Every month or every quarter, a self-employed person must log on to autoentrepreneur.urssaf.fr to declare their turnover. He will then have to pay his social security contributions immediately: they are 25.60 % on revenue from liberal activities (BNC), 12.30% on merchandise sales activities (BIC sales), and 21.20% on commercial or artisanal services (BIC services). This amount collected finances both health insurance, family allowances, etc. and future retirement.
So, the self-employed person contributes proportionally to what he invoices. However, it is quite well known that when you are not an employee, you should not rely too much on the pension you contribute to, which is often much lower than what you earned during your working life. Olivier Sentis, general director of the MIF mutual, says it himself: “Self-employed people need to finance their retirement, they must consider it in advance ». It must be said that the calculation of the pension paid by the State remains opaque regarding liberal activities.
A lower contribution rate for a comparable gross salary
Let’s get into the details. Of the percentages that we detailed above, only part finances retirement. The share devoted to the basic pension is currently 43.45% of contributions paid in 2026, and the supplementary pension 30.70%. In other words, out of 100 euros of contributions paid, around 74 euros are now used to build retirement rights, the rest covering illness and daily allowances.
Doesn’t that sound so bad? However, this percentage is taken from the portion paid to URSSAF. In other words, if you have declared a self-employed turnover of 1,952 euros, you will pay 500 euros in contributions to the URSSAF (excluding CFP). Of these 500 euros, 370 will go into your retirement. And it’s actually quite little: a traditional employee contributes for his pension alone (basic and supplementary, employer and employee contributions combined) at around 28% of his gross salary. That is, for an equivalent gross salary of 1,952 euros to return to our previous example, 546 euros which finance the employee’s retirement. An important difference.
It is moreover to help correct this that a reform has gradually raised the overall contribution rate for self-employed people in BNC, from 21.1% to 26.1% in 2026 (rate taking into account the CFP). The aim was to specifically strengthen the rights of freelancers to supplementary retirement. Thus, to contribute as much as an employee, a freelancer should charge more – for example, based instead on the super-gross salary of an employee (which includes employer contributions) whose ratio is around 0.70 to 0.75 depending on the company.
Validating your quarters, another difficulty
Contributing is not enough: you also have to validate quarters, and that depends on a minimum turnover threshold. In 2026, to validate his four quarters, a self-employed service provider must declare at least 10,800 euros of annual turnover. In fact, each level of 2,700 euros in turnover triggers one more quarter, up to four per year. An irregular turnover from one year to the next, which is common among the self-employed, can therefore slow down the acquisition of quarters, and mechanically reduce the amount of the pension.
Complete your retirement: PER, PEA, life insurance?
The Retirement Savings Plan (PER) remains the reference tool for setting up a funded pension. It has the advantage of offering a tax advantage, because payments are deducted from the taxable net (be careful, to benefit from it, you must not have taken the final income tax payment). On a PER, you can invest in the same way as life insurance: in a fund in euros or in units of account. It is still advisable, when you have a long time horizon, to put as much money as possible in a dynamic pockettherefore units of account such as funds invested in the stock market, ETFs which replicate stock market indices, etc.
The PER is blocked until retirement (with releases authorized all the same in the event of a life accident), and it is possible to plan regular payments. Olivier Sentis gives an order of magnitude: “ If they save 100 euros per month from the age of 45, they will benefit from an additional 100 euros per month for their retirement until their death..
Finally, the PER is not the only solution. The PEA is suitable for those who want to grow capital over the long term, with an exemption from capital gains tax after five years of holding, but without tax advantage on entry. Life insurance offers more flexibility : the funds remain available at any time, unlike the PER blocked until retirement, and it facilitates the transmission of assets (but still without tax advantage upon entry).
