Getting paid via CESU for tutoring

The CESU (chèque emploi service universel) is a scheme run by France's URSSAF that lets a family employ and pay a home worker directly, including a tutor for at-home lessons, by declaring the wage online. For many parents it is the simplest way to pay for private tutoring. For you, the tutor, it raises a real question: accept being paid through CESU, or invoice your lessons as a self-employed tutor?

Two forms of CESU

The word CESU actually covers two different mechanisms.

• CESU déclaratif (declarative CESU). The family employs you directly and declares your hours and pay each month in their online account. URSSAF calculates the social contributions, collects them and issues your payslip. You are the family's home employee.
• CESU préfinancé (pre-funded CESU). This is a payment voucher, often co-funded by a parent's employer or works council, that the family uses to pay you. You then get it reimbursed, and it always comes with a declaration.

In both cases the declaration goes through URSSAF. You have no invoice to issue and no contributions to manage yourself.

The condition that changes everything: the home

For the family, CESU opens the right to a tax credit equal to 50% of the sums paid, within an annual ceiling of 12,000 € for most households (raised depending on the number of children or dependents). On a lesson at 30 € an hour, the family therefore really pays only 15 €.

But this benefit comes with a strict condition: the lesson must take place at the student's home. A lesson given online, or at your place, does not qualify. This is the point parents understand least well, and the one that often decides how they pay.

At-home lesson: the family uses CESU and gets half back. Online lesson: no CESU, no tax credit. The distinction is not paperwork. It changes the net price the parent pays.

Since 2022, the instant tax-credit advance even lets the family pay only half straight away, without waiting for next year's refund.

Salaried through CESU, or self-employed and invoicing?

This is the real choice, and both routes are legal. They simply suit different profiles.

Being paid through CESU means being the family's employee:

• no registration, no status to create;
• no invoice to write, URSSAF handles the declarations;
• social cover and a payslip every month;
• in return, you depend on the family for hours and pace, and your income counts as wages.

Invoicing as a self-employed tutor is the opposite:

• you set up your micro-enterprise and invoice your lessons yourself;
• for the family to keep its tax credit, you need a home-service (SAP) declaration from the DREETS;
• you manage your URSSAF contributions and all your invoicing;
• in exchange, you freely set your rates, your hours and the number of families.

The same lesson cannot be both paid through CESU and invoiced: for a given session, it is one or the other. Many tutors still mix the two by family, a few students on CESU, others on invoices.

What it changes for your tracking

This is where it gets tricky. A tutor with three families on CESU and five on invoices has to track, for each student, who pays how, how many hours, net or gross, and which lessons actually took place at home. One mistake means a wrong declaration or a lost tax credit for a family.

Keeping all of that in a spreadsheet rarely survives a whole year. Putting your students, their lessons and their payments in a single tool saves you from recounting everything by hand at month-end. That is exactly what Kadrella does: every lesson, every payment and every family in one place, whether the money comes through CESU or an invoice.

Sources

• Le CESU – URSSAF
• Cesu déclaratif or Cesu préfinancé: what differences? – Service-Public.fr
• Home employment – impots.gouv.fr
• Tax credit for employing a home worker – impots.gouv.fr
• Personal services: tax benefits – servicesalapersonne.gouv.fr