Cumulation of employment and retirement of the employee

Verified 01 January 2025 - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

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You are retired and consider to continue or resume a professional activity ? The cumulation conditions your retirement pensions and your working income vary depending on whether you have a full or reduced rate basic pension. In addition, your business may, under certain conditions, cause you to acquire new pension rights. We're presenting these provisions to you.

The combination of your basic retirement pension from Pension Insurance with income from employment may be integral or subject to an income ceiling.

Full employment-pension cumulation

You can accumulate in full your basic retirement pension from Pension Insurance and occupational income:

  • If you have a basic retirement pension of Pension Insurance full rate
  • Or if you carry out certain activities.
Basic pension at full rate

You can accumulate in full your basic retirement pension from Pension Insurance and occupational income (regardless of the amount of your retirement pension and the amount of your occupational income) if you complete the conditions following:

If you meet these conditions, you can resume or continue a professional activity from the moment you retire.

Activities freely cumulable with a basic pension of the Pension Insurance

If you do not have a basic pension from Full Pension InsuranceHowever, you can fully accumulate your pension with working income if you continue or resume one or more of the following activities (subject to conditions for some of them):

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Artistic activities

You can continue or resume an artistic activity.

The activities concerned are as follows:

  • Author of literary and dramatic works, music and choreography, audiovisual and cinematographic works, graphics and plastics, and photography
  • Performing artist (lyrical, choreographic, variety artist, musician, singer, conductor, director, etc.)
  • Mannequin
  • Performer under the liberal professions.

Artistic, literary or scientific ancillary activities

You may continue an ancillary activity of an artistic, literary or scientific nature that you already exercised before your retirement.

The activities concerned include the following:

  • Publication of articles in the press or in literary or scientific journals
  • Lectures given in literary or scientific fields
  • Scientific research activities
  • Publication of books.

These activities are considered ancillary if the total annual income they have earned you over the course of calendar year before your retirement date does not exceed one third of the Smic: titleContent in force on 1er January of the year of your retirement calculated on the basis of 1,820 annual hours.

Therefore, if you retire in 2025, you must not have earned more than €7,207.20 gross in 2024.

Participation in the functioning of the justice system

You can continue or resume a casual activity that contributes to the functioning of justice.

These activities include:

  • Member or assessor of certain courts: jury of the courts of assize, assessor of the joint courts of rural leases, labor counselor, assessor of the courts for children
  • Expert, advisory or findings missions entrusted by judges
  • Arbitration activities and activities in commissions intended to obtain conciliation of the parties, in so far as participation in such commissions gives rise to the receipt of compensation.

Occasional consultations

You can continue or resume occasional consultations in a field of your competence (medical, legal, etc.).

Consultations are considered occasional if they do not take up more than 15 hours per week on average during the year.

Participation in selection boards, advisory or deliberative bodies

You can continue or resume a jury activity in an open competition.

And you can also continue or resume an activity as a member of an advisory or deliberative body. These activities include:

  • Regional, departmental or municipal councilor
  • Member of a commission or advisory board
  • Honorary Magistrate, President of a Legal Aid Office
  • Member of a board of directors or a commission within a public establishment, a public sector company, or a body responsible for the performance of the public service.

Rural accommodation

You can continue or resume a rural accommodation activity if you do it with heritage assets.

Sponsorship of an employee in training

In the overseas departments and regions (Drom), in Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, you may be recruited, for a limited period, as godfather, to ensure the training of an employee on a contract of professionalization.

Vacations in a health, social or medico-social facility

If you are a doctor or nurse, you can continue or resume a vaccination activity in a health care facility or in a social or medico-social facility or service.

If you continue or resume, within 6 months of your retirement, an activity with the institution that employed you during the 6 months prior to your retirement, that activity must not exceed 910 hours or 260 half-days.

If your activity is more than 910 hours or 260 half-days, you are not entitled to your retirement pension for a maximum of 6 months following your admission to retirement. It is paid to you again from the 7the months after you retire.

If your activity does not exceed 910 hours or 260 half-days, the income from that activity must not exceed €47,100.

In the event of overrun, your pension is reduced by the amount of the overrun to a maximum during the 6 months following your admission to retirement.

You must inform the institution where you are continuing or resuming your activity of the name and address of the pension fund that pays you your basic pension.

Healthcare professional activities

You can continue or resume a health professional activity in an area characterized by insufficient care provision or difficulties in access to care (medical desert).

The healthcare professionals involved are:

  • Physician, midwife and odontologist
  • Pharmacist, pharmacy preparer, hospital pharmacy preparer, medical physicist
  • Nursing assistant, childcare assistant, ambulance and dental assistant, nurse, massage therapist, pedicure podiatrist, occupational therapist and psychomotrician, speech therapist and orthoptist, medical electroradiology manipulator and medical laboratory technician, audio prosthetist, optician-eyewear specialist, prosthetist and orthotist, dietician.

Elective appointment for which compensation is payable

You may continue or resume elected local office duties that result in the receipt of a public office allowance.

Low-level activity

You can continue a minor activity that you practiced prior to your retirement.

An activity is considered to be of minor importance if the total annual income it has generated over the course of calendar year previous that of your retirement does not exceed one third of the Smic in force on 1er January of the year of your retirement calculated on the basis of 1,820 annual hours.

So if you retire in 2025, you must not have earned more than €7,207.20 in 2024.

If you have not been active for the whole year before your retirement, the maximum limit is reduced in proportion to the number of months worked.

If you are engaged in several small activities at the same time and your total income exceeds the maximum allowable, you must cease all of these activities in order to get your pension.

Maternal assistant

You can continue or resume a nanny, babysitter and maternal assistant activity.

Third person with a person with a disability

You can continue or resume a reception activity at home, for a fee, of an elderly, disabled or disabled person for whom you are performing the functions of a third party.

Warning  

Specific provisions apply to certain special schemes (Paris Opera, Seafarers' Old Age Insurance Scheme, Mining Pension Scheme, non-agricultural employees). If you belong to one of these schemes and are planning to continue or resume a professional activity, contact your pension fund beforehand.

Capped employment-pension cumulation

If you do not have a basic retirement pension from the Full Pension Insurance or if you do not have a freely accumulating activity, you can still accumulate your basic retirement pension from the Pension Insurance with an occupational activity income provided that the the sum of your retirement pensions (basic and complementary) and your income from operations does not exceed one maximum amount.

Depending on what is most advantageous to you, this maximum amount is equal to:

  • 160% of the Smic: titleContent to 1er January of the year calculated on the basis of 1 820 hours per year, or €2,882.88 gross in 2024
  • Or your last gross working salary before your retirement.
Elements taken into account for the calculation of the ceiling

For the calculation of the ceiling, your income from employment is taken into account up to  98.25% of its amount (i.e. the share subject to CSG: titleContent).

The pension amounts (basic and complementary) taken into account are the amounts raw.

The last gross working wage retained is equal to the monthly average of the CSG salaries you received in the last 3 months of your employment before your retirement.

The salaries taken into account are those which have given rise to membership of the Pension Insurance, the Pension Fund for Agricultural Employees and the special schemes.

If you worked part-time before you retired, you can request that your last working salary be calculated on the basis of the salaries you would have received full-time.

Employer from which the activity can be resumed

You can resume a professional activity as soon as you retire or at any time if this activity is carried out with a employer different from your last employer.

However, if you want to resume an activity with your last employer, you cannot do so at least 6 months after your retirement.

The 6-month period is calculated between the end date of your employment contract before your retirement and the start date of your new employment contract with your former employer, or the start date of your employment if you resume self-employment with your former employer.

If you return to work with your former employer within 6 months of your retirement, your basic retirement pension from Pension Insurance ceases to be paid to you between 1er the day of the month in which you resume your activity and the last day of the month in which you cease your activity or, at most, until the last day of 6e months after you retire.

Example :

If you are admitted to retirement on 1er in march, you cannot resume an activity with your last employer until 1er September (6 months later).

If you still return to work with your last employer from May 15 to June 15, your Pension Insurance Superannuation will no longer be paid on June 1er May to June 30.

If you resume an activity as of May 15 and continue to do so beyond August 31, your retirement pension will no longer be paid on August 1er May to 31 August maximum. It is returned to you from 1er September.

You must, within one month from the date of your resumption of operations, declare your situation in writing to your Carsat: titleContent.

You must provide the following information and supporting documents:

  • Name and address of the employer with which you carry out an activity covered by the Pension Insurance or the Pension Fund for Agricultural Employees or a special scheme
  • The start date of this activity.

If you meet the conditions for full employment-retirement : you must also attach an attestation on honor listing the various basic and supplementary pension funds that pay you a retirement pension and certifying that you have applied for all the basic and supplementary pensions to which you are entitled.

If you are resuming an activity as part of a maximum job-pension combination, you must also provide the following information:

  • The amount and nature of the professional income you receive from your activity and the pension fund to which you contribute as a result of that activity
  • Copy of your salary slips from your last 3 months of employment before your retirement
  • Names and addresses of other basic and supplementary pension funds that pay you a retirement pension
  • If you worked part-time before your retirement, a certificate from your former employer stating how long you worked and the applicable full-time hours of work in the company.

If your working income and your basic and supplementary retirement pensions exceed €2,882.88 or your last working salary, each of your basic pensions is reduced by the amount of the overrun.

If the amount of the reduction exceeds the amount of the pension basic pension, your basic pension is no longer paid to you.

If you have declared your resumption of activity within one month of the date of your resumption of activity, the reduction in your pension applies from 1er day of the month following the month in which your Carsat: titleContent has communicated to you the new amount of your pension.

If you did not meet this one-month deadline, the reduction applies from the month in which your working income and your retirement pensions exceeded the authorized limit.

The reduction ceases to be applied from the month in which the sum of your working income and your retirement pensions falls below the authorized ceiling.

You must report to your Carsat any change in your operating income. The new amount of your superannuation applies in this case to the 1er the day of the month in which your income changed.

It depends on whether or not you qualify for full employment-pension.

Full employment-pension cumulation

If you qualify for full employment-pension accumulation, your professional activity allows you to build up new pension rights with the basic pension fund that covers your activity.

If you are resuming an activity with your last employerHowever, this resumption of activity entitles you to a pension supplement if it occurs at least 6 months after your retirement. If this deadline is not met, your new activity will never generate a new entitlement.

The amount of your basic Pension Insurance pension that was calculated when you retired does not change. However, periods during which you are working during your retirement give you the right to a new retirement pension.

This new retirement pension is calculated at the full rate or at the maximum rate. No discount shall be applied to its amount.

Unlike the basic retirement pension of the Pension Insurance which was calculated when you retired, this new pension cannot be increased (for children, for example).

The amount of your new retirement pension cannot exceed €2,355 gross per year.

You can only benefitonce only a new retirement pension from the same basic pension fund.

The application for a new pension following full employment-pension is made using the following form:

Application for pension following job-pension accumulation

FYI  

Your professional activity also allows you to acquire new rights from your supplementary pension fund (Agirc-Arco: titleContent).

Capped employment-pension cumulation

The resumption of a professional activity during your retirement does not give you any new right to retirement.

Your pensions are not recalculated.

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