France refreshes shortage lists steering unallocated training-tax balance

Employers that do not designate a recipient establishment for the solde de la taxe d'apprentissage do not direct that balance themselves. The contributions recovered from those employers are allocated by the Caisse des dépôts et consignations to habilitated establishments selected under the two statutory criteria in Article R. 6241-28 of the Code du travail: geographic implantation of employers and eligible establishments, and, at national level, the nature of the training provided.

The standing allocation framework divides those undesignated funds into two envelopesLegifrance. Forty per cent forms a regional envelope distributed by region under the first criterionLegifrance, and sixty per cent forms a national envelope distributed under the second criterionLegifrance, with the detailed training-selection rules set in Article 2 of the 12 November 2024 arrêté. Each envelope respects the regulatory floor: neither share may fall below 20% of the funds. Within a region under the first criterion, establishments of the same region receive an identical amount of the balance.

The national envelope supports training courses that lead to occupations facing the largest recruitment needs in their region because of a shortage of trained people. The correspondence between those occupations and the training courses is established through the diploma registered in the répertoire national des certifications professionnelles (RNCP) for which the training preparesLegifrance. Under the second criterion, an identical amount is attributed to establishments for each training course concerned. The 12 November 2024 annex lists, region by region, the ten occupations in alphabetical order identified as facing the greatest recruitment needs, sourced from the DARES–France Travail labour-market tensions survey.

The arrêté du 2 octobre 2026 replaces the annex to the 12 November 2024 arrêté with a new annexLegifrance. Article 1 effects that substitution; Article 2 provides for publication in the Journal officiel de la République française. The operative effect is therefore an update of the regional shortage-occupation lists that steer the national envelopeLegifrance: the 40/60 division and the RNCP-based matching mechanism are unchangedLegifrance, while the occupations that qualify training for the national share are those in the substituted annexLegifrance.

For the campaign concerned, training providers should verify whether the diplomas they prepare map, through the RNCP, onto an occupation retained in the new annex for their region, since that mapping conditions access to the national envelope for undesignated fundsLegifrance. Employers that designate their recipients through the usual allocation channel remain directed by their own designations; the revised lists matter principally for the allocation of balances left undesignated and for establishments that depend on that residual distribution. Legal basis: Code du travail, Article R. 6241-28, implemented by the arrêté du 12 novembre 2024 as amended by the arrêté du 2 octobre 2026Legifrance.