$500 idea · Pattern break · France · Edition 002
The French state prices a phone number at €0.02 a year.
Arcep’s published numbering tax schedule, resting on article L.44 II of the Code des postes et des communications électroniques and the arrêté du 6 août 2007 that fixed the coefficient at €0.020, charges a holder « nombre de numéros attribués dans le bloc × 0,02 € » per calendar year. Numbering decision 2018-0881 says resources « sont gérées techniquement par blocs de 10 000 numéros ». So one block — ten thousand French telephone numbers — costs €200 a year. Peoplefone’s published French price list rents one of those numbers back at €0.80 HT a month, €9.60 a year. The same resource, 480× apart.
Starting capital this week is €447.35 [$500], at the European Central Bank euro reference rate of EUR 1 = USD 1.1177 published for 7 October 2026. The target, about $5,000 a month, is €4,473 a month or €53,682 a year. Evidence figures below stay in the currency their source states them in; only the derived rows convert, and they show the rate.
The reason the gap exists is not that numbers are cheap to make. It is that the plan de numérotation rations them by paperwork rather than by price. Decision 2018-0881 excludes applicants on one ground only — « sont inéligibles à l’attribution de ressources en numérotation, les acteurs qui ne se sont pas acquittés des taxes » — which is a tax-compliance test, not a balance-sheet test. No minimum capital appears anywhere in the schedule. The people on the other side of the trade are the resellers, who buy the resource at the administered price and sell it at the market one, and whose margin is protected by the fact that almost nobody files the form.
The evidence
8 findingsThe whole schedule is one coefficient of €0.020, multiplied
Arcep’s tax page, updated 9 July 2026, states that L.44 II makes an attribution carry « le versement d’une taxe due par année civile » [payment of a tax owed per calendar year] and that the arrêté du 6 août 2007 « a fixé la valeur du coefficient à 0,020 euros » [fixed the value of the coefficient at €0.020]. A standard ten-digit block is taxed at « nombre de numéros attribués dans le bloc × 0,02 € »; an extended thirteen- or fourteen-digit block at × €0.002. Arcep, taxes de numérotation.
Resources move in blocks of 10,000, and the only stated bar is unpaid tax
The national numbering plan provides that resources « sont gérées techniquement par blocs de 10 000 numéros » [are technically managed in blocks of 10,000 numbers], with sub-blocks of 1,000 contiguous numbers where needed, and that a national geographic footprint means a block « dans chacune des 412 zones de numérotation élémentaire (ZNE) nationales » [in each of the 412 national elementary numbering zones]. Eligibility: « sont inéligibles à l’attribution de ressources en numérotation, les acteurs qui ne se sont pas acquittés des taxes » [actors who have not paid their taxes are ineligible for the attribution of numbering resources]. The holder must « utiliser de manière effective une ressource attribuée dans un délai d’un an » [make effective use of an attributed resource within one year], and a further block is opened only once availability in the existing one falls below 20%. Décision 2018-0881 · JORF.
One four-digit short number is priced at €40,000 — exactly two million ordinary numbers
The same schedule charges €40,000 a year for a 118 XYZ, a 10XY special number, a 3BPQ short number or a 16XY prefix, and €400,000 for a one-digit prefix, because the tax for a short number is « 2 000 000 fois ce coefficient » [2,000,000 times that coefficient] and for a one-digit prefix 20,000,000 times it. The regulator has therefore written down, in its own arithmetic, that one memorable four-digit number is worth two million ten-digit ones. That is the tier a small holder must not step onto.
The retail side of the same resource is €0.80 HT per number per month
Published French price list: a geographic number (01–05) at €0.80 HT per month, €0.96 TTC for a private customer; a block of 10 numbers at €8 HT a month and a block of 100 at €80 HT a month — strictly linear, no volume break at all. Porting an existing number costs €10 HT per mandate plus €5 HT per number per month, six times the price of a fresh one. peoplefone, numéros de téléphone français.
A 20-year national allocation was renewed in March to a company nobody has heard of
Décision n° 2026-0516 du 11 mars 2026 renews to Coresystem (SIREN 804 524 544) the premium-rate voice series 08 90 15 1, national coverage, « jusqu’au 11 mars 2046 » [until 11 March 2046], first attributed by decision 2024-0812; the resource « ne peu[t] faire l’objet d’un transfert qu’après accord de l’Autorité » [may only be transferred with the Authority’s agreement]. Three weeks earlier, décision n° 2026-0075 du 12 janvier 2026 struck out VA telecom’s RIO prefix (SIREN 503 924 789), held since 2017, at the company’s own request received 6 January 2026. Resources are handed back as casually as they are handed out. 2026-0516 · 2026-0075.
The holder of that national series employs 1 to 2 people
Coresystem is a SAS (catégorie juridique 5710) registered on 9 September 2014, principal activity 62.02A — conseil en systèmes et logiciels informatiques, not telecommunications — at Immeuble Nice Premier, 455 promenade des Anglais, 06000 Nice, with a workforce band of 1 to 2 employees. A two-person IT consultancy on the Promenade des Anglais holds a national premium-rate numbering series until 2046. Nothing in the attribution tested its size. API Recherche d’entreprises, DINUM.
The two paths cross at 20.8 numbers, and diverge to 480×
Rented path: €0.80 HT × 12 = €9.60 per number per year, so the line runs from (0 numbers, €0) to (300, 300 × €9.60 = €2,880) — the two endpoints plotted. Owned path: 10,000 × €0.02 = €200 a year, flat at every count, so the line is horizontal at €200. Crossing: €200 ÷ €9.60 = 20.83 numbers. At the full block, 10,000 × €9.60 = €96,000 against €200, a ratio of 480×. A national geographic footprint is the one thing that is genuinely expensive: 412 ZNE × 10,000 × €0.02 = €82,400 a year, which is why the move is one zone, not the country.
7,124 numbers at the published price is the whole target
At EUR 1 = USD 1.1177 (ECB euro reference rate, 7 October 2026), USD 1 = EUR 0.894695, so $500 = €447.35 and $5,000 a month = €4,473.47 a month, €53,681.68 a year. Micro-entrepreneur BIC services at 21.2% plus 0.3% CFP leaves 78.5%, so the gross needed is €53,681.68 ÷ 0.785 = €68,384 HT a year. At €9.60 per number per year that is 68,384 ÷ 9.60 = 7,124 numbers, or 71.2% of one block. Check: 7,124 × €0.80 = €5,699.20 a month × 0.785 = €4,473.87 × 1.1177 = $5,000. The block those 7,124 numbers come out of costs €200 a year, which is 44.7% of the stake.
The ladder
From $500 to $5,000 a month · €447 → €4,473Arcep’s published schedule for numbering lists exactly one charge: the annual per-number tax under L.44 II. There is no application fee, no auction, no deposit and no capital requirement anywhere in it. The stake covers a full ten-thousand-number block for a year and leaves €247 for the paperwork.
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Pay the tax, not a licence — there isn’t one
Arcep’s published schedule for numbering lists exactly one charge: the annual per-number tax under L.44 II. There is no application fee, no auction, no deposit and no capital requirement anywhere in it. The stake covers a full ten-thousand-number block for a year and leaves €247 for the paperwork.
€447.35 [$500] · block tax €200/yr · €247.35 left over -
Take one zone, not the country
This is the rung where most of the money is saved. A block is 10,000 numbers inside one zone de numérotation élémentaire, and there are 412 of them. People picture a national footprint and price themselves out before they start; the local block is the same resource at one four-hundred-and-twelfth of the bill.
412 × 10,000 × €0.02 = €82,400/yr national · one ZNE = €200/yr -
Rent the carriage, own the resource
The number is the asset that is administered at €0.02; the routing is a commodity bought from a wholesale carrier at a per-minute or per-channel price, and buying it is not what the schedule taxes. Confusing the two is what makes people believe telecoms needs a switch room. Arcep only requires that the resource be actually used.
« utiliser de manière effective une ressource attribuée dans un délai d’un an » -
Price against the line that is already published
You do not have to guess what a French number is worth; a competitor prints it. €0.80 HT a month, with no volume break at 10 or at 100, and €5 HT a month for a ported number. The gross margin per number per year is the difference between that line and two cents.
€9.60 retail − €0.02 tax = €9.58 per number per year -
Count to twenty-one
Because the block cost is fixed and the rental cost is linear, there is a single crossing point, and it is absurdly early. Below it you should be somebody’s customer. Above it you should be their supplier. Nothing between 21 and 10,000 numbers changes the bill at all.
€200 ÷ €9.60 = 20.8 → the 21st line pays for the block -
Know which ceiling binds, and which tier to stay off
Seven thousand one hundred and twenty-four numbers in service is the target, 71.2% of one block. The constraint that bites first is not Arcep — it is the €83,600 micro-entrepreneur services ceiling, which €68,384 of turnover fills to 81.8%. And the next tier up in the schedule is not a step, it is a cliff: €40,000 for a single four-digit number.
7,124 × €0.80 × 0.785 × 1.1177 = $5,000 a month
Sources
8 primary documents- Arcep — Taxes de numérotation (updated 9 July 2026)
- Décision Arcep n° 2018-0881 du 24 juillet 2018 — plan national de numérotation
- Décision 2018-0881 au Journal officiel (JORFTEXT000037262971)
- Décision Arcep n° 2026-0516 du 11 mars 2026 — Coresystem, série 08 90 15 1
- Décision Arcep n° 2026-0075 du 12 janvier 2026 — VA telecom, retrait du préfixe RIO
- API Recherche d'entreprises (DINUM) — CORESYSTEM, SIREN 804 524 544, read 8 October 2026
- peoplefone — numéros de téléphone français, published FR price list, read 8 October 2026
- ECB euro reference exchange rates — EUR 1 = USD 1.1177, 7 October 2026