The South of France, place by place.

The coast is 1 road, and the money moves along it.

The South of France is 2 places pretending to be 1. There is the coast, the Côte d'Azur, 1 road from the Italian border at Menton to the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, with a different idea of money at every bend. And there is Provence behind it, where the same families keep a stone farmhouse, a vineyard and a lot more patience.

Most visitors do both in a week and remember the traffic. The people who live here do them in order, on a calendar that has hardly changed since the British aristocracy came for the winter sun in the 19th century. Below are the 6 places on that calendar, 5 of them on the Patrician.ch board, from east to west and then inland, with what each one is like, when to go, and what it takes to stay past August.

Monaco, where the question is residence.

Monaco is 2 square kilometers that run like a private club with a flag. The Société des Bains de Mer was founded in 1863 and opened the casino at Monte-Carlo the same year, and the principality has lived off its glamour ever since rather than off its residents: there has been no personal income tax here since 1869.

That is why nobody in Monaco asks what you do. They ask where you are resident, and the answer decides the rest of the conversation. The harbor fills for the Grand Prix weekend and again for the Yacht Show in September, and the rest of the year the town is quieter than its reputation, and everything in it is a walk.

The tell. Watch who walks. Visitors drive from the Hôtel de Paris down to the harbor to be seen doing it. Residents walk everywhere, because on 2 square kilometers everything is a walk, and a French national who moved here for the tax has usually found out about the 1963 convention the hard way.

🇲🇨 MonacoMonaco

• Season
  All year. The Grand Prix weekend and the Yacht Show in September are the 2 busiest.
• Where to be
  Larvotto for the beach, the Carré d'Or around the casino, Fontvieille for the office. Nice airport is about 30 minutes by car.
• On the board
  Cost 125 (Zurich is 100), safety 10 of 10, 2,700 hours of sun a year.
• Getting there
  From London 2h 10m nonstop. From New York 8h nonstop.

Open on the board →

Nice, where the money lives on the hill.

Nice is the only real city on the Riviera, with the airport, the hospitals, the lycées and a working life outside August. UNESCO inscribed it in 2021 as the winter resort town of the Riviera, for the villas, hotels and promenade that the British and Russian aristocracy built here in the 19th century, and the Promenade des Anglais still runs the length of the bay.

The old money is not on the Promenade. It is up on Mont Boron and Cimiez, in the villas above the bay, and down at the Cours Saleya market on a weekday morning for socca, which costs a few euros and is eaten standing.

The tell. Ask where they live. Visitors say the Promenade. Residents say Mont Boron or Cimiez, and add that they have not walked the Promenade in August for years.

🇫🇷 FranceNice

• Season
  All year. The winter is mild and the city never closes.
• Where to be
  The Promenade des Anglais at 7, the Cours Saleya market, the old town, then home above the bay on Mont Boron. Monaco is about 20 minutes away.
• On the board
  Cost 88 (Zurich is 100), safety 6 of 10, 2,700 hours of sun a year.
• Getting there
  From London 2h 10m nonstop. From New York 8h nonstop.

Open on the board →

Saint-Tropez, where the village comes back in September.

Saint-Tropez was a fishing port that painters loved until 1955, when the crew of a film booked a stretch of Pampelonne beach and the family that fed them opened Club 55. Roger Vadim's film with Brigitte Bardot came out in 1956, and the port has been the summer capital of money ever since.

In July and August the superyachts stand stern to the quay and the beach clubs of Pampelonne, most of it in Ramatuelle, book months ahead. The rest of the year it is a village again, with the market on the Place des Lices, the boules under the plane trees and the Citadel above it all.

The tell. Look at the calendar. Visitors come in August. The families who have owned here for decades come in late September, for the regattas and the village, when the yachts have gone and Sénéquier has tables again.

🇫🇷 FranceSaint-Tropez

• Season
  July and August for the season, late September for the regattas and the village.
• Where to be
  Coffee at Sénéquier on the port, lunch at Pampelonne, the Place des Lices market, home to a vineyard estate in Ramatuelle. Toulon and Nice are the nearest large airports.
• On the board
  Cost 120 (Zurich is 100), safety 8 of 10, 2,800 hours of sun a year.
• Getting there
  From London 2h 10m nonstop. From New York 8h nonstop.

Open on the board →

The villages between the 6.

Not on the board, and not trying to be, but the South of France is not complete without them. They are where the people above spend their Sundays.

From a season to a residence.

The coast has 2 tax systems a few minutes apart. Monaco levies no personal income tax, no capital gains tax and no wealth tax, and has not taxed personal income since 1869. The 1 large exception is a French national, who stays taxable in France under the 1963 convention between the 2 countries. A residence card asks for a home in the principality and a relationship with a Monegasque bank.

Everywhere else on this page is France. It taxes a resident's worldwide income at the French rates, levies no wealth tax on financial assets and taxes only property worth more than €1.3M. A salaried newcomer recruited from abroad can use the impatriate regime for up to 8 years, after 5 full years outside France. On $1M of income, the 2026 model for a single filer with no US or French passport leaves $1M in Monaco and $559K in each of the 4 French places, an effective 44%.

What each costs on your own numbers: Monaco against Nice, tax in France and the French income tax calculator. Every regime for new arrivals in one table: special tax regimes for new arrivals.

A description of where and when, and of the published rules. Published research, not tax, legal or immigration advice.

The short answers.