Do you have cash sitting idle in your company's current account? Or are you already investing in your own name, and someone suggested that a company would be "more attractive from a tax standpoint"? The idea is appealing: paying 15% rather than 31.4%, compounding without income tax taking a bite every year... Except that the reality is more nuanced, and the answer depends above all on a question no one asks at the right time. We propose to take the reasoning apart step by step, with figures updated for 2026, using business lending as a case study.
Investing through a company: SASU, SARL or holding, which to choose in 2026?
Why invest through a company?
Separating your personal assets from your invested capital
The first argument has nothing to do with taxes: when you invest through a structure, your invested capital sits in a wrapper separate from your private assets. The amounts committed are therefore the company's, liability is limited to the contributions, and the flows are tracked in precise accounting records.
This separation is especially reassuring for company directors who already mix a lot of things together. Personal account, business account, transfers in both directions, shareholder current account advances… Eventually, no one knows who owns what anymore.
The company restores order, and that alone is a considerable advantage.
Building capital without going through the income tax stage
This is the real driver. When you receive interest in your own name, the government takes its share immediately, and what remains is what you can reinvest.
When it is your company that receives it, it pays corporate income tax, then reinvests the balance with no further deduction as long as the money stays inside.
Over one year, the difference seems trivial. Over ten years, with interest reinvested every month, the calculation base is no longer the same at all!
This is what is called the compounding effect, but be careful: it can only be activated if you do not need this money to live on.
The three profiles for whom the question really arises
The company director whose business generates a lasting cash surplus , who would rather see it put to work than sitting in a non-interest-bearing account. This is the most common case, and the simplest to handle.
The investor building capital over fifteen or twenty years, with no intention of drawing out the income for a long time. For them, a company is clearly an accelerator.
Finally, the family organizing a transfer of wealth, for whom the structure serves as much to hold assets as to gradually pass shares on to the children.
And you? Don't you see yourself in any of the three?
Then the question is probably settled, and the proper noun remains your best option. The rest of the article will explain why.
Setting up a company costs between €200 and €500 in filing fees, then €800 to €2,000 per year in accounting fees and running costs. On a €20,000 portfolio, these fixed costs eat up the entire tax advantage. The tipping point only starts to be worth discussing at around €100,000 of invested capital — and even then, it depends on your situation.
Personal name or company: the 2026 tax comparison
In your own name: 31.4% flat tax since January 2026
The interest you receive personally counts as investment income, subject by default to the prélèvement forfaitaire unique. That rate changed on January 1, 2026. It is no longer 30%, but 31,4 %.
The breakdown: 12.8% income tax, unchanged, and 18.6% prélèvements sociaux.
The latter recently rose from 17.2% to 18.6% following the increase in CSG on capital income under the loi de financement de la Sécurité sociale pour 2026.
Note: many online articles still show 30%. Be wary of simulators that haven't been updated.
For details on which boxes to fill in and how losses are handled, we've written a dedicated guide to the crowdlending taxation for a French tax resident.
In a company subject to IS: 15% up to €42,500, then 25%
A company subject to impôt sur les sociétés is not affected by the flat tax. Interest received counts as financial income, is added to taxable profit, and is taxed at the applicable IS rate.
This rate is 25% under the standard regime. But SMEs benefit from a reduced IS rate of 15% on the first €42,500 of taxable profit, subject to three cumulative conditions: revenue excluding tax below €10 million, fully paid-up share capital, and at least 75% ownership by individuals or by companies that themselves meet these criteria.
Watch out for a detail that many people forget: this €42,500 cap applies to the company's total profit, not just on financial income! If your operating activity already uses up the entire bracket, your interest will be taxed at 25%.
A word about a persistent rumor. An amendment passed on first reading of the 2026 budget proposed raising this cap to €100,000. It was not kept in the final text. The threshold remains at €42,500 for a twelve-month fiscal year, prorated if the year is shorter.
The exit trap: dividends
This is where most reasoning goes off the rails, and it's the most important point in this article.
Paying 15% instead of 31.4% is only a gain as long as the money stays in the company. The day you want to take it out personally, you pay yourself a dividend. And that dividend is itself investment income, taxed at 31.4%.
Two layers of taxation stacked on top of each other, then.
Do the full math and the advantage melts away. What's left is a timing shift — which is not nothing, but it's not the miracle savings you may have been sold.
So the question to ask yourself isn't "company or personal name." It's: do I plan to take this money out, and when?
Example with €10,000 in interest
Let's take a loan portfolio that generates €10,000 in interest over the year. Your company qualifies for the reduced rate and its profit stays below €42,500.
| Scenario | Withdrawal at entry | Withholding at exit | You have left |
|---|---|---|---|
| Own name, PFU 31.4% | 3 140 € | none | €6,860 available |
| Company subject to IS at 15%, capitalization | 1 500 € | none as long as nothing is distributed | €8,500 available for reinvestment |
| Company taxed at IS 15%, immediate distribution | 1 500 € | €2,669 in PFU on the dividend | €5,831 in your pocket |
The message fits on one line. The company that retains earnings leaves you €8,500 at work versus €6,860 in your own name, i.e. 24% more productive capital. The company that distributes everything leaves you with less than the name itself.
Simple, isn't it?
These figures deliberately ignore structural costs. Factor in €1,000 in annual accounting fees and the "capitalization" scenario retains an advantage of only €640 for the year. That's still positive, but a far cry from the shortcut "15% instead of 31.4%.
Which structure should you use to invest through your company?
SASU and SAS
It's the most commonly used form among investors who go it alone. The bylaws are very flexible, bringing in a partner is easy to arrange, and above all dividends paid to the president are not subject to social security contributions.
This last point weighs heavily in the trade-off as soon as you consider distributing.
The flip side: if you pay yourself a salary, the régime assimilé salarié is costly in social charges. For a purely asset-holding structure that pays no one, the issue doesn't arise.
EURL and SARL
L'EURL is subject to income tax by default, but can elect for IS, and it is this option that interests us here. Operating costs are comparable to those of a SASU, the statutory framework is more rigid.
The point to watch lies elsewhere. For a majority manager of a SARL, the portion of dividends exceeding 10% of the share capital, share premiums and amounts held in the shareholder current account is subject to social security contributions under the self-employed regime.
With a structure with a symbolic capital of €1, this 10% threshold is reached immediately. Better to know that before choosing.
The holding patrimoniale
A holding is a company that holds stakes in other companies. It becomes relevant once you already have an operating business and want to move dividends up to reinvest them, taking advantage of the régime mère-fille, which exempts 95% of these upstream dividends from tax.
Setting up a holding solely to invest €50,000 in business loans makes no sense. The complexity and cost are only justified only once you have an already structured asset base, with several building blocks to fit together.
We know many people want to set up a holding because it projects a nice image, but it remains a business owner's tool, not a saver's tool.
Structures to avoid
The SCI, first. Its purpose is civil and real-estate related; it is not designed to hold debt claims. A regular lending activity would even expose it to reclassification as a commercial company, with the tax consequences that entails.
La micro-entreprise next: the interest you receive isn't revenue, so it doesn't fall under the micro regime. You'd report it as investment income anyway, and therefore under the PFU. There's no point going that route.
As for an association, it cannot distribute profits to its members. That settles the question.
| Structure | Tax regime | Indicative annual cost | Best suited if |
|---|---|---|---|
| SASU / SAS | IS by default | €1,000 to €2,000 | You invest alone and want flexibility |
| EURL / SARL | IR by default, option for IS | €1,000 to €2,000 | Family setting, majority management assumed |
| Holding | IS, régime mère-fille | €2,000 to €4,000 | You already have an operating company |
| SCI | Not suitable | Not applicable | Never for lending |
| Proper noun | PFU 31.4% | 0 € | Modest portfolio or need for the income |
Investing your company's cash: points to watch
Check your objet social
Your company can only do what its bylaws authorize it to do.
A narrowly drafted corporate purpose, focused solely on your operating activity, does not necessarily cover subscribing to financial investments.
The workaround is well known: add a clause covering cash management and the acquisition of equity stakes. But that requires a shareholders' decision and an amendment to the bylaws, to be anticipated before opening anything at all.
If you have partners, tell them! Investing shared cash in non-guaranteed vehicles without having decided together is the surest way to turn a good idea into a conflict.
Don't confuse operating cash with surplus cash
A business needs cash to operate: paying salaries, suppliers, and VAT, absorb a late customer payment. This cushion doesn't get invested. Ever.
What can be invested is the lasting surplus, the portion you know you won't need over the next eighteen months — and even then, only if you accept that crowdlending is not a savings account: the funds are locked up until the loans mature, early exit depends on the existence of a secondary market and a counterparty on the other side.
That's a topic in its own right, which we covered in our article on the liquidity of an investment and the secondary market.
The risk of capital loss, for its part, does not disappear just because it's a company doing the investing.
Accounting Treatment and Doubtful Receivables
Interest is recorded as financial income, and it must be attached to the fiscal year in which it accrues, not the one in which it is collected. On loans with in fine repayment, the gap between the two can be significant.
If a borrower defaults, the receivable may be written down, deductible under certain conditions. The treatment varies depending on the situation, and this is typically the kind of point to confirm with your accountant from the very first year.
Let them know ahead of time rather than at closing. They'll thank you for it.
Requirements when your company invests outside France
Reporting foreign accounts doesn't apply to every company
Here's a nuance that most articles miss completely.
The obligation to declare accounts held abroad, that of the formulaire 3916 accompanied by a €1,500 fine per undeclared account, applies to individuals, associations and non-commercial companies. This is set out in Article 1649 A of the Code général des impôts.
In other words: a SAS, a SASU, a SARL or a EURL, which have a commercial form, are not subject to this annual declaration. Their accounts already appear in their bookkeeping.
An SCI, on the other hand, being a société civile by nature, falls fully within the scope.
This obviously doesn't exempt you from properly accounting for the company's assets and income. It's simply that the box to check each spring isn't the same as for an individual, who remains concerned for their own accounts.
Withholding tax and the France–Switzerland tax treaty
When your company lends abroad, the next question is whether the platform's country withholds a tax before paying you the interest.
Switzerland applies a 35% impôt anticipé, but its scope mainly covers bank deposits and bonds, not ordinary receivables arising from a loan agreement. In practice, Swiss platforms for business lending most often pay out gross interest, leaving it to the investor to declare it in their home country.
When a withholding tax is indeed applied, the tax treaty between France and Switzerland allows you to limit the rate and to credit the tax paid abroad. The mechanism is the same for a company as for an individual; it simply goes through the liasse fiscale.
Always check the platform's documentation on this point before investing: two platforms from the same country may have different treatments depending on their legal structuring.
The tax on holdings patrimoniales: should you be worried?
The topic made a lot of noise in early 2026, and it deserves to be put in its proper perspective.
The loi de finances pour 2026, published on February 20, 2026, created a tax on certain assets not used for an operating activity held by companies subject to IS. It appears in Article 235 ter C of the Code général des impôts, its rate is 20%, and it applies to fiscal years ending on or after December 31, 2026.
The initial bill was far broader: 2% on all passive assets held by holding companies, which would have hit financial investments head-on. The final version was considerably narrowed, with an asset threshold set at 5 million euros and a tax base limited to items listed by law, of a luxury nature.
What this means for the vast majority of readers: if your company holds a portfolio of loans rather than a yacht, you're not affected.
This tax nonetheless remains a signal. Lawmakers are monitoring structures that accumulate passive income without any real activity. A structure must stand on its economic logic, not only on its tax advantage, and this holds truer today than yesterday.
Opening a company account on a crowdlending platform
The documents required
Opening an account in the name of a legal entity requires enhanced verification, the KYB, the equivalent of KYC for companies. At Maclear, company accounts are accepted after this verification.
Prepare the company name, the registration number, the registered office address, the up-to-date articles of association, the legal representative's identity document and the identification of the beneficial owners.
Allow a few more days than for opening a personal account. Nothing insurmountable, but do not start the process the day before the closing of a project you are interested in.
What it changes
Transfers leave from and return to the business bank account, never to your personal account. This point is non-negotiable; a round trip through your personal account would create a shareholder current account movement that would have to be justified.
You will not receive an imprimé fiscal unique, as this document is reserved for individuals on French platforms, so it is up to you to obtain the transaction statements for your accounting, ideally each quarter rather than all at once when preparing the financial statements.
For the rest, project selection, analysis of guarantees and diversification follow exactly the same rules as for an individual investor. Our guide on assessing the loan-to-value ratio in crowdlending applies word for word.
In summary
| Question | Key takeaway |
|---|---|
| Company or personal name? | A company if you are building capital over the long term, personal name if you need the income |
| What tax gain? | €8,500 reinvested versus €6,860 in your own name for €10,000 in interest |
| From what amount? | Fixed costs argue for capital of at least €100,000 |
| Which structure? | SASU in most cases, holding only if you already have an operating company |
| The main pitfall? | Double taxation when taking the funds out as dividends |
| Formulaire 3916? | No for commercial companies, yes for sociétés civiles |
| Tax on holdings? | Out of reach below 5 million euros in assets |
A company is not a tax optimization tool, it is a capitalization tool. The distinction changes everything! It lets you put a larger base to work over the years; it does not let you pay less on income that you consume.
The calculation is therefore done in two stages, never just one: how much does the company take at the entry point, and how much will the exit cost on the day you need the money? An investor who answers the second question honestly knows immediately whether the structure makes sense for them.
And if you are still hesitating, keep in mind that there is no rush. Investing in your own name for two years, measuring the regularity of the flows, then structuring once the portfolio has gained substance remains a perfectly reasonable path…
Frequently asked questions
Is it more advantageous to invest through a company or in your own name?
It depends entirely on your time horizon. If you systematically reinvest your gains, the company is more efficient thanks to the 15% IS rate, which leaves more capital at work. If you plan to spend that income quickly, holding in your own name under the 31.4% PFU costs less once the exit in dividends is taken into account.
Can a SASU lend money to companies?
Yes, provided its corporate purpose allows for it and that this constitutes an investment activity rather than a lending activity carried out on a regular and professional basis, which would require authorization. Investing through a regulated crowdlending platform falls within the scope of cash investment.
What is the tax rate on interest received by a company?
Interest is included in taxable income and follows the IS rate: 15% on the first 42,500 euros of profit for eligible SMEs, then 25% above that. There is no flat tax for legal entities.
Does a French company have to declare its account on a foreign platform?
No for commercial-form companies such as the SAS, the SASU, the SARL or the EURL, which are not covered by the form 3916 requirement. Yes for sociétés civiles. In all cases, the assets and income must appear in the accounts and in the liasse fiscale.
Does the tax on holdings patrimoniales apply to my situation?
Most likely not. The measure adopted in February 2026 targets companies whose assets exceed 5 million euros, with a tax base restricted to assets exhaustively listed by law. A portfolio of loans to companies is not among them.
The right structure is the one you understand and can maintain over time. Run the numbers on your own situation, discuss it with your accountant before setting anything up, and remember that the most elegant structure will never make up for a poor choice of projects. So, capitalization or distribution?
About Maclear
Maclear AG is a Swiss peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and crowdlending platform, headquartered in Switzerland. The company acts as a financial intermediary in the non-banking sector and is a member of PolyReg SRO, in accordance with Swiss financial regulations, particularly regarding AML, KYC, and GDPR. Maclear provides individual and qualified investors access to carefully selected business loan opportunities, with integrated risk assessment, a Provision Fund, and a Secondary Market for liquidity.
The content of this article is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute investment, financial, tax, or legal advice. Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and crowdlending investments carry a risk of partial or total loss of capital. Past performance does not predict future results. Liquidity on a secondary market is not guaranteed. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult qualified advisors before making any financial decisions. The availability of products and services may be restricted in certain jurisdictions.