Definition
A family pays for three nights at your campsite with chèques-vacances (holiday vouchers).
You send the vouchers to the ANCV, and the transfer that lands a few days later is smaller than the amount printed on them.
What follows decides your contributions: do you declare what the customer paid, or what the bank received? What the customer paid.
A chèque-vacances is a payment voucher issued by the ANCV (Agence nationale pour les chèques-vacances, the national holiday voucher agency), bought by an employer, a works council or a local authority and handed to an employee for leisure and holidays.
It comes in two forms, the paper Chèque-Vacances Classic and the Chèque-Vacances Connect paid from an app.
On your side of the counter it is a payment method like any other: it becomes Turnover at face value, and its Cash receipt follows the same rules as a bank transfer.
The convention, your entry ticket
You do not accept holiday vouchers simply because a customer offers them: you must be conventionné (approved) by the ANCV, which keeps the register of businesses allowed to take them.
Approval assumes an activity in accommodation, catering, transport, culture, sport or leisure, and both your APE code and the activity actually declared at the guichet unique (the single business formalities window) are used to assess it.
A developer, a designer or a consultant has no access to it, whoever their clients are.
The convention sets the commission withheld on reimbursements and any joining fee.
Those amounts vary by voucher type and from one year to the next: read them on the convention you sign rather than on a forum.
What never moves is their accounting nature, and that is the only point to remember: they are a cost, and a cost is never subtracted from turnover under the micro scheme.
One month of the season, with the numbers
A crêperie takes in €3,000 over a month, €1,200 of it in holiday vouchers. The turnover declared to URSSAF is €3,000, not the net amount transferred by the ANCV.
Eat-in catering counts as the sale of food: social contributions come to 12.3% in 2026, which is €369.
On top of that sit the CFP (contribution à la formation professionnelle, the vocational training levy), 0.1% for a trader in 2026, so €3, due as soon as turnover was declared in the previous calendar year, and the chamber of commerce levy, 0.015% of turnover for catering in 2026, so €0.45.
That chamber levy only starts in your second year of business, and never applies below €5,000 of turnover: your Urssaf account states which reference year is used.
None of these rates covers income tax, and none covers the ANCV commission.
On the income tax side, those €3,000 are reduced by the Standard allowance, 71% in 2026 for sales and catering, leaving €870 of taxable income.
That allowance stands in for every real expense you have, the ANCV commission included: which is exactly why trying to deduct it anywhere else leads nowhere.
The mistake that comes back every summer is copying the ANCV transfer amount into the Income ledger.
That under-declares turnover: contributions come out too low, and the gap shows up at once when bank records are matched during an audit.
The face value of the vouchers also fills your ceiling and VAT counters: the micro-scheme ceiling, €203,100 in 2026 for sales and catering, but €83,600 in 2026 for a holiday cottage or a bed and breakfast, and the VAT threshold, €85,000 of turnover in 2025 then €93,500 during 2026.
For eat-in catering and accommodation it is that overall threshold which applies, never the sub-threshold reserved for services in 2026, €37,500.
Holiday voucher, gift card, discount
Three things look alike and are treated differently. A commercial discount lowers the price, and therefore the turnover you take in.
A holiday voucher lowers nothing: it pays the full price, and the commission that eats into the reimbursement stays a cost on your side.
Gift cards raise a question of timing rather than of amount, since the money arrives before the service is delivered.
That leaves the two-hats confusion.
Accepting holiday vouchers is a matter of approval; receiving them for yourself is another subject entirely, open to self-employed workers who apply for them with the ANCV.
In that second case, what you spend on them is deductible from no tax at all, for the same reason as the commission: the micro scheme deducts no real expense.
Finally, paper vouchers give no change back, which pushes the customer towards topping up the price rather than towards a reduction.
Frequently asked questions
Do I declare on the payment day or on the reimbursement day?
The general cash-basis rule applies: the sum enters your turnover when it is made available to you.
With a digital voucher, payment and availability follow each other closely; with paper vouchers, the reimbursement date is the one your bank statement can prove.
Enter that date as it stands and keep the remittance slip.
Can the ANCV commission be deducted from declared turnover?
No, never. Turnover is the face value of the vouchers received, before any withholding. A micro-enterprise deducts no real expense: no commission, no bank charges, no equipment.
Declaring the net transfer amounts to under-declaring, and the difference is found line by line during an audit.
Can a freelance developer accept holiday vouchers?
No. Approval is reserved for tourism, leisure, culture, transport, accommodation and catering activities.
Development, design or consulting work falls into none of those families, even where the end client happens to be a campsite or a leisure park.
Do holiday vouchers change anything on my invoice?
No. The amount invoiced stays the full price, and the payment method is only a line of information.
If you are under the VAT exemption scheme, the wording stating that no VAT applies is still required.
Simply note the share paid in vouchers, which will help you match the ANCV transfer against your sales.