French private-sector net pay rose 1.5% in real terms in 2025

Average net pay in France’s private sector reached €2,797 a month in 2025 when converted to a full-time-equivalent job, Insee said in its annual wage study released on 22 October. The gross equivalent was €3,693. In current euros, average net pay rose 2.5% from 2024; after adjusting for prices, the increase was 1.5%. The figures describe the pay attached to jobs standardized to full-time work, not the average amount deposited into every worker’s account.

The real increase followed a 0.8% gain in 2024, as consumer-price inflation slowed to 0.9% in 2025 from 2.0% the year before. That comparison helps explain why nominal and purchasing-power changes diverged less than in the high-inflation period. Insee also reported gross average pay up 2.6% in current euros. These annual changes compare the average workforce in each year; they do not mean every employee received the same raise.

The distribution remained far below the average for many workers. Half of private-sector employees earned less than €2,238 net per month in full-time-equivalent terms. The lower tenth earned under €1,519, while the upper tenth earned above €4,441. The median therefore provides a different view from the mean, which can be pulled upward by high salaries. Insee said wage disparities widened slightly in 2025 after three years of marked narrowing and a pause in 2024.

Women’s average net wage in full-time-equivalent terms was 12.8% below men’s in 2025. The measured gap narrowed by 0.3 percentage point from 2024 and by 5.2 points over ten years. This is a comparison of average wages standardized for working time; it does not by itself isolate the effects of occupation, employer, seniority or other factors. The headline difference should not be read as a same-job pay-gap estimate.

Pay growth among employees who remained in the same job at the same employer was stronger than the change in the overall workforce average. Insee reported a 2.8% rise in their net wage in constant euros. The distinction matters because the composition of jobs and employees also changes from year to year. Insee estimated that changes in the structure of positions held by employees accounted for about one-third of the increase in average net full-time-equivalent pay.

Variable pay-sharing payments were also part of the 2025 compensation picture. Some 15.1% of employees received the “prime de partage de la valeur” (PPV), with €3.4 billion paid in total and an average €881 among recipients. The average is conditional on receiving the payment, not spread across the whole workforce. The release draws on employer administrative declarations in the “Base Tous salariés 2025” and excludes agriculture, public service and private household employers; its scope should be kept in mind when comparing the figures with other wage series.