RGDU 2026: Understanding the New Payroll Relief

Quick answer. Since 1 January 2026, the single degressive general relief (RGDU) replaces the former Fillon relief and the two reduced-rate bands for health and family contributions, now removed. Set by article L241-13 of the Social Security Code, it is highest at the minimum wage, degressive up to below 3 times the SMIC, then nil.

The January 2026 payroll run changed on one central point: how employer social contribution relief is calculated. If you employ staff, your charges on low and mid-range salaries are no longer computed as in 2025. The reform is not always obvious on the payslip, but it changes the real employer cost and the way your payroll software must be set up.

This article explains the reform: what the RGDU merges, why headline rates rise while the total cost stays controlled, and what you must check. The detailed coefficient calculation is covered in a dedicated article on the general relief on employer contributions; here, we stay on the regulatory reading.

The single degressive general relief is the new general relief scheme on employer contributions, applicable to private-sector employers since 1 January 2026. It replaces several mechanisms that ran in parallel until 2025.

The key word is "single". Before 2026, an employer combined three separate logics to reduce contributions on modest pay: the general relief (the former Fillon relief) and two reduced rates known as bands. The reform brings them together into one degressive relief.

The RGDU stems from the Social Security Financing Act for 2025 (Law no. 2025-199 of 28 February 2025), and its application rules for 2026 were set by Decree no. 2025-887 of 4 September 2025. The legal basis remains article L241-13 of the Social Security Code.

The stated aim is to simplify a stack that had become unreadable and to smooth threshold effects. In practice, the employer moves from three calculations to one, recomputed at each SMIC revaluation.

The reform rests on two complementary moves. On one side, two reduced rates disappear. On the other, the general relief is widened to absorb the mechanical rise in contributions on low salaries.

In concrete terms, two bands are removed on 1 January 2026. The first was the reduced health insurance rate of 7 %, which applied on pay up to 2.5 times the SMIC. The second was the reduced family allowance rate of 3.45 %, which applied up to 3.5 times the SMIC.

Instead, full employer rates now apply to all salaries: 13 % for health insurance and 5.25 % for family allowances. The widened RGDU offsets this effect on pay below 3 times the SMIC.

Before / after 2026#

The key reading is this: headline rates rise, but the widened relief neutralises part of that rise on low salaries. The employer cost is therefore no longer read off a single rate, but off the net result after the RGDU.

The RGDU follows a degressive logic. It is highest at the minimum wage, decreases gradually as pay rises, and falls to nil from 3 times the SMIC. This exit point at 3 SMIC is one of the markers of the reform.

The SMIC is the calculation reference. On 1 June 2026, it stands at 12.31 euros per hour, that is 1,867.02 euros gross per month for 35 hours. The exit threshold of 3 SMIC therefore corresponds to about 5,601 euros gross per month. For details, see the 2026 SMIC amount.

Degressivity table#

The RGDU coefficient is recomputed at each SMIC revaluation. A mid-year SMIC increase shifts the whole curve and requires checking that payroll settings keep up. We do not set out the coefficient T formula here: that calculation is covered in the general relief on employer contributions.

The RGDU is not a cut in charges, it is a reorganisation. In most files we handle, the overall employer cost on salaries close to the SMIC stays comparable to 2025, because the rise in full rates is offset by the widened relief. The most common misreading is to see the health rate move to 13 % and conclude that charges have exploded, without looking at the RGDU effect.

The real impact concentrates on mid-range salaries, around 2 to 3 times the SMIC. That is where removing the bands is felt most, because this pay used to enjoy a reduced rate that is now only partly offset by a relief that has become very small at that level. A salary at 2.8 SMIC keeps almost no relief while now bearing the full rates.

This is why monitoring by salary band is useful at the start of the year: the impact differs for a job at the SMIC, a manager at 2.5 SMIC or an employee-treated director above 3 SMIC.

The most common risk is not regulatory, it is technical: payroll settings left on the 2025 logic. As long as the health and family bands are not switched off and the new single coefficient is not in place, the payslip can show incorrect contributions, in either direction.

An understated contribution creates a future Urssaf adjustment, with late penalties. An overstated contribution needlessly strains cash flow and distorts the cost of labour. Both can be corrected, but the longer they run, the more payslips the correction will cover.

The value of the coefficient T sent in the DSN is the point to check first. It is what gives substance to the RGDU and what Urssaf reconciles against your filings.

A small business client with 12 staff, in services, saw the January 2026 employer cost rise at first sight, the payroll provider having applied full health and family rates without activating the new RGDU coefficient. On jobs near the SMIC, the expected relief did not appear on the first payslips.

Checking the settings and the coefficient value sent in the DSN restored the relief and allowed a correction before the month-end close. The gap came solely from an outdated software setting, not from a calculation error by the employer.

This example shows a simple rule: in January of a reform year, the payslip must be reread, not merely validated.

Here are the points to revisit in your payroll process for the 2026 switch.

1. Check that the health 7 % and family allowance 3.45 % bands are switched off from January 2026.
2. Confirm that full employer rates (health 13 %, family 5.25 %) apply to all salaries.
3. Check that the single RGDU coefficient is built into the software and applied up to below 3 SMIC.
4. Verify the coefficient T value actually sent in the DSN.
5. Update the SMIC value at each revaluation and confirm the coefficient recomputes.
6. Compare a sample of January 2026 payslips with December 2025 by salary band.

If payroll is run in-house, these checks fall to the payroll manager. If it is outsourced, the firm or the provider handles them, but a control point is still advisable. Our service to outsource payroll with a Paris accounting firm includes this settings review.

• The rise in headline rates is not a net rise in charges: read the cost after the RGDU, not the gross rate.
• Salaries between 2 and 3 SMIC are most exposed to the removal of the bands.
• The coefficient recomputes at each SMIC revaluation; a SMIC change calls for a recheck.
• Outdated software can produce wrong contributions with no visible alert.
• The Urssaf reconciliation is based on the DSN: the data sent is what counts.

Most market software has built in the mechanism, but the correct removal of the bands and the consistency of the coefficient still need confirming file by file. Whether you use the Silae payroll software or PayFit, the reflex is the same: check the result, not just trust the automatic update.

On the payslip, the RGDU appears as an employer contribution relief line, and as full health and family rates where reduced rates used to be. The total of employer contributions then reflects the relief.

For an employee at the SMIC, the relief is at its maximum and offsets most of the rate increase. For an employee above 3 SMIC, no relief appears: full rates apply with no offset.

If you want to read a payslip line by line, our article on how to read a payslip sets out the general structure and where employer contributions sit.