Reporting tutoring income on your French tax return
How a private tutor on the micro-BNC regime reports lesson income on the French tax return, applies the 34% allowance and files form 2042-C-PRO.
Reporting your tutoring income to the tax office is the yearly step where you tell the French tax authorities how much you earned, so they can work out your income tax. It is a separate obligation from the social contributions you pay to URSSAF through the year.
Two obligations people mix up
A self-employed tutor deals with two bodies on two timetables. URSSAF collects your social contributions every month or quarter, based on the turnover you declare. The tax authority calculates your income tax once a year, in spring, on the same activity but under different rules. The confusion is common: you report a similar turnover figure to each body, but on different forms and at different times of the year.
Paying your contributions does not replace the income-tax return. Both stand on their own. For the contributions side, the article on declaring your income to URSSAF covers it in full.
Your lessons fall under BNC
Tutoring income is a non-commercial profit (bénéfices non commerciaux, or BNC), the category for liberal professions. As long as your yearly receipts stay under €77,700, you are automatically on the micro-BNC regime, the simplified scheme built for small activities.
Under it, there is no heavy bookkeeping. You report the total you collected during the year, and the administration handles the calculation.
The 34% allowance
Micro-BNC applies a flat 34% allowance to your receipts, with a €305 minimum. That allowance stands in for your business costs, so you deduct no actual expenses, whether travel, equipment or software. Tax falls on the remaining 66%.
A concrete case. Say you collect €12,000 of lessons in a year:
€12,000 in receipts, minus the 34% allowance, leaves €7,920 of taxable profit. That figure is added to your household income and follows your tax band.
You compute nothing yourself. You enter the gross figure, and the allowance is applied for you.
Where to file: form 2042-C-PRO
Income tax is declared on the supplementary return 2042-C-PRO, filed with your usual income-tax return. Look for the "Revenus non commerciaux professionnels" heading, then the "Régime déclaratif spécial ou micro-BNC" box.
There you report the full amount of your yearly receipts, with nothing taken off. The exact box depends on which member of the household is declaring, 5HQ for the first person, for instance. The online service at impots.gouv.fr pre-fills part of your return, but not these receipts: entering them is on you.
The flat-rate option, if you chose it
At registration, some tutors opt for the flat-rate income-tax payment (versement fiscal libératoire). You then pay your tax alongside your contributions, at a fixed 2.2% of receipts for a BNC activity, straight to URSSAF. It suits tutors whose household would otherwise owe tax on this income; if your household pays little or no tax, the standard route can cost less, so the choice is worth checking rather than taking by default.
This option is open only if your household's reference tax income, from two years back, stays under a ceiling. Even then, you still report your receipts on the 2042-C-PRO, in the box reserved for the flat-rate option: they set your overall tax rate without being taxed twice.
Above €77,700
If your receipts pass the threshold two years running, you move to the déclaration contrôlée. The flat allowance then goes away: you deduct real expenses and keep proper accounts, often with an accountant. That regime pays off once your costs run above 34% of your receipts.
Keep a record all year
The spring return is quick when your figures are ready. Micro-BNC requires an income ledger: a dated list of every payment received, with the student's name and the payment method. Our article on keeping an income ledger sets out what it needs.
Rather than reopening a spreadsheet in April, keep that total current as lessons happen. Kadrella records each payment and adds up your collected receipts, ready to report; the invoicing software page shows how. On filing day, you already hold the one number that matters.
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.
- fiscalité
- micro-BNC
- impôts