Definition
In her third year of business, a freelance developer adds things up: €22,000 of equipment, subscriptions and subcontracting paid during the year, and not one euro deducted from her tax bill.
Her accountant mentions the actual-profit regime. She hears it as a punishment reserved for those who blow past the ceilings, when it is first of all a door open to everyone.
Switching to the actual regime means leaving a flat rate for a set of accounts.
Under the micro scheme, tax is calculated on the turnover you collected minus a fixed percentage, and contributions are a percentage of what comes in.
Under the actual regime, you start from profit: the year's receipts minus the costs you genuinely incurred, receipts to hand.
The micro scheme ignores your expenses, the actual regime counts them one by one.
Two roads lead there, and they have nothing in common. The first is opting in, filed with your local business tax office because the arithmetic favours it.
The second is being pushed out, when the micro Turnover threshold is exceeded two years running.
The calculation that decides: the allowance against your costs
Take that developer, taxed under BNC rules (non-commercial profits, the category for liberal activities), with round numbers: €60,000 collected in 2026.
Under the micro scheme, the Standard allowance for BNC is 34% in 2026, so €20,400 is deducted automatically. Her taxable profit comes to €39,600, whatever she actually spent.
Under the actual regime, she deducts her costs. With €22,000 of documented expenses, her taxable profit falls to €38,000, that is €1,600 less to be taxed on: real, but slim.
With €30,000 of costs, profit drops to €30,000 and the gap reaches €9,600.
The actual regime becomes worthwhile once your costs exceed the allowance rate for your category, which in 2026 works out at 34% of turnover for BNC, 50% for BIC services (commercial and craft work), and 71% for the sale of goods and hotel accommodation.
That calculation tells only half the story, and it is the cheaper half.
The micro social-security scheme follows the micro tax scheme: leaving one means leaving the other, and losing the auto-entrepreneur status with it.
Social contributions stop being a percentage of what comes in.
Under the micro scheme they are 12.3% of turnover on sales in 2026, 21.2% on BIC services, 25.6% for non-regulated liberal professions and 23.2% for CIPAV members.
The CIPAV is the pension fund of the regulated liberal professions. None of those rates covers the vocational training contribution, the chamber levy or income tax.
Under the actual regime, contributions are computed on real income instead, with minimum contributions and an annual adjustment.
URSSAF, the body collecting social contributions in France, publishes those amounts for the scheme.
The reassuring logic of "nothing collected, nothing to pay" disappears: a year without profit still leaves contributions due.
When it stops being a choice
The forced exit follows one rule, and it is widely misread: the micro scheme only ends if the ceiling was exceeded in both N-1 and N-2.
A single year above it does nothing at all, as the Threshold overrun entry sets out.
The thresholds to compare against are those in the official scale published for the years 2026 to 2028: €203,100 for the sale of goods and hotel accommodation, furnished rentals excluded, €83,600 for BIC services just as for BNC liberal activities.
And the turnover of the two reference years is compared with the threshold of the current year, not with the one displayed at the time.
Once both boxes are ticked, the switch happens on 1 January of the year following the second year of overrun, never mid-year: exceeding the ceiling in 2025 and again in 2026 puts you on the actual regime from 1 January 2027.
Two situations sit outside that counter. In the year of creation and the year after it, the micro scheme applies as of right whatever the turnover, since there are no reference years.
And landlords of non-classified tourist furnished rentals left the auto-entrepreneur scheme on 1 January 2026 on the social-security side, while the tax code keeps a micro-BIC regime for them up to €15,000 on the tax side.
What the switch does not change
It does not change your legal form. You remain a Sole proprietorship: no company to set up, no new registration, the same SIRET number.
What changes is how tax and contributions are worked out, not the business itself.
It has nothing to do with VAT either.
Crossing a VAT threshold makes you liable for the tax without costing you the micro scheme, and the two sets of figures are unrelated: a service provider charges VAT long before coming anywhere near the €83,600 ceiling applicable in 2026.
Finally, it is not permanent.
If turnover falls back below the threshold, the actual regime still applies for the year of the drop, then the micro scheme applies again as of right the following year, unless you have opted otherwise.
What you lose from day one is the Flat-rate income tax option, which is reserved for the micro scheme, along with light bookkeeping: the income ledger is no longer enough, since every expense you deduct has to be recorded and backed by its receipt.
Frequently asked questions
Is the actual regime only for people who exceed the ceilings?
No: it is an option open to any micro-enterprise, whatever its turnover, filed with your local business tax office.
Many founders take it deliberately from the start because they are investing heavily in premises, equipment, stock or subcontracting.
The forced exit after two overruns is simply the other way in, and the only one nobody chooses.
How much in costs makes the actual regime worthwhile?
Compare your real spending with the allowance rate for your category in 2026: 34% of turnover for BNC, 50% for BIC services, 71% for the sale of goods and hotel accommodation.
Below that, the flat rate favours you. Above it, the actual regime starts to pay, provided you factor in an accountant's fees and the change in how contributions are based.
How are my contributions calculated once I am on the actual regime?
On your actual income, with minimum contributions and an annual adjustment; the amounts that apply are published by URSSAF for that scheme.
The change of logic weighs as much as the amount: you pay instalments during the year, then settle or recover the difference, instead of handing over a percentage of every payment received.
Can you go back to the micro scheme afterwards?
Yes.
In the year turnover falls back below the threshold, the actual regime still applies, then the micro scheme applies again as of right from the following year, unless you have opted for the actual regime.
Believing that leaving is permanent pushes self-employed people every year into changing legal form for no reason at all.