TJM calculator: work out your freelance daily rate
The TJM (Taux Journalier Moyen) is the daily rate a French freelancer charges a client for one day of work. Quoted excluding tax, it covers the freelancer's own pay, their social contributions and their business expenses. It is calculated by dividing target annual revenue by the number of genuinely billable days.
Simulator
Calculate your TJM
What TJM should you aim for, given your situation?
Your inputs
Hardware, software, insurance, accounting, travel, training — and above all health top-up, income protection and supplementary pension.
200 by default: roughly 5 weeks off and one month between missions. Overstating it can lead to a daily rate that is too low.
Your legal status
The rate depends heavily on status: at the same income, the gap between micro-entreprise and SASU approaches 10 points. Micro-entreprise is capped at €83,600 of revenue for services.
portage salarial is not offered here — URSSAF's engine does not cover it. Expect management fees of 5–10% on top, but also unemployment insurance, which the other statuses do not provide.
In a SASU you pay yourself in salary or dividends, taxed very differently. The remainder goes out as dividends, after corporate tax.
Estimated minimum TJM
€542
per billed day, excluding VAT
Based on a one-share household: single, no dependent children, no other taxable income. For a figure specific to you, use the official simulator.
* What you need to bill each month to reach your target, before the safety margin — that is €522 per day. Before charges and tax: this is not a net salary.
How we got there
We take the top of our range (€503 – €542), because this is a minimum rate. Those 2 points of charge rate cover interpolation between computed income levels, rounding, and a contributions reform URSSAF flags as not yet built into its model. Your household situation moves the result considerably more than that.
Find missions at that rate
Migbirds matches you with missions that fit how you actually work.
Create my profileWhere our numbers come from
The contribution rates used here come from the open-source libraries behind URSSAF's official simulator: mon-entreprise.urssaf.fr
2026 schedule, grid generated 2026-09-04.
Method
How to calculate your TJM
A daily rate is not guessed — it is derived from the income you want to end up with. You start from your target annual net, add everything your revenue has to absorb along the way (expenses and charges), then spread the total across the days you genuinely invoice. That last step is the one most freelancers get wrong.
The formula
TJM = (target net income + business expenses) ÷ (billable days × (1 − charge rate))
1. Set your target annual net income
What you actually want to keep over a year, after contributions and tax. Start from what you need rather than from an old salary: a freelancer self-funds their holidays, their gaps between missions and their own social cover.
2. Add your business expenses
Hardware, software, insurance, accounting, travel, coworking, training. These come out of your revenue before you pay yourself, so they belong in the calculation — leave them out and they quietly eat into your net income instead.
3. Estimate your genuinely billable days
This is the most decisive input, and the most commonly overstated. A year holds 261 weekdays; take out public holidays and five weeks of leave and about 227 remain. Our 200-day default assumes a further month between missions. Overstating it produces a daily rate that is too low — the mistake that actually costs money.
4. Apply your charge rate
Contributions and tax are taken out of your revenue, not out of the rate you quote. To land on a given net income you therefore have to bill more — hence the division by (1 − charge rate). The rate shown at the top of the page then adds a 2-point safety margin, since it is a minimum — the formula on its own gives you the middle of the range.
Worked example
A target of €50,000 net per year, €5,000 of business expenses, 200 billable days, as a SASU paying 65% as salary. URSSAF's engine computes a 47.3% charge rate. Your revenue therefore has to cover €104,345 over the year — €522 per billed day. With the safety margin, the displayed TJM is €542.
What this calculator does not do
The rate now comes from the official engine, which settles the question of status and income level. The rest still needs an accountant:
- Income tax depends on your household — marital status, children, a partner's income. No single figure can represent what you will actually take home.
- ACRE cuts contributions by about half for the first four quarters, so your first and second year look nothing alike.
- Minimum contributions exist: a self-employed person pays them even on very low income, so the estimate stops being reliable at the bottom end.
- CFE, the local business tax, is free in year one and payable from year two, at an amount that depends on your town. The official simulator excludes it too.
- VAT, health top-up, income protection and supplementary pension are not modelled — they are real costs of freelancing and belong in the “business expenses” field.
- URSSAF itself flags that a recent contributions reform is not yet built into its model.
This calculator gives you an order of magnitude to price against, not a net salary. Have your TJM checked by an accountant before you commit to a rate.
And choosing a status is not only about net income: portage salarial carries unemployment insurance, micro-entreprise essentially does not. Comparing amounts alone ignores half the question.
Your rate is set. Now find the right mission.
Migbirds looks at how you work to surface missions where you will genuinely fit — not just the ones that match your CV.