Above set age and value limits, a work needs a certificate to leave France.

Owners usually ask first whether the State can seize a painting. The better first question is whether the work needs a certificate at all. French law answers it with a table of ages and prices: a certificate is needed only above the limits for the work’s category. As for seizure, the procedure contains no confiscation: the State can refuse the certificate and offer to buy.

Published by ArtisDomus, written by Polina Surina.

The rules are in book I, title I of the Code du patrimoine. The thresholds are in annexe 1 to its regulatory part. Leaving the European Union brings a second, separate control under an EU Council Regulation. Since 2021 the two controls no longer cover the same works.

French law names five kinds of national treasure (art. L111-1, Code du patrimoine). The first are goods in the collections of the musées de France. The second are public archives selected under articles L212-2 and L212-3, and goods classified as historical archives under book II. The third are goods classified as historic monuments under book VI.

The fourth are other goods in the movable public domain (art. L2112-1, code général de la propriété des personnes publiques), with an exception for certain public archives. The fifth are other goods of major interest for the national heritage: for history, art, archaeology, or knowledge of the French language and the regional languages.

Other cultural goods fall under article L111-2. They need a certificate from the administrative authority to leave the customs territory, whether for a time or for good. This applies to goods of historical, artistic or archaeological interest in one of the categories set by decree in the Conseil d’État.

The certificate confirms for good that the work is not a national treasure. For goods no more than one hundred years old, it lasts twenty years and can be renewed. When the work leaves the customs territory, customs officers can ask to see the certificate or the temporary export authorisation (art. L111-3).

A national treasure cannot get a certificate, since the certificate says a work is not one. It may leave the customs territory only temporarily, with an authorisation (art. L111-7). The purpose must be restoration, expert examination, a cultural event or deposit in a public collection. The time allowed matches the purpose, and the work must come back.

The control applies to any exit from the French customs territory, whether the work is going to Belgium or to Qatar.

A certificate is needed for goods that fall in one of the categories of annexe 1 on the date of the application (art. R111-1). Décret no. 2020-1718 of 28 December 2020 revised the annexe. It sets fifteen categories, and a work must meet both the age test and the value test. These are the categories a private collection meets most often.

Two footnotes to the annexe matter a great deal. Footnote 1 limits categories 3 to 9 to works that do not belong to their author. So a living artist moving her own work falls outside the categories. Footnote 2 adds to them items bearing drawings or heightening in gouache, watercolour or pastel.

For the annexe, a collection is a set of objects, works and documents that cannot be split without harming its coherence (art. R111-3). Its value must also be greater than the sum of the values of its parts. Value and coherence are judged by its interest for history, or for the history of art, civilisations, or the sciences and techniques. This is how a group of drawings, each under 30,000 euro, becomes one object above the threshold.

The owner, or the owner’s agent, applies to the minister for culture (art. R111-4). A ministerial order sets the application form and the list of information and documents to attach.

The minister issues or refuses the certificate within four months of receiving a complete application (art. R111-6). For unclassified private archives whose reproduction is required under article L212-29, the period is six months. If the minister has not answered within those four months, the certificate is granted: it is on the State’s list of procedures where silence means consent.

The four months can be paused. If the application is incomplete, the minister asks for the missing items before the period ends, and the clock stops (art. R111-5). The applicant then has two months to provide them. An applicant who does not is treated as having abandoned the application.

The clock also stops in three other cases (art. R111-7). First, the minister may ask for proof that the good has left the public domain, proof of its authenticity, or proof that its provenance or importation was lawful (art. L111-3-1). The owner then has four months to provide it, or the application is rejected. Second, the minister or the commission consultative des trésors nationaux may ask to see the good; the clock stops until it is shown. Third, if the authenticity of the good is disputed in court, the clock stops until the final decision reaches the minister.

One or more persons assess the historical, artistic or archaeological interest of each good (art. R111-8). The minister can require the good to be shown at a place he chooses. The certificate is handed over against a receipt, or sent by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt (art. R111-9).

Cultural goods lawfully imported into the customs territory less than fifty years ago get the certificate as of right (art. L111-4).

The certificate can be refused only for a national treasure, and no compensation is due for the refusal (art. L111-4). Before refusing, the State must have the reasoned opinion of a commission. Half its members represent the State and half are qualified persons, and a member of the administrative courts chairs it. The decision must set out its reasons of law and fact in writing. It is sent to the commission and published.

If the minister plans to refuse, he refers the case to the commission consultative des trésors nationaux and sends its president a scientific report on the good (art. R111-11). The refusal takes the form of a ministerial order (art. R111-12). An extract of the order and the commission’s opinion appear together in the Journal officiel. The owner is notified even when an agent made the application.

While a refusal is in force, the owner has three duties, and they are the part most often missed. On receiving the refusal, the owner or agent must tell the authorities where the good is kept and report any later move. They must also show the good to authorised officers who ask (art. L111-7-1).

The good may not be modified or restored without authorisation. Authorised work is done under the scientific and technical control of the State’s culture services (art. L111-7-2). If the refusal covers an archive fonds, a collection or an ensemble, its items may not be sold, given away or otherwise transferred, in lots or singly, while it lasts (art. L111-7-3).

Further duties follow the good itself. A buyer, donee, co-partitioner, heir or legatee of a national treasure that is not classified must tell the State within three months (art. L121-2). The three months run from the transfer, partition or succession declaration. An owner who sells, gives away or otherwise transfers such a good must tell the buyer about the refusal and any offers made; otherwise the sale is void (art. L121-3).

Any transfer agreed after an offer has been accepted is void (art. L121-4). Only the authorities can bring that claim, and only within six months.

So the State never takes the work. It can refuse the certificate the work needs to leave, and then it decides whether to buy.

Exports out of the EU fall under Council Regulation (EC) No 116/2009 of 18 December 2008 on the export of cultural goods. Its cultural goods are the items listed in Annex I (art. 1). Taking them outside the customs territory of the Community needs an export licence (art. 2(1)). The licence is valid throughout the Community (art. 2(3)). The direct export of national treasures that are not cultural goods under the Regulation is left to the law of the Member State of export (art. 2(4)).

Annex I uses the same fifteen categories, with different money thresholds (section B). Archaeological objects, dismembered monuments, incunabula, manuscripts and archives need a licence whatever their value. The threshold is 15,000 euro for mosaics, drawings, engravings, photographs and printed maps, and 30,000 euro for watercolours, gouaches and pastels. It is 50,000 euro for statuary, books, collections, means of transport and any other object, and 150,000 euro for pictures.

Footnote 1 limits categories 3 to 9 to items more than fifty years old that do not belong to their originators. The Council reviews the amounts in Annex I every three years and updates them where needed (art. 10(2)).

In France the same ministry issues the licence. The minister for culture grants the authorisation to export outside the EU customs territory under article 2 of the Regulation, whether temporarily or for good (art. R111-19, Code du patrimoine). This covers cultural goods in a category of the Regulation’s annex that are not national treasures. Goods in categories 1.B and 1.C of annexe 1 to the Code du patrimoine need no such authorisation if worth less than that annexe’s threshold (art. 2(2) of the Regulation). At export, the authorisation goes to customs together with the certificate or the temporary export authorisation.

The two controls no longer line up. Since décret no. 2020-1718 of 28 December 2020, the French thresholds for a certificate or a temporary export authorisation may differ from the European thresholds for a licence. The French thresholds are now higher for ten categories of cultural goods. So an export outside the EU may need a European licence even where French law no longer asks for a certificate.

Take a painting more than fifty years old and worth 200,000 euro. It is below the French threshold of 300,000 euro and above the European threshold of 150,000 euro. To go to Brussels it needs nothing. To go to Geneva it needs a European licence.

Goods imported temporarily into the customs territory can leave without a certificate (art. L111-2). Temporary covers two cases (art. R111-2). The first is goods the owner or agent can show have been in the customs territory for two years or less. The second is goods from outside the European Union placed under the temporary admission procedure of article 250 of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013.

In that second case, a certificate is needed if the good is released for free circulation after more than two years under temporary admission (art. 201 of that Regulation). The owner or agent may prove these facts by any means.

Customs practice adds a second exception. When the artist transports the work, no French or European accompanying documents are required.

Unlawful export is a criminal offence. Export or attempted export carries two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 450,000 euro in four cases (art. L114-1, I). Two concern a national treasure: exported for good, or exported temporarily without the authorisation of article L111-7 or outside its conditions. Two concern a cultural good under article L111-2 exported for good without the certificate, or exported temporarily without either the certificate or the temporary export authorisation.

The State has one more power, used at the sale itself. It can pre-empt at any public sale, taking the place of the winning bidder (art. L123-1). It can do the same at a private treaty sale conducted under article L321-9 of the code de commerce, taking the place of the buyer. It declares this at the end of the sale, to the officer or operator running it.

That officer or operator must give the administrative authority at least fifteen days’ notice of a public sale of cultural goods defined by decree, with all useful details. A private treaty sale must be notified without delay.

In the collections we review, the fact that settles the export question is the date the work entered France, and the record that proves it. It is rarely in the inventory. Both the two-year and the fifty-year rules count from that date, and at that moment a kept bill of lading is worth more than a condition report. For what the same move requires once the work lands in the Gulf, see moving a collection from France to the UAE.

This entry summarises published law and is not legal or tax advice.