How much should you invoice to keep €100 net as a French micro-entrepreneur?
To keep €100 available as a French micro-entrepreneur, you need to invoice more than €100. The final amount depends on your activity, contributions, possible tax, expenses and safety margin.
Explanation
In the French micro-enterprise regime, invoicing €100 does not mean keeping €100. Social contributions are calculated on collected revenue. If you selected the lump-sum tax payment, income tax is also calculated on that revenue. Business expenses also reduce what you actually keep, even if they are not deducted as real expenses under the standard micro regime.
To aim for €100 available, work backwards: start from the income you want to keep, then add charges, expenses and margin. This is useful when pricing a service, photo session, freelance job or one-off intervention.
The higher your expenses, the higher the invoice amount must be. A service with no direct costs may stay closer to the desired income. A service involving travel, equipment, preparation time or delivery should be priced higher.
Formula / method
Invoice price ≈ (desired income + expenses + margin) / (1 - total charge rate)
Concrete example
If you want to keep €100, with 25% total charges, €20 in business expenses and €10 as a safety margin, the result is around €173. Invoicing only €100 would be too low if your goal is to keep €100 available.
Common mistake
Do not think “I want €100, so I invoice €100”. In a micro-enterprise, that shortcut destroys your margin.
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