Umbrella employment or micro-enterprise: one day rate, two incomes
An umbrella company turns your turnover into an executive’s salary; the micro-enterprise scheme taxes it directly. Here is the gap, assignment by assignment.
Figures checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How we calculate
Umbrella or micro-enterprise for your day rate
Monthly gap
€1,045
| Umbrella, monthly | €2,794 |
| Micro (BNC), monthly | €3,839 |
| Annual turnover | €72,000 |
Umbrella employment gives unemployment rights and pays more into pensions.
If you want to freelance in France without setting up a company, two routes are common. As an auto-entrepreneur (micro-entrepreneur), you invoice clients yourself and pay contributions as a share of turnover. Under portage salarial, French umbrella employment, an umbrella company invoices the client and pays you a salary. For the same rate, the micro-enterprise leaves more money, because a salary carries an executive’s employer and employee contributions plus the umbrella company’s management fee. At €400 a day for 180 days, €72,000 of turnover, a single consultant keeps €3,839 a month after income tax as a micro-entrepreneur, against €2,854 under umbrella employment with a 5 % fee and €2,750 with 10 %. Those fees are assumptions: each umbrella company sets its own by contract and no official scale exists. The micro route stops at €83,600 of turnover; the umbrella route needs enough turnover to fund a gross salary of at least €2,517.13 a month.
Two opposite mechanisms
As a micro-entrepreneur you invoice clients yourself, and the Urssaf, the body that collects French social contributions, takes a percentage of the turnover you receive: 25.6 % for an unregulated freelance profession in 2026 (Urssaf, key facts about the scheme). What remains after income tax is yours. Under portage salarial the umbrella company invoices your client, keeps its management fee and spends the balance on your salary: employer contributions, employee contributions, then net pay (service-public, sheet F31620). An umbrella employee always has executive (cadre) status.
The take-home gap therefore has two sources: the management fee, which does not exist in the micro scheme, and heavier social contributions, since an executive’s salary funds more risks. Income tax plays a part too. French income tax is not charged on the full amount: salary gets a 10 % flat allowance for work expenses, while freelance micro turnover gets a 34 % one standing in for all business costs. The engine applies both before working out the tax.
Three assignments compared
The figures below come from the engine for a single person with no other income and no business expenses. The step from salary cost to net pay uses a grid computed with the model the Urssaf publishes. The two fee levels are input assumptions chosen to bracket the result: no official scale sets them.
| Assignment | Turnover | Umbrella, 5 % fee | Umbrella, 10 % fee | Micro-enterprise (BNC) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| €300 × 160 days | €48,000 | €2,149 | €2,070 | €2,751 |
| €400 × 180 days | €72,000 | €2,854 | €2,750 | €3,839 |
| €500 × 180 days | €90,000 | €3,405 | €3,257 | over the ceiling |
At €500 a day for 180 days, turnover of €90,000 exceeds the micro-enterprise ceiling. One year over is tolerated; two consecutive years move you to the real-profit regime (service-public, sheet F32353). Umbrella employment carries on regardless, paying €3,405 a month on the low fee assumption.
The smallest assignment, €300 a day over 160 days, sits in the zone where both routes are open: €48,000 is above the umbrella entry threshold worked out below and well under the micro ceiling. There the micro-enterprise keeps €602 a month more than umbrella employment at a 5 % fee. Moving up to €400 a day, the gap grows to €984, because both the fee and the salary contributions scale with what you bill.
What the gap buys
An umbrella employee is not self-employed. The salary carries unemployment insurance contributions, an executive’s supplementary pension and provident cover, none of which the micro scheme funds. On a €400 day rate, that extra protection costs €984 of monthly take-home with a 5 % fee. Weigh that sum against how much those guarantees matter to you.
On a permanent umbrella contract, a financial reserve of 10 % of the last assignment’s base salary is built up for periods without a client, and pay includes a 5 % business-introduction bonus. These smooth the gaps a little. The micro scheme does nothing of the kind: with no money coming in nothing is owed, but nothing is paid to you either.
The entry threshold for umbrella employment
Umbrella employment is not open at any turnover. Gross pay cannot fall below €2,517.13 a month. With our two fee assumptions, the assignment must bring in at least €40,400 a year at 5 %, or €42,700 at 10 %. A business starting slowly, with a few days a month, will not reach that and fits the micro-enterprise scheme better.
You also need a minimum qualification or experience and must find your own clients; the detailed conditions and the full money trail are on the umbrella employment calculator.
Arriving in France: which route first
Umbrella employment suits someone who wants to test freelancing while staying an employee on paper, with enough turnover to reach the minimum salary. The micro-enterprise suits a gradual start or an activity that stays under the ceiling, and it leaves more take-home. Other set-ups sit in between: the freelance legal status guide puts them side by side, and freelance professions under the micro scheme covers how consultants are treated as micro-entrepreneurs.
These amounts are estimates using assumed management fees. They bind neither the Urssaf, nor any umbrella company, nor the tax office, and do not replace advice on your own contract.