This is an advantage that will become less advantageous … The calculation of benefits in kind has become more severe for cars, with advantages left to electric cars, according to a decree published Thursday. Calculation bases are changing and employees users of these vehicles will have to declare more income.
Employers can entrust vehicles free of charge to their employees, but their private use is considered to be a “advantage in kind” and subject to contributions. The government has decided that the basis of calculating these advantages in kind – which employees must declare as income taxes – would drop from 30 to 50 % of the overall annual cost of the vehicle for rentals (maintenance and insurance included) and from 9 to 15 % for vehicles purchased, according to this order published in the Official Journal.
An additional 70 % tax reduction is planned for 100 % electric vehicles if they respect the government “eco-score”, de facto limiting this advantage to electric cars produced in Europe. The electricity used for recharging is excluded from the calculation if it is carried out at work, and taken into account up to 50 % at home.
These measures are retroactive, in force for vehicles acquired or rented by a company from February 1, 2025.
A measure criticized
The Federation of Automobile Services, Mobilians, deplored “the absence of consultations on a major text for its companies and employees”. “This new text, more technical and more restrictive than the previous one, poses difficulties of interpretation and application, where the State continues to underline an objective of simplification and preservation of purchasing power”, underlines Mobilians. Rather than more severe calculation, the Federation encouraged “a rebalancing in a context where general automobile taxation, both at the national level and at the local level, has significantly increased”.
“This reform deeply upsets the existing framework and creates a new instability for businesses as well as for employees,” commented the union of long -term car rental companies (SESAMLD) in another press release. Sesamlld calls on the government to postpone the implementation of this reform “so that employees and fleet managers can anticipate this development with full knowledge of the facts”.