Back

What are the advantages of CESU vouchers?

The CESU, or chèque emploi service universel, is a scheme that came into force in December 1994, enabling private individuals wishing to employ an employee at home to declare their status. It is also a method of payment for personal services. How exactly does CESU work? What are the advantages for employers and employees? Here's a look at the details.

What is CESU?

The CESU, formerly known as the chèque emploi-service (CES), was created to simplify the declaration to Urssaf of the salaries of domestic employees. Since 2006, the CESU's scope of activity has been extended. It now covers housework, ironing, meal preparation, assistance for the elderly and disabled, care of the sick, small-scale gardening and DIY jobs, general home upkeep, maintenance, administrative assistance, IT assistance, home tuition and tutoring.

CESU does not cover childcare. The Pajemploi system is used. It works in much the same way as the CESU.

There are two types of CESU: the declarative CESU and the prefinanced CESU.

Declarative CESU

A private employer is a person who employs one or more people in the home for his or her own personal and family needs. Like all employers, they are required to declare their employees to Urssaf. The CESU declarative is a simplified declaration system. Simply register by creating an account on cesu.urssaf.fr.

Each month, the number of hours worked and the net hourly wage for each employee must be entered in the "Declare" function of the dashboard. The total amount to be paid is calculated automatically.

Prefinanced CESU

The prefinanced CESU is a means of payment. Employers can obtain them from organizations such as pension funds, the CAF, the CPAM, the departmental council or the local council's social assistance service.

The individual employer pays the employee directly. The pre-financed CESU does not always cover the full salary. The remainder must be paid by bank transfer, cheque or cash.

Since 2019, the CESU+ service has been able to take care of all employee remuneration procedures. All the employer has to do at the end of the month is declare the employee on the site. The service then pays the salary into the employee's account, after deducting it from the employer's account.

Advantages of CESU for employers

An employer, whoever he may be, always has rights and obligations:

  • they must draw up a fixed-term or open-ended, full-time or part-time employment contract. The CESU allows you to dispense with a written contract if the services are occasional, lasting no more than eight hours a week and no more than four consecutive weeks.

  • it must pay a salary and provide a payslip. When the employer uses the CESU, it is the Urssaf that issues the payslip to the employee. Urssaf also calculates and deducts social security contributions and withholding tax. There's no risk of the employer making a mistake.

  • must comply with the French Labor Code and collective bargaining agreements. The individual employer can rely onthe"national collective agreement for employees of individual employers".

  • all individual employers benefit from a rebate on employer social security contributions. Employers aged 70 and over, disabled employers or parents of a disabled child, and persons deemed to be dependent, benefit from a total exemption.

  • individual employers are entitled to an income tax credit corresponding to 50% of the costs incurred for personal assistance services (capped at €12,000/year). By using the CESU+ service, the tax credit is systematically deducted from the amount payable on each tax return.

Employee benefits

Employees of private individuals naturally enjoy all the social rights of conventional salaried workers (sick leave, maternity leave, compensation for work-related accidents, paid vacations, right to professional training, unemployment). What's more, as they are declared, they do not incur criminal or financial penalties for undeclared work.

Home workers can also have several employers and organize their schedules as they see fit. This gives them greater freedom and autonomy.