Definition
December 2025.
Camille, a graphic designer registered two years earlier, opens her espace professionnel (business account) and finds a CFE notice, the cotisation foncière des entreprises, payable by 15 December.
She had read everywhere that an auto-entrepreneur pays nothing "for the first three years". She was indeed exempt, once, and not in the year she expected.
A CFE exemption is a case where CFE is not due, even though the activity falls within its scope. Several exist, and they differ in both origin and strength.
Only one is automatic and applies to everyone: the exemption for the year of creation. The others depend on a vote by your local council, on the nature of your activity, or on a level of receipts.
The year-of-creation exemption
Article 1478, II of the French tax code sets it out with no conditions attached: no CFE is due for the year the business is created.
It is not applied for, not earned, and it covers every business whatever its legal form.
The trap is not in the rule, it is in the date.
For a micro-entrepreneur with no employees, the year of creation for CFE purposes is the first year in which you generate Turnover, not the year you registered: with no receipts, the activity is deemed not to have started.
Registering in the autumn and invoicing your first client the following January therefore pushes the exemption back a year, and the first tax bill with it.
"An auto-entrepreneur pays no CFE for two or three years" is the most copied sentence on the subject, and it has been false since 2014.
The temporary exemption specific to auto-entrepreneurs, set out in article 1464 K, was repealed by the 2014 finance act.
All that remains is the year-of-creation exemption that every business gets.
The full sequence, on round numbers
Camille registers in October 2023 and invoices nothing before January 2024. Her 2024 turnover comes to €18,000. Here is what she owes, year by year.
- 2023: nothing. With no receipts, the activity has not begun for CFE purposes, and the October registration triggers no tax at all.
- 2024: nothing either. This is her year of creation, the article 1478 exemption applies, and it applies exactly once.
- 2025: first year of taxation. The reference period is the year before last, meaning 2023, with no activity: the administration therefore uses 2024 and its €18,000. Where that first year of receipts is incomplete, the turnover is first scaled up to twelve months, which can push an activity started mid-year over a threshold. Above €5,000 excluding tax, the minimum contribution is due.
- 2026: reference period 2024, still €18,000. Camille falls in the band above €10,000 and up to €32,600, whose minimum base sits between €250 and €1,194 in 2026. The amount actually due depends on the rate voted by her local authority: the national scale only sets the calculation base, and the notice is read in the business account.
Change one figure and everything shifts: with €4,000 collected in 2024, Camille would have stayed below the €5,000 excluding tax threshold, threshold included, and would have owed no minimum contribution in 2025 or in 2026.
Exemptions that depend on a council vote or a status
Some councils vote a three-year exemption for new businesses, under article 1478 bis. Two warnings before counting on it.
It runs from the year following creation, so years 2, 3 and 4, and it requires a vote by the council or intercommunal authority covering your Business address: check with them, never treat it as an acquired right.
Official sources disagree on which form to file, so put the question to your service des impôts des entreprises (local business tax office).
Three other cases come up often.
Independent home-sales agents are exempt where their total gross remuneration stays below €7,930 in 2026, an amount equal to 16.5% of the annual social security ceiling, set at €48,060 in 2026, and revalued each year.
Furnished rentals enjoy a permanent exemption for renting out part of your own home.
It also covers classified tourist rentals and chambres d'hôtes, the French bed and breakfasts, unless the council decides otherwise.
Two conditions apply together: the premises form part of your own home, and they are neither the main nor the secondary residence of the tenant.
Finally, some craft and artistic activities are permanently exempt, each with precise conditions attached: check your own situation on the official fact sheet and with your local business tax office rather than on a summarised list.
What looks like an exemption but is not one
Three mechanisms pass themselves off as exemptions, and confusing them is expensive. The first is the €5,000 excluding-tax threshold.
Below it you escape the minimum contribution, not the CFE itself: a business whose premises have a rental value above the minimum base is still taxed on that real value.
Of no consequence for most micro-entrepreneurs, but wrong in law.
The second is the halving of the tax base granted in the first year of taxation.
It applies to the real base, and the Minimum CFE base automatically replaces real bases that fall below it: a micro-entrepreneur with no premises pays the full minimum base, halving or not.
The third is a look-alike figure: the Chamber of commerce levy also has a €5,000 threshold, but it is a different charge, paid to Urssaf, and its reference year should be checked in your Urssaf account.
Add ACRE to the list, which reduces social contributions and has never touched a local tax.
Claiming, proving, disputing
Two forms, regularly mixed up. Form 1447-C-SD is the initial return, to be filed by 31 December of the year of creation.
Form 1447-M-SD covers changes and exemption claims: for the CFE due in 2027, it must be filed by Tuesday 5 May 2026 at the latest.
A notice received while you have generated no receipts at all entitles you to ask your local business tax office to cancel it.
You still have to see it arrive: the CFE notice is no longer posted out and is read in your espace professionnel on impots.gouv.fr, failing which the late-payment surcharge lands unannounced.
One last situation amounts to a partial exemption.
Where the business ceases, no CFE is due for the remaining months of the year, and that reduction is claimed from the local business tax office after your Deregistration.
The asymmetry is worth knowing: where the business is simply handed over to a new operator, the previous operator remains liable for the entire year, and the new operator files a 1447-C-SD of their own by 31 December of the year of the takeover.
Frequently asked questions
I have invoiced nothing this year: am I exempt from CFE?
As long as no receipts have come in, the activity is deemed not to have started for a micro-entrepreneur with no employees, and the first year of turnover becomes the exempt year of creation.
If a notice reaches you anyway, ask your local business tax office to cancel it and explain the situation.
My council voted the three-year exemption: does that mean I pay nothing for three years from creation?
No, the starting point is the year following creation, which covers years 2, 3 and 4.
Combined with the year-of-creation exemption it can therefore span four consecutive years, but only where the local vote exists: ask your council or intercommunal authority before building your cash flow around it.
Does ACRE exempt me from paying CFE?
No, the two schemes never meet. ACRE reduces the social contributions paid to Urssaf on your declared turnover during the first quarters of activity.
CFE is a local tax collected by the tax administration for your council, and no social measure wipes it out.
I work from home with no business premises: does that exempt me?
No, and this is the most widespread belief about this tax.
Having no premises simply makes the real base negligible, and the minimum base automatically replaces it, calculated from the turnover band you fall into.
You remain liable for the minimum contribution voted by your local council.