APL 2022. The Caf is facing several problems which are causing significant delays in the payment of APL, as well as in making appointments in branches. Why ? What malfunctions? We take stock.
[Mis à jour le 2 juin 2022 à 09h52] What happens with the payment of your APL? Countless and interminable delays in payment have been observed for several months among certain recipients. Student benefiting from the APL, recipient of the RSA or beneficiary of the AAH, the dysfunctions are numerous, up to the simple making of an appointment in an agency to benefit from expert advice from specialists, or for people who do not have sufficient connection to carry out their procedures online. The situation has been going on for several months now, and has continued in recent days with more than substantial delays. But then, what happens at the Caf?
First of all, the family allowance fund is faced with a severe lack of staff. Some agencies are forced to close completely for an entire day of the week, a day previously dedicated to making appointments. Then, the reform of housing aid at the start of 2021 caused major computer hiccups. This explains the many delays in payment of APL. For some recipients, the delays are counted in months. No less than 2 million files are still pending processing. Note that when the files are complete, the processing time is on average 10 days. On the contrary, if a supporting document is missing or if the intervention of a Caf agent is necessary, the processing times could be considerably longer.
Commonly known as APL, personalized housing assistance is a social benefit paid by the Family Allowance Fund (CAF). It is intended to reduce the amount of your rent. Be careful, not everyone can claim it. To determine your eligibility, the CAF studies the situation of your accommodation, your income and your family situation (as a couple, single, with or without children). A resource cap must not be exceeded to claim personalized housing assistance. Note: since the beginning of the year, the calculation of the APL has changed. From now on, the CAF takes into account the income of the beneficiary over the last twelve rolling months, and no longer the resources dating back two years. This change resulted in a reduction in the APL for many recipients, or even its disappearance for some. Young workers, but also students on professional contracts were among the first to be penalized by this reform.
You have the possibility of doing a simulation of eligibility for the APL on the Caf website, here, or on the My social rights website set up by the government, here. You will have to fill in your family situation (alone or as a couple, with or without dependent children), your personal situation (pregnancy, parental leave, job seeker, student, etc.) and your accommodation (postal code, contracted or no, specify if it is a joint tenancy, if it is furnished or not…), as well as your resources. With the My social rights site, you will get details of all the aid you can claim depending on your situation.
Are you wondering about the impact of the reform on the amount of your personalized housing assistance? Consult our dedicated file:
To determine the amount of your APL, the Family Allowance Fund uses a scale. This takes into account the applicant’s resources, his professional situation, the geographical location of his accommodation and the composition of the household. It then determines a maximum amount of support. Here are the scales that have applied since the decree of September 25, 2020:
| Household composition | Zone 1 | Zone 2 | Zone 3 |
| single person | 296,82€ | 258,59€ | 242,46€ |
| Couple without dependents | 357,99€ | 316,64€ | 293,92€ |
| Couple with one dependent | 404,60€ | 356,30€ | 329,56€ |
| Per additional person | 58,70€ | 51,86€ | 47,23€ |
As a reminder, zone 1 concerns Île-de-France and zone 2 towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants and other new towns. Zone 3 is made up of the rest of France. In addition to the amount of your rent, your resources are taken into account. “In the event of resources below a certain amount, a minimum floor of resources, that is to say a flat rate, can be automatically recorded in certain cases”, can we read on the dedicated Caf website. “For example, for students in residence, €4,900 when the applicant is a grant holder, or €6,000 if he is not a grant holder”.
The resources taken into account are those of the last 12 months. They are updated automatically every 3 months. So you don’t have to do anything. The Caf or the MSA automatically recovers the amount of your resources, in particular from taxes, from Pôle emploi.
Yes. Personalized accommodation assistance can benefit rentals, but also shared accommodation and residences in hostels (student residences, for example), provided that the accommodation is your main residence and located in France. As a student, remember that you must meet the income criteria established by the Family Allowance Fund.
The entire application procedure is carried out online on the Caf website. To compile your file, you will need to scan an identity document, your bank account statement and a rent or residence certificate, signed by the owner or the hostel. Be sure to apply for APL as soon as you move into your new accommodation, because the first payment comes two months later.
The retroactivity of this aid has been removed. Personalized housing assistance is paid monthly (the 25th of the month for HLM recipients and the 5th of the following month for others). In general, it is granted directly to the owner or lender who must deduct it from the amount of your rent or the monthly payments of the loan that you have contracted.
The APL owner refers to the APL accession, which aims to facilitate home ownership. The objective is to reduce the amount of monthly payments that you will pay to the bank. This service is reserved for modest people. Since 2018, its conditions have been very restrictive. You must now sign a state-assisted loan to claim it, and before January 1, 2020. You cannot benefit from it via an approved loan. New homes are also excluded from the scheme. The latter is therefore destined to disappear.
To qualify for APL, it is necessary to be tenantor sub-tenant (declared to the owner) of a fully or partially rented accommodation, on the condition of being under 30 years old or of being accommodated with a foster family.
No minimum age requirement is required. Consequently, a minor child can collect the APL, but the lease must be signed or co-signed by his parents. The rent receipt can be drawn up in the name of the minor. If it is an emancipated minor, the lease must be in his name. Foreigners must have a valid residence permit. Nationals of Member States of the European Union, of other States party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area are not required to have a residence permit.
Housing must meet criteria of decency. The accommodation must also be agreed, in other words, your lessor (or the managing organization) must have signed an agreement with the State opening the right to APL and aid from Anah. To this are added means test. The CAF establishes ceilings, which change according to the location of the accommodation and the composition of the household.
For a tenant to be able to claim and benefit from APL, the lessor must have concluded an APL agreement with the State. Without this agreement, the tenant(s) cannot benefit from personalized housing assistance (APL).
But then, how do you know if your accommodation is under agreement? First of all, we advise you to clearly ask the question with your lessor to avoid any misunderstanding. Then, to be approved, a dwelling must meet several criteria:
- The amount of the rent is capped according to the geographical location.
- The tenant must not exceed a certain ceiling of resources
- The owner does not have the right to rent this accommodation to a member of his family
- The agreement must last a maximum of 6 years
When you know that you are going to move into a new home, it is best to apply for APL as soon as possible. The payment of the APL being absolutely not retroactive, you risk losing the months during which you did not apply for the allowance.
In other words, if you move into a new apartment on May 1, 2022 and you submit your APL application in July, you will not receive an allowance for the months of May and June. Even if you have paid your rent during these two months of occupation of the accommodation.
You have the possibility of combining the two aids, the APL and the RSA. However, keep in mind that the RSA amount will be reduced. When a person is eligible for the APL and receives it, a housing package applies to the RSA and reduces its amount. It changes according to your family situation, according to your income, whether you are single, married or with dependent children.
Established in January 2021, the reform of the APL calculation method modifies the method of calculation of the housing allowance. It now takes into account the income of Rolling last 12 months of the beneficiary, and no longer the income of the penultimate year. In other words, for 2022, we no longer take into account the income of 2019, but of the last 12 months preceding the rental of a new accommodation.
Keep in mind that since the introduction of the withholding tax, all information on your income, your potential status changes are updated every three monthsalmost in real time.
With the APL reform of 2021, a large part of the beneficiaries saw their APL drop quite significantly. As indicated above, the new method of calculation consists in calculating the recipient’s income over the last twelve months, and more over the penultimate year. In fact, 40% of recipients are now seeing their allowance drop.