France’s out-of-pocket medical fee caps to increase, then be tied to inflation
Plans to double caps from €50 to €100 each have been abandoned
The cap on out-of-pocket medical fees in France will see a 40% increase this year before it is tied to inflation from 2028 onwards.
The plans have been laid out in a letter sent to state health insurance bodies and seen by media outlet BFMTV, which details a decree set to come into force on October 1, 2026.
It comes after the government abandoned initial plans to double out-of-pocket fee caps to €200 per year.
Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said earlier in August that the original plans had been cancelled following consultation with healthcare and insurance experts.
“The announced doubling was misunderstood and may have seemed abrupt,” she said in an interview with Le Figaro.
Increases to the caps – which have remained unchanged for 20 years, said Ms Rist – are one of several proposals by the government looking to reduce social security costs in light of upcoming 2027 budget debates.
There is no indication in the government’s letter, however, of how much the cap increase will save.
Current estimates are that France’s social security will see a deficit of €23.2 billion by the end of 2026.
Future increases tied to inflation
As a reminder, there are two types of out-of-pocket payment made by patients subscribed to Assurance Maladie, France’s social security system..
These payments are deducted from reimbursements paid by Assurance Maladie to patients, or in some cases requires patients to make the payments themselves.
The first of these - the franchise médicale - covers solidarity payments of €1 per prescribed box of medicine, €1 for care from professionals such as nurses or physiotherapists and €4 per use of medical transport. It has a combined annual cap of €50.
The second - the participation forfaitaire - is a flat-rate contribution paid for medical appointments (€2 each visit) as well as for examinations (such as x-rays) and blood tests, also with an annual cap of €50.
Note that some French media in their reporting lump all these together under the term franchises médicales.
The new decree will see these caps increase to €70 each per year by the end of 2026, a figure based on inflation in France recorded since 2005.
From January 1, 2028 onwards, the caps would increase by the previous year’s inflation.
“This increase is calculated using a coefficient based on the change in the annual average of consumer prices, excluding tobacco,” the letter reportedly states.
This inflation figure, coming from national statistics body Insee, is the basis of many other economic indicators and policies in France.
The proposals say that the cap figure resulting from applying the inflation figure will be rounded up or down to the nearest whole number.
However, if this rounding results in there being no change in a given year, the following year's calculation will take account of inflation since the last time the cap was actually increased.
