Moving to a SELARL as a dentist: the calculation that matters

No profit threshold automatically triggers the move. What decides is the share of the result the practitioner can durably leave inside the company without drawing it. As long as the whole profit is needed to live on, the company brings no saving and adds obligations. It becomes useful once a capacity to save or invest appears.

You read everywhere that you should cross 70,000, 80,000 or 100,000 EUR of profit. Those figures circulate from one site to another with no text and no study behind them. They are not wrong by accident: they are simply beside the point, because the decisive parameter is not profit.

In sole practice, profit is subject to income tax and to contributions whether you draw it or not. A practitioner generating 150,000 EUR and spending only 90,000 EUR is taxed on 150,000 EUR.

In a SELARL, the result is subject to corporation tax. Remuneration paid to the practitioner is deducted from the company's result and taxed in their hands. What stays inside bears corporation tax, at the reduced 15% rate up to 42,500 EUR of profit for companies meeting the conditions, then at the standard 25% rate above that. The reduced rate requires in particular turnover of no more than 10 million euros and fully paid-up share capital, at least 75% held by individuals or by a company that itself meets that condition.

Hence the test: the gap between what the practice generates and what you need to live on. If that gap is nil, the company adds nothing. If it is material and lasting, it allows an investment to be funded, an acquisition debt to be repaid or cash to be built up at a lower tax cost.

This table summarises general rules: the exact cost of contributions depends on your remuneration level, your pension fund and your protection contracts, and has to be modelled on your own file.

Take a dental surgeon whose practice, once their remuneration and the related contributions are paid, can leave 40,000 EUR of result in a SELARL. Their household is taxed in the 41% marginal band of the income tax scale. The example is deliberately simplified: it isolates the undrawn share only and does not quantify social contributions.

If those 40,000 EUR stay in the company, they bear corporation tax at the reduced rate: 40,000 x 15% = 6,000 EUR. That leaves 34,000 EUR to repay a loan, fund equipment or build a reserve.

In sole practice, the same 40,000 EUR are added to taxable income: at 41%, that is 16,400 EUR of income tax, before the social contributions that also apply to that sum. The annual gap, of at least 10,400 EUR, is the real advantage of the structure, on one condition: the money stays in the company.

If the 34,000 EUR are then distributed, the advantage melts away. In a SELARL, the portion of dividends above 10% of share capital, share premium and current account balances is subject to self-employed contributions, on top of income tax: with share capital of 10,000 EUR, almost all of it would be caught. In a SELAS, dividends bear the 31.4% flat-rate withholding, i.e. 10,676 EUR on 34,000 EUR; total tax on the sum then reaches 16,676 EUR, close to the 16,400 EUR of income tax in sole practice; the remaining gap comes down to social contributions, to be quantified case by case.

The lesson is clear: the company does not lower tax on the money you spend, it lowers tax on the money you leave working in the practice. That is why the starting question is never "how much do I earn?" but "how much can I leave undrawn?".

Social protection. A majority manager of a SELARL is self-employed: contributions are lower, and so are entitlements. A SELAS president is treated as an employee, better covered and materially more expensive. The right question is not which costs least, but which level of cover matches your family and wealth situation.

Real complexity. Incorporating means leaving cash-basis bookkeeping and a form 2035 for accruals accounting, a balance sheet, a corporation tax return, shareholder meetings and public filing of accounts. Since the 5% tolerance ended, the manager's remuneration split must also be documented, which means keeping personal BNC accounts and filing a form 2035 as well. None of this is prohibitive, but it has a cost that belongs in the calculation.

The exit cost. A company is easy to create and far harder to unwind. Returning to sole practice means dissolution, liquidation and taxation of reserves. Incorporation should therefore be assessed over several years, not on one exceptional year.

VAT does not change. The exemption on care depends on the nature of the service, not on the legal form: a dental SELARL remains exempt on care, and ancillary activities stay taxable as before.

Once the decision to incorporate is made, the choice of form turns on two points.

The director's social status, described above, which drives both the cost of contributions and the level of protection.

The treatment of dividends. In a SELARL, dividends received by the majority manager above the 10% threshold attract social contributions. In a SELAS they escape contributions and bear the flat-rate withholding, raised to 31.4% on 1 January 2026. A significant distribution policy therefore points towards a SELAS, and so does a need for stronger social cover, though at a higher contribution cost on remuneration.

The choice is rarely made on the numbers alone. A practitioner planning regular distributions with solid personal protection cover does not have the same priorities as a younger, indebted practitioner with dependent children.

No. Two structures are regularly confused with the SELARL.

An SCM is not a practising vehicle. It pools resources, premises, equipment and staff between practitioners who each keep their own patients and their own accounts. It answers a question of organisation and cost sharing, not a tax question.

An SPFPL is a holding company: it holds shares in a SELARL. It therefore comes afterwards, when the point is to organise an acquisition, channel dividends up or prepare a succession. It does not replace the practising company. Our article on the dental SPFPL holding sets out what that structure allows and what it does not.

This is the structure most often proposed on incorporation, and the most often misunderstood.

Contributing a patient base to a company controlled by the same practitioner is expressly excluded from the temporary deductible depreciation scheme. The contribution may still be relevant, for instance to prepare a partner's entry or to value the contribution to capital, but it will not produce the announced tax saving. It has to be decided on its real merits. Buying a patient base from a colleague follows different rules, which we cover in our article on buying a dental patient base.

Our view. We see the move to a SELARL as an investment decision more than a tax decision. It makes sense when a concrete project absorbs the retained result: repaying a set-up loan, renewing clinical equipment, bringing in a partner, preparing a sale. Without a project, the company holds cash that will end up distributed, and the worked example shows the advantage then shrinks sharply. We also advise against deciding on the best year: it is the average of the last three years, and the stability of the gap between result and living costs, that should guide the choice.

1. Establish the actual result of the last two years, adjusted for non-recurring items.
2. Cost the net living requirement, before discussing any structure.
3. Measure the gap between the two, and how stable it is over time.
4. Model both scenarios over five years, including contributions and social protection, not on a single year's tax.
5. Add the company's running cost and the exit cost to the calculation.
6. Check the plans: investment, partnership, succession. Those are what most often decide.

A director's remuneration simulator helps frame the trade-off, provided it is read as an order of magnitude rather than a decision. The same questions arise, with similar parameters, for other health professions: our article on moving from BNC to a SELARL for a doctor offers a point of comparison.

• Results of the last three years and a projection for the next one, adjusted.
• Net personal budget and the household's cash needs.
• Current protection and pension contracts, and the level of cover you want.
• Five-year plans: investment, partner, acquisition, sale.
• What happens to the patient base, the lease and contracts (equipment, staff) on transfer.
• Professional body formalities and articles of association suited to the profession.

Once the SELARL is in place, the next question is the remuneration split, now mandatory since the 5% tolerance ended. For the practice as a whole, see our dentist accountant page.

Updated 25 September 2026. Corporation tax rates: article 219 of the French Tax Code and the Service-Public Entreprendre fact sheet; 31.4% flat-rate withholding since 1 January 2026: Service-Public Entreprendre; social contribution base for dividends: article L131-6 of the Social Security Code. The worked example is illustrative and does not quantify social contributions. Informative content reviewed by a chartered accountant registered with the Ordre des experts-comptables of Ile-de-France. It does not replace an analysis of your own situation.