EURL or SASU: which one-person company pays you more?
Both are single-shareholder companies paying the same corporate tax, but the director’s social security status changes what reaches your bank account.
Figures checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How we calculate
EURL or SASU with your turnover
The EURL leaves extra a year
€711
| EURL, monthly take-home | €4,038 |
| EURL, share paid as salary | 100 % |
| SASU, monthly take-home | €3,979 |
| SASU, share paid as salary | 39 % |
On the same profit and with no staff, an EURL leaves its owner slightly more in 2026 than a SASU at small and mid-range profit levels, and the SASU takes over once profit gets large. An EURL (entreprise unipersonnelle à responsabilité limitée, a one-member limited company) and a SASU (société par actions simplifiée unipersonnelle, a one-shareholder simplified company) both pay IS, French corporate tax, at 15 % up to €42,500 and 25 % above. With €80,000 of profit before your own pay, a solo consultant keeps €46,497 a year through an EURL against €45,695 through a SASU, each set to its best mix of pay and dividends. Our engine has the SASU pulling ahead from roughly €255,000 of profit, with €1,000 of share capital. The gap comes from the director’s status: the EURL manager is a TNS (travailleur non salarié, self-employed) on lighter rates, but dividends above 10 % of capital bear those contributions too; the SASU president is treated like an employee, pays more on salary, has no unemployment cover, yet takes dividends charged only the 31.4 % flat tax.
The numbers, from modest to large profit
To isolate the effect of the legal form, the table starts from profit before the director’s pay, with no costs and no staff, and lets the engine find in each company the pay and dividend mix that leaves the most disposable income. French income tax is included, for a single person with no other income.
| Profit | EURL take-home / yr | Share as pay | SASU take-home / yr | Share as salary | Ahead |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| €40,000 | €26,242 | 100 % | €23,324 | 0 % | EURL |
| €80,000 | €46,497 | 100 % | €45,695 | 41 % | EURL |
| €120,000 | €67,744 | 100 % | €66,255 | 27 % | EURL |
| €200,000 | €108,706 | 65 % | €107,395 | 16 % | EURL |
| €300,000 | €156,944 | 65 % | €158,820 | 11 % | SASU |
The two companies are run in opposite ways. The EURL is best used almost entirely through the manager’s pay: at €40,000 of profit the best share is 100 %. The SASU pays a small salary and distributes the rest: only 16 % of profit as salary at €200,000. The lines cross at around €255,000 of annual profit. Below that point the EURL’s lead is a few hundred to a few thousand euros a year, small next to the other factors.
Where the gap comes from: two social security systems
The EURL manager is self-employed
As sole member and manager you count as a TNS. Contributions follow the 2026 self-employed scale: health on a sliding rate, basic pension at 17.87 % up to the ceiling, supplementary pension at 8.1 %, CSG-CRDS social levies at 9.7 %. Since the reform of the contribution base, everything is worked out on your pay plus the contributions the company covers, minus 26 %. On a €40,000 budget the total is €12,419.
The SASU president is treated like an employee
You join the régime général, the scheme that covers employees, and pay contributions much like an executive: health at 13 % on the company side, old-age pension, Agirc-Arrco supplementary pension, CSG-CRDS. The private-sector rates apply without unemployment insurance, since you have no employment contract with your own company. For the same €40,000 cost you receive €22,555 net, against €27,581 for the EURL manager. That extra cost is what pushes a SASU towards dividends.
Dividends: same tax, different social treatment
In both companies a dividend comes out of profit that has already paid corporate tax, then bears the PFU flat tax of 31.4 %: 12.8 % income tax and 18.6 % social levies. In an EURL, the part above 10 % of capital, share premium and current accounts joins the manager’s contribution base, and the engine does not charge social levies on it a second time. The full mechanism is on EURL dividends.
What take-home pay leaves out
If you are moving to France from a country where company directors are all treated alike, this is the part to weigh. A SASU president who draws little or no salary validates no pension quarters (the units French pension rights are counted in) and builds no sick-pay entitlement: the engine’s dividend-heavy mix comes at that price. An EURL manager paid mostly through pay contributes every year to the self-employed basic and supplementary pensions. The president never gets unemployment benefit for the director role. We do not put a figure on these rights and publish no pension estimate.
Start-up relief works the same in both. Since 2026, Acre is requested from the Urssaf, the body that collects social contributions, within 60 days of starting, provided you belong to an eligible group and genuinely control the company.
Three cases where the answer is quick
Expected profit under €42,500 and a wish to keep paying into a pension point to the EURL: better take-home, and pay is the natural route anyway. Profit lastingly above €255,000, or a plan to build up cash and distribute later, favours the SASU, whose dividends carry no contributions. In between, the difference in take-home is thin, so the cover you want and the capital you can put in matter more than the arithmetic.
To fine-tune the split, use salary or dividends for a SASU and the EURL calculator for a manager; contributions are detailed on TNS contributions and SASU president pay. These are estimates based on published rates, not personal advice: the Urssaf and the French tax office set the actual amounts.