France
Min. wage
(x12 payments)
€1,867.02 /mo
About the minimum wage
Employer tax
~40-45%
Understand employer tax
Annual leave
25 days
Learn about annual leave
Notice period
1-2 months (per CBA)
Termination and notice info
Updated
Sep 2026
The Contrat à Durée Indéterminée (CDI) is the standard, default form of employment in France with no predetermined end date. It offers the strongest job protections under the Code du travail, including formal dismissal procedures, notice periods, and severance entitlements, and is presumed to apply unless a fixed-term contract is objectively justified.
A CDD may only be used for a specific, temporary task (e.g., replacing an absent employee, temporary increase in activity, seasonal work) and cannot fill a permanent role. Maximum total duration is generally 18 months (up to 24 in some cases, or reduced to 9 for others), including renewals; up to 2 renewals within that cap. Successive CDDs for the same role generally require a waiting period between contracts; misuse can result in reclassification as a CDI.
Legal working week is 35 hours; daily limit 10 hours, weekly cap 48 hours (44 hours averaged over 12 consecutive weeks). Overtime beyond 35 hours paid at +25% for hours 36-43 and +50% beyond that, unless a CBA sets different (not lower) rates.
Statutory probation periods (période d'essai) can be renewed once if a CBA allows it, extending the max to roughly 4 months (workers/employees), 6 months (supervisors/technicians), and 8 months (executives). Shorter or longer periods may apply per the relevant convention collective, subject to Code du travail caps.
There is no statutory obligation for a 13th or 14th month salary in France. However, many sectors and companies grant a 13th-month bonus (often pro-rated, paid in December or split across the year) as a matter of collective agreement, custom, or individual contract.
The applicable convention collective typically defines a classification grid (grille de classification) grouping job titles into categories/levels (based on coefficient or classification points), which determines minimum salary floors, benefits, and sometimes notice/probation terms.
Employer social charges typically total ~40-45% of gross salary: health/maternity/disability/death insurance (~13% uncapped), old-age (vieillesse) ~8.55% capped + ~2.11% uncapped, unemployment insurance (chômage) ~4%, family allowances ~5.25% (reduced rates for lower wages), work accident/occupational disease insurance (AT/MP) variable by industry risk, plus smaller levies (CSA 0.30%, FNAL 0.10-0.50%, AGS ~0.25%) and mandatory supplementary pension (retraite complémentaire) contributions.
Employee-side deductions total roughly 20-23% of gross salary: old-age/pension (~6.90% capped + ~0.40% uncapped), supplementary pension (retraite complémentaire, ~3-4% tier 1 plus tier 2), and CSG (~9.2%) and CRDS (0.5%) levies applied to ~98.25% of gross salary (CSG partially non-deductible). Standard health/unemployment employee contributions were largely abolished (shifted to CSG) in prior reforms.
In addition to statutory leave, employees are entitled to the following statutory benefits:
France's social security system is financed by combined employer and employee contributions collected primarily via URSSAF, covering health, pensions, unemployment, family benefits, and work accidents.
Rates and the annual Social Security ceiling (plafond) are updated periodically by URSSAF and vary with company size and applicable convention collective.
Work-related injuries and occupational illnesses (AT/MP) are covered through a dedicated branch of the Sécurité sociale, funded entirely by employer contributions at a rate varying by company size, industry, and claims history (experience rating).
Covered employees receive medical care, daily compensation (indemnités journalières) during incapacity — generally at a higher rate than standard sick leave — and, in cases of permanent disability, a lump sum or annuity (rente) depending on the disability rate assessed.
Statutory severance (indemnité légale de licenciement) applies to employees dismissed after at least 8 months of continuous service (except for gross/serious misconduct). The legal formula is 1/4 of a monthly reference salary per year of service for the first 10 years, and 1/3 of a monthly reference salary per year beyond 10 years.
Many convention collectives provide more generous formulas or lower seniority thresholds than the statutory minimum, so the applicable CBA should always be checked, as it prevails when more favorable to the employee.
France has no national statutory requirement for a 13th (or 14th) month salary. However, a 13th-month bonus is widespread market practice in certain sectors (e.g., banking, some industrial CBAs) and is often included as a matter of collective agreement, established company custom, or individual employment contract.
P.S. our team speaks multiple languages and we'd love to chat in your preferred language if requested.
Your employee's hours, time off, holidays, bonuses, and commissions are automatically calculated into payroll. RemoFirst will invoice you in either US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR), British Pounds (GBP), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Australian Dollars (AUD), or Singapore Dollars (SGD) around the 15th of each month to make sure your employees are paid on time. To make it even easier, you can summarize your entire global team's salaries to aggregate them into one payment (instead of many individual payments).
Unlike full-time employees, contractors work on projects with multiple companies at a given time and are technically self-employed. Full-time employees are solely focused on their employer and usually receive benefits (such as health insurance, equity or stock options, and time off) as an additional form of compensation. While it can be cheaper to work with international contractors instead of paying benefits to a full-time employee, you run the risk of misclassification. It's recommended to work with an EOR for contractor onboarding and payments, so you can know that your international contractors are paid compliantly and on time.
Whenever the employee or employer has a question about, or anything else related to international employment, they can speak with our customer support team to get answers from our team of experts.
