UPDATE: France further increased the minimum wage from May 1st, 2023. Click here to find out more.
What is the SMIC
The SMIC is the French legal minimum hourly wage, below which the employee cannot be paid. It applies to all employees of age, regardless of the form of their remuneration.
The employer can be sentenced to a penalty of €1,500 if he pays the employee less than the minimum wage, in addition to the penalties provided for non-compliance with transnational posting requirements.
What changes from 1st May 2022
The amount of the SMIC is automatically revalued on 1 January each year. The previous increase traces back to January 2022.
SMIC basically increases on the basis of two indicators:
- observed inflation for the 20% of households with the lowest incomes;
- half of the increase in purchasing power of the average hourly wage of workers and employees.
In addition, the Labour Code provides for an automatic revaluation of the minimum wage during the year when the consumer price index increases by more than 2% compared to the index taken into account in determining the last amount of the SMIC. It is then automatically raised in the same proportions.
With this automatic increase, the gross hourly minimum wage will go from € 10.57 to € 10.85, and the gross monthly minimum wage for a full-time person will go from € 1,603.12 to € 1,645.58.