Working while drawing a French pension (cumul emploi-retraite)

Sources and assumptions

• service-public.gouv.fr — F13243 — tax year 2026, verified on September 17, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « 160  % du Smic: titleContent au 1er janvier de l'année calculé sur la base de 1 820 heures par an, soit 2 916,85 € brut par mois »

• service-public.gouv.fr — F13243 — tax year 2026, verified on September 17, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « Pour le calcul du plafond, votre revenu d’activité est pris en compte dans la limite de  98,25 % de son montant (c’est-à-dire la part soumise à CSG: titleContent). »

• service-public.gouv.fr — F13243 — tax year 2026, verified on September 17, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « En revanche, si vous souhaitez reprendre une activité auprès de votre dernier employeur, vous ne pouvez le faire qu'au moins 6 mois après votre admission à la retraite. »

• service-public.gouv.fr — F13243 — tax year 2026, verified on September 17, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « Le montant de votre nouvelle pension de retraite ne peut pas dépasser 2 403 € brut par an. »

• entreprendre.service-public.gouv.fr — F36611 — tax year 2026, verified on September 17, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « Vous êtes affilié au régime de la Cnav: titleContent : le montant de vos pensions de retraite et de vos revenus ne doit pas dépasser 24 030 €. »

• entreprendre.service-public.gouv.fr — F36611 — tax year 2026, verified on September 17, 2026

  Excerpt from the source : « Vous êtes situé dans une zone France ruralités revitalisation (ZFRR) ou une zone urbaine prioritaire (ZUP) : le montant annuel de vos pensions de retraite et de vos revenus ne doit pas dépasser 48 060 €. Vous êtes affilié au régime de la Cnavpl: titleContent : le montant annuel de vos pensions de retraite et de vos revenus ne doit pas dépasser 48 060 €. »

Calculation assumptions

• Two schemes only: private-sector employees under the Assurance retraite, and self-employed workers affiliated to the Cnav or the Cnavpl as described by the entreprendre fact sheet. The special schemes the fact sheet expressly carves out (Paris Opera, seafarers, mining, non-agricultural employees), the civil service and the agricultural scheme are not modelled — contact your pension fund. Phased retirement (retraite progressive), which neither fact sheet covers, is not modelled either.
• The engine does not ask what KIND of activity you resume. Yet the fact sheet grants unrestricted cumul, without the full rate, to a list of fifteen activities: artistic work, incidental artistic, literary or scientific work, service to the justice system, occasional consultancy, examination boards and advisory bodies, rural accommodation, mentoring an employee in training in the overseas territories, sessions in healthcare establishments, health professional in an under-served area, sheltered employment, local elected office, low-income activity, childminding, paid home care as a carer, employee housed by the employer. Each has its own conditions, described by the fact sheet; if yours is on that list, the "capped" outcome does not apply to you.
• The Smic-based cap is the one the fact sheet prints: 160 % of the Smic at 1 January of the year, computed over 1,820 hours a year, i.e. €2,916.85 gross a month. The rule uses the Smic at 1 January: a mid-year increase in the Smic does not change this cap.
• A single basic pension is taken into account. The fact sheet states that "each" basic pension is reduced by the amount of the excess: with several basic schemes, the reduction is shared out in ways this calculation does not reproduce.
• The calculation is monthly, at constant income. It models neither the date the withholding takes effect — which depends on when you declared the new activity — nor the pro rata of an incomplete month, nor the end of the reduction in the month the total falls back below the cap.
• Only the CAP on the second basic pension is computed, not its amount: that depends on the quarters and pay of the cumul period. Agirc-Arrco points earned while working are added on top of that cap and are computed with the supplementary pension calculator.
• The social security financing act of this calculation's reference year changes the conditions of cumul emploi-retraite from 1 January of the following year: the fact sheet says so itself and states that it will be updated on that date. The engine applies the earlier law; as that deadline approaches, re-read the fact sheet before relying on the result.