Dentist Chartered Accountant — Cabinet Hayot Expertise

A dentist accountant keeps your BNC bookkeeping and 2035 return, arbitrates micro-BNC (up to €83,600 of receipts in 2026) against the actual regime, secures the VAT boundary (care and made-to-impression prostheses exempt, clear aligners and aesthetic acts at 20%), provisions CARCDSF contributions on the 2026 PASS of €48,060 and models the move to a SELARL or an SPFPL holding. At Hayot Expertise, from €258 excl. VAT per month, quote within 24 hours.

The practice of private dental surgery in Paris and in France requires high precision financial management. As a dental surgeon, you mainly fall under the Non-Commercial Profits (BNC) regime, with the obligation to file a 2035 declaration. The micro-BNC threshold (€83,600 in 2026) is almost systematically exceeded due to the fees charged and, above all, the importance of operating costs.

The specificity of your profession lies in the balance between significant revenues and heavy fixed costs: prosthetists, small equipment, and above all investments in heavy equipment (dental chairs, dental panoramic, laser). These investments must be amortized intelligently to minimize your tax base. On a social level, the CARCDSF (Autonomous Retirement Fund for Surgeons, Dentists and Midwives) applies flat-rate and proportional contributions, the early calculation of which is vital for your cash flow.

In addition, the organization of your practice, often via a SCM (Société Civile de Moyens) to share the costs of premises and personnel (dental assistant), or via a SELARL to optimize corporate tax, requires support from an accountant who masters the ordinal and fiscal specificities of your profession.

Maintaining the 2035 package and monitoring collections#

We automate the recovery of your bank flows and the reconciliation of your fees (agreed care and non-nomenclature). We prepare your professional income tax returns (2035) by integrating all your actual expenses and depreciation.

Tax optimization of equipment investments#

A dental chair or digital radio represents a major investment. We advise on the financing method (purchase, leasing, long-term rental) and manage depreciation plans to maximize the reduction in your taxable profit.

Structuring advice: SCM, SELARL, SELAS#

We analyze whether it is time for you to move from a sole proprietorship to a liberal company (SEL) to benefit from the reduced IS rate of 15%. We also manage the accounting of your SCM and monitor the distribution of costs between partners.

Management of CARCDSF and URSSAF contributions#

We calculate the estimated amount of your social charges for you. In 2026, on a PASS of €48,060, CARCDSF contributions comprise a basic scheme (8.73% up to 1 PASS then 1.87% from 0 to 5 PASS, minimum €573), a supplementary pension (a flat €3,210.60 plus 11.35% between 0.65 and 5 PASS), old-age benefits (a flat €1,663.60 plus 0.725%, two-thirds funded by the public health insurance for a contracted practitioner) and a disability-death scheme of €1,235. We check the consistency of CARCDSF and URSSAF calls, provision the N+2 reassessment on actual profit and flag each gap to avoid sudden cash flow shocks.

Heritage support and SCI#

We help you structure your private assets in line with your professional activity. If you buy the premises of your office, we set up the appropriate SCI (IS or IR) and manage the professional lease to optimize your property income.

Your profession requires rigor and technology; your accountant too. Our firm, located in Paris 8th near the Monceau district, uses the best digital solutions like Pennylane to offer you total visibility of your figures from your smartphone.

Samuel Hayot and his team guarantee responsiveness within 24 hours. We understand the requirements of your care schedule and we adapt to your pace. On a typical practice, reworking prosthetist contracts and arbitrating sole practice against a SELARL are the two levers that move take-home income the most: we model both before any decision, with no promise of savings we cannot demonstrate.

A dentist starting in sole practice files Form 2035 under the BNC regime. Income is taxed as personal income, social charges are paid to URSSAF and professional pension funds, and the professional liability sits with the individual. This setup is simple and appropriate at moderate revenue levels.

As revenue grows, the BNC model becomes less efficient. Above a certain level, switching to a SELARL or SELAS allows the dentist to:

• separate personal assets from professional liability;
• optimize the split between salary and dividends;
• benefit from corporate tax (IS) on retained earnings;
• build a holding structure for asset protection and wealth management.

The SELARL is subject to corporate tax (IS) and can distribute dividends after a minimum salary is drawn. The SELAS is functionally similar but uses a simplified company structure (SAS rules) and offers more flexibility on governance.

The SCM (société civile de moyens) is not a practice structure — it is a cost-sharing vehicle. Two or more dentists who share premises, equipment, reception staff or other resources can pool those costs in an SCM without pooling their patients or their revenue. Each dentist remains a separate practitioner and files their own 2035.

A dentist who accumulates profits in a SELARL can transfer those profits to a holding company (SPFPL — société de participations financières de professions libérales) as dividends, which are largely tax-exempt under the parent-subsidiary regime (5% effective tax on dividends received). The holding can then invest in other assets — real estate, securities — shielded from the professional liability of the practice.

Implant surgeons and oral surgeons concentrate the sector's difficulties. The clinical platform is heavy, the procedure often sits outside the official schedule and therefore carries free fees, and the share subcontracted to the laboratory is high. Two management points dominate: tracking margin per procedure, because a mispriced implant can be placed at a loss once the abutment, the crown and surgical time are included, and the treatment of cosmetic procedures, whose non-therapeutic purpose takes them outside the VAT exemption.

A dental centre is a different world. It is usually run by an association or a company, employs salaried practitioners, falls under corporation tax where its activity is profit-making, and keeps commercial accounts, with a profit and loss account, a balance sheet and payroll management on a scale unrelated to a private practice. A practitioner hesitating between setting up privately and joining a centre is therefore not comparing two variants of the same job: they are comparing two statuses, two tax regimes and two levels of social cover.

These are the ones we meet most often in the files we take over.

Assuming VAT exemption means no obligations. Care is exempt, but selling aligners, purely cosmetic procedures and the fee collected from a collaborator are taxable. A practice can become partly VAT-registered without noticing.

Not splitting SELARL remuneration. Since the 5% tolerance was annulled, an undocumented split is no longer a neutral choice.

Contributing your own patient base to your own company expecting to depreciate it. The transaction is expressly excluded from the scheme.

Mixing professional and personal expenses. This is the leading ground for reassessment on a self-employed file, and the easiest to avoid.

Investing without a cash plan. A chair and a cone beam are financed over several years, while contributions follow their own calendar. A profitable practice can run short of cash at settlement time.

Forgetting the DAS2 return. Any fee share or collaboration fee above 2,400 EUR per beneficiary per year must be reported.

Choosing a structure without running the numbers. A SELARL is neither a superior status nor a compulsory step: it is a calculation, driven by profit, income needs and wealth planning.

Since the reform, dental prostheses (crowns, bridges, removable dentures) fall into three baskets that set the patient's out-of-pocket cost and the fee you invoice. It is a direct driver of your prosthetic revenue and third-party payment.

On 1 January 2026, the capped billing fees for the zero and moderate out-of-pocket baskets were raised by 3%. In accounting terms, this classification structures how your fees are split and how third-party payment is tracked, which we build into your dashboard.

The VAT boundary is a control point specific to your activity and often handled too roughly. Personal care and made-to-impression dental prostheses (crowns, bridges, removable dentures), repairs included, are VAT-exempt under article 261, 4, 1 of the French Tax Code, provided the prosthesis is intended for a specific patient and ordered by the practitioner from a prior impression. Orthodontic trays and clear aligners, by contrast, are classified as orthoses: they fall outside the prosthesis exemption and are taxed at the standard 20% rate (BOFiP clarification of 8 February 2023). Whitening and purely aesthetic acts follow the same 20% logic.

In practice, as soon as a practice develops aligner-based orthodontics or aesthetics, it generates taxable revenue. The €37,500 franchise-en-base is assessed on those taxable receipts alone, independently of exempt care. We split your fees between exempt and taxable, monitor the threshold and, where relevant, set up the VAT return and reclaim input VAT on related purchases.

Orthodontist: the VAT specifics of aligners#

An orthodontist billing aligners shifts part of turnover into the 20% VAT field. We isolate this activity from the bookkeeping stage, compute the franchise on taxable receipts only and secure the accounting treatment of aligner kits bought from the supplier, deductible input VAT included.

Dentists qualifying abroad (EU or non-EU) who wish to practice in France must register with the Ordre des Chirurgiens-Dentistes. EU-qualified practitioners benefit from mutual recognition under Directive 2005/36/EC, though French language proficiency adequate for patient care must be demonstrated. Non-EU dentists follow the PAE process (Procédure d'Autorisation d'Exercice), typically involving a supervised hospital period.

From an accounting standpoint, newly registered foreign dentists have the same BNC declaration obligations from their first day of practice. Key early steps: URSSAF registration, CARCDSF affiliation, professional bank account, and the choice between micro-BNC (simple but less efficient) and the actual 2035 regime (almost always better once equipment investment begins). We handle the full accounting onboarding for foreign dental practitioners from the first invoice.

Dental practice valuation for acquisition or partnership entry: we use three methods: revenue multiple (0.5 to 0.8 times annual gross receipts depending on location and active patient base), EBITDA multiple (4 to 7 times), and comparable transactions. For foreign dentists acquiring an existing practice, we prepare the valuation report, review the lease (bail commercial), and coordinate with the CARCDSF for contribution assessment. All deliverables are bilingual (French/English), including the valuation report and the CARCDSF contribution letter.

A dental practice is not just a 2035 return: it is a small business with a team, a technical platform and a margin to defend. The first variable cost is the prosthetics laboratory, whose ratio to turnover (often 20 to 30%) deserves monthly tracking. Next comes payroll: a qualified dental assistant falls under the national collective agreement for dental practices (IDCC 1619), with its points grid, secretarial bonus and compulsory health cover. We produce the payslips, the DSN and the social follow-up, and we compare the margin per chair with the real occupancy rate to surface profitability levers.

Liberal collaborator and locum: retrocessions and DAS2#

Many practices work with a liberal collaborator or a locum. The locum receives a fee retrocession, outside the scope of VAT (care fees), deductible for the holder and taxable for the locum, each filing their own 2035. The collaboration royalty paid by a collaborator for the use of the premises and equipment is, however, subject to 20% VAT, yet covered as long as the holder's taxable receipts stay under the €37,500 franchise. Finally, once fees rebated to a single beneficiary exceed €2,400 in the year, a DAS2 return must be filed with the tax authority within the deadline of the income return. We keep these flows distinct from the prosthetics line, which is subcontracting rather than a fee retrocession.

Since the taxation of 2024 income, the remuneration of a dental surgeon who is a partner in a SELARL or SELAS is read as two distinct components rather than a single salary.

The part rewarding the practice of dentistry within the company now falls in principle under non-commercial profits (BNC), unless a relationship of subordination is demonstrated, which would move it to salary. The part rewarding the corporate office, meaning running the company, remains taxed under article 62 of the French Tax Code, with its 10% allowance.

So where is the boundary? Until 2025, the tax authorities accepted as a matter of tolerance that 5% of total remuneration related to management duties, with no justification required. That tolerance no longer exists.

The French Council of State, in its decision of 8 April 2025 no. 492154, held that this paragraph of the administrative doctrine added to the law and annulled it. The same decision set aside the list of tasks the authorities attached to the corporate office, considered too restrictive, notably patient invoicing, collection and appointment booking. Those acts are therefore not excluded from the corporate office by nature.

In practice, a SELARL practitioner must now be able to explain the split they apply: time spent on management, partner meetings, banking relationships, team supervision, investment decisions. Since evidence is free, simple items make the difference: minutes, a time record, a written definition of duties.

A second consequence, often discovered too late: the share taxed as BNC requires cash-basis bookkeeping and the filing of a form 2035 in the partner's own name, on top of the company's tax return. Professional costs borne personally, including contributions, are deducted there.

Our view: losing the 5% rule is not bad news in itself. It forces a split to be formalised which, properly documented, can be more favourable than the flat rate it replaces. What costs money is deciding nothing and having the split reconstructed for you.

Buying a patient base is the most structuring transaction of a practitioner's career, and the one where the gap between a prepared deal and an improvised one shows up fastest.

Depreciation of the patient base, extended to 2029#

The general rule is that depreciation of goodwill is not deductible from taxable profit. A temporary exception, opened by article 23 of the 2022 Finance Act, nevertheless allows the deduction for goodwill acquired from 1 January 2022. The tax authorities extended that regime to holders of non-commercial profits under the controlled declaration regime: the patient base, the client base and the professional name qualify, provided they cannot be valued separately.

The scheme was due to expire on 31 December 2025. Article 13 of the 2026 Finance Act extended it: acquisitions made up to 31 December 2029 now qualify.

Absent a limited and justified useful life, depreciation is spread over 10 years, a period small businesses may apply without having to demonstrate it. A dental practice always qualifies: the test looks at two of the three criteria of 12M EUR net turnover, 6M EUR total assets and 50 employees.

The trap that cancels the benefit#

Article 7 of the 2022 amending Finance Act closed the door on internal transactions. Excluded from the scheme are acquisitions from a related company within the meaning of article 39, 12 of the French Tax Code, and from a company under the control of the same individual as the buyer.

In practice terms: a practitioner who contributes their own patient base to the SELARL they control, or sells it to that company, creates no right to depreciation. That is precisely the structure often proposed when moving into a company. The transaction may still make sense for other reasons, but it will not produce the expected tax saving.

On the seller's side, the capital gain falls under the relief regimes available to self-employed professionals, subject to conditions on the length of activity and the level of receipts. The calculation belongs before signature, not after: it is the structure of the deal, not its bookkeeping, that determines the tax.

Our fees depend on your structure (sole practice on the 2035, SELARL under corporate tax, group practice in an SCM) and on the volume of flows. For a self-employed dentist, bookkeeping and filings start at €258 excl. VAT per month with our Essentiel package (digital Pennylane accounting, VAT where applicable, 2035 or corporate return, routine tax obligations), rise to €358 excl. VAT for the Pilotage package (dashboards and cash forecast) and to €558 excl. VAT for the Élite package (close support and structuring). A SELARL's annual legal work is billed separately, forming a SELARL or SPFPL starts from €800 excl. VAT, and one-off assignments are quoted individually, always within 24 hours.

A practitioner works alone with one assistant, with rising activity and an imaging investment project. The practice generates good income but faces cash flow tensions at the time of contributions and equipment renewal.

We then act on four areas:

1. reading the actual result and key expenses;
2. cash flow projection including contributions and investment;
3. comparison of sole practice versus SEL;
4. structuring of professional and personal assets.

The main gain is better clarity on the important trade-offs: when to invest, what level of remuneration to keep, and when to evolve the practice structure.

Optimize the profitability of your practice today. Samuel Hayot welcomes you for a free initial assessment at our Paris 8th office or by video call, with English-speaking support throughout the engagement and a 24-hour response commitment on every question that affects your dental practice's profitability, structure or transmission planning.

📍 Cabinet Hayot Expertise - 58 rue de Monceau, 75008 Paris 📞 06 51 47 43 92