Definition
A freelance developer collects €40,000 over the year. His bank adviser talks up a plan d'épargne retraite (PER, the French retirement savings plan): "you deduct it from your tax".
He pays in €3,000, reaches his return, and finds that his taxable profit has not moved by a single cent.
Nobody misled him: the deduction is real, it simply does not plug in where he expected.
The PER is an individual savings wrapper open to everyone, employed or self-employed, created by the loi Pacte (the 2019 business growth act) to replace the older retirement contracts.
You pay in what you want, when you want; the money stays locked until retirement, apart from the release cases set out in law; and voluntary payments are deducted from your taxable income, up to a personal retirement savings ceiling.
That last point is what interests a micro-entrepreneur, and it is also the one most often misread.
Why your payment does not touch your micro profit
In a micro-enterprise, taxable profit is not calculated, it is subtracted: your Turnover actually collected, minus the Standard allowance.
In 2026 that allowance is 34% for a BNC (non-commercial, liberal) activity, 50% for BIC (commercial and craft) services and 71% for the sale of goods, according to the official micro-regime fact sheet.
It is deemed to cover every one of your costs: equipment, insurance, Social contributions, and therefore whatever you put into a retirement contract too.
A self-employed person under the actual-profit regime deducts those payments from business profit; in micro, that door is closed, and no option reopens it.
The deduction still exists, but one tier higher: against your household's total income, the figure the income tax scale is applied to.
How much you may deduct depends on your previous year's professional income, with a guaranteed minimum for low or nil income.
Do not recalculate it: it is written out on the last page of your avis d'impôt (tax assessment notice), under "Plafond épargne retraite".
The calculation, on one case
Back to that developer, a non-regulated liberal professional. On €40,000 collected in 2026, the 34% allowance strips out €13,600: his taxable profit is €26,400.
His contributions are worked out elsewhere, on gross turnover, at 25.6% in 2026 for a BNC affiliated to the general scheme, outside the Cipav (the pension fund for regulated liberal professions), which comes to €10,240 for the year, before the vocational training contribution and the chamber levy.
The €3,000 he paid into the PER takes nothing off that €26,400. It does come off the household's total income, which drops to €23,400.
The real saving equals the payment multiplied by your marginal tax rate: substantial for a heavily taxed household, small for a lightly taxed one, nil for a household that pays no income tax at all.
Deducting while you are not taxable means losing twice. The deduction does not remove tax, it postpones it: on the way out, whatever was deducted on the way in is taxed.
A micro-entrepreneur below the tax threshold gains nothing today and pays tomorrow.
A PER lets you waive the deduction at the moment you pay in, which makes the matching capital tax-free on exit.
In the first years of trading, when profit is still thin, that is very often the better calculation.
Under the flat-rate tax option, the deduction lands on nothing
If you have opted for the Flat-rate income tax, your income tax is settled as you file, at 2.2% of turnover for BNC in 2026, 1.7% for BIC services, furnished rentals and bed and breakfasts included, 1% for retail, catering and hotel accommodation.
Those rates cover income tax only, social contributions coming on top. And the levy applies to turnover collected, never to a net income: no deduction can bring it down.
Our developer hands over €880 in tax on his €40,000, on top of his €10,240 of contributions, with or without a PER, as impots.gouv.fr sets out.
The deduction does not vanish for all that: it is set against the household's other taxable income, a spouse's salary for instance. With no other income, it meets nothing.
And reporting your turnover on Form 2042-C-PRO stays compulsory even under the flat-rate option. That report builds your revenu fiscal de référence, the reference tax income.
And it is the one from the year before last that the tax office reads to decide whether you may stay on the option.
In 2026 it looks at your 2024 reference tax income, which has to stay under €29,315 per household share.
The same report also feeds your retirement savings ceiling. So in those years you build up a right to deduct that you have no use for.
What a PER does not replace
A PER is savings, not a pension.
It validates no quarter, opens no entitlement and in no way replaces the Basic state pension funded by your compulsory contributions: a payment into a plan and a contribution to Urssaf do not offset each other.
Nor does it cover sick leave, disability or death, which belong to Personal protection insurance, an entirely separate contract.
Finally, the money is locked until retirement, with a few exceptions: buying your main home, disability, the death of a spouse, over-indebtedness, the end of unemployment rights, and ceasing self-employed activity after a court-ordered liquidation.
Frequently asked questions
Can a micro-entrepreneur open a PER?
Yes, with no particular condition: the individual PER is open to anyone whatever their status, and even with no business at all.
What changes from one situation to the next is the tax value of paying in, never the right to open the plan.
Can I still take out a contrat Madelin?
No, those contracts are no longer marketed since the loi Pacte, the PER having replaced them. Existing contracts carry on and can be transferred into a PER.
Either way, deducting from business profit remains out of reach in a micro-enterprise.
Where do I read my retirement savings ceiling?
On the last page of your avis d'impôt, under "Plafond épargne retraite".
Unused ceilings from previous years are added to it, within the limit set by the tax code, and a married or PACS couple may pool theirs.
I declare €0 of turnover: do I still have a ceiling?
Yes, a guaranteed minimum applies even with no professional income. You do have to file, though: reporting turnover stays compulsory at €0, and that report is what keeps your tax file alive.
Data checked on 5 September 2026.