Many employees will be able to benefit from a newly introduced bonus.
This is good news that has flown under the radar. A sort of early Christmas gift that will delight many employees. Planned for several months but never really highlighted to those primarily concerned, a new bonus will automatically be paid to thousands of French people, from 2025.
This is not aid allocated by the Family Allowance Fund based on income, but rather a salary supplement which will be paid regardless of their level of remuneration. Both employees and managers will benefit from it.
From 1er January 2025, it will now be mandatory to implement “value sharing” in many companies. Concretely, if the company you work for makes enough profits, it will have to give part of it to its employees. Until now, the allocation of this type of bonus was compulsory in companies with more than 50 employees. In 2025 – and initially until 2028 – this will be extended to those with between 11 and 49 employees.
So, if you are part of a company of this size, your boss will be obliged to pay you a bonus if the company has made profits over the last three years (after taxes) and this corresponds, at least, to 1% of turnover. An accountant’s calculation, certainly, but one that could benefit the 1.5 million employees of this type of company. They still have to be profitable.
Payment can be made in various forms: either via the “Macron bonus” system (value sharing bonus), or by payment of an incentive or participation bonus, or via payment into a Company savings plan (PEE). In the first two cases, the amount can be collected from the salary (but taxed), or blocked in a savings account (and not taxed). In the third scenario, the money will be automatically blocked for five years.
The amount of this bonus will not be fixed and will depend on your company. According to data from the Ministry of Labor and Urssaf, an average of €935 is paid as the Macron bonus, €2,437 via the profit-sharing system (bonus for achieving an overall objective within the company, not the individual objective), €3,467 if the participation option is chosen (bonus on profits) and €1,257 within the framework of the Company Savings Plan.
Many companies with 11 to 49 employees have already deployed profit distribution: 20% of the employees of these companies received a supplement in 2022. From now on, all structures of this size will have to put it in place.