Accounting for an SCI at corporate tax: obligations, balance sheet, checklist 2026

Quick answer. An SCI at corporate tax keeps commercial accrual accounting under the general chart of accounts: journal, ledger, balance sheet, income statement and notes. It depreciates the building, files a 2065 tax return with its annexes, and has its accounts approved each year. An SCI at income tax can often make do with cash accounting and a 2072 return.

Moving an SCI to corporate tax radically changes its accounting obligations. Where an SCI at income tax lives with lightened management, the SCI at corporate tax enters the world of business accounting, with its formality and its tax return. Here is the checklist of obligations to keep, and the gaps with an SCI at income tax, to avoid nasty surprises at the first year-end.

From the option for corporate tax, the SCI must keep accrual accounting compliant with the general chart of accounts (ANC regulation 2014-03).

Accrual accounting records income and charges when they are earned or incurred, not when cash is received or paid. Rents are recorded as soon as they are due, charges as soon as they are incurred, with a follow-up of receivables and payables. This logic differs deeply from the cash accounting tolerated for an SCI at income tax.

In practice, the SCI must keep a journal and a ledger, and retain supporting documents. This rigorous bookkeeping joins, in spirit, the accounting obligations of SMEs, even though the SCI runs no commercial activity.

Depreciation is one of the markers of the SCI at corporate tax, and one of its reasons for being.

The SCI at corporate tax depreciates the building over its useful life, component by component, except the land which is not depreciated. This depreciation is a deductible charge that reduces taxable profit throughout the holding period. It is what allows much of the current tax to be neutralised while the building is held.

The trade-off is paid on resale: the deducted depreciation lowers the net book value and increases the taxable professional capital gain by the same amount, with no holding-period allowance. This mechanism is detailed in our article on the capital gains trap on resale of an SCI at corporate tax.

The SCI at corporate tax files each year a tax return specific to companies subject to this tax.

The declaration of results is made on form 2065, accompanied by the annex tables. Depending on the size of the SCI, these tables fall under the simplified or the normal actual regime. The taxable result is computed from the accounting result, after add-backs and deductions, under article 209 of the Tax Code. The tax is then settled at 15% up to 42,500 euros of profit, under conditions, then 25% beyond.

The SCI must also meet the payment deadlines for corporate tax, instalments and balance, like any company subject to this tax.

Here are the obligations not to miss, from daily work to the annual close.

1. Keep accrual accounting compliant with the general chart of accounts.
2. Record operations in the journal and the ledger, and retain documents.
3. Depreciate the building, component by component, excluding the land.
4. Prepare each year a balance sheet, an income statement and notes.
5. File the 2065 tax return with its annex tables on time.
6. Compute the taxable result and settle corporate tax, instalments included.
7. Have the accounts approved by the partners at the annual meeting.
8. Keep the company registers and articles up to date.

The comparison with the SCI at income tax shows the scale of the extra obligations.

An SCI at income tax that merely lets unfurnished property can, in practice, keep simplified cash accounting and declare its income on form 2072, each partner reporting their share on their personal return. It does not depreciate the building and files no 2065 return. The SCI at corporate tax, conversely, bears full business accounting.

The choice between these two regimes is not just a question of formality, it governs the whole taxation of holding and exit, a subject we cover in our comparison SCI at corporate tax or income tax.

The accounting of an SCI at corporate tax is not anecdotal: it requires regular bookkeeping and a proper tax return. Many partners underestimate this extra work when opting, drawn by depreciation, and then discover the administrative burden.

Our advice is to decide on the regime while including this management cost, and to entrust the bookkeeping to a professional from the first year. Clean accounting is also the best protection in case of an audit, because it documents the depreciation, the result and the net book value that will form the basis of the exit gain. Poorly kept, it weakens precisely the advantages sought by the corporate-tax option.

Partners had opted for corporate tax in order to depreciate a rental building, without gauging the resulting accounting obligations. The first close revealed the absence of regular bookkeeping and the omission of depreciation tables. The reconstruction was heavy, but it allowed a correct opening balance sheet and a component-based depreciation plan to be established. Once the accounting was put back in order, the SCI was able to file a compliant 2065 return and secure the calculation base of its future gain. The episode confirmed that the corporate-tax option without accounting support is rarely a good idea.