Cross-border workers: unemployment is changing – stay informed!

Unemployment benefit will be paid on a monthly basis, i.e. on the basis of 30 days, even if there are 31 days in the month. The amount will no longer vary from month to month.

Il faudra avoir travaillé 5 mois (et non 6) sur les 24 derniers mois pour pouvoir ouvrir droit à une allocation chômage. La durée minimum d’indemnisation sera de 5 mois (et non 6).  

At present, people aged 53 and over must have worked for 6 of the last 36 months to qualify for unemployment benefit. From 1ᵉʳ April 2025, you will need to be at least 55 (not 53).

The maximum compensation period will be :

• 22 and a half months (685 days) for those aged 55 or 56 at the end of the contract (currently 53 or 54),
• 27 months (822 days) for people aged 57 (currently 55).

The degressive nature of the allowance will no longer apply (currently at least 57 years of age).

Did your A contract end legitimately (e.g. redundancy, end of fixed-term contract) and you take up a B job without having registered with France Travail? If your B job lasted less than 88 days or 4 months (as opposed to 65 days at present) and ended with your resignation, you can claim unemployment benefit (if all the other conditions are met).

You resigned from your job A to start a permanent contract (job B) without registering with France Travail in between, but your new employer (B) terminates this job B? If the B contract lasted less than 88 days (as opposed to 65 days at present), you can claim unemployment benefit (if all the other conditions are met), if at the time of your resignation (job A) you had at least 3 years’ uninterrupted work.

In 2025, there were discussions about compensation for cross-border workers in France. A draft decree envisaged encouraging unemployed people who had lost their cross-border jobs to return to work in France more quickly, even if this meant a reduction in salary.

However, no final decision has yet been taken.

It is important to note that certain proposals aimed at reducing compensation for unemployed cross-border workers were ruled out by the government, as they were deemed to be contrary to European regulations.

In the absence of new specific measures, frontier workers continue to benefit from the same unemployment compensation conditions as before.