French R&D Tax Credit Advisor | CIR, CII and JEI

R&D is the engine of your startup or innovative SME. Do not miss out on France's exceptional innovation tax incentives. Given the administrative complexity, working with a specialist accounting firm is essential to secure your claims safely.

The 2026 Finance Act keeps all three innovation schemes (CIR, CII and JEI) broadly intact, but reinforces documentation requirements and audits. In practice we see audits that are both more frequent and far more demanding on technical documentation, with the Ministry of Higher Education and Research systematically brought in on material claims. The CIR remains the single biggest non-dilutive innovation funding tool in France, worth several billion euros a year. In that context, expert support is no longer optional: a well-documented file is your best protection.

• CIR (Crédit d'Impôt Recherche, the R&D tax credit): recover 30% of eligible R&D costs up to €100M of spend, and 5% above that (researcher salaries, depreciation of R&D equipment, flat-rate operating costs, subcontracting to approved organisations). Careful: technology-watch and patent costs left the CIR base with the 2025 Finance Act. Still a major non-dilutive financing lever for fundamental research, applied research and experimental development.
• CII (Crédit d'Impôt Innovation, the innovation tax credit): recover 20% of eligible costs for the design of innovative prototypes. Annual expenditure cap: €400,000, giving a maximum credit of €80,000. Reserved for SMEs within the EU definition (< 250 employees, turnover < €50M). The scheme runs to 31 December 2027.
• JEI status (Jeune Entreprise Innovante, young innovative company): reserved for companies under 8 years old that invest heavily in R&D (at least 20% of tax-deductible costs), this status provides a full exemption from employer social charges on R&D personnel, which is the core benefit, plus local-tax exemptions (CFE and property tax) by local-authority vote. The former corporate-tax exemption (100% then 50%) now applies only to companies created before 1 January 2024; it was withdrawn for companies created from 2024. The JEC (jeune entreprise de croissance) is a separate category, with an R&D effort of between 5% and 20% plus economic-performance indicators: do not read the 20% threshold as applying to it.

The CII (Crédit d'Impôt Innovation) is reserved for SMEs in the EU sense (fewer than 250 employees, turnover under €50M or balance sheet under €43M). It returns 20% of the costs of designing prototypes or pilot installations of genuinely new products. Beware of a persistent myth: JEI status does not increase the CII. There is no JEI uplift to the rate and no raised cap for young innovative companies. The rate is 20% in mainland France for every eligible SME, JEI or not; the only increased rates are geographic (60% in the overseas départements, 35% or 40% in Corsica). Annual eligible spend is capped at €400,000, so the maximum credit is €80,000, whatever the company's status. Building a cash-flow forecast on "a 30% CII because we are a JEI" leads straight to a funding gap. The CII covers the step between R&D and the market (new-product prototyping), whereas the CIR covers research and experimental development. The same project cannot draw on both schemes at once.

R&D personnel (main item)

• Salaries and social charges of researchers and research technicians
• Director remuneration where directly involved in R&D work (capped)
• Temporary and fixed-term workers assigned to R&D projects

Depreciation and operating costs

• Depreciation on equipment used for R&D (computers, servers, measuring devices), taken at 100%
• Operating costs: flat rate of 40% of personnel costs, plus 75% of the depreciation charged on R&D assets. The flat rate was cut from 43% to 40% for expenditure incurred from 15 February 2025: any claim still built on 43% is out of date.

Subcontracting

• Subcontracting to research organisations approved by the Ministry of Research (laboratories, universities, certified R&D startups)
• Taken into account up to three times the total of the other eligible costs, within an overall cap of €2M a year, raised to €10M for work entrusted to public research organisations with no dependency link
• The doubling of amounts entrusted to public research bodies was abolished by the 2025 Finance Act

No longer in the CIR base (2025 Finance Act, expenditure incurred from 15 February 2025)

• Patent and plant-variety-certificate costs (filing, maintenance, defence): they no longer give any entitlement to the CIR
• Technology-watch spending: the former €60,000 a year allowance no longer exists, the item has left the base altogether
• The "young doctorate holder" scheme (doubling of personnel costs) has been repealed

The flagship benefit has changed nature, and this is where we correct the most forecasts. The exemption from tax on profits (corporate or income tax) was abolished by the 2024 Finance Act. It survives only for companies created up to 31 December 2023 (100% of the first profitable year, then 50% of the next). Any company created from 1 January 2024 has no entitlement to it, with no exception. The living core of the status is now social and local.

Two points that change the arithmetic: the social exemption is not subject to the de minimis ceiling, whereas the status's tax exemptions are (a €300,000 ceiling over three rolling financial years, EU regulation 2023/2831, in force since 1 January 2024).

Do not confuse the variants

• The JEC (jeune entreprise de croissance, growth young company), created by the 2024 Finance Act, covers companies whose R&D spend is between 5% and 20% of tax-deductible costs and which also meet economic-performance indicators.
• The JEII (jeune entreprise d'innovation à impact, impact-innovation young company) is a separate status, created by the 2026 Finance Act (law no. 2026-103 of 19 February 2026): R&D spend between 5% and 20% of tax-deductible costs, plus social-usefulness criteria specific to the social and solidarity economy. It applies to financial years ended from 21 February 2026.
• The JEIR (jeune entreprise d'innovation et de rupture, breakthrough-innovation young company) requires R&D of at least 30% of tax-deductible costs, but it exists only for the investor income-tax reduction: it carries no exemption from tax on profits of its own.

The headline benefit of JEI status is the full exemption from employer social-insurance and family-allowance contributions on R&D personnel, capped at €8,401.58 of gross monthly pay per person (4.5× the minimum wage) and at €240,300 per establishment per calendar year. Take a startup with 10 developers on €50,000 gross each, a €500,000 payroll. At 2026 rates (sickness 13%, family allowances 5.25%, capped old-age 8.55%, uncapped old-age 2.11%, the reduced sickness and family rates having disappeared on 1 January 2026), the exemption is worth roughly 28% of gross pay at that salary level, about €143,000 a year. That is a decisive lever to fund growth, but it is not the €170,000 often quoted, a figure that overstates the exempt base. Occupational-injury, unemployment, supplementary pension, FNAL, CSA, CSG/CRDS and transport contributions all remain due.

JEI status requires the company to be under 8 years old, an SME in the EU sense, independent, and to spend at least 20% of its tax-deductible costs on R&D (the former 15% threshold now only applies to financial years ended before 1 March 2025). The JEC (Jeune Entreprise de Croissance), created by the 2024 Finance Act, grants the same social exemptions to companies whose R&D spending falls between 5% and 20% of tax-deductible costs, provided they also meet an economic-performance condition. Note that the CII rate is 20% in mainland France for every eligible SME: the increased rates are geographic (60% in the overseas départements, 35% or 40% in Corsica), not linked to JEI status.

Eligibility assessment of your tech projects

Before any filing, we assess the viability of your projects against the Frascati Manual and tax authority doctrine. Not all software development qualifies as R&D: we distinguish standard development (ineligible) from eligible experimental development.

Technical rescrit filing and supporting documentation

Working closely with our partner engineers, we build the technical files (prior art review, scientific approach, technological barriers) and financial dossiers to solidify your CIR/CII claim. The rescrit process obtains advance validation from the tax authority before filing your return.

Accounting security and audit defence

We isolate R&D analytics in your accounts (project codes, employee time allocation, eligible expense tracking). In the event of an accounting review or a Ministry of Research inspection (dual review possible), we are physically at your side to defend the file.

1. Identification of eligible R&D projects (with your technical team)
2. Collection and qualification of expenditure (time sheets, invoices, contracts)
3. Technical report drafting (prior art, description of technological barriers)
4. CIR declaration (form 2069-A-SD attached to the tax return)
5. Credit or refund: the CIR is offset against IS due; if it exceeds IS, the balance is refunded by the state (immediate refund for startups < 3 years old or loss-making)

A reassessment with penalties can be fatal to a startup's cash position. CIR reassessments average 40 to 60% of declared amounts when the supporting file is insufficient. We act as a real protective barrier between the tax authority and your innovation.

Key risk areas:

• No documentation on technological barriers
• Confusion between standard development and eligible R&D
• Absence of per-project, per-employee time sheets
• Non-approved subcontracting declared as eligible

The real power comes from stacking the schemes. A young innovative SME can claim the CIR on its research and experimental development, the CII on its new-product prototypes, and JEI status to lift employer social-insurance and family-allowance contributions on its R&D team, all at once, for distinct cost lines. Their effects do not simply add up, however: the CIR covers 30% of eligible R&D spend, while the JEI exemption is worth roughly 24% to 28% of gross pay on R&D staff only, within the €240,300 per establishment per year cap. Announcing that the schemes together cover "40% to 50% of total R&D costs" is misleading and distorts a forecast. Stacked properly they nonetheless make innovation spend one of the most powerful non-dilutive funding levers available before any fundraising: we map which euro of spend belongs to which scheme, so nothing is double-counted and nothing is left on the table, and we size the real effect line by line.

1. Qualification call (free, 30 min): your R&D projects and a first estimate of CIR/CII potential.
2. Eligibility audit: in-depth analysis, written report within 10 business days.
3. Engagement letter and plan: scope, timeline and coordination with your technical teams.
4. Technical file: built jointly by your engineers and ours.
5. Cross-review: checked by both our tax and technical specialists.
6. Filing: integrated into the tax package, with refund follow-up.
7. Secure archiving: supporting documents kept for at least 10 years.
8. Regulatory watch: updates on rates, conditions and audit practice.

• Tech startups (AI, SaaS, deeptech, biotech, medtech), where the CIR often covers 10 to 30% of the total R&D budget.
• Industrial SMEs running product or process innovation projects.
• Mid-caps with existing R&D looking to optimise and secure claims they already file.
• Tech-services companies developing proprietary software.
• Foreign-backed and newly created companies that want JEI status from day one: a common request from international founders building French R&D teams, who also need the claim explained to non-French investors and boards.

Case 1: SaaS startup, 12 developers, €380k CIR. A three-year-old Paris startup (€2.2M turnover, 18 staff including 12 developers on AI projects) engages us for its first CIR. Our eligibility audit retains 3 of the 5 projects submitted. Eligible R&D costs: €1,267,000; CIR at 30%: €380,100. Run in parallel, JEI status exempts employer social-insurance and family-allowance contributions on 8 developers on €50,000 gross each (a €400,000 payroll), a further €114,000 saving. Total cash preserved in one year: about €494,000, or roughly 22.5% of turnover.

Case 2: industrial SME, audit defence, reassessment cut by 37%. A 45-employee SME (€7.8M turnover) that claimed €150,000 of CII faces a tax audit; the inspector challenges 60% of the costs for want of documentation. Our intervention (a reinforced technical file, reasoned correspondence and a hierarchical appeal) brings the reassessment down to €56,000 from the €90,000 initially proposed, 37% avoided.

1. Declaring routine software development as R&D. API integration, a UX redesign or adapting an existing framework are generally not eligible; eligibility requires genuine technical uncertainty and a documented scientific approach.
2. Keeping no per-project, per-employee time sheets. This is the first document an auditor asks for: its absence almost always leads to a reassessment.
3. Including non-approved subcontractors. Only subcontracting to organisations approved by the Ministry of Research is eligible for CIR.
4. Skipping the rescrit. For grey areas (AI, software), the advance ruling is the only route to absolute legal certainty.
5. Waiting until year-end to document. Evidence must be gathered continuously throughout the year, not reconstructed afterwards.

• Innovation specialists: 40+ startups and innovative SMEs supported each year on CIR/CII/JEI.
• Dual expertise: tax (tax package, rescrit) and technical (partner engineers for the R&D files).
• Aligned fees: part success-based, so our interests match yours.
• Real audit defence: from the first analysis through to litigation if it comes to that. In 90% of the audits we have handled, the reassessment was dropped in full or in part.
• Constant monitoring of rate changes, doctrine and CIR case law.