The Numbers Behind the Quiet Heist

According to the 2026 study by comparator Panorabanques analyzing 99 French banking establishments, account maintenance fees will increase by an average of 5.9% this year alone, jumping from €22.10 to €23.40. While that might seem like small change, the real story lies in the long-term trajectory and the stark disparities between institutions.

La Banque Postale serves as the poster child for this trend. Their fees have surged 90% in just six years, from €13.20 in 2020 to €25.20 today. That’s not inflation, that’s a deliberate pricing strategy. Meanwhile, Crédit Mutuel de Bretagne and BNP Paribas have pushed their fees to €35.88 and €31.20 respectively, positioning themselves at the premium end of what many consumer advocates call a dubious charge.

A Fee That Materialized From Thin Air

Here’s what makes this particularly galling: these fees didn’t exist before 2010. If you dig through banking brochures from the early 2000s, you won’t find any mention of account maintenance charges. Managing a current account was simply part of the basic service banks provided to customers, especially those who already paid for cards, overdrafts, and other services.

The fees began appearing around 2012-2013, coinciding with the European Central Bank’s low-rate environment. Banks claimed they needed to compensate for squeezed margins on loans and other traditional revenue streams. Fair enough, perhaps, until you notice that rates have risen sharply since 2022, yet the fees haven’t disappeared. They’ve increased.

Anna Meylacq, spokesperson for Panorabanques, cuts through the banking spin: “Les banques les justifient en affirmant qu’elles représentent le prix du service de gestion administrative et technique d’un compte bancaire. Mais alors qu’aujourd’hui avec la digitalisation on fait quasiment tout par soi-même depuis son application bancaire, cela peut sembler incohérent.” Translation: Banks claim these fees cover administrative and technical management, but when customers do nearly everything themselves through mobile apps, the justification falls apart.

The Digital Divide: Who Pays and Who Doesn’t

The fee landscape reveals a clear divide between traditional and digital banking models. Banques en ligne (online banks) like Boursobank, Fortuneo, and Hello bank! typically charge zero account maintenance fees. Some traditional institutions have also resisted the trend: Crédit Coopératif, certain Crédit Agricole regional branches, and LCL (for customers who domicile their income there) maintain fee-free policies.

This creates a curious situation where the same banking groups profit from both models. Many online banks are subsidiaries of traditional banking giants. As one industry observer noted, this represents a dual strategy: extract fees from customers who value physical branches while attracting price-sensitive clients with digital, no-fee alternatives. The catch? When problems arise, online bank customers discover that chatbots can’t solve everything, and digital-only relationships have their limits.

How Banks Profit Beyond the Obvious

The maintenance fee is just one piece of a broader profitability puzzle. French banks have become adept at generating revenue through increasingly opaque means. For instance, when you consider how banks profit from government bonds and pass costs to customers, you start seeing a pattern: every customer interaction becomes a potential revenue stream.

Similarly, the proliferation of produits structurés (structured products) sold through assurance-vie (life insurance) contracts demonstrates how banks layer fees onto complex financial instruments that many customers struggle to understand. The €42 billion French savers poured into these products in 2023 highlights this trend of opaque financial products with hidden fees affecting savers.

And when investments go wrong, as with the Stellantis crash exposing risks in structured products, the hidden risks and costs in bank-sold investment products become painfully apparent. Account maintenance fees represent the base layer of this fee pyramid: a charge for simply having an account, before you’ve made a single transaction or investment.

Fighting Back: Your Actual Options

Despite the grim picture, French banking customers aren’t powerless. Several concrete strategies can eliminate or reduce these fees:

• 1. Switch to Online Banking
  The most straightforward solution. If you rarely visit branches and manage most transactions digitally, online banks offer comparable services without the annual levy. The trade-off is reduced face-to-face support, which matters more during complex situations like mortgage applications or fraud disputes.
• 2. Use the Official Government Comparator
  The tarifs-bancaires.gouv.fr platform allows you to compare fees across 150 banks for your specific department and usage profile. It’s objective, comprehensive, and frequently updated, making it an essential tool before any switch.
• 3. Negotiate Package Deals
  Some traditional banks offer forfaits (packages) that bundle account fees with cards, insurance, and other services. These can work out cheaper than à la carte pricing, but only if you actually use all included services. Crunch the numbers carefully, banks design these packages to maximize their revenue, not yours.
• 4. Domicile Your Income
  At banks like LCL, simply having your salary deposited there waives the maintenance fee. It’s a simple condition that many customers already meet, yet banks don’t always advertise this exemption proactively.

Why This Matters for Your Budget

Let’s put this in perspective. A French household with accounts at BNP Paribas (€31.20), a joint account at La Banque Postale (€25.20), and perhaps a student account at another institution could easily pay over €80 annually for the privilege of holding accounts. Over a decade, that’s €800, enough for a small emergency fund or a significant contribution to a Livret A savings account.

The real insult is that these fees hit basic banking access. Unlike optional services like premium cards or overdraft facilities, a current account is essential for modern life, receiving salary, paying bills, accessing credit. Charging standalone fees for account maintenance represents a shift toward pay-to-play banking that disproportionately affects fixed-income retirees and low-income households.

The Bottom Line

French banks have successfully normalized a fee that didn’t exist a generation ago, and they’re steadily increasing it regardless of economic conditions. The justification, covering administrative costs, wears thin when digitalization has reduced those costs dramatically. Meanwhile, the same institutions continue to profit from government bonds and pass costs to customers while selling opaque financial products with hidden fees affecting savers.

The solution requires active consumer behavior: comparison shopping, willingness to switch, and leveraging online tools. For international residents navigating French financial life, understanding these fees is crucial, they’re often buried in French-language brochures and easy to overlook until they appear on your statement.

Your bank account shouldn’t be a source of passive income for your bank. In France’s increasingly fee-heavy banking landscape, silence is expensive.