Collecting payments for private tutoring in France
Bank transfer, cash, cheque or payment link: the ways to collect payments for private tutoring, the rules that apply, and how to keep track.
Collecting a payment for a private lesson means turning an hour taught into money received, recorded, and tied to the right student. It is the least visible part of the job and often the worst kept. A tutor teaching fifteen hours a week takes in well over a hundred payments per term, split between transfers, cash, and cards. Without a method, you lose track of who paid for what.
This article covers the payment methods that suit private tutoring, the rules around them, and how to keep a reliable record without spending your Sundays on it.
Choosing your payment methods
Every method has trade-offs. Most tutors settle on two or three.
- Bank transfer. The easiest to trace: each payment carries a name and a date. A SEPA transfer usually clears within one business day. Share your IBAN once and ask families to put the student's first name in the reference.
- Cash. Handy for a one-off lesson, but it comes with limits. Between a professional and a private client, a cash payment cannot exceed 1,000 € under French law (article D112-3 of the monetary and financial code). Above that, the fine can reach 5% of the amount paid in cash, and both parties are liable. Write down every sum the day you receive it.
- Cheque. Still common with some families. Account for the deposit and clearing delay, and match each cheque to the lesson it covers.
- Payment link or card. A link sent by message avoids forgotten payments and credits your account automatically. Expect a fee of around 1.5% per transaction depending on the provider.
The right payment method comes down to one test: three months from now, when a family asks for a summary, can you tie each payment back to a specific lesson?
Invoice before you collect
An invoice is not just paperwork. It is the record that connects a payment to a service. As a self-employed tutor (auto-entrepreneur), you must issue an invoice for each service, with the line "TVA non applicable, article 293 B du CGI" while you are under the VAT exemption threshold. A tutoring invoice tool builds those invoices from your lessons and flags the ones still unpaid.
Number your invoices with no gap in the sequence, date them, and keep them for at least ten years. That same record lets you produce the year-end attestations families need for their taxes.
The tax credit shapes how you get paid
Home tutoring falls under personal services (services à la personne). The family gets a tax credit worth 50% of what they pay, up to 12,000 € per year (15,000 € in the first year). That matters to you: a family that gets half of it back accepts a fair rate more readily and pays more consistently.
There are two routes. The standard declaration through impots.gouv.fr, where the family reports the sums the following year. Or the instant advance, which deducts the 50% at the moment of payment. We covered it in a dedicated piece: the instant tax-credit advance for tutors.
One condition: the tax credit only applies if your activity is properly declared, in particular to URSSAF. Cash that never gets declared opens no rights for anyone.
Keeping a reliable record
The real work starts after the money arrives. For every student, you should be able to answer three questions at any time:
- How many hours were taught?
- How much was invoiced?
- How much was actually paid?
A spreadsheet answers this at first, then fills with errors: a cancelled lesson still invoiced, a transfer credited to the wrong sibling, a cheque left in a folder. Matching each payment to a lesson every week keeps the mistakes from piling up.
Kadrella keeps that balance current on its own: each lesson taught creates a debt, each payment clears it, and a student turns red once they owe more than a set amount. You see at a glance who is up to date and who is not. When a delay sets in anyway, deal with it early. We wrote a guide on chasing a late payment without damaging the relationship.
A simple routine
- Invoice the lesson the day it happens, not at month end.
- Offer one default payment method, usually transfer, and keep a backup.
- Reconcile payments against lessons once a week, never once a term.
- Produce the annual attestation in January, while the figures are fresh.
Collecting cleanly is not about chasing money. It is about building the path from lesson taught to payment received once, then letting it run. The time you save goes back into teaching. To see what a tool that keeps this record costs, check our pricing.
Sources
A senior software engineer, he founds and runs several tech companies. He builds products around messaging APIs, automation and AI integration, and shares here what he learns while building.
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