France Housing Aid (APL, ALF, ALS) Calculator

About the France Housing Aid (APL, ALF, ALS) Calculator

France’s personal housing aid helps tenants pay their rent: the APL (aide personnalisée au logement) for social and conventionné housing, and otherwise the ALF (allocation de logement familiale) for families or the ALS (allocation de logement sociale) for everyone else. All three are worked out the same way for a tenant (service-public.gouv.fr): the rent counted up to a ceiling for your zone and household, plus a flat amount for charges, less a participation that grows with your resources of the last 12 months. The Caf (or the MSA for farm workers) pays it each month.

This calculator follows the Code de la construction et de l’habitation and the arrêté that sets its amounts: the ceiling for a flat, a room or a shared flat in zone 1, 2 or 3, the flat charges, the participation P0 and the rate Tp that depends on your household and on how your rent compares with the reference rent, your resources after the 10 % deduction on wages and pensions, the reduction for rents far above the ceiling, the €5 reduction, the social contribution and the payment threshold. Without a Pro pass the result is a free preview: your monthly housing aid in full, the first rows of the tables and the first step of the working; the other figures, the CSV, copying and printing unlock with the pass. Nothing you type leaves your browser.

Common uses

• Check whether you can get the APL, ALF or ALS before you sign a lease, and how much.
• Compare two flats, a room or a shared flat by the aid each would give.
• See how a new job, a pay rise or a partner moving in would change the aid.
• Check the amount on a Caf or MSA notification.

The formula

For a tenant the aid is L + C − Pp (art. D. 823-16 CCH). L is the rent without charges, up to a ceiling that depends on the zone and the household; C is a flat amount for charges (€61,29 a month plus €13,90 for each dependant); and Pp, the household’s participation, is P0 + Tp × (R − R0) (art. D. 823-17). P0 is the higher of 8,5 % of L + C and €40,01; R is the household’s resources of the last 12 months rounded up to the next €100; R0 a flat allowance for the household (€5 235 for one person, €7 501 for a couple, €8 947 with one dependant); and Tp a rate — 2,83 % for one person, 3,15 % for a couple, less with dependants — plus a further rate when the rent is a large share of the reference rent. The amounts are in the arrêté du 27 septembre 2019; the housing amounts are revalued each 1 October with the rent index (arrêté du 28 septembre 2026).

Rent ceilings

The rent counts up to these ceilings a month: in zone 1, €336,97 for one person, €406,40 for a couple and €459,32 with one dependant (+€66,65 for each further dependant); in zone 2, €293,68, €359,47 and €404,49 (+€58,88); in zone 3, €275,25, €333,67 and €374,13 (+€53,62). For a room the ceiling is €303,27 in zone 1, €264,31 in zone 2 and €247,73 in zone 3 whatever the household, and for a shared flat 75 % of the flat ceilings, with the rent divided by the number of tenants on the lease (art. D. 842-3). For the ALF and ALS, the rent of a furnished let counts at two thirds of what you pay, up to the ceiling (art. D. 842-2). When the rent is more than 2,5 times the ceiling (3,4 times in zone 1) the aid is reduced, and it stops at 3,1 times (4 times in zone 1), unless you or your partner receive the AAH or the AEEH. Service-public.fr’s zone finder gives the zone of your commune.

Resources that count

The resources are the household’s net taxable income of the last 12 months: wages after the 10 % deduction for work expenses (at least €509 and at most €14 555 a person), pensions after their 10 % allowance (at least €454 a pensioner, at most €4 439 for the household), unemployment benefit and other taxable income, less maintenance paid. Earnings count 30 % less after two months of unemployment with benefit, or when you stop work on a pension or the AAH, and not at all when you are unemployed without benefit, on the ASS or receiving the RSA. Students who meet the age condition of higher-education grants on social criteria count a flat amount. When the household’s savings exceed €30 000, 3 % of the savings that pay no taxable income (Livret A and the like) is added.

From the formula to the payment

The result is reduced by €5 a month, then by the 0,5 % social contribution (CRDS), rounded down to the euro. In social housing 98 % of the réduction de loyer de solidarité is taken off the APL. The ALF and ALS are not paid under €10 a month. The aid is reviewed every three months on your latest resources.

Who can claim it

Tenants and subtenants of a decent home that is their main residence (lived in at least eight months a year), whatever their nationality if their stay is lawful, students included. There is no aid when the landlord is a parent, grandparent, child or grandchild of you or your partner, or when you hold a share of the home’s ownership or its usufruct. Students from outside the EU, the EEA and Switzerland who hold a residence permit for studies can claim it only if they receive a higher-education grant on social criteria, work, or are in an apprenticeship or professionalisation contract. You claim online with the Caf simulator and form or, under the farm workers’ scheme, the MSA.

Limitations

• An estimate: the Caf or MSA works the aid out from your declared and its own data, and reviews it every three months.
• For tenants in mainland France only: homeowners repaying a loan, residences and foyers, and the overseas departments have other rules.
• Subletting part of the home, a home that is also a workplace or a shop, resources of children and grandparents in the household, and the €95 abatement on the resources of a couple who both work are not modelled.
• Resources are entered as yearly totals; self-employed income uses the profit of the year before last, which you enter as other income.

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