By The essentials
- EU/EEA/Swiss citizens can work freely in France without a permit ;
- Non-EU citizens need a work-authorising visa or permit (Talent Passport, salaried, intra-company transfer, etc.) ;
- The legal work week is 35 hours — extra hours generate paid overtime or RTT days off ;
- Minimum wage (SMIC) is around €1 802 gross per month in 2026 — €11.88 per hour.
Explore the working guides
Two detailed guides cover the practical side of landing a French job. The current page is the overview of rights, contracts and procedures — pick the one that matches your stage.
Finding a Job in France
Job sites, France Travail, networking, recruitment specifics and where English-speaking expats actually land their first French role.
Writing a French CV
French CV format, photo, single page, what to include and how it differs from anglo-saxon resumes — plus the cover letter (lettre de motivation).
Right to Work in France: by Nationality
Whether you need a permit at all comes down to your passport, not the job itself. France splits the world into three buckets:
EU, EEA and Swiss citizens
Free movement applies. You can take any private-sector job in France without a permit, register with France Travail, and accrue social rights from day one. The only restriction is the public sector: civil-service positions are reserved for French (and in some cases EU) nationals depending on the role. No titre de séjour is needed, although registering at your mairie after three months is recommended for administrative reasons.
UK citizens after Brexit
Since 1 January 2021, British nationals are treated as third-country nationals for new arrivals. UK citizens already legally resident before that date kept their rights via the Withdrawal Agreement card. New arrivals from the UK now need a work-authorising visa exactly like Americans, Canadians or Australians.
Non-EU citizens (US, Canada, Australia, etc.)
A work-authorising title is required before you start any paid activity. The main routes are the carte de séjour salarié, the Talent Passport for qualified profiles, intra-company transfers, the Working Holiday agreement (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, plus a few others), and the student visa with provisional work authorisation. The visa itself is normally requested by the employer, who must justify the hire to the labour authorities.
Work Permits and Visas
For non-EU candidates, the right permit depends on salary, qualifications and the nature of the assignment. The main work-authorising titles in 2026 are summarised below.
| Permit | Duration | Conditions | Salary threshold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Talent Passport | Up to 4 years, renewable | Qualified employee, founder, researcher, artist | ≥ 2× SMIC (≈ €43 000/year) |
| Carte de séjour salarié | 1 year, renewable (CDI) | Standard salaried contract, employer-sponsored | ≥ SMIC |
| ICT (intra-company transfer) | Up to 3 years | Move within the same multinational group | ≥ 1.8× SMIC for managers |
| Working Holiday (PVT) | 12 months, non-renewable | 18-30 (35 for some countries), eligible nationality | No threshold |
| Student visa | Renewed each academic year | Enrolled in a French institution | No threshold (60% full-time cap) |
Students on a regular visa can work up to 60% of full-time hours (around 964 hours per year, roughly 19.5 hours per week) without a separate authorisation. Working Holiday agreements exist with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Argentina and several other countries — exact age limits and quotas vary. For the residency mechanics that come with each title, see our guide to French visas.
The 35-Hour Work Week
France's legal full-time working week has been 35 hours since the loi Aubry of 2000. It is not a cap on how much you can work — it is the threshold above which extra hours have to be compensated. Most office contracts are written at 35 or 39 hours, with built-in mechanisms to handle the difference.
RTT and overtime
Hours worked beyond 35 are either paid as overtime (heures supplémentaires, with a 25% premium for the first 8 hours and 50% beyond) or compensated in time off, called RTT (Réduction du Temps de Travail). A 39-hour contract typically generates around 10 to 12 RTT days per year on top of the 25 days of paid leave. Senior executives on a forfait jours contract count days worked rather than hours, and receive RTT instead of overtime.
The solidarity day
Once a year, employees give up seven hours of unpaid work as a contribution to the autonomy fund for elderly and disabled people — the journée de solidarité. It was historically fixed on Whit Monday (Lundi de Pentecôte), but since 2008 each employer chooses the date. In practice, it is often absorbed by working a normally-off public holiday, by removing one RTT day, or by spreading the seven hours across the year.
Salary and the SMIC
The minimum wage — SMIC (Salaire Minimum Interprofessionnel de Croissance) — is revalued at least once a year, typically on 1 January, and again whenever inflation exceeds 2% since the last update. As of January 2026, the SMIC stands at approximately €11.88 gross per hour, which works out to €1 802 gross per month on a 35-hour contract — roughly €1 426 net after social contributions.
Gross versus net: reading a payslip
French job ads almost always quote gross annual salary (brut). The gap to net pay is wider than in most anglo-saxon countries: about 22% of social contributions are deducted from your gross salary on the employee side, and the employer pays a further ~42% on top in employer contributions (cotisations patronales) — never visible on your payslip but a major reason French gross salaries look low at first glance.
Income tax at source (PAS)
Since 2019, income tax is withheld directly each month by the employer through the prélèvement à la source (PAS) system. The annual income tax declaration on impots.gouv.fr still has to be filed every spring — it reconciles what was withheld with what is actually owed. For the full picture on French income tax, including the rates and credits available to expats, see our guide to taxes in France.
Employment Contracts: CDI, CDD, Intérim
Knowing which contract you are being offered is more important than the salary in many cases — it determines your job security, your unemployment rights, and the bank's willingness to lend you a mortgage.
CDI: the open-ended contract
The CDI (contrat à durée indéterminée) is the default and most protective French contract — no end date, dismissal requires a real and serious cause and a formal procedure, and notice periods range from one to three months depending on seniority. The first months usually include a période d'essai (trial period) of two to four months, renewable once.
CDD: the fixed-term contract
The CDD (contrat à durée déterminée) is used for a specific reason — replacing an absent employee, covering a temporary increase in activity, seasonal work. The standard maximum is 18 months, renewable once within that limit, with a 10% end-of-contract premium (prime de précarité) paid on the last payslip. Some sectors (research, construction) have their own ceilings.
Intérim, apprenticeship and alternance
Temporary agency work (intérim) operates through staffing firms — Manpower, Adecco, Randstad — that hold the contract and second you to a client company for a defined mission. Apprenticeship (apprentissage) and alternance combine paid work with study, are common for under-26s, and benefit from heavy state subsidies that make them very attractive to employers.
Paid Leave and Benefits
French employees enjoy one of the most generous benefit packages in the OECD. The headline figures look familiar — five weeks of leave, public holidays, parental leave — but the details have a distinctly French flavour.
- Five weeks of paid leave per year, accrued at 2.5 working days per month worked, plus the RTT days for contracts above 35 hours ;
- Maternity leave: 16 weeks for a first or second child (6 before birth, 10 after), longer from the third child onwards, fully paid up to a Sécu ceiling ;
- Paternity leave: 28 days since 1 July 2021, of which 7 are mandatory for the employer to enforce ;
- Public holidays: 11 statutory jours fériés, with paid time off depending on collective agreements ;
- Mandatory health top-up (mutuelle d'entreprise): since the loi ANI of 2016, every private employer must offer a collective mutuelle and finance at least 50% of the premium ;
- Tickets restaurant: lunch vouchers commonly issued in office jobs, jointly paid by employer and employee, exempt from social charges within a daily ceiling.
For the healthcare side of the mutuelle obligation and how it dovetails with PUMa, see our guide to healthcare in France.
Self-Employment and Freelance Status
France offers several legal vehicles for solo activity, ranging from the streamlined micro-entrepreneur regime (formerly auto-entrepreneur) to full-blown limited companies. Choosing the right one depends on revenue, liability appetite and whether you plan to bill VAT.
| Status | Annual revenue cap | Charges | Tax | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro-entrepreneur (services) | €77 700 | ~22% of revenue | Income tax (option pour le PFL) | Freelancers, consultants |
| Micro-entrepreneur (commerce) | €188 700 | ~12% of revenue | Income tax | Resellers, accommodation |
| Entreprise individuelle (EI) | No cap | ~45% of net profit | Income tax (option for IS) | Solo activity above caps |
| SASU | No cap | ~70% of gross salary | Corporate tax (IS) | High earners, dividend strategy |
| EURL | No cap | ~45% of profit | Income tax (option for IS) | Single-shareholder LLC |
Most expats start as micro-entrepreneur: it can be set up online in 15 minutes on autoentrepreneur.urssaf.fr, social charges are flat-rate on actual revenue (no revenue means no charges), and it gives you a SIRET number to invoice clients legally. Declarations are submitted monthly or quarterly through the URSSAF portal. The trade-off is the revenue ceiling and the inability to deduct expenses — past a certain volume, switching to EI or SASU usually pays off. A dedicated business bank account is strongly recommended (and mandatory above €10 000 of annual revenue for two consecutive years) — see our guide to French banking for the options open to non-residents.
France Travail (formerly Pôle Emploi)
Since 1 January 2024, the public employment service has been rebranded France Travail — the same agency, with an expanded mandate to coordinate with social services and training providers. It is the gateway to unemployment benefit, free training programmes, and one of the largest job-listing databases in France.
Registering with France Travail
Anyone legally allowed to work in France can register, including EU citizens, holders of a work-authorising titre de séjour, and Working Holiday participants. Registration is done online at france.travail.fr (the legacy pole-emploi.fr URL still redirects). You'll need your social security number, proof of identity and address, and the end-of-contract certificate (attestation employeur) from your last French job if applicable.
Unemployment benefit (ARE)
The Allocation d'Aide au Retour à l'Emploi (ARE) replaces a portion of the salary lost when a contract ends. To qualify, you generally need to have worked at least 6 months out of the last 24 (under-53s) and to have lost the job involuntarily — resignations are excluded except in specific cases. The benefit is roughly 57 to 75% of the previous gross salary, and lasts up to 18 months for under-53s, 22.5 months for 53-54 year-olds, and 27 months for 55+ — figures cut by 25% under the 2023 reform once labour-market conditions are favourable.
Worker Rights and Protections
The French code du travail is famously dense — and famously employee-friendly. Three institutions matter most to anyone in a dispute with their employer.
Conseil de Prud'hommes
The Conseil de Prud'hommes is the labour court, with one branch per major French city. It hears all individual disputes between employees and employers — wrongful dismissal, unpaid wages, discrimination, harassment. Judges are elected representatives of employers and employees, sitting in equal numbers. Filing is free and a lawyer is not mandatory. Cases involving wrongful dismissal can result in damages capped by a barème Macron introduced in 2017, currently subject to ongoing legal contestation.
Occupational health and inspections
Every employee benefits from médecine du travail — a mandatory occupational-health check on hiring and at regular intervals, paid for by the employer. The Inspection du travail is the public agency that audits employers for compliance with the code du travail on working time, safety and contracts. Either body can be contacted directly without your employer's knowledge in case of a serious issue.
Unions and collective agreements
French unions (CGT, CFDT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC) negotiate sector-wide conventions collectives that bind all employers in a given industry, often improving on the legal minimums (more leave, longer notice, higher overtime premiums). Your payslip names the convention that applies — check it on legifrance.gouv.fr to know exactly what extra protections you can rely on.
Useful Resources
A short list of official and expat-friendly tools that cover most situations once you start working in France:
- france.travail.fr — the public employment service for job listings, training and unemployment benefit ;
- service-public.fr — the official portal for every administrative procedure, with English summaries on most pages ;
- legifrance.gouv.fr — the full text of the code du travail and every convention collective ;
- Welcome to the Jungle — startup and tech jobs with bilingual listings ;
- LinkedIn France — the dominant platform for white-collar roles ;
- autoentrepreneur.urssaf.fr — the official portal to register as a micro-entrepreneur ;
- Our English-speaking helplines directory for Ameli, France Travail and other admin lines.
Two practical companions to the working-life basics: a French bank account (mandatory to receive a salary) and proof of French residency (often requested at the hiring stage and always at the social-security registration step).