France PER Retirement Calculator -- Plafond & Growth (2026)

The PER (Plan Épargne Retraite) is France's modern personal retirement savings vehicle, and its headline tax benefit -- contributions deducted from taxable income -- comes with a ceiling that a lot of savers overestimate. The "plafond fiscal" (fiscal deduction ceiling) for a salaried employee or civil servant is 10% of your prior year's net professional income, capped at a maximum tied to the PASS (Plafond Annuel de la Sécurité Sociale, France's social security reference ceiling), with a floor that applies even if you have little or no professional income at all.

This matters because the deduction is worth different amounts to different people, in two separate ways: first, only contributions up to your ceiling are deductible at all -- anything above it, this year, is simply not deductible (though it can potentially be carried forward for use in a later year); second, even the deductible portion is worth more to a higher earner than a lower one, because a deduction's value scales with your marginal tax bracket (TMI) -- the same €6,000 deduction saves €2,700 for someone in the 45% bracket but only €660 for someone in the 11% bracket. This calculator computes both your exact deduction ceiling and the resulting tax saving, then separately projects how your account balance could grow over your remaining working years.

This two-layer structure -- a hard annual deduction ceiling on one side, and a marginal-rate-dependent value on the other -- is why PER planning advice so often centers on "filling the ceiling in your highest-tax years." Someone whose income fluctuates significantly from year to year (a bonus-heavy role, variable self-employment income, an unusually profitable year for a small business) generally extracts more total tax value by concentrating PER contributions in the years their marginal bracket is highest, rather than contributing a flat amount every year regardless of that year's bracket.

1. Compute your 2026 PER deduction ceiling from your 2025 net professional income: 10% of that income, capped at 8 times the 2025 PASS (€47,100) × 10% = €37,680, with a floor of one PASS × 10% = €4,710 that applies regardless of how low your income is.
2. Compare your planned annual contribution against that ceiling. Whichever is smaller becomes your deductible contribution; any excess above the ceiling is not deductible this year.
3. Multiply the deductible contribution by your marginal tax bracket (TMI) -- 0%, 11%, 30%, 41%, or 45% -- to get your income tax saving for the year.
4. Project the account's future value using your planned annual contribution, your number of years until retirement, and an assumed annual investment return, treating the PER like a standard ordinary annuity (contributions made at the end of each year, compounding annually).

Using the calculator's default inputs -- €60,000 of 2025 net professional income, €8,000 planned annual PER contribution, a 30% marginal bracket, 20 years until retirement, 4% assumed annual return:

1. Ten percent of income: €60,000 × 10% = €6,000. This is below both the €37,680 cap and comfortably above the €4,710 floor, so the ceiling is €6,000.
2. Compare to the planned contribution: €8,000 exceeds the €6,000 ceiling, so only €6,000 is deductible; the remaining €2,000 is not deductible this year (though it may be usable via the 3-year carryforward rule).
3. Tax saving: €6,000 × 30% = €1,800 for the year -- over the full 20-year period, assuming the same numbers repeat, that's €36,000 in cumulative tax savings.
4. Growth projection: €8,000 contributed at the end of each year for 20 years, growing at 4% annually, reaches a projected balance of €238,224.63 -- of which €160,000 is your own contributions and €78,224.63 is investment growth.

• The 3-year carryforward of unused ceiling. If you didn't use your full deduction ceiling in a prior year, that unused amount can typically be carried forward for 3 years and added to your current-year ceiling -- this calculator computes only the current year's ceiling from current-year income, not any accumulated carryforward.
• Spousal ceiling pooling (mutualisation). Married or PACS couples filing jointly can request that their individual ceilings be pooled, letting one spouse use the other's unused capacity -- not modeled here, since this calculator computes one individual's ceiling only.
• Self-employed (travailleur non salarié) deduction rules, which use a different, more generous formula (roughly 10% of professional profit up to 8 PASS, plus an additional 15% band on profit between 1 and 8 PASS) than the salaried-employee formula this calculator applies.
• Withdrawal-phase taxation. Contributions deducted going in are generally taxed going out (as income, plus social levies on the growth portion, for a lump-sum withdrawal) -- this calculator projects account growth only, not the eventual tax cost of accessing the funds.
• Investment fees, management charges, and sequence-of-returns risk -- the growth projection assumes a single constant annual return with no volatility or costs, which is a simplification of how real markets and real PER contracts behave.
• Early-release exceptions (first home purchase, disability, etc.) that let savers access PER funds before retirement under specific conditions.

• Assuming the deduction ceiling scales indefinitely with contributions. Contributing more than your ceiling does not increase your deduction proportionally -- only the portion up to the ceiling is deductible in the current year.
• Forgetting the ceiling is based on PRIOR-YEAR income, not current-year income. Your 2026 contribution ceiling depends on your 2025 income, which means a big raise this year won't expand your deduction room until next year's filing.
• Confusing "deduction" with "tax credit." A PER deduction reduces your TAXABLE INCOME, not your tax bill directly -- its cash value depends entirely on your marginal tax bracket, so the same contribution is worth far more to a high earner than a low one.
• Ignoring the floor for low-income years. Even someone with modest or irregular income still gets a minimum €4,710 deduction ceiling -- worth checking if your income varies significantly year to year.
• Not distinguishing the tax saving from the investment return. The €1,800 immediate tax saving in the worked example is separate from, and in addition to, the account's own investment growth over time -- conflating the two overstates or understates the PER's total value depending on which one gets forgotten.

• Service-Public.gouv.fr, "Impôt sur le revenu - Cotisations d'épargne retraite (déduction)": service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14709.

Also consulted: Code Général des Impôts, article 163 quatervicies; PASS (Plafond Annuel de la Sécurité Sociale) 2025 value of €47,100, cross-checked against multiple current French retirement-savings advisory sources.