The company bike compared with a pay rise

The monthly fee taken as the reference is 287.60 euros incl. VAT, over thirty-six months, for a Tern GSD R14 with its preventive maintenance package, batteries excluded and insurance excluded, with no larger first rent. This is the value at the default residual value of 20 per cent; the comparator's residual-value selector replays the whole comparison at 10 per cent (312.68 euros) and at 1 per cent (335.26 euros), with the salary equivalences recalculated each time. This is not an amount we are quoting you: it is the value produced, for this configuration, by the published schedule of the lease calculator, every parameter of which is sourced and editable. Two mechanisms can reduce its real cost for the employer: the first applies to any deductible expense, the second is a scenario to be activated.

The first is the deduction of the rent from the corporate tax base, like any operating expense. The second is the tax reduction under article 220 undecies A du code général des impôts (French general tax code), equal to the costs generated by making a fleet of bikes available free of charge, capped at 25 per cent of the purchase or rental price of that fleet. This reduction requires that it be free of charge for the employee : any contribution required causes it to be lost. The scheme applies to costs incurred up to 31 December 2027.

The eligibility of a fleet financed under a finance lease for this reduction is not established to date. We therefore do not present it as a secured advantage: the comparator does not apply it by default, the selector at the top of the page makes it possible to activate it as a scenario, and this point must be settled with your adviser before any commitment.

The lease calculator starts from a bike model, a fleet size and a term, and reproduces the logic of a finance lease schedule on published, sourced and editable assumptions, on a self-service basis. It answers the sizing question.

The comparator on this page starts instead from a rent that is already built: 287.60 euros incl. VAT at the default residual value of 20 per cent, that is the rent this same schedule produces for a Tern GSD R14 on its own, over thirty-six months, preventive maintenance package included, with no larger first rent. It answers a different question: once the tax mechanisms are applied, does this rent cost more or less than a pay rise that would give the employee the same immediate gain.

On this configuration, the two tools therefore display the same rent. One clarification, for honesty's sake: the calculator opens by default on the Tern GSD S10, whose rent per bike is lower than that of an R14 on its own; the match holds only at identical configuration. If the actual rent of your fleet differs from the reference, the cost of the bike is recalculated in proportion, but not the equivalent pay rise: the latter depends on the tapering curve of the general reduction, which is not linear. That is why the reference rent is adjusted here only through the residual value, with the same three values as the lease calculator, 1, 10 and 20 per cent, each with its own recalculated salary equivalences: for any other assumption, work the lease calculator.

The site has two other tools. The employee simulator answers the mirror question to this one: in the pay rise branch, an employee who equips themselves can draw on the mobility allowance, up to 600 euros a year, which a fleet made available never allows; it is that precise case that it quantifies. The carbon calculator extends every answer with the same question, in volumes and never in euros. The question of the benefit in kind (avantage en nature), seen from the employee's side, is dealt with on the dedicated page.