The French Personal-Services Agrément: How to Build the File

The French personal-services agrément is not one more formality on Nova, the national personal-services platform: it is an authorisation to operate, issued by the prefect, over activities deemed sensitive because they are delivered to vulnerable people. Hence a file that is not filled in but built — and that turns far less on paperwork than on your ability to evidence an organisation.

Who needs an agrément — and where the boundary runs

Most activities in the sector (cleaning, gardening, odd jobs, tutoring, childcare above the age of three…) require only the déclaration: see obtaining your SAP declaration in 2026. The agrément is mandatory on a narrow core, and the mode of intervention governs everything:

• in provider mode (prestataire, where you employ the workers): home childcare for children under three and disabled children under eighteen, and accompanying them on outings;
• in agency mode (mandataire, where the household is the employer and you administer on its behalf): the two activities above, plus assistance to elderly, disabled or chronically ill people, driving their vehicle and accompanying them outside the home.

The staff-placement mode is likewise covered by the specifications in force. Classic point of confusion: assistance to vulnerable people in provider mode falls under authorisation by the departmental council, not under the agrément — a boundary we cover in SAP agrément or departmental authorisation: what is the difference?

Who examines, who decides, and how fast

The application is sent by the legal representative to the prefect of the department where the main establishment is located (article R. 7232-1 of the labour code), in practice through Nova; the examination is carried out by the local arms of France’s labour ministry — DREETS at regional level, DDETS at departmental level. Three procedural points:

1. The departmental council’s opinion. Where the agrément is sought for childcare, the council’s president gives an opinion on the applicant’s ability to deliver a quality service and on the allocation of proportionate resources (R. 7232-4).
2. Silence means acceptance. Silence from the prefect for more than three months from receipt of a complete file amounts to a decision of acceptance. If the file is incomplete, the prefect invites the applicant to produce the missing items: the clock does not run until it is complete.
3. Publicity. The decision is published in the prefecture’s official record of administrative acts (R. 7232-11).

The substantive conditions to evidence

Article R. 7232-6 sets out what the prefect must find: human, material and financial resources capable of meeting the purpose of the application, assessed in the applicant’s own right or within the network it belongs to; the undertaking to comply with the specifications approved by ministerial order (see below); the good standing of the directors; and, where minors are involved, no entry in the national automated judicial file of perpetrators of sexual or violent offences, for the representative as well as for the supervisors and workers concerned.

The file, item by item

The application states (R. 7232-2): company name, main and secondary establishments, departments of operation, nature of the services and target groups, staff employment conditions, operating resources. To it is attached a file comprising (R. 7232-3):

Item	What the case officer is looking for
Unique identification number or copy of the articles of association	Legal existence, coherent corporate purpose
Material allowing the quality level of the services to be assessed	The heart of the file: your actual organisation
Template client information (tax) and administrative reporting (statistics)	Tax certificate and statistical returns already tooled up
List of subcontractors	Control of the delivery chain

The second row is what decides the case: this is where you lodge your service plan, procedures, contract and welcome-booklet templates, org chart, job descriptions, training plan and continuity arrangements.

The specifications: what is really assessed

The applicable text is annexed to the order of 24 November 2023, in force since 1 January 2024, repealing the order of 1 October 2018. It follows the stages of the service relationship — reception, needs assessment, contract, delivery, follow-up — and sets out in particular:

• Continuity of interventions: the provider’s staffing, or its arrangements with other approved bodies, must deliver the contracted services even when a worker is unavailable (sickness, leave).
• Alerts and reporting: an alert procedure for suspected abuse, with reporting to the competent authorities, notably the departmental unit that collects child-welfare concerns.
• Qualifications: the level expected of supervisors (level 4 or equivalent experience) and of workers (level 3 or experience, depending on the group served), with good-standing checks.
• Training: at least one annual occupational-health awareness action, qualifying training actions, and training on the prevention of abuse.
• Continuous improvement: annual internal checks on compliance with the specifications, and an annual client survey.

Add to that some very concrete duties: free quotation above a set amount, welcome booklet, identification of workers, liaison notebook, a named contact person, periodic reviews.

What the research says about accrediting home-care services

What sets home services apart is not declared quality but organised quality. A cohort study by Chenjuan Ma, Hilary J. Dutton and Bei Wu, published in 2023 in Home Health Care Services Quarterly (vol. 42, no. 1), compared accredited and non-accredited agencies using national data covering five years and 7,697 home health agencies in the United States. Accredited agencies perform better on three common quality measures: how quickly care is started, hospitalisation rates and emergency-department use (see the study).

The study concerns the American system and does not transpose mechanically to the French agrément regime. It does, however, illuminate the logic of the specifications: what moves are organisational measures. The file is therefore not paperwork; it is written proof that the service will hold up on a February Tuesday when two carers are off sick.

Five years, reports, withdrawal: the life of an agrément

The agrément replaces neither the declaration nor the exclusive-activity condition — see SAP exclusive activity: the rule and its exemptions. Three dates for the calendar:

• Duration: five years (R. 7232-7), for the departments and activities declared; any extension goes through an amendment application.
• Reporting: an activity return at least each quarter, and each year a qualitative and quantitative report plus an annual statistical table (R. 7232-9), broken down by establishment where there is more than one.
• Renewal: application to be filed no later than three months before the end date (R. 7232-8), which also provides for automatic renewal where all the activities and establishments concerned are covered by a certification within the meaning of article L. 433-3 of the consumer code, based on a reference framework recognised as compliant with the specifications.

Withdrawal has four grounds (R. 7232-12): ceasing to meet the conditions or obligations of articles R. 7232-4 to R. 7232-9; disregarding the statutory provisions on health and safety at work; carrying out activities other than those declared; failing to send the prefect the qualitative and quantitative report before the end of the first half of the year. The body concerned is notified by recorded-delivery letter and has at least fifteen days to make representations (R. 7232-13).

Four mistakes that get a file sent back

1. A generic service plan. The case officer is looking for identified target groups, described services, operating hours, a territory.
2. No continuity or emergency procedure. The most explicit requirement in the specifications, and the most often skated over: write down who covers for whom, within what time, and document your arrangements with other bodies.
3. A non-existent training plan. Occupational health and abuse prevention are not optional; the same goes for financial resources, which R. 7232-6 makes a condition.
4. Confusing provider and agency mode. Two regimes, two scopes. In agency mode the household is the employer: contracts, information duties and liabilities all change.

And if you also want to train your workers

Many approved providers train in-house, then start selling that training. As soon as those actions are funded by a public or pooled scheme (CPF, OPCO, France Travail…), the framework changes: Qualiopi certification applies, with its own reference framework and its own audit, unrelated to the agrément specifications. Our guide to Qualiopi certification sets out the framework, and tutoring: SAP or Qualiopi? illustrates the switch. The mechanisms in SAP tax credit and instant advance, by contrast, depend on the declaration.

Take action

Build your file in the counter-intuitive order: the organisation first (continuity, supervision, training, alert procedures), the documents second. Aim for a complete file at the first attempt — that alone starts the three-month clock. Our guide to Declaration, agrément and authorisation for personal services recaps the three regimes, with a free ebook.