Apprenticeship Contract Termination Rate: Calculation, Publication Duty and Impact for Your CFA

A terminated apprenticeship contract is not just a file to handle case by case: it is also a data point that feeds, every year, into a public indicator that any parent, employer or funder can check before choosing your CFA. Unlike the procedure for terminating an apprenticeship contract, which handles the individual event, the apprenticeship contract termination rate is an aggregate statistical indicator, governed by a legal duty distinct from Qualiopi, that measures the institution’s overall performance over a year or a cohort.

A legal duty, not a French National Quality Standard requirement

The basis for this publication is Article L6111-8 of the French Labor Code, stemming from law n° 2018-771 of September 5, 2018 on the freedom to choose one’s professional future. This text requires, every year and for each CFA, the publication of five indicators whenever the relevant headcount is sufficient: the graduation rate, the rate of continuing studies, the dropout rate during training, the job placement rate of leavers, and the institution’s added value. A second paragraph adds a separate, CFA-specific duty: making public, every year, the termination rate of apprenticeship contracts concluded.

This distinction matters: the dropout rate (already covered for Qualiopi indicator 3) measures apprentices who leave the training cycle without completing it, while the termination rate measures the employment contracts themselves being ended before their term — an apprentice can terminate one contract and sign a second one without ever leaving their CFA. The two indicators are correlated but are not calculated the same way, and an auditor who confuses them when preparing a file misses part of the diagnosis.

How the termination rate is calculated

The reference method, used both by the administration and by CFAs for their internal tracking, divides the number of contracts terminated over a given period by the total number of active contracts over that same period. The official publication, released via the InserJeunes platform alongside the other Article L6111-8 indicators, relies on the Cerfa termination declarations sent to the skills operators (OPCOs) and cross-checked against the headcount declared by each center.

For useful day-to-day steering, most CFAs refine this overall figure along three axes:

• by program and level: differences between tracks are significant, as detailed below;
• by cohort and by month of the year: terminations are not evenly spread across the cycle, with typical spikes at the start of the contract and at the end of the first year;
• by reason for termination: mutual agreement, serious misconduct, unfitness for work, force majeure, or termination at the apprentice’s initiative during the first 45 days of practical training in the company.

This level of detail is what a Qualiopi auditor expects as supporting evidence: an overall rate with no breakdown does not demonstrate that the CFA is genuinely steering the phenomenon rather than simply enduring it.

What the national data shows

A Dares Analyses study published on October 31, 2024, covering apprentices who started in 2018 in two- to three-year cycles (from CAP to two-year post-secondary diplomas), measured that around 36% of these young people experienced at least one contract termination during the first eighteen months of training. The gap by size of the host company is marked: 43% termination in companies with fewer than five employees, versus 19% in companies with more than 250 employees. The leading cause identified by the study relates to difficulties tied to the position or the relationship with the employer, well ahead of causes attributable to the apprentice.

These national figures serve as a benchmark: a CFA whose termination rate consistently and unexplainably departs from these orders of magnitude, particularly for comparable tracks and levels, needs to document the causes specific to its recruitment of host companies rather than treat the gap as statistical fate.

On the academic side, a paper by Christine Guégnard and Marie-Hélène Toutin, “Au-delà de la rupture du contrat d’apprentissage, la variété des trajectoires” (presented at the Céreq-Clersé study days on longitudinal labor-market data, 2015), shows that a contract termination does not systematically lead to dropping out: a significant share of the apprentices concerned continue their training through a new contract or a reorientation, provided they are actively supported by the training center. That is precisely the role the French National Quality Standard expects from the CFA under indicator 29.

Where and how the termination rate is published

The publication arrangements are set by joint order of the ministers in charge of vocational training and national education. In practice, the figure is available on the CFA’s InserJeunes page, echoed on Parcoursup and Onisep for the relevant programs, and must also appear on the center’s own communication materials whenever it publishes its results indicators — on the same footing as the graduation or placement rate.

Two points of vigilance come up regularly during audits:

1. The data vintage must always be visible. A rate displayed without a cohort year or InserJeunes source is treated as unreliable, exactly as with the other Article L6111-8 indicators.
2. No published figure does not exempt you from internal tracking. Below the headcount threshold set for publication (due to statistical confidentiality), the CFA must be able to present its own calculation and its trend over time, on a dated internal dashboard.

Reducing your termination rate: the levers that show up at audit

A credible action plan is not just a statement of intent. The evidence that convinces an auditor — and that, more broadly, genuinely reduces the phenomenon — centers on three key moments of the contract:

• Before signing: checking the fit between the apprentice’s project and the position offered, a preliminary visit or interview at the company, clear information about actual working conditions rather than just a theoretical job description.
• During the first 45 days: this is the period during which the Labor Code allows a unilateral termination with no grounds or heavy procedure — a documented, dated point of contact between the CFA and both the apprentice and the workplace mentor during this window is the evidence most sought after at audit.
• When real difficulties arise: mediation before termination (the CFA can call on the apprenticeship mediator), and, should termination happen anyway, immediate activation of the six-month retention duty under Article L. 6231-2, detailed in our guide on the apprenticeship contract termination procedure.

What to keep as evidence

• The internal termination tracking table, broken down by program, cohort and reason, updated at least monthly.
• Dated screenshots of the official (InserJeunes) publication of the termination rate, or proof of non-publication in case of statistical confidentiality.
• Records of the contact points made during the first 45 days of each contract.
• Evidence of support for apprentices whose contract was terminated (search for a new employer, continued enrollment) required under indicator 29.

Take Action

Documenting this steering before the audit avoids discovering, mid-session, that no dated evidence exists to justify a high termination rate. The Complete Kit Certif (€297, 14-day guarantee) provides the tracking templates and evidence file models expected for indicators 3 and 29 for CFAs. If your organization is still getting off the ground, the ebook “Setting Up a Training Organization in 30 Days” (€67) lays the groundwork for quality steering from day one, and the Complete Pack (€347) bundles both resources.