The question almost always arrives with the quotation: are there any grants for changing my roller shutters? The honest answer comes in two parts. The schemes themselves are stable and quickly understood, but their conditions, their criteria and their amounts change regularly — check what is in force before you commit to the work, with the public housing renovation service, on France Rénov’ and on service-public.fr. What follows describes the method, not the rates. It is general information rather than tax advice, and an adviser at France Rénov’ is the person who can rule on your own case.
What the word “aid” actually covers
A shutter is not insulation, and it is not nothing either
A closed shutter traps a layer of air between the curtain and the glass. On a winter night that layer slows heat loss; on a summer afternoon a lowered curtain blocks the radiation before it crosses the glass, which counts on our west-facing walls where the heat settles in until evening. On the coast it is the summers that decide: a room shaded from mid-afternoon stays liveable without air conditioning, and you feel it immediately. Shutters can therefore fall within the scope of home improvement work, according to the criteria each scheme applies at the moment you file your application.
That scope moves. It is the one thing you can be certain of.
The people assessing a file do not look at how comfortable you feel, they look at written characteristics: what the curtain is made of, whether the slats are insulated, the declared performance of the assembly. Those appear on technical data sheets, not in a sales conversation. When a file comes back to us incomplete, the same thing is almost always missing: the exact reference of the product fitted, the one that lets its characteristics be found again years later.
Three families not to be confused
A tax advantage shows up directly on the company’s invoice, with nothing for you to do. A grant pays you a sum, under conditions, after a file submitted at the right moment. A loan reduces nothing at all: it spreads the payment. These sometimes combine, never automatically, and they are not obtained in the same place or at the same time. The distinction matters for your cash flow: a grant paid after the work does not help you settle the deposit, whereas a reduced rate lightens the invoice from the first payment.
We deliberately publish no amounts here. A figure written today would be out of date before it was read, and a customer who discovers the gap midway through a file feels misled, rightly. Here is who to talk to instead:
- Reduced rate of VAT: the company that supplies and fits, from the quotation onwards.
- Energy savings certificates: an energy supplier or an appointed body, before you sign.
- Public renovation grants: the national desk and a France Rénov’ adviser, before anything starts.
- The zero-rate eco-loan: a partner bank, on the basis of the quotations.
- Local schemes: the commune, the inter-communal authority, the department or the region.
Reduced VAT hangs on the service, not on the product
How it works
A reduced rate of VAT applies to certain work carried out in a dwelling completed more than two years ago. Three conditions structure the regime: the premises being used as housing, the age of the building, and supply and fitting both being carried out by a company that invoices the whole. Which rate applies depends on the exact nature of the work and on the rules in force at the time. It is checked on the quotation. A light intervention follows the same reasoning as soon as a company supplies and fits: a curtain replaced or a box re-equipped, as in our guide to renovating a roller shutter without a heavy job, is invoiced like any other work.
It is not the shutter that opens the reduced rate. It is having work carried out.
Why buying on its own does not follow the same rule
Buy a shutter, fit it yourself: you have bought goods, and the sale falls under the standard rate. This is the confusion we meet most often on the phone. Somebody has ordered their shutters online, they are looking for a fitter, and they discover that the operation cannot be reassembled: on one side a sale concluded without us, on the other a fitting service. Nobody can put back together after the event what was separated at purchase. So that decision is taken before ordering, with full knowledge of what it costs.
The documents to gather
Collect everything beforehand, not during.
The company will have you sign a declaration covering the use of the premises, their age and the nature of the work. Find whatever establishes the completion date of the dwelling: the deed of sale, an old property tax notice, any document that carries weight. Then keep the quotation, the itemised invoice and the declaration together, in the same file. State your own situation too, because it changes how the paperwork is filled in: owner-occupier, landlord, or tenant having the work done with the owner’s agreement. In an apartment building, add the identification of the openings concerned and a note of the approval obtained if the appearance of the façade changes. That document is prepared well before the grant application, and we set out separately how to get approval for work in a copropriété.
When the energy suppliers are the ones paying
How the certificates work
Energy suppliers are required to contribute to energy-saving measures. To meet that obligation they fund work in people’s homes, directly or through specialist bodies, and collect the corresponding certificates in exchange. So the money is private, the framework is public, and the form the payment takes varies from one body to another: a cash sum, a voucher, a direct deduction from the invoice. Compare the offers, because for identical work they are not equivalent, and read exactly what each one covers before committing to any of them.
One rule dominates all the rest: the application comes before the quotation is signed.
Every season we are asked to reissue a quotation with a more convenient date because the file was forgotten. We refuse. That is not administrative rigidity: it is what saves you an unpleasant audit and a grant clawed back, long after the shutters are fitted and paid for.
Public grants and the zero-rate eco-loan
What the assessors look at
Public renovation grants always rest on the same levers: performance criteria bearing on the technical characteristics of the equipment, the use of a qualified company holding the required accreditations, sometimes a condition on income or on the age of the dwelling, and a file submitted before the work starts. The range of eligible work is revised regularly. Some campaigns favour whole-house renovations, others accept single measures, and a shutter is not treated the same way everywhere. An adviser will answer for the current period, which no article can do in their place.
The loan with no interest for you to pay
The zero-rate eco-loan funds energy improvement work through a partner bank, on the basis of quotations and a form describing the project. Two points of method: the application is prepared before you commit to the work, and the work funded has to match what the file describes. A loan does not lighten the spend, it spreads it, which helps when you are dealing with several façades or pairing shutters with new windows.
Local schemes, the most overlooked
A commune, an inter-communal authority, a department or a region may run schemes of their own, sometimes combinable, sometimes reserved for one area or one type of housing, sometimes attached to a façade renovation programme. Ask the planning or housing department at your town hall, then the local France Rénov’ advice point. A façade renovation already programmed on the building sometimes opens an interesting window: shutters dealt with at the same time fall inside a collective operation, and access to the façades is already organised. For a job in Grasse the answer will not be the answer in the next commune along.
That phone call is worth making.
The order to do things in
- Settle the technical project. Which openings, type of box, material, motor, colour: without a precise project no file can be assessed.
- Call the relevant desks before committing yourself, and note the technical criteria each of them expects.
- Have an itemised quotation drawn up stating the characteristics of the products, supply and fitting, opening by opening.
- File the grant and loan applications on the basis of that quotation, then wait for the written approvals.
- Only sign afterwards. Signing first risks a refusal on the grounds that the work predates the application.
- Have the work carried out in accordance with the approved quotation, with no unapproved changes.
- Send in the invoice and declarations, then file everything with your ownership documents.
A quotation written properly serves four different applications. One that says “roller shutters, lump sum” serves none: the assessor has nothing to check, and files it away. So we itemise the colour, the type of box, the motor chosen and the dimensions opening by opening, even when the customer has not asked for that much. You can see what that level of detail looks like across our aluminium and PVC roller shutters.
What we see go wrong most often
Files rarely fail on a technical detail. They fail on chronology, on a missing document, or on a decision taken too fast on a Saturday morning because an offer appeared to end on the Monday. Take the time it needs, even if the job slips a season.
- Signing or paying a deposit before the file has been submitted. The most frequent ground for refusal, with no way back.
- Buying the material yourself, then trying to qualify for the regime that applies to work.
- Confusing quotation and invoice: the first opens the process, the second settles it, and both have to describe the same products.
- Forgetting the apartment building, with a grant awarded and a general meeting that has voted nothing.
- Relying on a rate read last year, when only the official information of the moment carries weight.
That last mistake is the most ordinary, and the most expensive.
Three questions to ask before signing
Are these schemes automatic?
No. Only the reduced rate of VAT applies by itself, on the company’s invoice. The rest means a file, supporting documents, and a submission made before the work.
Can several schemes be combined?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no, according to the rules of each. Have the combination confirmed by an adviser before you sign.
Is my home eligible?
That depends on its age, its use, your own situation and the criteria in force. A France Rénov’ adviser can settle it in one conversation, with your project in front of them.
Check what is in force, then get going
Start with the desk, not with the order. The schemes and their conditions change regularly, and it is essential to check what applies before committing to the work: the public housing renovation service answers free of charge, on the France Rénov’ portal and on the French administration’s own site. Our part of the job is simpler: a usable quotation, technical characteristics written down in black and white, and invoicing that covers supply and fitting. See who we are at La Gaude, then price your project or put your questions to us.
For a property in Grasse, see our page on roller shutters in Grasse.
