How the French pension system works
For private-sector employees the statutory pension has two tiers. The base pension (Assurance retraite, CNAV) is the average salary of your 25 best years, each capped at the social security ceiling (PASS, €48,060 in 2026), × a rate of up to 50% × your quarters / the quarters required. The legal age is 62 to 64 depending on your date of birth (64 with 172 quarters from the 1969 cohort), under the 2026 suspension of the 2023 reform, which covers pensions taken until 1 January 2028; later rules may change. Each missing quarter cuts the rate by 0.625 percentage points (décote, at most 20 quarters) unless you wait until 67; each extra quarter after the legal age adds 1.25% (surcote). At the full rate the minimum contributif guarantees a base pension of at least €756.29 a month for a full career.
On top comes the mandatory complementary pension, Agirc-Arrco, a points scheme: each year 6.2% of your salary up to one PASS and 17% of the part between 1 and 8 PASS buy points at the purchase price (€20.1877 in 2026). Points × the point value of €1.4587 (from 1 November 2026) give the pension; the calculator assumes the point value keeps pace with the purchase price. Without the full rate it is cut by 1% per missing quarter (1.25% from the 13th, at most 22%). By default every year worked counts as four quarters and a full year of points; your relevé de carrière on info-retraite.fr or the monthly total from its simulator makes the figure exact. A company plan (PER d’entreprise) counts only if you enter it.
All amounts are gross, before CSG, CRDS, CASA and income tax. The calculator adds the base pension, Agirc-Arrco and your savings, compares the total with your target share of your last salary and shows the monthly saving that closes the gap, including the years until the legal age if you stop working earlier. That saving goes first into an individual PER, deductible up to 10% of last year’s net earned income (in 2026 at least €4,710, at most €37,680); the calculator estimates this limit from your gross salary, the exact one is on your tax notice (avis d’impôt). The rest goes into unrestricted savings.
Pensions pay the social levies CSG, CRDS and CASA at a rate that depends on household income, then income tax after the 10 % pension allowance, withheld monthly at source.