Definition
Tuesday morning, a flu that keeps you in bed, and a doctor prescribing ten days off.
For an employee, everything then runs by itself: the employer receives a copy, the payslip adjusts, the benefit follows.
In a micro-enterprise, nobody does anything on your behalf, and the sick note triggers nothing at all until you act.
Sick leave is a medical act: a doctor certifies that your health prevents you from working and sets a duration.
That document suspends neither your business nor your obligations: it only opens the possibility of being paid. Two things therefore run in parallel, and confusing them is expensive.
On one side the leave itself, to be declared to your caisse primaire d'assurance maladie (local health insurance fund).
On the other Daily sickness benefit, which is neither automatic nor proportional to what you would have invoiced the following week.
Self-employed social security covers your illness through the same counter as employees, with calculation rules that have nothing in common with theirs.
The steps, in order
The doctor issues an avis d'arrêt de travail (sick leave certificate).
Usually it is sent electronically to your fund; otherwise, the copies meant for it must reach it within the deadline printed on the form, and that deadline is short.
The copy reserved for the employer has no recipient when you work for yourself: keep it with your records.
There is nothing to send to URSSAF, which collects contributions but pays no benefit, nor to your bank, nor to your clients.
You then follow the file from your account on the Assurance maladie website, with the same login you use for medical reimbursements.
Second obligation, the one nobody reads: during the leave, the activity must genuinely stop.
Answering a request for proposal, delivering a job already started, posting for your business, all of that means resuming work a doctor has just declared impossible.
An inspection that finds activity during sick leave leads to the benefit being suspended and to the repayment of what has already been paid. A partial return exists, the temps partiel thérapeutique, which is part-time work on medical grounds.
But it is prescribed and authorised in advance: it cannot be justified after the fact.
What sick leave does not put on hold
The business itself carries on existing.
The Turnover declaration remains due at every deadline, monthly or quarterly, including at zero: sick leave is no exemption from declaring, and lateness is penalised like any other.
Social contributions are proportional to what you collect: a deadline declared at zero costs nothing, and there is no request for suspension to file.
Watch out, though, for an invoice issued before the leave and paid during it: the micro scheme works on sums actually received, so that amount is declared as normal, and it does not amount to work performed during the leave.
The cotisation foncière des entreprises (CFE, business property tax) does not pause either: it stays due as long as the business exists, and only ceasing trading removes the remaining months.
Nor does its amount follow your year of sick leave, since the minimum charge is worked out on the turnover of an earlier reference year, usually the year before last: a lean year only shows up on your notice two years later.
And your entitlements only open if you are up to date with paying your contributions, which makes arrears far more costly than a simple late-payment surcharge.
Turnover, income, benefit: what the fund actually looks at
This is where the bad surprise starts. Your fund does not compensate turnover, it compensates income, and the two have almost nothing to do with each other.
The income taken into account is your turnover minus the Standard allowance for your activity: in 2026, 34% for a liberal activity taxed as BNC (non-commercial profits), 50% for BIC services (industrial and commercial profits), 71% for the sale of goods.
These are the tax allowances, the ones on your income tax return, and the fund reuses them to rebuild your income; a few activities, furnished rentals first among them, have a social allowance that differs from the tax one.
On 30,000 euros collected in 2026, a liberal service provider deducts 34%, so 19,800 euros of income in the eyes of social security; a retailer deducts 71% and drops to 8,700 euros. Identical turnover, and a benefit base more than twice as low for the second.
What the cover costs tells the rest of the story.
On 20,000 euros collected in 2026, here is the share of the flat-rate contribution that funds daily sickness benefit, following the breakdown published by Urssaf for 2026.
| Activity | 2026 contributions on 20,000 euros | 2026 daily sickness benefit share | That is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sale of goods (BIC) | 12.3%, so 2,460 euros | 1.25% | 31 euros |
| BIC services | 21.2%, so 4,240 euros | 1.25% | 53 euros |
| BNC liberal activity, general scheme | 25.6%, so 5,120 euros | 1.50% | 77 euros |
| Regulated liberal profession registered with Cipav | 23.2%, so 4,640 euros | 0.80% | 37 euros |
A few dozen euros a year: that is what your sick leave cover costs, and the order of magnitude of what it can return. These percentages are shares of the charge you pay, never shares of your turnover.
And the overall rate covers neither the vocational training contribution (CFP), nor the chamber of commerce levy, nor income tax, which all come on top.
Paying contributions is not enough to be paid a benefit.
The entitlement requires a minimum period of affiliation, an average annual income above a floor set by regulation, and a waiting period during which nothing is paid.
Below that floor the amount can be nil: a first year with low turnover leaves sick leave without a single euro of benefit.
That is the gap filled by a Personal protection insurance policy taken out individually, and the one most new business owners discover on the day they need it.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to tell Urssaf about my sick leave?
No. Urssaf collects your contributions and pays no benefit: the leave is declared to your caisse primaire d'assurance maladie, which alone decides on payment.
Your turnover declaration, on the other hand, remains due on the usual date, even when the amount to declare is zero.
Can I answer clients while on sick leave?
No, and it is the most common mistake among self-employed people, who rarely have anyone to take over.
Answering a quotation request, delivering a file or posting for your business can be treated as a resumption of activity, with suspension and repayment of the benefit as a result.
If your health allows some work, the partial return has to be prescribed beforehand, not explained afterwards.
Does money received during the leave cost me the benefit?
Not in itself: what counts is the work performed, not the date the money lands in the account.
An invoice issued before the leave and settled during it is declared as normal at the next deadline, since the micro scheme works on sums actually collected.
Better to flag the situation to your fund than to let it find out on its own.
How can I know in advance what I would receive?
By starting from your average income over recent years, meaning your turnover minus the standard allowance for your activity, then asking your own fund for the simulation rather than a blog calculator.
Conditions and amounts change from one year to the next, and your ameli account is what counts. Figures up to date as of 5 September 2026.