Share of French households having credits in France 1989-2019

In 2019, 47.4 percent of households in France had taken out credits, that is to say nearly two percent less than ten years before, in 2009. The share of French households having credits has decreased overall by more than five percent between 1989 and 2019 and has started to stabilize over the past three years.

Consumer credit

Despite an interest rate relatively low, consumer loan rate has been losing ground in France over the past few years. The household possession rate has been decreasing since 2018, which is reflected in the annual growth rate of consumer consumer credits to households, which reached it's lowest point as of March 2020. However, while there are less consumer loans in France, the value of the loans taken out has kept increasing , reaching 187.2 billion euros as of the third quarter of 2019.

Mortgage

In contrast to consumer credit, mortgages have been thriving in France, with an increasing household possession rate since the early 2000s. In 2019, more than 31 percent of French households had at least one home loan, and the average value of the loans granted amounted to 170,200 euros. Without a mortgage, owning a real estate property would be impossible for a large part of the population, particularly in the Ile-de-France region, where prices are constantly increasing.