France income tax calculator

The scale is not applied to your income

In France the barème is applied to your income divided by the number of parts in your household, and the result is then multiplied back by the parts. That is the quotient familial, and it has no equivalent anywhere else on this site.

A single person is one part. A married or PACS couple is two. Each of the first two children adds half a part; each child from the third adds a whole one. So a couple with two children is three parts, and a couple with three is four.

The effect is that a child in France does not produce a deduction of a fixed amount. It produces half a part, and half a part is worth more the higher your income — because dividing a large income by a larger number moves more of it into lower bands.

On €40,000 of salary a single person pays €3,904. The same salary in a couple with two children pays €0. The difference is not a family allowance; it is the same barème applied to €12,000 per part instead of €36,000.

Germany's Ehegattensplitting is a special case of this idea with the parts fixed at two. Nowhere else divides by a number that changes with the number of children.

Which is why the advantage has to be capped

If half a part is worth more the richer you are, an uncapped quotient familial would deliver its largest benefit to the highest earners. France caps it instead: the plafonnement du quotient familial.

The tax reduction from each additional half-part cannot exceed €1,807, or €904 for each additional quarter-part. Above that, the extra half-parts simply stop counting.

The mechanism is worth being precise about, because it is often described as a cap on tax and it is not. It is a cap on the difference between the tax you would pay with your base parts — one if single, two if a couple — and the tax with your actual parts. Whatever that difference exceeds, is added back.

The practical consequence is a threshold that depends on family size. A couple with two children sees the full benefit up to a certain income and a fixed benefit of €3,614 above it; from that point on, an extra euro of salary is taxed exactly as if they had no children at all.

Higher caps apply in specific situations — €4,262 for the part granted to a single parent with one dependent child, €3,608 for the half-part granted to an invalid or veteran, €1,079 for someone who raised a child alone for five years. None of those is modelled here.

The décote, and the marginal rate it hides

At the bottom of the scale France applies a décote: a reduction that itself shrinks as the tax rises. For a single person it is €897 minus 45.3% of the gross tax; for a couple €1,483 minus the same percentage.

It runs out exactly where the arithmetic says it should. €897 ÷ 45.3% is €1,982, which is precisely the published threshold above which no décote is available. €1,483 ÷ 45.3% is €3,277, likewise. That internal consistency is a test in itself, and this site runs it.

The consequence for a marginal rate is large and almost never mentioned. Inside the décote range, every extra euro of gross tax is only reduced by 45.3% of itself — so the net tax rises by 1.4525 times the gross. A taxpayer in the 11% band faces a real marginal rate of about 14.4% on their salary.

That is the same phenomenon as the Dutch credit taper and the UK allowance withdrawal, produced by a different device: France is not withdrawing a relief as income rises, it is withdrawing a relief as tax rises, which comes to the same thing.

The décote is applied automatically and requires no claim. It is also applied after the plafonnement, which is the order the administration uses and the order used here.

The 10% that comes off before anything else

French salaries are reduced by 10% before the barème sees them — the déduction forfaitaire for professional expenses, covering commuting, meals at work and work-related reading.

It is automatic, it requires no receipts, and it has a floor of €509 and a ceiling of €14,555 for each member of the household. The ceiling bites above €145,550 of salary, from which point the deduction is a fixed amount rather than a percentage.

Anyone whose real professional costs exceed the forfait may elect frais réels instead, itemising and keeping the evidence. That election is made individually by each member of the household and is not modelled here.

Because it comes off first, the effective thresholds in gross salary terms are all about 10% higher than the barème suggests. The 30% band starts at €29,579 of taxable income, which is roughly €32,866 of gross salary for someone below the ceiling.

This calculator applies the forfait automatically, which is what happens by default on a French return.

The same salary, four households

€45,000 of gross salary, run through the same barème four times. Nothing changes except the number of parts.

As a single person — 1 part: €5,254 of tax, an effective rate of 11.7% on gross.

As a couple with no children — 2 parts: €1,281 of tax, an effective rate of 2.8% on gross, after a décote of €622.

As a couple with two children — 3 parts: €0 of tax, an effective rate of 0% on gross, after a décote of €1,199.

As a couple with three children — 4 parts: €0 of tax, an effective rate of 0% on gross, after a décote of €1,483.

The single person and the family of five are on identical salaries and pay very different amounts. Whether that is the right policy is an argument France has regularly; that it is how the system works is not in dispute, and it is the single most important thing to understand about French income tax.

Income tax is the smaller half of what leaves a French payslip

France has a low income tax and very high social contributions, and comparing it to other countries on income tax alone gets the answer badly wrong.

CSG and CRDS are levied on almost all income at their own rates, partly deductible from taxable income and partly not. They are formally contributions and function as a broad flat income tax.

Employee social security contributions — pension, unemployment, complementary pension — come off on top of that. The employer's share is larger again and never appears on the employee's side of the payslip at all.

The result is that a French employee's gross-to-net gap is among the widest in Europe while their income tax alone looks modest by European standards. Both statements are true and they are usually quoted against each other.

Since 2019 income tax is withheld at source through the prélèvement à la source, with a rate computed by the administration from your last return. That changed the timing but not the calculation: the annual return still settles the year, and the barème on this page is what settles it.

How France compares with the rest of this site

Against Germany, the two neighbours have opposite structures. Germany writes its tax as a continuous formula with no bands and splits income between two spouses; France writes five clean bands and divides by a number that grows with the children.

Against Ireland, both cap the benefit of household structure, and both do it differently. Ireland limits how much band a spouse can transfer; France limits the euro value of the extra half-parts.

Against the United Kingdom, the marginal-rate distortion sits at opposite ends. The UK's is at €100,000 where the allowance is withdrawn; France's is at the bottom, where the décote unwinds.

Against the United States, joint filing is the nearest analogue to the quotient familial and is much blunter: it widens the bands for a couple but does not scale with the number of children, which the US handles through credits instead.

What France has that nothing else here does is a divisor. Every other country adjusts the tax for household composition by moving thresholds, transferring allowances or granting credits; France changes the income the scale is applied to.

Four ways a French estimate goes wrong

Applying the barème to household income directly. It applies to income per part. For a couple with two children that is a third of the household total, and running the whole figure through the bands can triple the answer.

Ignoring the plafonnement. At higher incomes the extra half-parts are capped at €1,807 each, so a calculator that scales the benefit without a cap overstates the relief for exactly the households where it matters most.

Forgetting the 10% forfait. It comes off salary before the scale, with a floor of €509 and a ceiling of €14,555, and skipping it overstates the tax for everybody.

Reading the marginal rate off the band. In the décote range the real marginal rate is roughly 1.45 times the band rate, and it appears in no published table.

Withholding at source, and the rate the administration picks for you

Since 2019 French income tax has been withheld from salary through the prélèvement à la source. The employer applies a rate the tax administration computes from your last return and transmits directly.

That rate is a household rate: it reflects the whole foyer fiscal, including a spouse's income. A couple with very different salaries therefore sees the same percentage withheld from both, which is why the taux individualisé exists as an option — it splits the household rate between the two in proportion to their incomes without changing the total.

There is also a taux neutre, used when the employer has no rate from the administration, computed as though the employee were single with no dependants. It is deliberately conservative and usually withholds too much.

None of this changes the tax. The annual return still computes the year's liability on the barème, and the withholding is credited against it; the balance is collected or refunded in the autumn. The figure on this page is the annual liability, not the monthly withholding.

Anyone whose circumstances change mid-year — a birth, a marriage, a large fall in income — can ask for the rate to be modulated rather than waiting for the return to catch up.

The foyer fiscal, and why French tax is not individual

France taxes households, not people. The foyer fiscal is the unit: a married or PACS couple files one return covering both incomes, and dependent children are attached to it.

That is unusual now. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and most of the rest of this site tax individuals and adjust for households through transfers and credits. France, Germany, Portugal and the United States are the group that still assesses the couple as one.

The consequences run further than the arithmetic. A second earner's first euro is taxed at the household's marginal rate rather than at the bottom of the scale, which is the standard criticism of joint taxation everywhere it exists and applies to France with particular force because the quotient familial deepens it.

An adult child under 25 in education can be rattaché to the parents' foyer, adding parts, or can file separately — a choice made each year and worth computing both ways, because the answer flips depending on the child's own income and the parents' marginal rate.

Married and PACS couples can also opt for separate returns in the year of marriage, and separation rules split the year. None of that is modelled here, which computes a single foyer with the parts you select.

The unit also decides who is liable. Spouses filing jointly are jointly and severally liable for the household's tax, which is a real consequence rather than an administrative detail, and one of the arguments regularly made for individual taxation.

What sits above 45%

The barème stops at 45%, and two further charges sit above it for high incomes. Neither is modelled here and both are part of the answer for anyone near them.

The contribution exceptionnelle sur les hauts revenus has applied since 2012 at 3% and 4% on reference income above thresholds that differ for single people and couples. It is charged on revenu fiscal de référence, a broader base than taxable income.

The contribution différentielle sur les hauts revenus is newer and works differently: it guarantees a minimum effective rate of 20% on very high reference incomes, charging the difference where the ordinary tax plus the CEHR falls short. It is a minimum tax rather than a rate band, which puts it in the same family as the Japanese provision above ¥330,000,000 and the US alternative minimum tax.

Both exist because the barème alone does not reach income that arrives as capital gains or dividends, which are taxed separately under the prélèvement forfaitaire unique at a flat 30% including social contributions.

That flat option is itself a large part of why the French top marginal rate on salary and the French effective rate on a large fortune are such different numbers.

Questions

How much income tax do I pay on €40,000 in France?

€3,904 as a single person — the 10% professional deduction leaves €36,000 taxable, and the barème applies to that as one part. The same salary in a couple with two children pays €0, because the scale is then applied to a third of it. CSG, CRDS and social contributions are charged on top and are not included.

What is the French income tax scale for 2026?

Five bands per part on income earned in 2025: nothing up to €11,600, 11% to €29,579, 30% to €84,577, 41% to €181,917 and 45% above. Set by the loi de finances for 2026.

What is the quotient familial?

The rule that the barème is applied to your income divided by your number of parts, with the result multiplied back by the parts. A single person is 1 part, a couple 2, each of the first two children adds 0.5 and each child from the third adds 1. It is why a child in France is worth more the higher your income — up to the cap.

How much is a child worth on a French tax return?

Half a part for each of the first two and a whole part from the third, with the benefit capped at €1,807 per additional half-part. Below the cap the value rises with income; at and above it, an extra child changes nothing about the marginal rate. Higher caps apply to a single parent with a dependent child and in a few other situations.

What is the décote?

An automatic reduction for small tax bills: €897 minus 45.3% of the gross tax for a single person, €1,483 minus the same for a couple. It runs out at €1,982 and €3,277 of gross tax respectively — exactly the base divided by 45.3%.

Why is my real marginal rate higher than my band?

If you are inside the décote range, each extra euro of gross tax is offset by only 45.3% of itself, so the net tax rises about 1.45 times faster than the band rate suggests. Someone in the 11% band can face an effective marginal rate near 14.4% on salary.

Are CSG and social contributions included?

No. This is income tax only. CSG and CRDS are levied on almost all income at their own rates and employee social security contributions come off on top, which is why the gap between gross and net pay in France is far wider than the income tax alone implies.

Does the 10% deduction have a limit?

Yes, both ways: a floor of €509 and a ceiling of €14,555 for each member of the household. Above roughly €145,550 of salary it stops being 10% and becomes a fixed amount. Anyone with larger real costs can elect frais réels instead.