Definition
You leave at six in the morning for a client 250 kilometres away. A tank of fuel, two tolls, a hotel night because the meeting overruns.
That evening you file the receipts carefully, assuming they will be deducted somewhere. They will not.
Travel expenses are every cost incurred to work somewhere other than your own desk: fuel, tolls, parking, train tickets, taxis, accommodation, meals on the road.
In a micro-enterprise, they do not exist for tax purposes: not one of them is subtracted from what you collect. Your fuel receipt is a real cost, but it never meets your tax return.
That is the price of the regime's simplicity, and the first unpleasant surprise for many new registrants, especially in trades that travel: trainers, craftspeople, photographers, technicians working on client sites.
Why deduction is never possible
The micro regime rests on a simple bargain. You keep no record of costs, and in exchange the administration automatically removes a percentage of your Turnover before calculating tax.
That is the Standard allowance, worth in 2026 34% for a liberal activity, 50% for commercial and craft services, and 71% for the sale of goods.
This flat rate is deemed to cover all of your business costs, travel included, as the official micro-regime fact sheet sets out.
Two consequences that online articles routinely miss.
First, the barème kilométrique (the official mileage scale published each year) does not apply to you: it serves employees who opt for actual expenses and businesses taxed on actual profit, not the micro regime.
Second, how much you really spend changes nothing: whether you drive 2,000 or 20,000 kilometres in the year, the percentage removed stays the same.
An activity that travels heavily should therefore look at Switching to the actual regime, the only setting where a toll is deducted for its exact amount.
Keep your receipts all the same. They are not there to deduct anything; they are there to answer a client who asks for detail, and to prove what a cost was if your situation changes.
Re-invoicing the client: the calculation
Say you are a freelance consultant in a non-regulated liberal activity, so BNC (non-commercial profits) under the general scheme.
A job invoiced at 2,000 euros, plus 400 euros of train and hotel the client agrees to cover. You add the line to the invoice and they pay 2,400 euros.
What you declare is 2,400 euros of turnover, not 2,000.
On those 400 euros passed on, you pay Social contributions in 2026 at the rate of 25.6%, so 102.40 euros: that is the rate for liberal activities under the general scheme, while a regulated profession affiliated to the Cipav (the pension fund of the regulated liberal professions) pays 23.2% in 2026.
That rate covers neither the CFP (the vocational training contribution, an extra 0.2% for a liberal activity in 2026, owed once you declared turnover in the previous calendar year) nor income tax.
On the tax side, the 34% allowance applicable in 2026 strips out 136 euros, leaving 264 euros added to your taxable income.
You fronted 400 euros, you were paid 400 euros back, and the round trip leaves you out of pocket.
Passing travel on at exact cost loses you money on every single job. The reimbursement is turnover: it is charged contributions and taxed exactly like your professional fee.
The only way to break even is to price the travel into the job itself, as a flat travel fee stated in the quotation or a higher rate outside your usual area.
Re-invoiced costs and débours: the one exception
A re-invoiced cost is turnover, exactly like your fee, so it counts in every one of your thresholds.
Only one mechanism escapes that rule: Disbursements, known in French as débours, meaning sums you pay in the client's name and on the client's behalf, under a prior written mandate, with the supplier's invoice made out to that client and reimbursement to the exact euro.
In practice, a train ticket bought in your own name is not one.
The distinction matters well beyond income tax.
Re-invoiced travel inflates your turnover, so it pushes you towards the micro-enterprise ceiling, set at 83,600 euros for the years 2026 to 2028 for services and liberal activities.
Above all it pushes you towards the VAT threshold, which sits far lower: in 2026, a service provider's exemption ends at 37,500 euros of prior-year turnover, and 41,250 euros during the current year.
And that is not the only VAT ceiling to watch: you also have to stay under 85,000 euros of total turnover, all activities combined, and 93,500 euros during the current year.
Mixing up the micro-enterprise ceiling and the VAT threshold is the most common mistake in the regime.
One last detail that shifts everything: what counts is not the date on the invoice, but the date the money lands.
December expenses reimbursed in January fall into the following year's turnover.
Frequently asked questions
Can I deduct mileage if I keep every fuel receipt?
No, and the number of receipts changes nothing.
The micro regime accepts no deduction of actual costs: the standard allowance is deemed to cover them all, and the official mileage scale is written for other regimes than yours.
My client reimburses my train tickets: do I have to declare that to URSSAF?
Yes, unless it qualifies as a proper débours.
The reimbursement enters the turnover of the month or quarter in which you receive it, and contributions apply at the same rate as the rest of your activity.
How do I bill travel without losing money on it?
Price it as a service, not as a reimbursement.
State a flat travel fee in the quotation that absorbs the contributions and tax to come, or apply a higher rate beyond a given radius: the client reads one clear line, and you stop funding their journeys.