Home / Business owners & succession / Wealth structuring / Liberal professions
Self-employed professionals
Liberal profession: your income is high, your protection is rarely as high.
A self-employed professional pays the highest tax rate, contributes to a pension fund that provides inadequate coverage for work stoppages, and builds a business whose value is negotiable upon exit. Four issues are addressed simultaneously: protection, taxation, retirement, and business transfer.
Four topics
This is what we settle, in this order.
Patient base, clientele, shares in the SEL: the added value can be exempt depending on your income, the value transferred or your retirement.
In SALT
Remuneration or dividends: the threshold of 10 %.
| What you perceive | Social security contributions | Tax |
|---|---|---|
| Majority shareholder compensation | Yes, on the whole | Scale, after deduction of contributions |
| Dividends up to 10 % from capital, premiums and current accounts | No: 18.6 % of social security contributions | 12.8 %, or optional scale |
| Dividends above this threshold | Yes, as remuneration (article L. 131-6 of the CSS) | 12.8 %, or optional scale |
The capital of the SEL and the current accounts set the threshold: too little capital causes almost all dividends to be converted into contributions.
Frequently asked questions
What clients ask us.
How is the sale of my patient base or clientele taxed?
This is a business capital gain. It is exempt if your revenue does not exceed €90,000 (partially up to €126,000) after 5 years of business activity (Article 151 septies of the French General Tax Code), or if the value transferred is less than €500,000 (Article 238 quindecies). Retirement opens up further exemptions.
Will my pension fund be sufficient?
Each pension fund publishes its estimate: it starts with your pension statement, then calculates the difference with your desired retirement income. The PER TNS (Self-Employed Retirement Savings Plan) and savings outside of employment bridge this gap, with a maximum deduction of €88,911 in 2026.
Should I create a holding company above my SEL?
A financial holding company for liberal professions allows for the redistribution of dividends from the SEL (Société d'Exercice Libéral) and the financing of a share buyback. It becomes justified above a certain level of profit: both scenarios are quantified before creating anything.
