French Payslip Explained

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How To Read A French Pay Slip?

In France, a “simplified” pay slip template became mandatory on January 1st, 2018. This new template cut the number of lines on the French pay slip in half. As a result, the pay slip sequences, which were organized by expense accounts, became clearer.

Nonetheless, understanding exactly what each line of a French payslip means can be difficult: from overly general headlines to confusion over specific calculations or simply too much information at once.

Mandatory Information On The French Pay Slip

Identity Of The Employer

  • Company name
  • Address
  • SIRET number: 14-digit establishment identifier, the first 9 representing the SIREN number (the company’s unique French business identification number, issued when the company was formed).
  • NAF code: assigned in accordance with the primary activity of the company and serving the French National Institute of Statistics (INSEE)

Pay Slip References

  • Covered period
  • Date of payment
  • Validity dates of the employment contract during the pay slip period

Paid Leave

  • CP N-1 denotes the number of days of paid leave accrued during the previous year. The typical time frame for accruing paid leave is from June 1st to May 31st.
  • CP N keeps track of the current period’s paid leave days.
  • Acquis: the number of days to be taken by the employee.
  • Total pris: the employee’s total number of paid leave days taken.
  • Solde: the total number of paid leave days available for use.

Staff And Social Security Number

  • The staff number is the employee’s company registration number.
  • NoSécu (French Social Security Number)
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Employee’s Identity And Address

Details of the position held by the employee

  • Job starting date
  • Position held within the company: job title
  • Seniority within the organization
  • Qualification (Qualif): employee status as defined by the collective bargaining agreement (employé, cadre).
  • Employee classification in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement
  • The law establishes an hourly minimum wage (SMIC Horaire) in euros.
  • The law establishes a social security threshold (Plafond sécu) that is used.

Collective Agreement

  • Screen printing industry (Industrie de la sérigraphie): the employee’s collective agreement must be stated at the bottom of the pay slip.

There should also be a link at the bottom of the pay slip to the portal www.service-public.fr, where more information about the pay slip and its new presentation can be found.

The Different Sections Of The Pay Slip (The Pay Slip Body)

Base Salary (Salaire de base)

The base salary is the gross salary before social security, and welfare payments are deducted. It excludes any bonuses or overtime payments.

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Gross Salary (Salaire brut)

The gross salary is the amount due to the employee under the terms of his or her employment contract before any required tax deductions. The gross salary includes compensation for actual working hours as well as various commissions or bonuses. It also considers sick leave, paid leave, and bank holidays.

Paid labor compensation results in the payment of contributions intended to cover various risks. These are then organized into different sections of the pay slip based on the covered risk. This is one of the most significant changes brought about by the new “simplified” pay slip.

Health (Santé)

  • Social Security – sickness, maternity, disability, death
  • Supplemental invalidity, incapacity, and death insurance
  • Supplemental health insurance
  • Occupational diseases or Workplace injuries (Maladies professionnelles or Accidents du travail)

Pension (Retraite)

  • Capped social security
  • Uncapped social security
  • Supplementary Tranche 1
  • Supplementary Tranche 2
  • Additional pension

Family / Social welfare (Famille / Sécurité Sociale)

Unemployment Insurance (Assurance chômage)

  • Unemployment
  • AGS tax (cover against the risk of non-payment of wages)
  • APEC tax (compulsory complementary unemployment contribution for the operation of the APEC, an association for the employees with the “cadre” status)

Other Contributions To Be Paid By The Employer (Autres contributions dues par l’employeur)

This section combines the contributions that are solely the responsibility of the employers: a transportation contribution or versement transport, a contribution to the national fund for housing assistance or FNAL, a contribution to finance actions for the autonomy of the elderly or disabled or CSA, a contribution called forfait social, an apprenticeship tax or taxe d’apprentissage, a contribution to finance labor unions or contribution au financement des organisations syndicales, and so on.

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Contributions Required By Law Or Mandated By A Collective Bargaining Agreement (Cotisations Obligatoires ou prévues par la convention collective)

This section is reserved for extremely rare circumstances, as it is uncommon for a collective agreement to impose a specific contribution other than the supplementary welfare contributions already mentioned in the Health section.

Deductible CSG – generalized social contribution, income tax-free (CSG déductible)

Employer Contributions Exemptions

This section addresses all exemptions from social contributions in favor of the employer, such as the general reduction of employer contributions (also known as Réduction Fillon).

Total Déductions (Total des retenues)

Net Taxable Income (Net imposable)

The net taxable income is the gross salary after deducting employee contributions.

Non-Deductible CSG/CRDS, Taxable (CSG/CRDS non-déductible)

  • Non-deductible CSG (generalized social contribution) is only partially tax deductible. It contributes to the Social Security system’s funding.
  • The social debt repayment contribution (CRDS) was established to fund the social security debt repayment fund (Caisse d’amortissement de la Dette Sociale – CADES).

Amount Payable Before Income Tax (Net à payer avant impôt sur le revenu)

The amount to be paid before income tax differs from the net taxable income because certain contributions are not deductible from the income tax base.

The line “don’t évolution de la rémunération liée à la suppression des cotisations salariales chômage et maladie,” which means “from which the compensation growth is related to the elimination of employee health and unemployment contributions,” emphasizes the surplus in the amount to be paid before income tax caused by these governmental measures.

Income Tax

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Tax Base (Base)

The net taxable income shown above is the income tax base.

Tax Rate (Taux)

  • Non-personalized rate or neutral rate: used when an employee chooses not to transmit his or her tax rate to his or her employer or when the tax administration fails to communicate the tax rate to the employer. This tax rate is determined by a tax grid and is based on the amount of the salary.
  • Personalized rate: calculated using the previous year’s declared household income. The two persons within the household will have the same tax rate.
  • Individualized rate: a tax administration calculation for each person in a taxable household rather than a single tax rate for both partners in a household.

Amount (Montant)

Income tax is calculated by multiplying the tax base by the tax rate.

Net Amount Paid In Euros (Net payé en euros)

The sum paid by the employer to the employee. It is calculated by subtracting the number of income tax from the amount to be paid before tax. 

Pay Slip Cumulations

Cumulations Of Hours And Days

  • Hours per period (Heures période): the total number of hours worked in a month.
  • Cumul of hours (cumul heures): the total number of hours worked since the start of the current year.
  • Overtime accumulation (Cumul h. sup): the number of overtime hours worked since the start of the current year.
  • Balance of recovery days:
    • Solde rep. remp.: the employee’s total number of recovery days for the month
    • Solde rep. récup.: number of employee recovery days taken in a month

Salary Cumulations

  • Bases cumulation (Cumul bases): sum of base salaries since the advent of the current fiscal year
  • Gross salary cumulation (Cumul bruts): total gross salary since the start of the year
  • Taxable income cumulation (Cumul imposable): a total of net taxable salaries since the start of the year
  • Enhanced overtime cumulation (Cumul H majorées): total number of increased overtime hours worked since the start of the year

Reduced Social Charges (allègement cotisations)

This line item includes all state-funded employer contribution exemptions and reductions.

Total To Be Paid By The Employer (total versé employeur)

The total cost of the employer’s salary (gross salary + employer contributions).

Final Words: How Do You Know If The Payslip Is Correct?

The different tax rates vary depending on the payroll indicators fixed by the French administration, on the new laws that are voted on regularly, and on the evolution of the 528 collective agreements regulating the relationships between employers and employees of various fields of activity. You can try FredPayroll’s experts and validate the payroll management process and pay slips that are compliant with the applicable regulations at any time.