For years, France has allowed people to draw a French retirement pension while continuing to work. The system is known as cumul emploi-retraite, and until the end of 2026 it comes in two forms.
Cumul intégral
With cumul intégral, a person can receive their retirement pension while earning an unlimited income from work. To qualify, they generally have to have reached the legal retirement age, have the number of quarters required for a full-rate pension, and have claimed all their eligible French and foreign pensions.
A second route to unrestricted cumul is reaching the age at which a pension is automatically paid at the maximum rate, currently 67.
Cumul plafonné
Those who do not meet the conditions for cumul intégral fall under cumul plafonné. Their employment income is subject to limits and the pension can be reduced if those limits are exceeded.
The 2023 pension reform also made cumul intégral more attractive by allowing people who meet the conditions to build new pension rights through subsequent work.
The rules apply both to salaried workers and to those who run their own business or professional practice, although simply owning shares in a company and receiving dividends is not necessarily the same thing as continuing to work in the business.
From 2027
The new rules were enacted last December, though the decree needed to fix the exact threshold and some of the practical detail has not yet been published.
For people whose first basic pension comes into payment from 1st January 2027, the change does away with the cumul intégral/ cumul plafonné distinction entirely, replacing it with a single system based purely on age, in three bands.
i. Before the legal retirement age
If you have retired before reaching your applicable legal retirement age and continue working, your pension will be reduced by the amount of the relevant professional and replacement income, euro for euro. In practice, therefore, working simply offsets the pension you would otherwise receive.
ii. Between the legal retirement age and 67
Once the person has reached the legal retirement age, but is still under 67, the pension will be reduced if professional and replacement income exceeds a threshold. This is a single combined ceiling — it covers both earnings from work and replacement income such as sickness benefits, not two separate limits.
The law leaves the precise threshold to a government decree. €7,000 a year has been widely indicated as the expected figure, but it is not yet the final statutory threshold. The Government has yet to publish the implementing decrees, making it difficult to model the impact of the change.
The reduction will be 50% of the amount above the threshold.
So, if the eventual threshold is €7,000 and someone earns €10,000 from work, the excess is €3,000 and the pension reduction would be €1,500.
iii. From 67
At 67, the restrictions disappear. The pension can again be combined fully with professional income.
This is also the point at which working can again generate new pension rights under the new system.
Although the new rules only apply from 1st January 2027, liberal professionals (professions libérales) may need to make a decision before 1st October 2026 because of the way their pension dates operate.
Foreign pensions are entirely unaffected by these rules.
