Home Savings Account (CEL)

Any adult or minor can open a CEL, paying the minimum amount required.

You cannot hold more than one CEL, otherwise you risk losing all the interest earned and the right to benefit from the loan and savings premium.

However, you can open both a CEL and a housing savings plan (PEL), provided that the two accounts are opened in the same bank.

The CEL deposit limit is €15,300.

This limit may be exceeded by adding interest to the amounts you have deposited.

The CEL interest rate is 1.25%.

Interest is calculated fortnightly, on 1^er and the 16th of each month.

The sums remaining on the CEL of 1^er on the 15th of the month, interest is earned on the 16th of the month.

Amounts remaining on the CEL from the 16th to the last day of the month generate interest on the 1st^er of the following month.

The CEL's interests are capitalizable: on December 31 of each year, they are added to the savings capital and become producers of additional interest.

Interest arising from a CEL opened from 2018 is subject to income tax and social levies.

When paying interest, the bank must first make a single flat-rate levy of 30%, which corresponds to income tax, up to 12.8%and social security contributions, up to 17.2%.

This one-off flat-rate levy is then taken into account when processing your tax return and calculating your final tax.

Without any action on your part, the single flat-rate levy corresponds to the amount of your final tax.

But you can choose not to keep the flat rate of income tax and opt for the application of the progressive scale. In this case, depending on your family situation, your income tax rate may be lower or higher than the flat rate. You will then be able to pay a tax supplement or, on the contrary, receive a refund from the administration.

The CEL opened after 2018 can allow you to get a home loan at a rate that is equal to the rate of return on deposits in the account plus a commission of 1.5%.

For CELs open from 1^er february 2025, the loan rate is 3%.

Home Savings Loan may be used to perform any of the following:

• Purchase of your main residence (new or old)
• Construction of the main residence (purchase of land and construction work)
• Work to extend, repair, or improve your main residence (elevation, energy saving, facade renovation of a condominium building...)
• Financing a commercial or professional space that also includes your main residence

The properties concerned may be located in metropolitan France, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Reunion, Martinique and Mayotte.

To obtain the loan, your LEC must have been open for at least 18 months, and you must have acquired a minimum amount of interest.

This amount is €75, €37, or €22.5 depending on the purpose of the funding.

The maximum amount of CEL loan is of €23,000.

If you also have an ELP, the maximum amount of CEL and ELP loans combined cannot exceed €92,000.

You can give in your loan rights a member of your family, but only if they have held a CEL that has been open for at least 18 months.

Likewise, a family member can also help you assign its rights to a loan, and you can combine them with yours to get a larger amount of borrowing.

The 18-month period can be reduced to 12 months when you use rights that have been given to you by the holder of a CEL that has been open for at least 18 months.

The same applies if you use rights from your ELP or rights from the ELP of your co-borrower spouse.

In the event of death, the savings accumulated on the CEL are transferred to the estate.

Your heirs can benefit from your right to the loan and your right to the savings premium, under the same conditions as you.

CELs open from 1^er January 2018 no longer entitles to the State premium.

Yes, you can transfer your CEL to another bank unless you also have an ELP in the institution where you opened the CEL.

In this case, the CEL must remain in the same establishment as the PEL.

The closure of the CEL and the recovery of the money is not subject to conditions.

The procedure varies from bank to bank.

If you wish to close your CEL, you must inform your bank and provide it with the details of a bank account to which the CEL balance can be paid.