The level of the minimum turnover required for auto-entrepreneurs to obtain pension rights has been revised for 2012.

If you are an auto-entrepreneur, you will normally pay a fixed percentage of your turnover in social security contributions.

The actual percentage contribution varies by type of business.

A 'service' based business pays at the rate of 21.3% of turnover, and a 'sales' based business 12% of turnover. Those in one of the professions libérales pay either 21.3% or 18.3% depending on the nature of their business activity.

The size of pension rights earned each year will depend on the turnover of the business and a minimum level of turnover is required to earn such rights.

The minimum (cash not sales) turnover per year differs by type of business occupation.

For those in sales it is €6,357; those in a service activity, €3,687; for professionals it is €2,789.

However, your pension rights are arrived at after deduction of the standard cost allowance for each type of activity - either 71%, 50%, or 34%.

Those of you with some familiarity of all of this will recognise these cost allowances as those that apply for the 'regime de base' for a micro-entreprise.

Broadly speaking, pension rights in France for the self-employed are based on points awarded for each quarter's earnings, and the value of that point. So in the following table, someone running a sales based business would need to have a turnover of €25,433 after allowances to earn four quarter points.

The following table shows the turnover needed to obtain one to four quarters' pension rights in a calendar year.

The amount of pension you will actually receive will depend on the number of quarters' you earn, although there are minor variations by type of scheme.