Sick leave by country / France
Sick leave and sick pay in France
Who pays when someone is ill, how much, for how long, and what the certificate rules are — in plain English, whether you run a team in France or work on one.
In France sick pay comes from two sources. Social security (CPAM) pays a daily allowance of 50% of the basic daily salary, capped, after three waiting days, for up to 360 days in three years. Employers must top this up for employees with a year's service — to 90% of gross salary for 30 days and then two-thirds for 30 days, longer with seniority — after seven days of absence, unless the collective agreement is more generous, as most are.
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How it works
The employee must send the arrêt de travail to the employer and CPAM within 48 hours. CPAM's indemnités journalières start after a three-day délai de carence at 50% of the daily basic salary, calculated on the previous three months' pay and capped at 1.4 times the SMIC since April 2025. The employer's legal maintien de salaire under the Code du travail requires one year's service, applies from the eighth day (or the first day for work accidents), and lengthens with seniority in steps of ten days per five years, up to 90 days at each rate. Collective agreements very often remove the waiting days and raise the rates to full pay; check the convention collective before applying the legal minimum.
Worth knowing: Since the 2024 reform following EU case law, employees accrue paid leave during non-work-related sick leave at two working days per month (up to 24 a year) and have 15 months to take leave they missed.
If you run a team in France
Receive the arrêt within 48 hours, declare the absence to CPAM (attestation de salaire, usually through the DSN), and pay the complément either directly or by subrogation, in which case you receive the daily allowances and pay the employee the whole amount. Apply the convention collective where it is better than the legal scheme — it usually is. Sick leave does not count as annual leave, and since 2024 employees on sick leave accrue paid leave.
If you work in France
Send the arrêt de travail to CPAM and your employer within 48 hours. Expect nothing for the first three days from CPAM and, without a better collective agreement, nothing extra from your employer for the first seven. After that, your employer tops up to 90% for a month if you have a year's service. Check your convention collective — most improve on this considerably.
Sickness and annual leave
Employees on sick leave accrue paid leave (two working days per month for ordinary illness, 2.5 for work accidents), and leave they could not take because of illness is carried over for 15 months. Falling ill during annual leave does not, under current French rules, suspend the leave unless the collective agreement says so.
The annual leave entitlement itself is covered on our France annual leave page — 25 working days minimum.
Keeping the record straight
Sick pay rules turn on dates: the day the illness started, the day the certificate was due, the day the employer's obligation ends and the benefit takes over. In France those dates decide who pays and how much, and they have to be provable months later — to a payroll auditor, an insurer, or the employee. A shared spreadsheet rarely survives that; a tracker like Leavo records each absence with its dates and approvals alongside annual leave, so the record exists before anyone asks for it. We compare the options in our leave management software guide, and the policy side — carryover, payout, accrual — in our guides.
Sick leave in France: common questions
Are the three waiting days always unpaid?
CPAM never pays them. Many collective agreements require the employer to pay them, and some employers do so by policy. Check yours.
How long can I be on sick leave?
CPAM pays up to 360 daily allowances over three consecutive years for ordinary illness, and up to three years for a recognised long-term condition (affection de longue durée).
Does the employer's top-up depend on seniority?
Yes. One year's service is required, and the length of the 90% and 66.66% periods grows by ten days for each further five years of service, to a maximum of 90 days each.
What happens if I fall ill during my annual leave in France?
Employees on sick leave accrue paid leave (two working days per month for ordinary illness, 2.5 for work accidents), and leave they could not take because of illness is carried over for 15 months. Falling ill during annual leave does not, under current French rules, suspend the leave unless the collective agreement says so.
Source
Primary source: Code de la sécurité sociale (indemnités journalières); Code du travail L1226-1 and D1226-1 (maintien de salaire). Rates and caps change — often every January or April — and collective agreements frequently improve on the statutory scheme. Confirm against the current text before acting. See our methodology.