What the model assumes about France

This page collects every France-specific number the model starts from: when the state pension begins and how it behaves, what healthcare and long-term care cost, what a retired household spends, and how tax is worked out. The planner prefills each of them, and you can change any of them during setup. Amounts are in EUR at today's prices, and the same data files drive the simulation itself, so a figure you read here is the figure your plan runs on.

The state pension

Starts at 64. The planner uses this both as your default retirement age and as the start age of your state pension.

Source: Service-Public.fr (DILA) (2025). See it.

With inflation, minus 0.4 points a year. French basic state pensions are raised each January in line with consumer prices. In practice governments have sometimes frozen or trimmed the rise, so pensions have lagged inflation slightly over the last fifteen years.

Source: Legifrance (2025). See it.

What a surviving partner keeps: 54% of the deceased's pension. The surviving spouse can receive 54% of the deceased partner's basic state pension, but only while their own income stays below a ceiling. Above the ceiling the payment shrinks and can reach zero. The separate complementary pension pays a 60% survivor share without an income test.

Source: Service-Public.gouv.fr, Direction de l'information legale et administrative (2026). See it.

How the simulation pays and raises pensions: the income section of the technical reference. What changes at the first death: the couples section.

Healthcare

€1,691 a year for each person, at 65. Health spending outside long-term care: visits, medicines, glasses, dental work and any premiums you pay yourself. The planner starts from this figure and moves it as you age.

Source: DREES, France (2024). See it.

How the model ages this figure: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Long-term care

€25,968 a year out of your own pocket if you need residential care. Costs are split between the public system and you, by type of cost.

Source: Caisse nationale de solidarite pour l'autonomie (CNSA) (2026). See it.

The model does not add the whole charge on top of your budget: the groceries, and for renters the housing, that a care home replaces are credited back. How the care model works.

What a retired household spends

€1,035 + €335/mo for one person, €1,552 + €502/mo (derived) for a couple. Essential spending plus everything-else spending, each month, excluding housing and healthcare, which the planner asks about separately. The prefills come from Enquete Budget de famille 2017 (Insee Resultats 'Les depenses des menages en 2017'), table TF102: depenses annuelles moyennes par menage, personne de reference 65-74 ans (all household sizes). The couple figure applies a documented factor of about one and a half to the single budget, because no couple budget is published.

Source: Enquete Budget de famille 2017 (Insee Resultats 'Les depenses des menages en 2017'), table TF102: depenses annuelles moyennes par menage, personne de reference 65-74 ans (all household sizes) (2026). See it.

What each budget covers and how spending changes with age: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Tax

The model recalculates your tax bill for every simulated year, using France's own scales, allowances and thresholds for the 2026 tax year, last read on 2026-07-30. The answers are checked against their calculator. Couples are assessed together where the rules allow it.

How France taxes a retirement plan lists every figure, the tax office page each one came from, and everything the model does not do there.

Everything we read

Every publication behind the pension, care, healthcare and budget figures above. The tax page carries its own references, one per figure.