How much does a VTC driver earn in France? From fares to take-home pay
Self-employed VTC drivers have no wage. What they earn is whatever their fares leave once everything else is paid.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources
A self-employed VTC (private-hire) driver in France has no salary. You bill fares and keep what is left after five deductions: the platform’s commission if you use an app, your vehicle costs (fuel, lease or loan, insurance, servicing), VAT at 10% once your turnover goes past the small-business exemption (€37,500 a year, €41,250 at the upper threshold, in 2026), social contributions to the Urssaf, the body that collects them (21.2% of turnover as a micro-entrepreneur plus 0.3% for training, or a scale based on profit under the standard regime), and income tax. Hours and costs drive the result more than anything. Using the calculator’s example assumptions (46 weeks, 50 hours a week, €1,360 of monthly costs), €1,400 of weekly fares leaves roughly €1,128 a month before income tax. That is an estimate, not a promise. For app work, agreements signed in 2023 guarantee at least €9 net per ride, €30 per hour worked and €1 per kilometre.
What you keep as a platform VTC driver
Estimated net per month, before income tax
€1,128
| Net per hour logged in | €5.89 |
| Commission per month | €1,342 |
| VAT to pay over per month | €488 |
Example vehicle costs (€1,360 a month), micro-enterprise, 46 weeks. Agreements guarantee at least €9 net per ride.
Turnover, not a pay cheque
Asking what a VTC driver “earns” assumes a wage. Most VTC drivers in France are self-employed, either as micro-entrepreneurs (the simplified sole-trader scheme), standard sole traders or owners of their own small company. They bill rides, through an app or directly, and live on the gap between money in and money out. Two drivers with identical fares can end up with very different incomes depending on the car, the hours and the status they chose.
We found no public earnings statistics for VTC drivers in the official sources this site relies on. Instead of repeating averages nobody can check, this page walks through the sums and runs them on assumptions you can replace with your own, in the calculator above or in the full net income calculator.
From the rider’s fare to your pocket
- Commission: the app keeps a cut of each fare. Service-public says it varies between platforms, and none of the sources we read publishes a rate, so use the one on your own statement.
- Vehicle costs: fuel or charging, lease or loan, professional insurance, servicing, phone, cleaning. Usually the heaviest item.
- VAT: 10.0 % on passenger transport (tax code, article 279 b quater), and only above the exemption threshold.
- Social contributions: a percentage of turnover for micro-entrepreneurs, a sliding scale on profit under the standard regime.
- Income tax, which depends on your whole household and is left out of the net figures here.
Four turnover levels, run through the calculator
The table feeds four weekly fare totals, at the price the rider pays, into the site’s calculation engine. Everything else uses the calculator’s default example: 46 working weeks, 50 hours a week, micro-enterprise without Acre relief, €1,360 a month of vehicle and sundry costs, and an example commission of 25.0 % of the fare. That rate is our working assumption, not any platform’s published figure.
| Weekly fares | Annual turnover | VAT | Net a month | Net an hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| €800 | €36,800 | exempt | €281 | €1.46 |
| €1,100 | €50,600 | VAT due | €595 | €3.10 |
| €1,400 | €64,400 | VAT due | €1,128 | €5.89 |
| €1,800 | €82,800 | VAT due | €1,839 | €9.60 |
Two lessons stand out. At the bottom, fixed costs dominate: at €800 a week, the car swallows almost everything. Further up, the curve is not smooth. From €1,100 a week, annual turnover clears the upper VAT threshold, so VAT becomes payable: €4,600 a year in this example, carved out of the fares riders pay.
None of these rows describes a real driver. A car that is already paid off, cheaper insurance or less empty driving changes the picture completely. Use the table to see what each cost does, not as a benchmark of what you will make.
The VAT threshold: a step you will feel
For 2026, the VAT exemption for services (franchise en base) applies while the previous year’s turnover stays at or under €37,500. If the current year goes past that without reaching €41,250, you stay exempt until 31 December and lose the exemption on 1 January; beyond the upper figure, VAT is due from the day you cross it (service-public, page F21746).
VTC drivers feel it because fares, set by the app or quoted to clients, do not jump by 10.0 % overnight, so the tax comes out of the margin. The VAT for VTC and taxi drivers page covers the sums and whether opting in early makes sense.
Micro-enterprise or standard regime
As a micro-entrepreneur you pay 21.2 % of turnover on service income plus a 0.3 % training levy for craft businesses (Urssaf, autoentrepreneur.urssaf.fr). It is easy to work out but blind to costs: a driver with heavy running costs pays contributions on money already spent. The scheme stops at €83,600 of turnover in 2026.
Under the standard regime (régime réel), a sole trader pays contributions on profit after costs, using the 2026 scale for craft businesses. On the €1,400-a-week row, the calculator estimates €1,128 a month as a micro-entrepreneur and €1,526 under the standard regime, with identical costs. The gap comes from deducting costs before contributions, and you pay for it in bookkeeping. The site does not model a SASU company, because we lack complete sources on its contributions.
What the platform agreements guarantee
Three minimum amounts bind VTC apps. They come from agreements negotiated in 2023 through ARPE (Autorité des relations sociales des plateformes d’emploi) and are quoted by service-public:
- at least €9 per ride after commission (amendment of 19 December 2023);
- at least €30 per hour worked;
- at least €1 per kilometre driven on a ride (agreement of 19 December 2023).
These are floors paid by the platform, before your vehicle costs, VAT and contributions, which you still carry. The agreement itself defines what counts as an hour worked, so read it before setting that floor against your logged-in hours. The amounts may be reviewed yearly. Anything said here about platforms is for guidance only; check the details with each one.
Private clients: no commission, other costs
Drivers who serve their own clients, such as hotels, companies or private customers, pay no commission but have to find the work themselves and often spend more on getting known. With 35 rides a week at €45, 45 hours and €1,480 of monthly costs, the calculator estimates €2,829 a month and €16.40 an hour, after VAT. Your choice of vehicle weighs heavily on that result, and the taxi driver earnings page uses the same engine for comparison.