Cumulative employment and retirement of the employee

Verified 01 January 2026 - Public Service / Directorate of Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

You are in retirement and consider continue or resume a professional activity ?

The cumulation conditions your retirement pensions and your income from work vary depending on whether or not you have a pension basic pension of the Full Rate Retirement Insurance. In addition, your activity may, under certain conditions, make you acquire new pension rights. We present these provisions to you.

An online service allows you to obtain information on job-retirement accumulation:

Know the conditions of cumulation employment - retirement

The accumulation of your basic retirement pension from the Retirement Insurance with an income from professional activity can be full or subject to a revenue cap.

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Full employment-pension accumulation

You can accumulate in full your basic retirement pension from the Retirement Insurance and income from work:

  • If you benefit from a basic retirement pension Pension Insurance at full rate
  • Or if you carry out certain activities.
Full rate basic retirement pension

You can accumulate in full your basic retirement pension and occupational income (regardless of the amount of your retirement pension and the amount of your occupational income) if you have liquidated (i.e. applied for and received) every basic and supplementary retirement pensions, French and foreign, to which you are entitled at the age at which you resume your professional activity.

In addition, you must meet one of the following conditions:

If you meet these conditions, you can resume or continue a professional activity upon your admission to retirement.

Activities freely cumulated with a basic retirement pension from the Pension Insurance

If you do not receive a basic retirement pension from the Full Rate Retirement InsuranceHowever, you can accumulate your pension in full with income from work if you continue or resume one or more of the following (subject to conditions for some):

Artistic activities

You can continue or resume an artistic activity.

The activities concerned are as follows:

  • Author of literary and dramatic works, musical and choreographic, audiovisual and cinematographic, graphic and plastic, and photographic
  • Performing artist (lyric artist, choreographer, variety artist, musician, songwriter, conductor, director, etc.)
  • Manikin
  • Performer attached to the liberal professions regime.
Artistic, literary or scientific ancillary activities

You can pursue an ancillary activity of an artistic, literary or scientific nature that you already practiced before your admission to retirement.

The activities concerned include:

  • Publication of articles in the press or in literary or scientific journals
  • Lectures given in literary or scientific fields
  • Scientific research activities
  • Publication of books.

These activities are considered ancillary if the total annual income they provided you during the the calendar year before your retirement date does not exceed one third of the Smic: titleContent in force on 1er January of the year of your retirement calculated on the basis of 1,820 hours per year.

Thus, if you retire in 2026, you must not have received more than €7,292.13 Gross in 2025.

Participation in the functioning of justice

You can continue or resume an occasional activity contributing to the functioning of justice.

These activities include:

  • Member or assessor of certain courts giving rise to the receipt of allowances in the form of vacations: juror of the assize courts, assessor of the joint courts of rural leases, human rights counselor, assessor of children's courts
  • Expert appraisal, consultation or observation missions entrusted by judges
  • Arbitration activities and activities in the commissions provided for in order to obtain the conciliation of the parties, insofar as participation in these commissions gives rise to the receipt of compensation.
Occasional consultations

You can continue or resume occasional consultations in a field within your competence (medical, legal, etc.).

Consultations are considered occasional if they do not occupy you more than 15 hours per week on average during the year.

Participation in competition juries or advisory or deliberative bodies

You can continue or resume an activity as a jury member of public competitions.

And you can also continue or resume an activity as a member of an advisory or deliberative body. These activities include:

  • Regional, departmental or municipal councilor
  • Member of a commission or advisory board
  • Honorary Magistrate, President of a Legal Aid Office
  • Member of a board of directors or a commission within a public institution, a public sector company or a body responsible for the performance of the public service.
Accommodation in rural areas

You can continue or resume a rural accommodation activity if you do it with assets that are part of your estate.

Sponsorship of an employee in training

In the overseas departments and regions (Drom), in Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, you may be recruited, for a limited period, as a sponsor, to ensure the training of an employee on a professionalization contract.

Vacations in a health or social or medico-social institution

If you are a doctor or nurse, you can continue or resume a vaccination activity in a health facility or in a social or medico-social institution or service.

If you continue or resume, within 6 months of your retirement, an activity with the institution that employed you during the 6 months preceding your retirement, this activity must not exceed 910 hours or 260 half-days.

If your activity exceeds 910 hours or 260 half-days, you are not entitled to your retirement pension for a maximum of 6 months following your admission to retirement. It is paid to you again from 7e month following your retirement.

If your activity does not exceed 910 hours or 260 half-days, the income generated by this activity must not exceed €48,060.

In the event of overage, your retirement pension is reduced by the amount of the overage to the maximum for 6 months following your admission to retirement.

You must inform the institution in which you continue or resume your activity of the name and address of the pension fund that pays you your basic retirement pension.

Health professional activities

You can continue or resume a health professional activity in an area characterized by insufficient healthcare provision or by difficulties in accessing healthcare (medical desert).

The health professionals concerned are:

  • Doctor, midwife and dentist
  • Pharmacist, pharmacy preparer, hospital pharmacy preparer, medical physicist
  • Nursing assistant, childcare assistant, paramedic and dental assistant, nurse, masseur-physiotherapist, pedicure-podiatrist, occupational therapist and psychomotor therapist, speech and speech therapist, medical electroradiology manipulator and medical laboratory technician, audioprosthetist, optician-eyewear, prosthetist and orthotist, dietician.
Activity in Esat

If you have a disability and are working in an establishment and work support service (Esat), you can continue or resume your activity in this establishment.

Elective term of office giving rise to the receipt of allowances

You may continue or resume elected office in the local government, resulting in the receipt of office allowances.

Activity of low importance

You can continue a low-level activity that you practice before you retire.

An activity is considered to be of low importance if the total annual income it has provided you during the the calendar year before that of your retirement does not exceed one third of the minimum wage in force on 1er January of the year of your retirement calculated on the basis of 1,820 hours per year.

Thus, if you retire in 2026, you must not have received more than €7,292.13 in 2025.

If you have not been employed for the whole year preceding your retirement, the maximum limit is reduced in proportion to the number of months worked.

If you are engaged in several small activities at the same time with total income in excess of the allowable limit, you must cease all these activities in order to obtain your retirement.

Childminder

You can continue or resume a nursing, babysitting and childminding activity.

Third party to a person with a disability

You can continue or resume a home care activity, for payment, of an elderly, disabled or disabled person for whom you perform the functions of a third person.

Employee housed by his employer

If you are housed by your employer, you can continue your activity if your monthly remuneration during the year preceding the date of your admission to retirement has not exceeded, on average, the monthly value of the Gross minimum wage.

This limit is also applicable to the professional income you receive after your admission to retirement.

This includes janitors and caretakers of buildings.

Capped employment-retirement accumulation

If you do not have a basic retirement pension from the Retirement Insurance at full rate or if you do not exercise a freely accumulable activity, you can still combine your basic retirement pension from the Retirement Insurance with an income from professional activity provided that the sum of your retirement pensions (basic and complementary) and your business income does not exceed one ceiling amount.

Depending on what is most advantageous to you, this ceiling amount is equal to:

  • 160% of Smic: titleContent to 1er January of the year calculated on the basis of 1 820 hours per year, i.e. €2,916.85 gross per month
  • Or your last gross monthly working salary before you retire.
Elements taken into account for the calculation of the ceiling

For the calculation of the ceiling, your income from activities is taken into account within the limit of  98.25% of its amount (i.e. the part subject to CSG: titleContent).

The pension amounts (basic and additional) taken into account are the amounts raw.

The last gross activity salary withheld is equal to the monthly average of the CSG salaries you received during your last 3 months of employment before your retirement.

The salaries taken into account are those which gave rise to membership in the Pension Insurance.

If you worked part-time before retiringHowever, you can request that your last working salary be calculated on the basis of the salaries you would have received full-time.

Employer from which the activity can be resumed

You can resume a professional activity as soon as you retire or at any time if this activity is carried out with a different employer from your last employer.

However, if you wish to resume an activity with your last employer, you cannot do so at least 6 months after your admission to retirement.

The 6-month period is calculated between the end date of your employment contract before you retire and the start date of your new employment contract with your former employer, or the start date of your employment if you resume self-employment with that former employer.

If you return to work with your former employer within 6 months of your retirement, your basic retirement pension from the Retirement Insurance ceases to be paid to you between 1er the day of the month in which you resume your activity and the last day of the month in which you cease your activity or, at most, until the last day of the 6the month following your retirement.

Example :

If you are admitted to retirement on 1er in march, you cannot resume an activity with your last employer before the 1ster September (6 months later).

If you still resume an activity with your last employer from May 15 to June 15, your retirement pension from the Retirement Insurance is no longer paid to you from 1er May to June 30.

If you resume an activity on or after May 15 and continue to do so after August 31, your retirement pension is no longer paid to you on the 1ster May to 31 August maximum. It is paid to you from 1er September.

Warning  

Specific provisions apply to certain special schemes (Paris Opera, old-age insurance scheme for seafarers, retirement for mines, non-agricultural employees). If you are covered by one of these plans and are considering continuing or resuming a professional activity, contact your pension fund beforehand.

You must, within one month of your business resumption date, report your situation in writing to your Carsat: titleContent.

You must provide the following information and supporting documents:

  • Name and address of the employer with whom you carry out an activity under the Retirement Insurance or the Agricultural Employees' Pension Fund or a special scheme
  • The start date of this activity.

If you meet the conditions to benefit from a full employment-retirement combination : You must also attach a sworn certificate listing the various basic and supplementary pension funds that pay you a retirement pension and certifying that you have applied for all the basic and supplementary pensions to which you are entitled.

If you resume an activity in the context of a capped combination of employment and retirement, you must also provide the following information:

  • The amount and nature of the professional income you earn from your activity and the pension fund to which you contribute as a result of that activity
  • Copy of your salary slips from your last 3 months of activity before your retirement
  • Names and addresses of other basic and supplementary pension funds that pay you a pension
  • If you were working part-time before your retirement, attestation from your former employer stating your working hours and the applicable full-time working hours in the company.

If the sum of your working income and basic and supplementary pensions exceeds €2,916.85 gross per month or your last monthly working salary, each of your basic retirement pensions is reduced by the amount of the overrun.

If the amount of the reduction exceeds the amount of the pension your basic retirement pension is no longer paid to you.

If you have declared your resumption of activity within one month of the date of your resumption of activity, the reduction of your pension applies from 1er day of the month following the month in which your Carsat: titleContent has provided you with the new amount of your pension.

If you have not met this one-month deadline, the reduction applies from the month in which the sum of your working income and retirement pensions exceeded the authorized ceiling.

The reduction ceases to apply from the month in which the sum of your working income and retirement pensions falls below the authorized ceiling.

You must notify your Carsat of any change in your business income. The new amount of your retirement pension applies in this case to 1er the day of the month in which your income changed.

It depends on whether or not you meet the conditions for full employment-pension accumulation.

Full employment-pension accumulation

If you meet the conditions to benefit from a full employment-pension combination, your professional activity allows you, since 1 january 2023, to establish new pension rights with the basic pension fund to which your activity belongs.

If you resume an activity with your last employerHowever, this resumption of activity entitles you to a pension supplement if it occurs at least 6 months after your admission to retirement. If this deadline is not respected, your new activity will never generate a new right.

The amount of your basic retirement pension from the Retirement Insurance that was calculated when you retired does not change. However, the periods during which you work during your retirement entitle you to a new retirement pension.

This new retirement pension is calculated at the full rate or the maximum rate. No discount is applied to its amount.

Unlike the basic retirement pension of the Pension Insurance which was calculated when you retired, this new pension cannot be increased (for children for example).

The amount of your new retirement pension cannot exceed €2,403 gross per year.

You can only benefit fromonly once a new retirement pension with the same basic pension fund.

The request for a new retirement following a full employment-retirement combination can be made on the Info Retraite website using the service Applying for retirement after a combination of employment and retirement.

Info Retirement - My retirement account

You only have to apply for one pension fund for all your pension funds.

The service is open 2 months before the desired departure date.

The form is pre-filled and customized.

The online application takes place in 2 steps. Based on the information you provide in 1re Part of the form, mainly the activity carried out and the desired departure date, you will know if the conditions are met to apply. If not, a message tells you why and who to contact.

If the conditions are met, you access the 2e part of the form.

During the walk, you can go back or stop and resume your request at another time. To do this, you must click on register my application and leave. It is kept for 90 days. As you complete the form, the supporting documents to be attached appear. The application scanner My retirement account allows you to add them by photographing them.

At the last step, a summary is available to check and modify your information if necessary.

You can track the status of your application using the service My steps / Follow my requests.

FYI  

Your professional activity also allows you to acquire new rights from your supplementary pension fund (Agirc-Arrco: titleContent).

Capped employment-retirement accumulation

If you return to work during your retirement, you will not have any new pension rights.

Your pensions are not recalculated.

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