Cultural goods export license
Document the State issues, or refuses, before a cultural good above the age and value thresholds leaves the territory.
In France, a painting over fifty years old and worth more than 300,000 euros cannot leave the country without a certificate from the Ministry of Culture, which may refuse it only after hearing the advisory commission on national treasures. For drawings, the threshold is 30,000 euros, under the decree of December 28, 2020. EU Regulation 116/2009 adds a license for exit from the Union, with lower thresholds of its own: 150,000 euros for a painting, 15,000 for a drawing. A refusal makes the work a national treasure and opens thirty months during which the State may make a purchase offer. For the underwriter of a sale, the certificate is a condition precedent. A buyer who has paid for a painting he cannot ship holds an immobilized asset. The transit policy does not cover that delay: no physical damage, only a legal bar. Dealers' policies usually exclude seizure or confiscation by authorities. A work traveling for an exhibition goes through the same formality, under a temporary regime.
Textbook case: a New York collector buys an eighteenth-century landscape for 900,000 euros at a Paris sale. The certificate is refused and the State starts classification. For the thirty months of the procedure the painting stays in France in the seller's storage; the buyer has paid but cannot have the painting, and no loss has occurred.
cultural goods export licence, export licence for artworks, export certificate cultural property, art export permit
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