Definition
You are an architect, you are starting out as a micro-entrepreneur, and everything you have read says a liberal professional contributes at 25.6%. Your first payment schedule shows 23.2%.
Nothing has gone wrong: you are attached to Cipav, not to the general scheme.
Cipav, short for Caisse interprofessionnelle de prévoyance et d'assurance vieillesse, is the pension fund of a closed list of regulated liberal professions.
It is not a legal status, and not a tax category: it is the body that handles your pension and your invalidity-death cover. The list is set by article L640-1 of the French social security code.
It includes architects, chartered surveyors, consulting engineers and osteopaths. It also covers psychologists, tourist guides, ski instructors and mountain guides, among others.
Any liberal activity missing from that list falls under Self-employed social security, which is attached to the general scheme.
What Cipav covers, and what it does not
You pay a single flat-rate contribution to URSSAF, which then splits it between risks.
As at 1 January 2026, for a Cipav member, out of every 100 euros of contributions paid, 30.70 euros go to the Supplementary pension and 29.50 euros to the basic pension.
Another 27.00 euros go to CSG-CRDS, the general social levies.
The rest splits into 10.60 euros for health cover, 1.40 euros for invalidity-death cover and 0.80 euros for daily sickness benefit.
Pension therefore absorbs 60.20 euros out of every 100 in 2026, and the supplementary pension weighs more heavily than the basic one: this is the only one of the three breakdowns published by URSSAF where that order is reversed.
Your medical care and your sick leave, on the other hand, do not go through Cipav: your local caisse primaire d'assurance maladie (health insurance fund) reimburses you and pays the daily benefit.
Cipav pays the pension, the CPAM pays for health.
23.2% in 2026: the calculation on 40,000 euros
Social contributions for a Cipav member come to 23.2% of the turnover collected in 2026, a rate that has been stable since 1 July 2024 and is unchanged this year, as URSSAF states in its news item on contribution rates.
An interior architect collecting 40,000 euros in 2026 therefore pays 9,280 euros in contributions, plus 80 euros of Vocational training contribution, set at 0.2% of turnover for liberal professions and due as soon as turnover was declared in the previous calendar year: 9,360 euros in all for URSSAF.
Income tax is worked out separately, and never sits inside that rate.
Same turnover, a non-regulated copywriter falls under the general scheme and contributes at 25.6% in 2026, so 10,240 euros, plus the same 80 euros.
A 2.4-point gap in 2026 is 960 euros a year on 40,000 euros collected: the word "liberal" is never enough to settle a rate.
The claim that "all liberal professions are at 25.6% in 2026" is false, and the opposite claim is just as false.
A developer, a graphic designer or an independent consultant does not appear on the article L640-1 list: applying 23.2% on the grounds that the activity is a liberal one means under-providing every single quarter.
Whichever way round the mistake goes, the adjustment lands in the same place.
Quarters, Acre and ceiling: three rules of Cipav's own
Pension quarter validation is the only ground on which URSSAF still publishes a turnover figure per activity in 2026, and that table applies to Cipav alone: 2,792 euros validate one quarter, 5,584 euros two, 8,376 euros three and 11,168 euros four.
An osteopath attached to Cipav who collects 10,000 euros in 2026 validates three quarters, and is 1,168 euros short of the fourth.
These amounts transfer to no other activity, since no table is published for craftspeople, traders and non-regulated liberal professionals.
The ACRE (start-up contribution relief) also follows a line of its own.
For an activity created up to 30 June 2026, the reduced Cipav rate is 13.4%, and it is 17.4% for one created from 1 July 2026: the Cipav rate does not rise mid-year, it is the relief that drops from half to a quarter of contributions for businesses started in the second half of 2026.
That 13.4% is not half of 23.2%, and it is not a typo: CSG-CRDS and the supplementary pension are never exempted, which mechanically pushes the rate actually paid back up.
The turnover ceiling, finally, follows a rule you will find nowhere else: a Cipav member stays capped at 83,600 euros in 2026, and that amount is measured against total turnover, mixed activities included.
An architect who also sold goods would not get back the 203,100 euros of the sales ceiling that applies in 2026, everything stays on the same line.
Cipav, BNC and SSI: three words people mix up
BNC is a tax category, Cipav is a pension fund, and the SSI (sécurité sociale des indépendants) is a social security scheme.
An architect declares BNC income while contributing to Cipav, and the 23.2% Cipav rate applies in 2026 to BIC activities just as much as to BNC ones.
What places you with Cipav is the regulated nature of your profession, not the tax box you tick nor the APE code printed on your registration notice.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know whether my activity falls under Cipav?
Your affiliation is decided when you declare the start of your activity, against the closed list in article L640-1 of the social security code, and URSSAF then notifies you which fund you belong to.
If doubt remains, the first payment schedule settles it: it shows 23.2% in 2026 for a Cipav member, against 25.6% for a liberal professional under the general scheme.
I am a developer, designer or independent consultant: am I with Cipav?
No. Those trades are not regulated liberal professions, so they fall under the general scheme, with an overall rate of 25.6% in 2026 for a BNC activity.
Picking a consulting or engineering APE code changes nothing at all: it is the regulation of the profession that decides the fund, never the activity code.
Acre cuts my contributions: am I going to lose pension rights?
No.
Your rights are calculated on the flat-rate contribution that would have been due without the relief, on one condition people often forget to mention: being up to date with paying your contributions.
Late payment does cost you rights, because validation rests on contributions actually paid, not on those that fell due.