In short. French meal delivery generally requires an overall home-service offering and a declaration for SAP tax advantages, with a bundle exception for specified people needing support.
Definition: French personal services, or services à la personne (SAP), include home meal delivery within an overall offering that also includes services performed in the home. As of 17 October 2026, official guidance provides an exception for delivery exclusively to older people, disabled people or others needing personal assistance at home or help with mobility.
Key facts
- The DGE's activity list includes meal delivery, while excluding food supplies and meal preparation outside the home from the tax credit.
- The DGE's regulatory guidance requires the general delivery offering to include an activity performed at home.
- DGFiP's income-tax guidance requires the same provider to supply the customer's delivery and in-home services, subject to the support-needs exception.
- The DGE's declaration guidance requires a declaration for the provider and its customers to receive SAP tax and social advantages.
What does an overall service offering involve?
The DGE's regulatory guidance calls this an offre globale: delivery to or from the home accompanies an activity performed inside the home. The guidance separately addresses the provider's overall offering and the set of services supplied to each tax-credit beneficiary.
For reduced value added tax (VAT), DGFiP's VAT guidance, paragraph 190, assesses the offering across the company. The greater part of its activity must consist of services performed at home. Its example combines meal delivery with housework: some customers can purchase delivery alone while the company satisfies this VAT condition through its predominantly housework activity.
What must the customer actually purchase?
DGFiP's income-tax guidance, paragraph 155, applies the customer conditions for taxation of 2026 income. During the year of expenditure, the same provider must supply at least one eligible service at the customer's residence alongside the outside-home service. Annual spending, including VAT, on the outside-home services must be no higher than spending on eligible in-home services from that provider.
The guidance gives an example with EUR 3,600 of housework and EUR 1,500 of meal delivery from the same organisation. The delivery satisfies these conditions. In its following-year example, EUR 2,500 of delivery alongside EUR 2,000 of housework fails the spending condition.
Paragraph 159 provides an exception for meal delivery purchased for older people, disabled people or others needing personal assistance at home or help with nearby mobility to remain at home. For these beneficiaries, delivery qualifies as a service provided at the residence without a bundle of in-home activities.
What supports the company's website claim?
The DGE's activity list places meal delivery among activities subject only to declaration. It separately lists preparation of meals at home, where a worker uses the customer's equipment; the food purchases remain outside the tax credit.
According to the DGE's declaration guidance, quotations and invoices must mention declaration registration for customers to receive the associated advantages. The declaration application uses the NOVA online portal:
https://nova.entreprises.gouv.fr/
The DGE's regulatory guidance requires providers to commit to exclusive SAP activity, with exemptions accompanied by separate accounting. It also requires an annual tax certificate before 31 March of the following year, including the declaration number and registration date.
Related terms
- Which home-cleaning tasks fall within French personal services?
- Which handyman jobs fall within French personal services?
- What conditions belong beside a home-support company's tax-credit claim?
FAQ
Can a company qualify through meal delivery alone?
The DGE's activity list provides an exception to the overall-offering condition for delivery exclusively to the specified people needing support. Its general rule requires an overall SAP offering.
Does having a cleaner from another company satisfy the customer condition?
DGFiP's income-tax guidance requires the same provider for the delivery and in-home services under the general bundle rule.
Does the tax credit cover the entire delivered meal?
The DGE activity list excludes the food itself and preparation outside the home. The eligible activity is delivery, subject to the applicable conditions.
Sources
- DGE, "Les 26 activités de services à la personne", updated 21 September 2026
- DGE, "Les obligations réglementaires des organismes de services à la personne", updated 8 October 2026
- DGFiP, "BOI-TVA-LIQ-30-20-80", 10 May 2023
- DGFiP, "BOI-IR-RICI-150-10", 12 August 2026
- DGE, "Organismes de services à la personne : comment demander une déclaration, un agrément ou une autorisation ?", updated 18 December 2025
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