In short. French handyman personal services cover elementary, occasional tasks requiring no specialist trade skills, with a two-hour intervention limit and exclusions for building trades.
Definition: As of 17 October 2026, French personal services cover elementary, occasional handyman tasks requiring no specialist trade skills, with each intervention limited to two hours.
Key facts
- The Direction générale des Entreprises (DGE), in its activity list, includes fitting shelves and assembling small flat-pack furniture.
- Service Public's building-contractor guidance specifies that a sole contractor doing plumbing and electrical work needs qualifications in both specialities.
- Service Public's home-employment tax guidance caps eligible handyman expenditure at €500 per tax household annually.
Which tasks qualify?
The DGE's examples include hanging curtains, fitting smoke alarms or grab rails, and replacing a seal.
Which building jobs are excluded?
The DGE's exclusions cover building construction, maintenance and repairs across structural, fitting-out and finishing trades. Installing, maintaining or repairing fluid networks and equipment for gas supply, heating and electrical installations also falls outside this category. Equipment removal, cellar or attic clearance, and moving services are excluded too.
Service Public's contractor guidance describes a separate qualification requirement for building activities. It identifies painting, masonry and tiling as regulated activities and requires qualifications appropriate to each activity performed. The business must operate under the effective and permanent supervision of a person qualified in the trades concerned. The same guidance uses a contractor working alone on both plumbing and electrical jobs as its example of separate qualifications being necessary.
How do the tax limits apply?
Service Public's tax guidance lists a maximum intervention duration of two hours alongside the €500 annual expenditure ceiling per tax household. It sets the tax credit at 50% of qualifying expenditure, subject to the applicable limits. The €500 figure is the expenditure ceiling; the credit is calculated from eligible spending within that ceiling.
The same guidance lists direct employment and an association, company or organisation registered under the personal-services declaration procedure among the eligible arrangements. It requires evidence of payment, including wages and social contributions for direct employment or provider invoices.
The DGE's supply rule excludes product sales. Small supplies may be purchased at cost and reimbursed, but their cost is excluded from the tax credit.
Related terms
- Which home-cleaning tasks fall within French personal services?
- Which gardening services fall within the French personal-services scheme?
- Which prices must a French home-repair business publish online?
FAQ
Does a plumbing qualification also cover electrical work?
Service Public's contractor guidance specifies separate qualifications for a contractor working alone in these specialities.
What proof should I keep for the tax credit?
Service Public's guidance requires supporting payment documents. Keep the Urssaf certificates for direct employment or provider invoices; the guidance says a cash-paid invoice is unacceptable as evidence.
Sources
- DGE, "Les 26 activités de services à la personne", updated 21 September 2026
- Service Public Entreprendre, "Entrepreneur en bâtiment : conditions d'accès et d'exercice en France", verified 21 February 2026
- Service Public, "Impôt sur le revenu - Crédit d'impôt pour l'emploi d'un salarié à domicile", verified 15 April 2026
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