France SMIC and PMSS 2026: €12.31 Minimum Wage, €4,005 Ceiling

Key Takeaways

• France's minimum wage, the SMIC, is €12.31 gross an hour from June 1, 2026, which is €1,867.02 a month for a full-time 35-hour week. From January 1 to May 31, 2026, it was €12.02 an hour, or €1,823.03 a month. The 2.41% rise in June was automatic, because consumer prices had risen at least 2% since the last increase.
• The monthly social security ceiling, the PMSS (plafond mensuel de la sécurité sociale), is €4,005 for the whole of 2026, and the annual ceiling is €48,060. It is set once a year and did not change in June.
• Capped old-age insurance (8.55% from the employer, 6.90% from the employee) and the first tranche of AGIRC-ARRCO supplementary pension stop at €4,005 a month. Pay above that falls into Tranche 2, which runs up to €32,040 a month.
• Employer relief on low pay changed on January 1, 2026. The general reduction in employer contributions became the RGDU, and the reduced health and family allowance rates were abolished for most employers. The relief is largest at the SMIC and ends at €5,469.09 a month, a threshold the June rise did not move.
• Since July 1, 2026, each parent of a child born or adopted on or after January 1, 2026, can take one or two months of additional birth leave after their maternity, paternity, or adoption leave. The CPAM pays 70% of net salary for the first month and 60% for the second, up to €4,005 a month.

Updated September 30, 2026. This page first set out the January 2026 figures. Two things have changed since: the SMIC rose on June 1, 2026, and the additional birth leave started on July 1, 2026. Both are covered below, and every figure was checked against official French sources on September 30, 2026.

France's minimum wage, the SMIC (salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance), is €12.31 gross an hour from June 1, 2026. For a full-time employee on a 35-hour week, that is €1,867.02 a month gross, or about €1,477.93 net. The monthly social security ceiling, the PMSS, is €4,005 for all of 2026.

The two figures do different jobs. The SMIC is the floor under every hourly wage. The PMSS is the line at which several contributions stop, so it matters most for salaries above €4,005 a month.

We act as employer of record and provide payroll services for companies hiring in France. This page sets out both figures, the 2026 contribution rates that depend on them, the meal and birth leave rules that changed this year, and what each one means for an employer. Every figure comes from an official source: URSSAF, Service Public, Légifrance, or AGIRC-ARRCO.

1. The SMIC in 2026: €12.31 an Hour Since June 1

The SMIC is the legal minimum gross hourly wage, set on the basis of a 35-hour working week. It applies to every adult employee, whatever the form of pay: by time, by output, by task, by piece, by commission, or by tips.

Why the SMIC rose in the middle of the year

The SMIC is revalued every January 1, in line with inflation for the 20% of households with the lowest incomes, plus half the gain in purchasing power of the average hourly wage of blue-collar and clerical workers. French law also raises it automatically during the year whenever the consumer price index has risen at least 2% since the index used for the last increase, and the government can raise it at any time.

The automatic rule is what moved it in June. On May 13, 2026, INSEE, the national statistics institute, reported that consumer prices in April were 2.2% higher than a year earlier, driven mainly by energy prices, oil in particular. That 2.2% is headline annual inflation. The legal trigger is measured differently, from the index recorded at the last SMIC increase, and on that measure prices had risen at least 2%. A ministerial order of May 22, 2026, published in the Journal officiel on May 24, 2026, then set the new rate: €12.31 an hour from June 1, 2026, up 2.41% from €12.02. The same order raised the minimum garanti, a separate reference amount under article L3231-12 of the Labor Code, to €4.35.

The main rates apply in metropolitan France and in Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, La Réunion, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. The lower rates for employees under 18 apply only while they have less than six months of professional experience in their sector. Service Public gives the net amounts as indicative, after employee contributions.

What counts toward the SMIC, and what does not

To check that an employee is paid at least the SMIC, only some elements of pay count.

• Counted: base salary, benefits in kind, and bonuses linked to productivity.
• Not counted: expense reimbursements, including the transport allowance; overtime premiums; profit-sharing and incentive payments (participation and intéressement); seniority, attendance, and special working-conditions bonuses; and holiday and year-end bonuses, unless they are paid in monthly installments.

Collective agreements, young employees, and apprentices

The applicable collective agreement usually sets its own minimum wage. Where that minimum is below the SMIC, the employer tops the pay up to the SMIC. Where it is above, the agreement's minimum applies. Employees under 18 with less than six months of experience in their sector can be paid the reduced rates in the table, and apprenticeship and professionalization contracts carry their own specific reductions.

Paying less than the SMIC can bring a fine of up to €1,500 for each employee underpaid, or up to €7,500 where the employer is a company, and more for a repeat offense. The employer can also be ordered to pay the employee damages.

Sources for this section: Service Public, Smic (salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance), verified June 1, 2026; URSSAF, Montant du Smic, updated June 1, 2026; Service Public, Le Smic va augmenter le 1er juin, May 18, 2026; article R3233-1 of the Labor Code, on the Code du travail numérique; Service Public, Contravention, for the fine amounts and the fivefold maximum for companies; and the order of May 22, 2026, on the SMIC increase, on Légifrance. All read September 30, 2026.

2. The PMSS in 2026: €4,005 a Month

The PMSS is the monthly social security ceiling: the maximum amount of pay that counts when certain contributions are calculated. URSSAF describes it as the reference ceiling for calculating social contributions. It is revalued once a year, on January 1, in line with the growth of the average wage per head in the previous year. For 2026 the ministerial order is dated December 22, 2025.

The 2026 ceiling is €4,005 a month, up 2% from €3,925 in 2025. The annual ceiling, the PASS (plafond annuel de la sécurité sociale), is €48,060. Payrolls that run on other periods use the matching figure.

Mayotte has its own ceiling: €3,022 a month and €36,264 a year in 2026. The ceiling applies from January 1 to December 31, 2026, and did not change when the SMIC rose on June 1.

What the ceiling is used for

For employers, the ceiling sets the base for several contributions on salary, including old-age insurance, unemployment insurance, supplementary pensions, and the FNAL housing contribution. It also sets the thresholds for the tax and social exemption of severance payments, and the allowances for student internships. For employees, it caps several social benefits, including daily allowances for sickness, work accidents, maternity, and paternity, as well as invalidity pensions and the basic state pension. The next section shows which contributions stop at the ceiling.

Sources for this section: URSSAF, Plafonds de la Sécurité sociale, updated January 1, 2026, and Service Public Entreprendre, Sécurité sociale : quel sera le plafond annuel en 2026 ?, updated December 23, 2025, both citing the order of December 22, 2025. Read September 30, 2026.

3. The 2026 Contribution Rates, and Which Ones Stop at the Ceiling

Some contributions are charged on the whole salary. Others are charged only up to the ceiling, or between the ceiling and a multiple of it. The table gives URSSAF's standard private-sector rates for 2026 and the AGIRC-ARRCO supplementary pension rates, with the pay each one is charged on.

Unemployment insurance and AGS stop at four times the annual ceiling. The 4.00% unemployment insurance rate is the reference rate: employers with 11 or more employees in the sectors covered by the bonus-malus scheme pay a modulated rate between 2.95% and 5%, depending on how their rate of short-contract endings compares with their sector's median, and URSSAF notifies that rate by March. URSSAF applies the 98.25% base for CSG and CRDS within a limit of €192,240 in 2026. AGIRC-ARRCO gives its employer and employee split as the default, and a company's own arrangements can differ. Employees in the Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, and Moselle departments pay an extra 1.30% health contribution, and those departments have their own apprenticeship tax rate of 0.44% with no balance. Employers with 11 or more employees can also owe a local mobility payment (versement mobilité), and URSSAF lists other contributions that can apply, such as the forfait social and the contribution for the employment of disabled workers.

Worked example: a €4,500 monthly salary

On a gross salary of €4,500 a month, €4,005 falls in Tranche 1 and the remaining €495 in Tranche 2. These are the pension lines, including the ones the ceiling splits, worked out from the rates above. The arithmetic is ours, rounded to the cent.

Health, family allowances, unemployment insurance, CSG, CRDS, and the smaller contributions come on top. On a salary of €3,900 a month, there would be no Tranche 2 line, no CEG Tranche 2 line, and no CET, because all of the pay would sit under the ceiling.

Employer relief on low pay: the RGDU

Since January 1, 2026, the general reduction in employer contributions has been called the réduction générale dégressive unique (RGDU). It applies to employees on an employment contract for whom the employer pays unemployment insurance, on every type of contract, including part-time and work-study contracts. The reduction is largest for pay at the SMIC, shrinks as pay rises, and stops at three times the SMIC.

Two details matter for 2026 payroll.

• The threshold uses the SMIC of January 1, 2026, for the whole year: €5,469.09 a month for a full-time employee, €36.06 an hour, or €65,629.20 a year, reduced in proportion for part-time work. The June 1 rise did not move it, so it now equals 2.9293 times the current SMIC. Service Public notes one tolerance: the June SMIC can be used in the formula for employees whose contract ended between June 1 and June 30, 2026.
• The reduced health rate of 7% and family allowance rate of 3.45% were abolished on January 1, 2026. They survive only for employers that use certain specific degressive exemptions, such as the overseas scheme known as Lodeom and some zone-based exemptions. Other employers pay the full 13% and 5.25%, and any relief on low pay comes through the RGDU.

The RGDU is deducted from the employer's health, basic old-age, family allowance, FNAL, CSA, unemployment insurance, and mandatory supplementary pension contributions, and from the work accident contribution up to 0.49% of pay. For an employer with fewer than 50 employees, the maximum coefficient is 0.3981, reached at the SMIC. Service Public's worked example is a full-time employee paid the SMIC for the year, €21,876.40 at the January rate, which brings a reduction of €8,708.99.

Sources for this section: URSSAF, Taux de cotisations, secteur privé, updated January 1, 2026; URSSAF, L'assurance chômage et l'AGS, updated March 20, 2026; AGIRC-ARRCO, Cotisations au régime Agirc-Arrco en 2026, applicable January 1, 2026; Service Public Entreprendre, Réduction générale dégressive unique (RGDU) de cotisations patronales, verified June 15, 2026; and URSSAF, Déclaration en 2026 des cotisations d'assurance maladie et d'allocations familiales, November 24, 2025. All read September 30, 2026.

4. Meal Vouchers and Meal Allowances in 2026

Meal vouchers (titres-restaurant)

Since January 1, 2026, the employer's contribution to a meal voucher is exempt from social security contributions and income tax up to €7.32 per voucher, up from €7.26 in 2025. The exemption applies only when the employer pays between 50% and 60% of the voucher's value, so the full €7.32 exemption needs a voucher worth between €12.20 and €14.64. Above the limit, the employer's contribution goes back into the base for contributions. The rule covers vouchers issued from January 1, 2026.

Meal allowances (indemnités de repas)

The limits up to which meal allowances are exempt from social contributions also rose on January 1, 2026.

Sources for this section: Service Public Entreprendre, Titres-restaurant : augmentation du plafond d'exonération, January 7, 2026; Service Public, Indemnité de frais de repas : relèvement des seuils d'exonération, January 6, 2026; and URSSAF, Frais professionnels, updated January 1, 2026. All read September 30, 2026.

5. Additional Birth Leave from July 1, 2026, and Maternity Leave

The additional birth leave (congé supplémentaire de naissance)

Since July 1, 2026, parents can take a new paid leave after a birth or an adoption. It adds to maternity leave, paternity leave, and adoption leave, and replaces none of them. The employee takes their maternity, paternity, or adoption leave first.

• Who can take it: both parents, including a spouse or partner who lives with the mother, for a child born or adopted on or after January 1, 2026.
• How long: one or two months per parent, at the same time as the other parent or in turn, either in one block or as two separate months.
• Pay: the employee receives no salary. The CPAM (Caisse primaire d'assurance maladie), or the MSA for the agricultural scheme, pays 70% of net salary for the first month and 60% for the second, capped at the PMSS, so at most €4,005 a month.
• When: within nine months of the birth or of the child's arrival in the home. For a child born or adopted between January 1 and June 30, 2026, the leave must be taken between July 1, 2026, and March 31, 2027.
• Notice: the employee tells the employer by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt, or by hand delivery against a receipt, at least one month before the start date, saying whether they are taking one or two months and whether they are splitting it. The notice drops to 15 days when the leave follows straight on from paternity or adoption leave and starts within the month after the birth or arrival.
• The employer's part: the employer cannot refuse the leave if the notice was given, and it is the employer that passes the request to the CPAM or the MSA for payment.
• Protection: the employment contract is suspended, and the employee cannot work elsewhere during the leave. The employer cannot dismiss them during it, except for serious misconduct or where the contract cannot be kept going for a reason unrelated to the leave. The leave counts as working time for seniority, and the employee returns to the same job or a similar one at no less pay.

The leave payment cannot be combined with the shared child-rearing benefit (PreParE), the caregiver and parental presence allowances, daily allowances for sickness, work accidents, maternity, paternity, or adoption, or unemployment benefits.

Maternity leave in 2026

Maternity leave itself is unchanged. It lasts 16 weeks for a first or second child, 6 before the birth and 10 after, and 26 weeks from the third child, 8 before and 18 after. Twins bring 34 weeks, and triplets or more 46 weeks. At least 8 weeks off work are compulsory, 6 of them after the birth.

By default the employee receives no salary during the leave. The CPAM pays a daily allowance: the last three months' gross salary divided by 91.25, with salary counted only up to the PMSS (€4,005 a month in 2026), minus a flat 21%. The allowance is between €11.12 and €104.02 a day. A collective agreement can provide more, up to full salary.

Sources for this section: Service Public, Congé supplémentaire de naissance d'un salarié du secteur privé, verified June 3, 2026, and Congé de maternité d'une salariée du secteur privé, verified June 1, 2026. Both read September 30, 2026.

6. 2025 and 2026 Compared

Sources: the 2025 SMIC, PMSS, and PASS are from URSSAF's history tables on the SMIC and ceiling pages linked above, and the 2025 meal figures are from the two Service Public notices of January 2026. Everything else is sourced in sections 1 to 5.