Definition
A client accepts a €6,000 quotation on 15 December for a job starting in February. You ask for 30% upfront, and €1,800 lands on 20 December.
One question decides everything that follows: does that money already count for URSSAF, the social security collection agency, when you have not written a single line yet?
It does, and it has to be declared at the next deadline.
An acompte is a first payment set against an agreed price, handed over before the work is done.
It is neither a security deposit nor an advance you would hand back as a matter of course: it binds both sides firmly, the client to pay the balance, you to deliver.
In a micro-enterprise, a deposit becomes Turnover on the day the money reaches the account, before any work has started.
The accepted Quotation sets its amount, its due date and its legal nature, and that last line carries the most weight.
What a deposit triggers on arrival
It all follows from the Cash receipt rule: only the payment date counts.
The deposit therefore goes into the Turnover declaration for the month or quarter in which it is received, and the matching contributions fall due at that deadline, without waiting for the job to end.
It also goes into the current calendar year for two counters that have nothing to do with each other: the micro regime ceiling, €83,600 in 2026 for services and liberal professions, and the VAT exemption thresholds.
This is where most guides get it wrong. Everywhere you read that those counters fill up with what you invoice: they fill up with what you actually receive.
A deposit received on 20 December weighs on the year that is ending, while an invoice issued on 18 December and settled on 6 January weighs on the next one.
For a service provider the basic VAT threshold is €37,500 in 2026, and crossing the higher one of €41,250 makes you liable that very day: the deposit that takes you over the line decides what the following invoices must look like.
Those two figures are a sub-threshold, never stand-alone ones: in 2026 your total turnover must also stay below €85,000 for the previous year and €93,500 for the current one.
€1,800 received on 20 December
Take that €6,000 job again, for a freelance developer in an unregulated liberal profession (BNC, non-commercial profits) under the general scheme rather than the Cipav pension fund.
December 2026 is declared at €1,800. At the 25.6% rate applying in 2026 to those activities, social contributions come to €460.80.
On top of that sits the CFP (contribution à la formation professionnelle, the vocational training levy), 0.2% of turnover for a liberal profession in 2026, which is €3.60, and which falls due as soon as a positive turnover was declared in the previous calendar year.
URSSAF collects €464.40, leaving €1,335.60 before income tax.
No contribution rate ever covers income tax, nor the chamber levy owed by traders and craftspeople.
Under the versement libératoire (the flat-rate income tax option), tax is settled at the same time, 2.2% of turnover in 2026 for a BNC activity, so €39.60 more: €504 in all, and €1,296 genuinely available.
Without that option, the deposit swells the taxable income on your annual tax return.
With it, the turnover still has to be reported there: that second entry does not tax it a second time, it feeds the revenu fiscal de référence (the reference tax income).
The remaining €4,200, received in March 2027, follows the same arithmetic, but in the 2027 year.
Acompte, arrhes and the deposit invoice
The first two words circulate as synonyms when they describe opposite commitments. An acompte binds definitively: whoever walks away is still held to the contract and owes compensation.
Arrhes, by contrast, open a paid exit, set out in article 1590 of the civil code, where the client walks away by forfeiting them and the professional by paying back double.
The word you fail to write is chosen for you.
For a contract with a consumer, and unless the contract says otherwise, sums paid in advance are arrhes, states article L214-1 of the code de la consommation (consumer code).
A silent quotation therefore lets the client back out by simply giving up what was paid, and exposes you to refunding twice the amount if you are the one who pulls out.
Writing the word acompte explicitly on the quotation and in your Terms and conditions is enough to reverse the rule.
Between professionals the presumption does not apply, but a silent contract is always paid for in argument.
Then comes the paperwork.
The sum received is recorded on a Deposit invoice, numbered in the same series as the others and later deducted from the closing invoice, so the client does not pay the same share twice.
Under the VAT exemption scheme it carries the exemption wording your other invoices already carry, "TVA non applicable, article 293 B du CGI", one of the three accepted formulations and the one in force until 31 December 2026.
From 1 January 2027, VAT rules move to a new code and this wording becomes "TVA non applicable, article L. 233-3 du CIBS"; the old one remains accepted until 30 June 2028.
Frequently asked questions
The job is cancelled: does the deposit stay in my turnover?
As long as the money stays in your account, yes: it was received, declared, and contributions were paid on it.
If you choose to refund it, correcting the turnover already declared is in no way automatic and has to be requested from URSSAF, keeping proof of the return transfer.
What percentage can I ask for upfront?
No text sets a floor or a ceiling for an ordinary service: the percentage is a clause of the quotation, which the client either accepts or does not.
The real yardstick is your cash position, since contributions on the sum received often fall due before the job has even started.
On a job running over several months, the real answer is not a bigger deposit but a Progress invoice at each stage delivered: it bills work already done, and stays payable even if the job stops there.
Should a deposit show any VAT?
No, never, for as long as you benefit from the basic exemption.
Any VAT written on a deposit invoice makes you liable for it purely because you wrote it, with no right to deduct VAT on your own purchases, and your client cannot deduct it either: that money is simply lost.
Can a deposit push me over a threshold?
Yes, and over two different thresholds that must not be confused.
The micro regime ceiling, €83,600 in 2026 for a service activity, is only lost after two consecutive years above it, and you leave the scheme on the following 1 January.
The VAT exemption thresholds have no bearing on your status and move much faster: for a service provider in 2026, going over €37,500 across the year costs the exemption on the following 1 January, while crossing €41,250 during the year costs it that very day.
Compliant quotation spells the word out on the document, and works out what the deposit comes to on the total.