Andy Garcia · freelance dev
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Freelance & Taxes

From January 1, Platforms Must Withhold French Micro-Entrepreneurs' Contributions. Is Malt In?

October 19, 2026 7 min read

Since October 1, 2026, according to URSSAF, a few platforms operating in France take their freelancers' social contributions out of each payout and pay URSSAF themselves. URSSAF's FAQ names the volunteers: Extracadabra, Les Sherpas and Sherpadom, Mon Spécialiste Auto, Student Pop, Truckrs, Uber Eats, and Wecasa and Wecasa Care. URSSAF said it would tell each user the date their own withholding starts.

On January 1, 2027, it stops being voluntary. In URSSAF's words, withholding becomes mandatory for "all digital platforms that provide financial intermediation", meaning the client pays the platform, which then pays the auto-entrepreneur what is due (my translation).

Malt is on neither of the official lists. That is not the end of the question, because the January rule is a criterion, not a list.

I read the texts behind the FAQ: article L. 613-6-1 of the social security code, the decree of June 10, 2026 that runs the volunteer phase, and Malt's own help centre. Here is what they say.

What the law requires

The rule comes from article 6 of the social security financing law for 2024, amended since. For freelancers, it covers micro-entrepreneurs only, the regime of article L. 613-7. If you freelance through a SASU, an EURL subject to corporate tax or a portage company, it does not apply to you.

For those it covers, the platform withholds what you owe URSSAF on the turnover it pays you: social contributions, the training contribution, any chamber fee, and the income tax "versement libératoire" if you opted for it. URSSAF gives the platform a rate for your activity and situation, ACRE exemption included, updated each month. The platform deducts at each payout. Every month, it declares your turnover and what it withheld, even if you declare quarterly, and pays the money over.

The law says the withholding counts as payment, and that the platform bears the cost of running it. Rates do not change. The text applies to turnover earned from January 1, 2027.

There are teeth. A platform that fails to withhold risks a penalty of up to 5% of the turnover concerned. The financing law for 2026 raised the maximum penalty for a platform that does not pass on identification data from €7,500 to €15,000 per freelancer. It cut the freelancer's own maximum, for not giving that data to the platform, from €7,500 to €3,250.

Who is on the list as of October 19

Two official lists exist. URSSAF's, quoted above. And the ministerial order of July 31, 2025, which selected the pilot platforms. That order also names StaffMe Freelance by Nowjobs, which is not on URSSAF's current list. Neither names Malt or Upwork.

Is Malt in on January 1?

Here is how Malt's help centre describes a prepaid project. The client accepts your quote and pays before you start. The funds sit in an escrow account until the client validates the work. "Although the payment comes from the client, the payment is processed by Malt," through the payment provider Mangopay (my translation). Malt deducts its service fee from the amount you receive.

Set that next to URSSAF's definition: the client pays the platform, which pays the freelancer. I cannot see where they differ. And article 242 bis of the tax code, which defines the platforms concerned, covers them "whatever their place of establishment", so on paper a foreign marketplace is not out either.

But a reading is not a confirmation. On October 19, none of the 80 articles in Malt's French help centre mentioned withholding of social contributions. URSSAF names no platform for 2027; it says the rule extends to all of them. And the only implementing decree I found on Legifrance, the one of June 10, 2026, organizes the volunteer phase. The FNAE, a national federation of auto-entrepreneurs, does put Malt on its own list of platforms concerned in January 2027, next to Uber, Deliveroo and Airbnb, but that list is marked non-exhaustive and is a reading too. No official text says Malt is in, and none says it is out. I would plan as if it is in, and read Malt's notice when it comes.

What it does to the money

The base does not move. URSSAF is explicit: the withholding is computed on the turnover you usually declare, which includes the platform's commission. Fees are not deducted.

Malt's help centre puts its standard freelancer fee at 5% before VAT, and up to 10% on some French projects, which becomes 12% for a micro-entrepreneur who does not charge VAT. Take a €5,000 mission at that rate. Malt keeps €600, you receive €4,400, and your contributions are computed on €5,000. Every point of your rate is €50.

Without withholding, that money stays in your account until you declare, which for a quarterly filer means until the quarterly deadline. Under withholding, it never reaches the account.

That is not a new cost. It is a new timing. For anyone who used the gap between payout and deadline as a buffer, the buffer goes.

What stays on you

Withholding covers only what goes through the platform. You still declare yourself, at your usual rhythm: direct clients, payments that bypass the platform, and the month you sign up, since withholding starts the following month. Your URSSAF online space shows the detail of each platform declaration, and URSSAF emails you each time a platform files for you.

URSSAF also says your usual tax obligations stay with the tax office, VAT returns included. If you charge VAT and the platform declared your turnover without taking the VAT out, the decree has URSSAF ask you for the VAT amounts and correct the withholding. And Malt already reports your earnings to the tax authorities under DAC7, each January for the previous year.

One part of the volunteer-phase decree is worth reading twice. The data a platform may send to ACOSS, the national body of the URSSAF network, includes your name, date and place of birth, postal address, SIRET, email address and phone number. The GDPR right to object does not apply to that processing, and the files can be kept for up to five years.

What I would do before January

Check your status first. If you are not a micro-entrepreneur, none of this is yours.

Check, on each platform, that your SIRET and your activity are right. The rate URSSAF sends depends on the activity it knows.

Redo your quotes with the net after withholding: €5,000 billed, €4,400 after Malt's fee, minus your rate times €5,000.

Each month, compare the platform's declaration in your URSSAF space with your own invoice export. A platform can get it wrong, and the declaration is in your name. It is the kind of reconciliation I would have Claude Code script once rather than do by hand every month.

And if you build a marketplace that pays French micro-entrepreneurs, the volunteer decree reads like a spec. You send ACOSS your users' identification data. ACOSS sends back, each month, who to withhold and the rate for each activity category. You withhold at each payout, convert foreign currency at the European Central Bank rate of the payout day, round to the cent, then declare and pay over every month, at your own cost. That ticket belongs in the 2026 backlog, not the 2027 one.

The paperwork gets lighter. The checking does not.

Sources

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