The French executive training tax credit is gone: how to fund your own training in 2026

You may have heard of the executive training tax credit while setting up your training organisation: forty hours of training a year, reimbursed at the hourly minimum wage rate, doubled for micro-enterprises. It was a small but welcome boost for a business owner investing in themselves rather than in their staff. It has quietly disappeared — with little public debate — and many business owners still go looking for it on their tax return without finding it. Here is what happened, what can still be claimed, and how to fund your training another way.

The scheme as it stood: a quick recap

The tax credit for executive training expenses, set out in article 244 quater M of the French General Tax Code, let a business owner (the head of a company subject to corporate tax, or a sole trader taxed under an actual-expense regime) claim a credit calculated on the number of hours spent in training, capped at forty hours per calendar year. The rate applied matched the hourly minimum wage (SMIC) in force, doubled for businesses meeting the EU definition of a micro-enterprise. Unlike the home-service tax credit, which is still active, this one specifically targeted a business owner’s investment in their own skills, separate from staff training already covered through other channels.

What actually changed: two successive finance acts

The scheme was phased out in two steps, which explains much of the current confusion.

Step one — non-renewal. The 2025 finance act did not renew the scheme for expenses incurred from 1 January 2025 onward. In practice, from 2025 no training hours taken by a business owner opened any right to the tax credit, even though article 244 quater M formally remained on the books.

Step two — outright repeal. Law n° 2026-103 of 19 February 2026 (the 2026 finance act) went a step further and repealed article 244 quater M outright. The tax authority followed through in its own doctrine, withdrawing the commentary on this tax credit from the official tax bulletin (BOFiP). This is no longer a scheme merely lying dormant: its legal basis is gone.

How long can you still claim it?

If you took eligible training in 2024 and never claimed the corresponding tax credit, it is not too late. The scheme last applied to training completed by 31 December 2024, and the standard tax reclamation deadline — 31 December of the second year following the year the tax was assessed — lets you claim it until 31 December 2027. Once that window closes, the claim is permanently lost. If this applies to you, the simplest step is to check with your accountant whether the training hours taken in 2024 were properly claimed, before the deadline runs out.

Why this small scheme mattered for training organisation founders

For someone setting up a training organisation or an apprenticeship centre (CFA), this is not a minor detail. You are often both the head of the business and, in the early months, its main — sometimes only — trainer. Investing in your own upskilling (pedagogy, instructional design, familiarity with the Qualiopi reference framework) directly shapes the quality of what you sell, and both indicator 6 on adapting content and delivery methods and the trainer competency file checked in audits touch on it indirectly. A study by Alan Barrett and Philip J. O’Connell, published in 2001 in the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, «Does Training Generally Work? The Returns to In-Company Training», uses Irish enterprise data to show that general training — training that builds transferable skills rather than skills tied to a single role — has a positive, statistically significant effect on productivity, an effect that holds even after controlling for firm size and the initial level of human capital. Training remains a worthwhile investment for a business owner, even without a dedicated tax incentive.

Funding routes still available depending on your status

The disappearance of the tax credit does not leave you without options — it simply changes which channel to use, depending on your status.

You are a self-employed business owner (majority manager, sole trader, regulated profession)

Three routes, which can be combined under certain conditions:

• The self-employed worker’s CPF. Since 2018, self-employed workers have accrued rights on their Personal Training Account (CPF), funded by the vocational training contribution (CFP) they pay every year through URSSAF. These rights can be used on the Mon Compte Formation platform, provided the CFP has actually been paid.
• A sector-specific approved training fund (FAF), separate from the CPF and combinable with it: AGEFICE for non-salaried business owners registered with the Trade and Companies Register (commerce, services, industry), FIF-PL for regulated professions, FAFCEA for craftspeople registered with the Chamber of Trades. Each sets its own annual ceilings and priority criteria, worth checking directly with the relevant fund before committing to the expense.

You are a business owner treated as an employee (an SASU president, for example)

A president treated as an employee for social security purposes pays, through the company, the same training contributions as a regular employee. They can draw on the company’s skills development plan on the same basis as any staff, and also keep the CPF rights built up during prior salaried employment, which remain active and usable.

You are setting up your organisation after being laid off or leaving salaried employment

The legal structure you choose upfront largely determines which training-funding channels for the business owner stay open once the company exists. If you are still a jobseeker at the time you train, individual training support from France Travail or your regional council can supplement, or even replace, these schemes — worth applying for before the organisation is formally created, while that status still applies.

Take action

Funding your own upskilling is one of the trade-offs to plan for from the moment you set up your training organisation, alongside the real cost of Qualiopi certification for a sole trader. The Complete Kit Certif (€297, 14-day guarantee) guides you indicator by indicator to build a solid body of evidence, including on trainer competency. If you are just starting out, the «Set up your training organisation in 30 days» ebook (€67) structures your first decisions — legal form, funding, obligations — and the Kit + Ebook bundle (€347) brings both together.