abatement, the sale is not taxed.
The main residence follows a different rule: it is exempt, and the calculation stops there. The gross gain stays on screen, the taxable share falls to zero, the rate with it, and the big figure announces the exemption rather than a zero that could pass for a rounding artefact.
How to use the calculator
Six fields. The two prices give the gain, the holding period dates the purchase and decides between speculation and long term, and the main-residence box short-circuits everything else. The taxable income without the sale and the tax class set the global rate.
All six parameters fit in the page address. The "Copy link" button gives a URL that reopens the same sale, prices, period, exemption, income and class included.
- Purchase and sale price: €0 to €10,000,000 each, with no acquisition costs and no works.
- Years held: 0 to 60, counted back from today; five years or less is speculation.
- Taxable income without the sale and tax class: they set the global rate, not the gain.
Reading the result
The big figure is the estimated tax, employment-fund surtax included, or the exemption notice when the main-residence box is ticked. The legend carries the curve’s value at the point entered, and the curve itself shows the estimated tax for every holding period from zero to ten years, with its big step after five.
The four boxes under the curve follow the order of the calculation: the gain as paid, the abatement used, the taxable share, then the rate applied to it. For the property bought in March 2020 and sold in June 2026, that is €150,000 of gain, €50,000 of abatement, €55,000 taxable (the revaluation accounts for the other €45,000) and 14.18%, so €7,799 of tax before the surtax.
What the model does not do is worth stating. It knows nothing of acquisition costs or works unless you add them to the prices. It does not ask whether a sale agreement was registered by 30 June 2025. It does not set losses or other sales of the same year against this one, and it assumes no abatement was used in the past ten years. The result is an estimate.
Frequently asked questions
What is the speculation period on a Luxembourg property gain?
Five years for a sale since 1 July 2025: a sale no more than five years after the purchase is speculation, and the whole gain is taxed on the ordinary scale with the year’s other income. Before that date the period was two years. For a €300,000 property sold for €450,000 in June 2026 by a class 1 seller with €60,000 of other income, the tax is €59,764 if it was bought in 2022 and €7,799 if it was bought in 2020, plus the employment-fund surtax.
What abatement applies to a property capital gain?
A ten-year abatement of €50,000, or €100,000 for spouses taxed jointly, less what was already used in the ten previous years. It applies to a long-term gain only, after the purchase price is revalued, and never creates a loss. The tool counts a single seller who has used none: a revalued gain of €50,000 or less produces no tax, and at €60,000 the taxable share is €10,000.
Is the sale of a main residence taxed in Luxembourg?
Not in this model: the "main residence" box makes the sale exempt, whatever the holding period and whatever the size of the gain. The gross gain stays on screen, the taxable share and the rate fall to zero, and the curve goes flat.
Does this apply to a non-resident owner in Luxembourg?
A property located in Luxembourg stays taxable in Luxembourg when it is sold, whether the owner lives in Luxembourg, Belgium or France. This calculator models only that Luxembourg share, and the global rate it applies derives from the Luxembourg income entered. How the country of residence then picks the gain up falls outside the engine’s scope.
Why does the estimate differ from the tax actually due?
For three reasons. Acquisition costs and works are not counted unless you add them to the prices. The tool assumes a single seller with no abatement used and no other sale or loss in the same year. And it dates the sale today: a sale in another year follows that year’s rules, which can change the period, the rate and the revaluation coefficients.
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