Your day rate: how much do you take home each month?
Day rate and days billed: the calculator gives monthly take-home under the five possible set-ups.
Figures checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How we calculate
Household, company running costs, umbrella fees
accountant, bank, legal: your quotes
rate in your umbrella contract
Best take-home: EURL, corporate tax
€4,160
a month, after contributions and taxes, on €90,000 of turnover
| Legal form | Take-home | Contributions | Corp. tax + dividends | Income tax | Pay mix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro-enterprise(over the ceiling) | €4,405 | €1,935 | €0 | €910 | – |
| EI, real profit | €4,006 | €2,282 | €0 | €963 | – |
| EURL, corporate tax | €4,160 | €2,282 | €0 | €809 | all salary |
| SASU | €4,106 | €1,170 | €1,975 | €0 | 37 % of profit as pay |
| Umbrella (portage) | €3,218 | €2,956 | €0 | €475 | – |
EURL and SASU: all remaining profit is paid out as dividends under the 31.4 % flat tax. Zero pay earns no pension quarters.
Estimate only, using 2026 Urssaf rates and the 2026 tax scale, not tax advice: only the Urssaf and the tax office set your actual amounts. How we calculate
Freelancers think in day rates (TJM, taux journalier moyen), but income depends on the days actually billed and on the legal form. At €450 a day over 200 days, annual turnover is €90,000. As a micro-enterprise for professional services, the €83,600 ceiling is reached after 185 days: above it two years running, you must change regime. With €3,000 of expenses a year, the same rate leaves €4,006 a month as a sole trader on real profit, €4,160 in an EURL, €4,106 in a SASU with the best salary and dividend split, and €3,218 under umbrella employment with an 8 % management fee. Days you do not bill (holidays, finding clients, training, admin) earn nothing at all: that matters more than the legal form, and it is the first figure to test before choosing one.
What the calculator does with your day rate
It multiplies the day rate by the days billed to get turnover before VAT, then runs it through the same engine as the legal form comparison: micro-enterprise contributions at 25.6 % (Urssaf), the 2026 self-employed scale for the EI and EURL, the general scheme for a SASU president, corporate tax, the dividend flat tax and the umbrella pay grid. Take-home is after income tax for the household you pick.
| Legal form | Monthly take-home |
|---|---|
| Micro-enterprise (BNC) | over ceiling |
| EI, real profit | €4,006 |
| EURL, corporate tax | €4,160 |
| SASU | €4,106 |
| Umbrella employment | €3,218 |
Pages by day rate
Each level has its own question: at €300 micro stays open all year, at €400 the ceiling hits around two hundred days, at €500 a company becomes the norm, at €600 and at €800 the salary and dividend split matters most. For the choice of set-up itself, see freelance legal status. If you are new to France, note that day rates quoted by French clients are almost always before VAT (hors taxe, HT), and that the turnover ceilings and VAT thresholds apply to money actually received in the calendar year, not to what you invoiced.