Caregiver Leave
Verified 01 January 2026 - Public Service / Directorate of Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)
The caregiver leave allows the employee to caring for a disabled or elderly person or a person with a loss of autonomy. This leave is accessible subject to conditions (family or close relationship with the person assisted, residence in France of the person assisted) and for a limited duration. We present you the information to know.
Caregiver leave has replaced family support leave since 2017.
It allows the employee to temporarily cease his professional activity to care for a person who is disabled or incapacitated or who is losing autonomy or who is elderly or with whom he or she resides or has close and stable ties.
Caregiver leave is open to any employee.
The person accompanied by the employee may be one of the following:
- The person with whom the employee lives as a couple
- Sound ascending, sound descendant, the child in her care (within the meaning of family benefits) or its collateral up to 4e degree (brother, sister, aunt, uncle, first cousin, nephew, niece...)
- The ascendant, descendant or collateral until 4e degree of the person with whom the employee lives as a couple
- An elderly or disabled person with whom he or she resides or with whom he or she has close and stable ties, to whom he or she provides regular and frequent assistance. The employee intervenes in a non-professional capacity to perform all or part of the acts or activities of daily life.
The person assisted must reside in France on a stable and regular basis.
The maximum duration of caregiver leave shall be set by collective agreement or company collective agreement or extended branch agreement.
In the absence of treaty provisions, the maximum period of leave shall be 3 months.
Leave may be renewed. However, the leave may not exceed 1 year over the entire career of the employee.
Request
The leave is taken at the employee's initiative. It shall inform the employer in accordance with the conditions and deadlines laid down by collective agreement or company collective agreement or extended branch agreement.
In the absence of treaty provisions, the employee shall send his request to the employer by any means that can justify the date of the request (e.g. registered letter or e-mail).
The application shall specify the following:
- Willingness of the employee to suspend his employment contract in order to benefit from caregiver leave
- Date of departure on leave
- Willingness to split the leave (or to convert it into part-time), if the employee so wishes
A leave request template is available:
Deadline
The request shall be made at least 1 month prior to the planned leave date.
However, leave shall begin without delay if it is justified by one of the following situations:
- Emergency linked in particular to a sudden deterioration in the health of the person assisted (attested by medical certificate)
- Crisis situation requiring urgent employee action
- Sudden cessation of residential accommodation for the assisted person (attested by the person in charge of the institution)
Documents to be provided
The request for caregiver leave must be accompanied by the following documents:
- Declaration on the honor of the employee's family relationship with the person assisted, or of the assistance provided to an elderly or disabled person with whom he resides or has close and stable ties
- Sworn statement stating that he has not previously used caregiver leave throughout his career or, if he has already used it, for the duration of his career
- Copy of the decision proving a permanent disability rate of at least 80% (if the person assisted is a child with a disability at the time of load or a disabled adult)
- Copy of the decision to award Personalized Autonomy Allocation (Apa)
- Copy of the decision awarding the following benefits where the assisted person receives them:
- Third-party markup (TPM) for constant help
- Supplementary benefit for third-party use
- Special surcharge for assistance by a third party subject to the CNRACL: titleContent
- Increase granted to incapacitated civil servants and judges who are obliged to have recourse to the assistance of a third person for the ordinary acts of life
- Third-party surcharge for military personnel and war victims
The employer cannot refuse leave.
In the event of refusal by the employer, the employee may request the labor court (CPH).
Occupational activity
The employee may not engage in any other professional activity during the period of the leave.
However, it may be used by the person assisted when the latter receives Personalized Autonomy Allocation (Apa) or the disability compensation benefit (PCH).
Compensation
Caregiver leave is not paid by the employer (except treaty provisions foreseeing it).
However, the employee can receive a daily caregiver allowance (AJPA).
The AJPA aims to compensate part of the lost salary, up to a maximum of 66 days per person assisted and up to a maximum of 4 persons during the employee's professional career (i.e 264 days in total).
Its amount is:
- €66.64 per day
- €33.32 per half day
The employee is entitled to a maximum of 22 days of AJPA per month.
Please note
the amount of the AJPA in Mayotte is €58.31 per day and €29.16 per half day.
A sample AJPA application form is available:
Application for the Caregiver's Daily Allowance (DDA)
The form must be sent to the Caf: titleContent or to the MSA: titleContent for insured persons covered by the agricultural scheme:
Leave splitting or part-time
If the employer accepts that the leave be split or converted into part-time, the employee alternates periods worked and periods of leave.
The employee must notify his employer at least 48 hours before the date on which he intends to take each period of leave.
In the case of split leave, the minimum duration of each period of leave shall be half a day.
However, leave shall begin without delay if it is justified by one of the following situations:
- Emergency linked in particular to a sudden deterioration in the health of the person assisted (attested by medical certificate)
- Crisis situation requiring urgent employee action
- Sudden cessation of residential accommodation for the assisted person (attested by the person in charge of the institution)
Benefits
The length of caregiver leave is taken into account for the calculation of seniority benefits.
The employee retains the benefit of all the benefits he had acquired before the start of the leave.
An employee who benefits from the caregiver leave is entitled to old-age caregiver insurance (Ava)
The employee can request the renewal of his leave.
The number of renewals authorized, the conditions and deadlines of information are determined by collective agreement or company collective agreement or extended branch agreement.
In the absence treaty provisions, the employee shall submit his request for renewal at least 15 days before the end date of the leave initially scheduled.
He/she may use any means to justify the date of the request (e.g. registered letter or email).
FYI
The employee can also get a new caregiver leave if he helps a new person.
The employee may terminate (or waive) the caregiver leave early in one of the following cases:
- Death of the person assisted
- Admission to an institution of the assisted person
- Significant decrease in employee resources
- Use of a home help service to assist the person being helped
- Caregiver leave taken by another family member
The employee informs the employer of his wish to end his leave, taking into account the notice period to be respected before the early return of the employee.
The conditions and deadlines for information shall be determined by collective agreement or company collective agreement or extended branch agreement.
In the absence of treaty provisions, the employee shall send at least one reasoned request to the employer 1 month before the departure date on which he intends to end his leave.
In the event of the death of the assisted person, this period shall be reduced to 2 weeks.
He/she may use any means to justify the date of the request (e.g. registered letter or email).
At the end of the caregiver leave, the employee returns to his or her job or a similar job, with at least equivalent remuneration. He's entitled to a professional interview with his employer.
He can also benefit from it before his leave.
Who can help me?
Find who can answer your questions in your region
For further information on the employee-employer relationship
For more information on this subject, you can contact Allô Service Public.
Attention: the service does not have access to users' personal files and therefore cannot provide information on their progress.
He does not respond questions on unemployment compensation and approaches to the France Labor (formerly Pôle emploi), the public servants or contract workers of the fcivil service, the amount or payment of contributions social, wage or employer.
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The informants who answer you belong to the ministry in charge of labor.
For more information on the Caregiver Daily Allowance (AJPA)
Family Allowance Fund (Caf)
Beneficiaries, duration, employee's request, employer's response, employee's situation, early end of leave, at the end of leave (public policy)
Duration, employee request, early termination of leave (scope of collective bargaining)
Duration, employee's request, early termination of leave (supplementary provisions)
Employee's request, steps to be taken (public policy and supplementary provisions)
Beneficiaries of the family supplement
Daily allowance for the caregiver: payment conditions
Caregiver's daily allowance: amount
National Solidarity Fund for Autonomy (CNSA)
Ministry of Health