Declare wages

Each month, employers must declare to the Social Security Centre (Centre commun de la sécurité sociale - CCSS) the gross wages paid to their employees and the exact number of paid hours of work for the previous month.

Based on these declarations, the CCSS calculates the amount of social security contributions for each employee and informs the employer by means of a monthly account statement (the CCSS 'invoice') of the total amount of social security contributions to be paid for all employees. This amount includes both the employee's and the employer's share of the social security contributions.

The social security contributions due by employees are deducted directly from their wage by the employer, who is responsible for the overall payment demanded on the monthly invoice sent by the CCSS.

Wage elements to declare

The monthly wage to be declared comprises different elements:

• base wage;
• supplements/accessories payable monthly in cash;
• payment for overtime hours, excluding surcharges on these hours;
• gratuities, financial participation, benefits in cash or in kind;
• unemployment due to extreme weather/cyclical economic factors;
  
• short-time work.

 

 

 

Explanations of the various wage elements

The base wage is fixed and, under labour law, must be defined as such in the employment contract. It includes:

• supplements for which the amount remains fixed from one month to the next (e.g. family allowance, training bonus paid to employees who completed certain vocational training courses, responsibility bonus, etc.);
• legal increases in accordance with public policy provisions on minimum social wage and the automatic adjustment of wages in line with changes to the cost of living;
• regular surcharges set out in employment contracts or collective labour agreements.

Supplements/accessories are elements of cash remuneration and payable monthly, but their amount may vary from one month to the next (e.g. performance bonus, commission, target-related bonus, etc.). They should not be confused with occasional wage elements such as gratuities.

Payment for overtime hours without surcharges (100%) and the corresponding hours are to be reported separately. Surcharges on overtime hours (40%) are not declared.

Unpaid overtime hours compensated instead by paid leave or recorded in a time savings account have not to be reported under this heading, but when otherwise compensated (e.g. as base wage if compensated by extended leave).

Gratuities, financial participation and benefits in cash and in kind are cash payments that are not payable monthly, as well as all payments in kind.   

Unemployment due to extreme weather or cyclical economic factors, as well as related hours should also be declared.

The same applies for short-time work which must also be declared in the 'unemployment due to extreme weather/cyclical economic factors' section. These hours should be reported under the heading 'hours unemployed'. This declaration is needed for the National Employment Agency (Agence pour le développement de l'emploi - ADEM) to calculate the short-time work adjustment.

 

 

Additional Information

For periods prior to 2020, the employer had to declare the number of hours of work that actually corresponded to the base wage (and not automatically the monthly average of 173 hours). This only included the hours actually worked by the employee, but excluded overtime hours, hours of absence due to incapacity for work paid by the National Health Fund, and legal public holidays which the employee did not or would not have worked.

From 1 January 2020, the employer must declare the exact number of hours of work that actually correspond to the base wage (and not automatically the monthly average of 173 hours). This includes the paid hours of work corresponding to the base wage, annual leave, absences due to incapacity for work paid by the employer, legal public holidays, but excludes overtime hours. When applied to hours of work, the commercial rounding rule involves rounding up the hours of work if the number of minutes reaches or exceeds 30 minutes and rounding down if the number is below 30 minutes.

For more information, please see the hours of work example calculation.

Overtime hours, hours of unemployment due to extreme weather or cyclical economic factors and short-time work hours are entered under separate headings.

The hours corresponding to incapacity for work paid by the employer, as well as those corresponding to annual leave, also count as hours of work that must be declared. If an employee is granted a phased return to work for therapeutic reasons paid by the employer (which is very rare, as such therapeutic returns are normally paid by the CNS), the hours of work and corresponding hours of incapacity for work must be declared.

However, hours of absence due to incapacity for work paid by the CNS should not be included in the hours of work declaration.

The hours of work to be declared correspond to the company's internal schedule.

For example, for an employee who works 40 hours per week from Monday to Friday, the hours to be declared are set out in the tables below:

 

 

Benefits liable to contributions paid after termination of an employment contract  

Statutory benefits payable by the employer in lieu of notice

Statutory benefits payable by the employer in lieu of notice are liable to contributions and counted for the monthly payment they represent. Each month of notice counts as one month of declaration. However, other severance benefits are not subject to contributions and do not extend the affiliation.

Payment in lieu of holiday and gratuities

Non-regular payments such as payment in lieu of holiday and gratuities paid after the start of pension entitlement relating to activity carried out prior to this entitlement are not subject to contributions and should, therefore, not be declared to the CCSS.  

3-month goodwill benefit for survivors of a deceased employee in active employment

The affiliation ends with the death of the employee but, under certain conditions, their survivors (spouses, partners, children and forebears) are entitled to the continuation of the wage payment due at the end of the month in which the employee died, as well as a benefit equal to 3 months' wage payments. These benefits do not have to be declared to the CCSS.

How to proceed

Wage declaration

Employers (or their authorised representative) submit monthly declarations of the various wage elements either:

• electronically via SECUline ('DECSAL')

or

• using the payroll (instructions) sent each month to the employer or their authorised representative, where applicable.

The payroll pre-printed by the CCSS to declare wages for month N is sent at the start of month N+1. For each insured employee, it reproduces the information declared by the employer for the previous month.

The employer must return the payrolls to the CCSS within 10 days; they must also check the accuracy of the pre-printed data and make any necessary corrections.

Employers using the online SECUline procedure are notified of a missing wage by a SALMAN file.

Fines for late declarations

For each undeclared wage, the employer is liable to be fined on a quarterly basis.