Insee Première · July 2021 · n° 1870

In 2019, the average earned income of self-employed persons decreased after several years of increases

At the end of 2019, 3.5 million people were self-employed in France, including 0.4 million in the agricultural sector. Excluding the agricultural sector, the number of self-employed persons increased by 6.4% between 2018 and 2019. The number of micro-entrepreneurs grew strongly again due to new legislative measures in favour of this social regime, while the number of other (so called “traditional”) self-employed persons fell for the sixth consecutive year.

In 2019, traditional self-employed persons in non-agricultural sectors received an average of €3,830 per month: from €1,370 in retail trade excluding stores, to €9,180 for doctors and dentists. In a given sector, women earn on average 32% less than men. Micro-entrepreneurs earned an average of €590 monthly from their activity; but 29% of them combined this activity with salaried employment. Between 2018 and 2019, the average earned income excluding agriculture decreased by 4.9% (+8.1% for micro-entrepreneurs and –1.1% for traditional self-employed as an aftermath of a large increase in 2018).