VAT exemption threshold in France: the unified €25,000 reform is dropped for 2026

Many independent trainers and micro-entrepreneurs running a French training business have anxiously followed the announcement of a unified VAT exemption threshold set at €25,000, across all sectors. The measure, carried by the 2025 finance law, threatened to push a large share of small training organisations into charging VAT much sooner than expected. By the end of 2025, the matter was settled — and not in the direction many feared. Here is where things actually stand as of 21 August 2026, and what it changes for your invoicing.

The unified €25,000 threshold project: born, suspended, then dropped

Article 25 of the 2025 finance law planned to unify the VAT exemption thresholds — until then differentiated by activity type (services versus commercial activities) — into a single €25,000 revenue threshold, announced to take effect on 1 March 2025. For an independent trainer previously covered by the €37,500 threshold specific to service activities, the measure amounted to cutting by a third the ceiling beyond which VAT would have to be charged.

Opposition from independent workers and several professional sectors was strong enough that the government suspended the measure as early as February 2025, before its planned entry into force. By the end of April 2025, the finance minister at the time confirmed an extended suspension, pending the next budget examination rather than a rushed decision. It was ultimately during the debates on the 2026 finance law that the measure’s fate was sealed: the unification to €25,000 was not retained in the final text, enacted without it. Barring a new legislative initiative, the unified threshold is therefore off the table.

The thresholds actually in force in 2026

With no unification, the thresholds that predate the abandoned reform continue to apply, unchanged since the 2023-2025 scale:

Activity	Base threshold	Increased threshold
Service activities (including vocational training)	€37,500	€41,250
Commercial and accommodation activities	€85,000	€93,500

A training organisation, whether a micro-entreprise or a company, almost always falls under the first row: continuing vocational training is treated as a service activity, whatever the legal form chosen. These amounts determine, absent any tax filing, whether you charge VAT by default or not.

How the exit mechanism works

Crossing a threshold does not always have an immediate effect, and this exact point is often what worries founders unnecessarily:

• You stay under €37,500: the VAT exemption keeps applying indefinitely, as long as the situation holds.
• You exceed €37,500 but stay under €41,250 in the same calendar year: you keep the exemption for that year. This is the “increased threshold,” a one-off tolerance margin.
• You exceed €41,250 during the year, or you exceed €37,500 for two consecutive calendar years: you exit the exemption, with VAT applying from the first day of the month of the overrun (increased threshold) or from 1 January of the following year (base threshold exceeded two years running).

Nothing in the abandonment of the unified-threshold reform changes this mechanism: it is the same one that has applied for several years, simply with the thresholds specific to service activities rather than a unified €25,000 threshold.

A safety net specific to training, independent of revenue

This is the point many trainers discover too late, often right when their business exceeds these thresholds: the VAT exemption threshold (article 293 B of the CGI) is not the only mechanism that lets you invoice without VAT. A declared training organisation, whatever its revenue, can request the specific exemption for continuing vocational training, under article 261-4-4°a of the French General Tax Code. This exemption rests on a certificate issued by the DREETS, not on a revenue ceiling — it therefore keeps applying, without interruption, even after exiting the revenue-based exemption.

In practice, a trainer running a micro-entreprise who expects rapid growth should request this certificate as soon as their NDA is active, rather than waiting until they exceed €41,250 to discover they suddenly have to add 20% to their quotes. The two regimes do not stack in their effects — you charge no VAT under either — but their triggering and maintenance conditions are entirely independent of one another.

Why this also falls under your Qualiopi monitoring

Tracking this kind of tax reform, even one that ends up dropped, is not just an accounting matter: it is exactly the kind of information indicator 23 of the National Quality Framework expects to see traced in your legal and regulatory monitoring system. An auditor reviewing your monitoring for 2025-2026 will pay attention to whether your organisation actually tracked this issue — even to rightly conclude that no invoicing change was needed. Our article on the three monitoring duties Qualiopi expects (indicators 23, 24, 25) explains how to organise and document this tracking without spending hours on it every week.

What research shows about VAT thresholds

VAT exemption thresholds are not mere administrative markers: public economics research shows they genuinely shape how small businesses behave. A study by Li Liu, Ben Lockwood, Miguel Almunia and Eddy H. F. Tam, published in 2021 in The Review of Economics and Statistics under the title “VAT Notches, Voluntary Registration, and Bunching: Theory and UK Evidence” (see the study), documents, using UK data, a clear clustering of small businesses’ revenue just below the VAT threshold — a sign that many deliberately adjust their activity to stay within the exemption. It is a useful reminder not to simply endure a threshold: better to plan ahead for exceeding it, notably through the training-specific exemption, than to artificially cap your commercial growth to stay under €37,500.

Take action

Neither the failed 2025 reform nor the current thresholds should dictate your pricing strategy: the real task is to secure your VAT regime early — both the revenue-based exemption and the training-specific exemption — so your own growth never catches you off guard. The Complete Kit Certif (€297, 14-day guarantee, documents in French) provides the evidence tables for the 32 indicators, legal monitoring included, to prepare your certification and audits with confidence. Just starting out as a micro-entreprise? The ebook Créer son organisme de formation en 30 jours (€67) walks through the activity declaration and initial tax steps, and the complete pack (€347) bundles both resources.