Portage salarial (Wage Carriage) is a « product » of French law with a specific history, a codified structure, and precise eligibility conditions that determine whether it applies to any given situation. Return to the parent page Hire in France — legally, without a local entity for a practical overview of the full framework and next steps.
Sources :
- Ordonnance n° 2015-380 du 2 avril 2015 relative au portage salarial
- The law n°2008-596 of 25 June 2008
Portage salarial or wage carriage / portage in France : Origins and legal codification
Portage salarial emerged in practice in France in the late 1980s, initially as an informal arrangement used by senior executives between roles and by retired professionals wishing to continue advisory activity.
It had no specific legal framework until the law of 25 June 2008 on the modernisation of the labour market, which included a first statutory recognition of the practice.
This was followed by Ordinance No. 2015-380 of 2 April 2015, which created the current codification in Articles L.1254-1 to L.1254-31 of the French Labour Code, ratified by the Labour Law (Loi Travail) of 8 August 2016.
The sector became a distinct professional branch with the signature of the national collective bargaining agreement on 22 March 2017 — the Convention Collective de Branche des Salariés en Portage Salarial, IDCC 3219, which has been in force since 1 July 2017 and has been amended by fifteen successive agreements (avenants) through 2025.
The most significant recent amendment, Avenant No. 12 of 20 December 2022, revised the professional classification system and introduced the four-tier salary structure (Entry, Junior, Senior, Expert) that applies from July 2024.
The three-party contractual structure
The legal definition of portage salarial, as set out in Article L.1254-2 of the French Labour Code, describes it as an organised set of contractual relationships between, on one hand, a portage company providing a service and a client company using that service — resulting in a commercial service contract — and on the other hand, an employment contract between the portage company and the consultant (the salarié porté), who is remunerated by the portage company.
Two contracts are therefore always present and always signed simultaneously.
- The commercial service contract defines the mission (scope, deliverables, duration, billing rate, payment terms, insurance reference).
- The employment contract defines the employment relationship (contract type — CDD de portage or CDI de portage — classification tier, minimum salary, working time arrangements, and reserve salary terms). Both contracts are mandatory. Neither can exist without the other.
A portage company that invoices a client without an employment contract in place for the consultant — or that employs a consultant without a signed commercial contract with the client — is in breach of the legal framework.
Who can use portage salarial — the eligibility conditions
Three conditions apply to the consultant.
- First, they must hold a minimum level-5 qualification under the French national qualifications framework — equivalent to a two-year post-secondary degree (Bac+2), an HNC in the UK, or an Associate Degree in the US — or demonstrate at least three years of professional experience in the relevant field.
- Second, they must be capable of sourcing their own clients and negotiating their own rates autonomously.
A consultant who is recruited, placed, and managed by the portage company itself does not meet this condition — the portage company cannot act as a staffing agency for its own consultants.
- Third, the nature of their activity must qualify: portage salarial is restricted to intellectual and advisory services. The full list of excluded activities under the IDCC 3219 includes domestic services (garde d’enfants, assistance à domicile), medical professions, manual trades, hairdressing, construction, and artisanal activities.
One condition also applies to the client company: it cannot use portage salarial to fill a position that forms part of its own core, permanent operational activity. A manufacturing company cannot engage a portage consultant as a permanent production line supervisor. An accounting firm cannot use portage to staff its core client-facing accountants. Portage is designed for project-based, external, expert contributions — not for the substitution of internal staff or the circumvention of standard recruitment.
Contract types, durations, and the salary reserve
The CDD de portage (fixed-term portage contract) is concluded for a specific assignment, with a defined end date. Its maximum duration is 18 months, renewable once before the end of that term, for a total maximum of 21 months including a search period between missions.
The CDI de portage (open-ended portage contract) has no fixed end date and can run for as long as the consultant remains active. However, the commercial mission with any single client company is capped at 36 months.
After 36 months of continuous mission with the same client, the legal framework requires a reassessment of the arrangement — the risk being that the relationship has become structural and permanent, no longer fitting the project-based model portage salarial is designed for.
Throughout the assignment, the portage company withholds 10% of the consultant’s gross salary as a mandatory reserve (réserve financière). This reserve is released to the consultant at the end of the mission — or at the end of the employment contract if it terminates for any reason — as a lump sum. It is not a fine, a fee, or a penalty: it is a deferred salary component designed to compensate the consultant for the periods between missions when they receive no income. The minimum gross monthly salary for a salarié porté is €2,517.13 as of 2025 (updated by the IDCC 3219 salary grid).
No consultant can be paid below this floor, regardless of the billing rate agreed with the client.
What portage salarial is not — three common misunderstandings
Portage salarial is not a payroll bureau. A payroll company (payroll company) processes payslips and salary payments on behalf of companies for their own employees.
It does not sign commercial contracts with the consultant’s clients, does not invoice their services, and is not the consultant’s employer.
Using a payroll company is not a substitute for portage salarial and does not provide the legal protections that flow from the IDCC 3219 framework.
Portage salarial is not a staffing agency
A staffing agency (agence de travail temporaire) recruits and places workers with client companies at the client’s request. The worker is found by the agency, not by themselves. In portage salarial, the consultant must source their own assignments. The portage company does not recruit consultants for clients, and clients cannot instruct the portage company to find them a consultant. The sourcing function belongs entirely to the consultant.
Portage salarial is not an umbrella company in the British sense.
A UK umbrella company operates under the IR35 regulatory framework and often works with a recruitment agency as a fourth party between the consultant and the end client. It does not always provide the same social coverage as French portage salarial — particularly regarding unemployment insurance — and it is not subject to the IDCC 3219 collective bargaining agreement.
The two models share structural similarities but are legally and socially distinct. A consultant based in France working through a British umbrella company for a French or European client is not in a compliant French portage salarial arrangement and is not covered by French employment law protections unless they also hold a separate French employment contract.
