Self-employed in France: what you actually keep in 2026

How take-home pay is worked out

Everything starts from the turnover you actually receive, before VAT. A micro-entrepreneur deducts no expenses for social contributions: the Urssaf, France’s social contribution collector, applies a fixed rate to what you declare each month or quarter, and that rate covers health, basic and supplementary pension, disability and death cover, family benefits and the CSG-CRDS social levies in one go (service-public, sheet F36232). The calculator applies those rates, then adds three items people tend to forget.

First, the training levy (CFP): 0.1 % of turnover for traders, 0.3 % for craftspeople, 0.2 % for freelance professions (autoentrepreneur.urssaf.fr). Second, the chamber levy collected for the chamber of commerce (CCI) or the trades chamber: 0.044 % of turnover for commercial services, 0.48 % for craft services (sheet F32847). Third, income tax, worked out on the 2026 scale with family shares (the quotient familial), the low-income discount (décote) and your household’s other income, or as the flat-rate option (versement libératoire) if you chose it.

The result is your take-home pay: what lands in your personal account once everything is paid, divided by twelve. That is the figure to compare with a salary offer, unemployment benefit or another legal form.

A worked example

A freelance translator living in Lyon bills €60,000 in 2026. She pays €15,360 in contributions and €120 of training levy. The tax office counts €39,600 of taxable income after the 34 % allowance, which means €4,984 of income tax for a single person. She keeps €39,536 for the year before CFE, or €3,295 a month. Her turnover is above the €37,500 VAT threshold, so she now adds VAT to her invoices; her turnover before VAT does not change, but her prices for private clients do.

Why your commune changes the result

The Urssaf’s own calculator, the one every other site points to, leaves out the cotisation foncière des entreprises (CFE), the local business tax. Yet it is the only tax of a micro-entrepreneur that depends on where the business is registered. Without business premises, the CFE is levied on a minimum base each commune sets for six turnover bands, between €250 and €7,769, multiplied by the CFE rate of the commune and its intercommunal authority (service-public, sheet F23547). Two people with the same turnover can pay anywhere from one to more than five times as much.

This site took the rates and minimum bases the French tax administration (DGFiP) publishes commune by commune in its REI 2025 file under an open licence: 34,905 communes, all available in the calculator. Rates voted for 2026 will only be published in 2027; the 2025 ones are the latest, and the calculator says so. The big-city table above shows the gap for the same turnover. The start-up exemption and the half base in year two are explained on the CFE page.

The 2026 rules that change the numbers

The freelance rate is now 25.6 %

Unregulated freelance professions, from consultants to coaches and trainers, have seen their rate rise in steps since July 2024 to fund a better supplementary pension. On 1 January 2026 it reached 25.6 %. Sales and commercial service rates are unchanged. The breakdown by activity is on micro-enterprise contributions.

The turnover ceilings went up

For 2026 income, the scheme stays open if turnover in 2024 or 2025 was at most €203,100 for sales and €83,600 for services (sheet F32353). The €188,700 and €77,700 figures you still see online are the old ones. One year above the ceiling is tolerated; two years in a row take you out of the scheme. First-year pro-rating is explained on the turnover ceiling page.

Acre relief is no longer automatic

Since 1 January 2026 the social security budget law limits Acre to people in specific situations (jobseekers, RSA recipients, under-26s, priority neighbourhoods, rural revitalisation zones and a few others) and requires an application within 60 days (Urssaf). For activities started up to 30 June 2026 it halves contributions; from 1 July 2026 it only removes a quarter. On €24,000 of commercial services, that is a saving of €2,544 in the first case and €1,272 in the second over the covered period. See Acre relief.

The VAT exemption thresholds stay

The single €25,000 threshold proposed in the 2025 budget law was dropped: in 2026 you charge no VAT up to €37,500 for services and €85,000 for sales, with a tolerance up to €41,250 and €93,500 (sheet F21746). The calculator tells you which zone your turnover falls in; what follows is on VAT for micro-entrepreneurs.

Income tax: scale or flat-rate option

Without the option, your turnover joins the household’s other income after a flat allowance of 71 % for sales, 50 % for commercial services and 34 % for professional fees, with a minimum of €305 (sheet F23267). France taxes couples jointly, so the calculator works out the household’s tax with and without your business and attributes the difference to it: the fair way to measure what the business costs in tax when your partner earns a salary.

With the flat-rate option, tax is collected together with contributions at 1 %, 1.7 % or 2.2 % of turnover (impots.gouv.fr). It is reserved for households whose reference tax income two years earlier was at most €29,315 per share for 2026 and €29,579 for 2027. The side-by-side calculation is on the flat-rate income tax option.

Would a company leave you more?

The micro-enterprise is simple, but it taxes turnover, not profit. When real expenses exceed the flat allowance, or turnover nears the ceiling, a sole trader on real profit (EI), a single-member limited company (EURL) or a simplified joint-stock company (SASU) can leave more in your pocket. The legal form comparison takes your turnover and works out all five options with the 2026 rules, including the reformed self-employed scale: contributions on income less a 26 % allowance, a progressive health rate up to 8.5 %, supplementary pension at 8.1 % (Urssaf). For the EURL and SASU it also searches for the salary and dividend split that leaves you the most.

What the calculator does not do

It ignores optional minimum contributions, overseas reduced rates, mixed activities (selling and services in one business), furnished letting, and tax credits or reductions. It does not replace your returns: only the Urssaf and the tax office set your amounts. Every formula, source and the checks against the Urssaf’s published model are on how we calculate.