France’s LEP vs the Livret A: A Means-Tested Higher Rate, Explained

France’s Livret d’épargne populaire is often described as “the Livret A, only better”. The description misleads: the LEP is not a better account open to everyone, but a means-tested anti-inflation transfer, reserved for households below an income threshold and funded by the public purse.

The Livret d’épargne populaire (LEP) is often presented as “the Livret A, only better”. The reality is more precise: it is a targeted anti-inflation transfer, reserved for households whose reference tax income does not exceed a threshold. Its rate is, by construction, set above the Livret A, a gap that is not a commercial perk but a social-policy choice, funded collectively. This article describes the mechanics of the rate gap between the LEP and the Livret A, the LEP’s own deposit ceiling, and the eligibility condition based on reference tax income. The artefact: the LEP framed as a targeted transfer rather than a “good deal”, with the quantified mechanics of the gap. A strictly statistical comparison: no recommendation to “open” or “favour” one or the other.

A targeted scheme, not a better Livret A

The difference in nature between the two accounts matters more than their similarity in form. The Livret A is universal: anyone is entitled to it, with no condition. The LEP is selective: access depends on the household’s reference tax income, and it explicitly aims, under France’s monetary and financial code, to help lower-income households place their savings on terms that preserve their purchasing power. The LEP’s higher rate is therefore not a market advantage won by a better product, but a social-policy expense: the community funds an enhanced return for a population defined by its income. On this point: what happens mechanically when a capped savings account fills up.

This reading follows from the political choice behind the administered rate. If the Livret A rate results from a trade-off between rewarding the saver and the cost of the funding it feeds, the LEP rate adds a redistributive dimension: it transfers to eligible households a protection against inflation that the Livret A itself provides only conditionally. Comparing two regulated vehicles therefore means looking not only at their rates, but at the different logic that sets them.

The mechanics of the rate gap

The gap between the LEP and the Livret A is not left to chance: it follows a rule. The LEP rate cannot be lower than ex-tobacco inflation measured over the prior semester, nor lower than the Livret A rate plus 0.5 point. The higher of these two floors applies, after rounding. In practice, the gap has ranged from 0.5 to 3.1 points since 2020. It stood at one point from 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2026 (2.7% against 1.7%, then 2.5% against 1.5% from 1 February 2026), and has been 0.8 point since 1 August 2026: the LEP stayed at 2.5% while the Livret A rose to 1.7%. Like the Livret A, the LEP is revised twice a year, on 1 February and 1 August, and its interest is computed by fortnight and then capitalised at year-end. For more detail: our analysis of short-term parking options.

The structure of the rule has a consequence: the LEP tracks inflation more closely than the Livret A. When inflation accelerates, the LEP’s “ex-tobacco inflation” floor pulls it up more directly than the Livret A formula, which depends only half on inflation. The gap between the two accounts therefore tends to widen in inflationary phases, precisely those in which the Livret A protects least. The LEP thus works as a reinforced shield for eligible households in the very regimes where ordinary administered savings lose the most purchasing power.

An order of magnitude makes the gap tangible. On a full LEP at €10,000, the 2.5% rate produces €250 of net interest over the year, against €170 for the same sum placed at 1.7% in a Livret A, an €80 annual difference at the rates in force since 1 August 2026. The gap has been far wider in the recent past: in August 2022, at the height of the inflation surge, the LEP paid 4.6% while the Livret A was at 2%, a differential of 2.6 points; it peaked at 3.1 points from February to July 2023 (6.1% against 3%). These figures illustrate a statistical fact, not an instruction: the size of the advantage depends on the inflation regime and on the level at which the LEP rate is set.

The ceiling and the income condition

The LEP is capped at €10,000 in deposits, an amount raised on 1 October 2023 and lower than the Livret A ceiling. As with the Livret A, no deposit may take the balance above €10,000, but capitalised interest can: a full LEP exceeds that amount without any rule being broken, and accepts no further deposit while its balance stays above it. At the end of 2025, 44% of LEPs were above €10,000 and held 70% of outstanding balances, according to the Banque de France. Holding is individual, with a limit of two LEPs per tax household, one per taxpayer and one for a partner; an adult fiscally attached to their parents’ household cannot hold one.

The access condition is the centrepiece of the scheme. Eligibility depends on the reference tax income shown on the tax notice, which must not exceed a threshold revised each year and indexed to the income-tax schedule. For an opening in 2026, that threshold stands, in mainland France, at €23,028 for a single person (one share of the family quotient), and rises with the number of shares in the household. The check is made at opening and over time: exceeding the threshold in one year does not trigger closure if income falls back below it the following year, but exceeding it for two consecutive years leads to closure. Because the threshold is indexed, its annual increase can bring into eligibility households that were excluded the year before.

The thresholds vary with the composition of the household. As a benchmark, for an opening in 2026 they stand, in mainland France, at €23,028 for one share, €35,326 for two shares (a couple) and €41,475 for two-and-a-half shares (a couple with one dependent child), after a 0.9% uprating (€22,823 for one share in 2025). The income taken into account is that of the available tax notice, in practice the reference tax income of the last or second-to-last known year. Since 2021, banks can query the tax administration directly to check eligibility, without the holder having to supply their tax notice.

A transfer that is widely under-claimed

The most striking feature of the LEP is not its rate but its take-up rate. According to the Banque de France, the number of LEPs reached a record 12.1 million at the end of 2025, yet the take-up rate among eligible households remains below that of the Livret A at every income level. A large share of households entitled to the scheme therefore do not hold one. The contrast is sharper still for the most fragile households: in 2025, only 8% of bank clients identified as financially fragile held a LEP, according to the same report, even though it pays more than the Livret A and is intended for them. The transfer exists, it is funded, yet it remains largely unclaimed by its target population.

The scheme’s individual design adds to the gap. A LEP is held per person, with a maximum of two per tax household, so that an eligible couple can hold one each, up to €20,000 in combined deposits. Yet eligibility is assessed on the household’s reference tax income, not on individual income, which means a single higher earner in a couple can lift the household above the threshold and close access for both. The interaction of an individual holding limit with a household income test shapes who, in practice, ends up holding the transfer.

This gap ties the LEP back to the rest of regulated savings. The LEP and the Livret A both feed the shared funding circuit centralised by the Caisse des dépôts, and share the function of regulated savings: a liquid, guaranteed and tax-free reserve. The LEP stands apart by its target and its rate, but sits within the same institutional architecture.

The overall read

The comparison between the LEP and the Livret A comes down to three measurable facts. The rate: the LEP is, by rule, above the Livret A, by at least 0.5 point and in practice by 0.8 to 1 point since 2025, with a gap that widens in inflationary regimes. The ceiling: €10,000 in deposits, below the Livret A’s, with the same compounding mechanics beyond it. Access: conditioned by a reference-tax-income threshold, revised annually, which excludes households above the threshold and leaves, paradoxically, a large fraction of eligible households without a LEP. Describing these facts recommends no opening and no trade-off. The LEP is, statistically, the best-paid and most targeted of the regulated accounts, and one of the least claimed relative to its eligible population. Ranked on the same scale, the PEL occupies a different position, and its monthly rate series since 2012 shows a level fixed once and held.

Last updated — 6 October 2026