French BTP Labor Cost Calculator
An estimate of what an hour of French construction labor costs the employer: the gross wage, your employer contributions and the paid-leave contribution charged by your caisse (CIBTP), at the rates you enter. Add a crew and a job's hours for a labor budget. It is a pricing estimate, not a payroll calculation.
Each caisse's board sets its own rate, the same for all its members, and it changes over time: there is no national rate. Use the one on your caisse's notice for the period you are pricing. Published examples: Île-de-France 20.20% (rate sheet, April 2026), Grand Est 20.35% (rate sheet, January 2026), Grand Ouest 20.70% (contributions page) and Méditerranée 19.60% (contributions page), as shown in October 2026. Find your caisse on cibtp.fr.
The bad-weather (intempéries) contribution, OPPBTP and trade-body dues listed on your caisse's notice. Their bases differ (the intempéries contribution is charged on capped wages above an annual allowance), so one percentage on gross is an approximation.
Employer contributions without the caisse: on a recent payslip for the same job, total employer contributions divided by gross pay. There is no single figure to apply: it moves with the wage (the general reduction, RGDU, applies below 3 SMIC), your headcount, the AT/MP rate the Carsat notifies you, versement mobilité and your pension and prévoyance schemes (URSSAF rate table).
Paid hours are the hours you pay on the payslip: worked hours plus public holidays, paid training, travel paid as working time and bad-weather hours that stay at your cost after the caisse's reimbursement. Productive hours are the ones spent producing on site. Do not deduct paid leave: the caisse pays it, and its cost is already in the paid-leave contribution above. Travel and meal allowances are amounts, not hours, and are not in this tool.
One crew hour is every worker above paid for one hour.
Enter your caisse's paid-leave rate, then a wage and an employer contribution rate for each role, to see the estimate.
This rate feeds your pricing. Mirage fills the bill of quantities.
Mirage fills your DPGF or BPU line by line from the quantity takeoff, every price traced to its source. Send us a past tender and we send back a plan, no commitment.
See automated DPGF and BPU (in French)
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Frequently asked questions
In French construction the employer does not pay paid leave directly. It pays a contribution on gross wages to its regional caisse (the CIBTP network), and the caisse pays the leave indemnity, the holiday bonus and the social charges on them. Each caisse's board sets the rate, the same for all its members, so there is no national rate. On their own publications, Île-de-France charges 20.20% (April 2026), Grand Est 20.35% (January 2026), Grand Ouest 20.70% and Méditerranée 19.60%. Use the rate on your caisse's notice for the period you are pricing.
The cost per paid hour is what one hour on the payslip costs you: gross wage, employer contributions and caisse contributions. The cost per productive hour divides it by the share of paid hours spent producing, because public holidays, training, paid travel time and unreimbursed bad-weather hours are paid but produce nothing. A quote built from hours of work (quantities times unit times) uses the cost per productive hour.
Because leave would then be counted twice. You do not pay leave days: the caisse does, out of the contribution you already pay on every euro of gross wages. Removing them again from your productive hours would charge the same leave a second time.
Because it differs from one employer and one wage to the next. The general reduction (RGDU) lowers contributions on wages below 3 SMIC, the Carsat notifies each company its own AT/MP rate, versement mobilité depends on location and headcount, and pension and prévoyance schemes vary. Total employer contributions divided by gross pay, on a recent payslip for the same job, gives your rate.
No. It estimates a labor cost for pricing from the rates you enter. Payroll applies each contribution to its own base, ceilings and reductions, wage by wage. For the real figure, use your payroll software or your accountant.
Mirage fills in DPGF and BPU bid schedules automatically from takeoff data, every quantity traceable to its source.
To turn a cost into a selling price, see the markup and margin calculator. To answer a French tender, see how to respond to a French construction tender.
See Construction Intelligence