Webinar, conference, workshop: does it count as a training action?

You run webinars, give conferences or host workshops, and a client asks: “can we put this through our training budget?” The question sounds harmless, but it triggers an entire legal regime. Depending on whether your service is — or is not — a training action within the meaning of the French Labour Code, the consequences differ radically: OPCO or CPF funding, VAT exemption, training agreement, the annual financial and educational report (BPF), and even the Qualiopi certification requirement. Here is how to decide, criterion by criterion.

What the law says: Article L6313-2 of the Labour Code

Since the 2018 “Avenir professionnel” law, the legal definition has been deliberately flexible: Article L6313-2 of the Labour Code defines a training action as a pedagogical pathway leading to a professional objective. This definition replaced the old formalism (pre-set programme, duration, etc.) with an outcome-based logic, and it expressly allows training to be delivered wholly or partly at a distance or on the job.

Flexible does not mean empty. For a “pedagogical pathway” to exist, the authorities and funders expect concrete ingredients, found in the implementing regulations and in OPCO requirements:

• A defined professional objective: what the learner will be able to do at the end of the pathway, expressed as competencies, not topics.
• A target audience and prerequisites: who the pathway is for, and at what entry level.
• Teaching and supervision resources: methods, materials, exercises, and an identified trainer who genuinely supports the learners.
• Monitoring of delivery: proof that each learner actually completed the pathway (attendance sheets, activity records for distance learning).
• Assessment of results: verification, for each individual, that the professional objective has been achieved.

These ingredients are exactly what a training programme must state. If you find it impossible to write a serious programme for your service, that is often a sign it is not a training action.

Conference, webinar, workshop: the test in practice

Let’s apply these criteria to the three most common formats.

Criterion	Top-down conference	Awareness webinar	Structured hands-on workshop
Individualised professional objective	No (general topic)	Rarely (information)	Yes, if expressed as competencies
Defined audience and prerequisites	No (open audience)	Rarely	Yes
Pedagogical pathway (progression, activities)	No (linear talk)	No, unless properly designed	Yes (exercises, case work)
Individual monitoring of delivery	No	A login list at best	Yes (attendance, submitted work)
Assessment of learning outcomes	No	No	Yes (quiz, assessed output)
Training action?	No	Generally not	Yes, if formalised

The one-hour conference is the clearest case: a top-down talk to an audience, with no prerequisites, no participant activity, no assessment. It is an information action, not training — however talented the speaker or rich the content.

The awareness webinar is an online conference: same diagnosis. A Zoom connection list is neither monitoring of delivery nor assessment of learning outcomes. The remote format changes nothing: distance learning (FOAD) has its own obligations, precisely because a genuine distance pathway requires support, activities and assessment.

The hands-on workshop can tip over to the right side of the line: if your participants arrive with an identified entry level, complete corrected exercises, receive individual support and leave with assessed learning outcomes, you have a pedagogical pathway. But you still have to formalise it: programme, objectives, assessment methods, training agreement.

The consequences of classification: two regimes that do not mix

Outside the scope of training

If your webinar or conference is not a training action:

• No OPCO, CPF or France Travail funding can be used;
• No training VAT exemption: the exemption under Article 261-4-4° of the French Tax Code is reserved for continuing professional training operations, so the service is invoiced with VAT at the standard rate;
• No training agreement or certificate of completion: a simple quote and a service invoice are enough;
• No BPF declaration: the corresponding revenue does not go into your financial and educational report.

Within the scope of training

Conversely, if the service is a training action, all the formalism applies: a programme with mandatory information, a training agreement or contract, attendance monitoring, assessment of learning outcomes, BPF declaration. And if you are targeting public or pooled funds, Qualiopi certification becomes unavoidable for the category of actions within your certification scope. To find out whether it applies to your situation, see our guide Is Qualiopi mandatory or not.

The risk of “convenience training”

The temptation exists: relabelling a one-hour webinar as “training” so the client can have it funded by their OPCO. It is a very bad bet. When the file is reviewed — or during a later inspection by the regional control unit of the DREETS — the gap between the paperwork (programme, agreement, attendance sheets) and the reality of the service characterises an ineligible, or even fictitious, action. The consequences escalate: refusal of funding, repayment of sums received, and, in the event of deliberate manoeuvres, administrative and criminal sanctions. The client loses too: amounts improperly charged to their training budget can be clawed back. No webinar is worth that risk.

What the research says: webinars can train — if they are properly designed

The webinar format is not pedagogically disqualified — its top-down use is. A meta-analysis by Gegenfurtner and Ebner published in 2019 in Educational Research Review, covering randomised controlled trials (see it on Google Scholar), compares the effectiveness of webinars with face-to-face teaching and asynchronous e-learning: webinars can be just as effective as these formats, provided there is genuine pedagogical design — interaction, participant activities — rather than mere one-way broadcasting. In other words, research and law converge: it is the instructional design, not the videoconferencing tool, that makes the training.

Turning a webinar into genuine, fundable distance learning

In practical terms, to turn a webinar series into a distance training action eligible for funding:

1. Write a pedagogical scenario: competency-based objectives, progression across several sequences, audience and prerequisites — all in a proper programme.
2. Add activities: work between sessions, case studies, quizzes, individually corrected output.
3. Organise learner support: an identified, reachable trainer or tutor, with announced response channels and timeframes.
4. Assess learning outcomes: entry-level positioning, individual final assessment tied to the objectives.
5. Track attendance: connection logs, submitted work, virtual classroom reports — FOAD attendance evidence replaces the sign-in sheet.

This work is not cosmetic: it is what turns broadcast content into a pedagogical pathway within the meaning of Article L6313-2.

The freedom of staying out of scope: selling without an NDA or Qualiopi

One last point, often forgotten: staying outside the scope of training is a perfectly legal — and sometimes strategic — choice. You can sell conferences, paid webinars, discovery workshops or masterclasses without an activity declaration number (NDA), without Qualiopi and without formalism, as long as you do not present them as professional training and your clients do not try to have them funded. Many experts actually combine both: out-of-scope content sold freely for visibility, and a catalogue of genuine funded courses as the core business. Our article on selling training without Qualiopi maps out this boundary and what it allows.

Take action

If you decide to structure your webinars and workshops as genuine training actions, the Complete Kit Certif provides the procedures and templates (programme, agreement, assessments, attendance evidence) aligned with all 32 indicators. Starting from scratch? The ebook Create Your Training Organisation in 30 Days guides you from the activity declaration to your first session, and the complete pack covers both creation and certification end to end.