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Stock options: how much IRS do you pay?

Stock options are a right to buy shares in your company at a price agreed upfront. When you sell those shares for more, you make a gain — and it is on that gain that you pay IRS (personal income tax). Under the Startups Law regime, that gain is taxed at just 14%, and only when you sell.

A simple example

Your plan lets you buy the shares for €5,000. Later, when you sell, they are worth €50,000. The gain is the difference — €45,000 — and that is the amount the IRS is calculated on.

The price agreed in your plan to keep the shares (the “exercise price”). It is usually low; if you received them without paying anything, enter 0.

If you are actually selling, it is the price you are being paid for the shares. If you are only simulating for now, use an estimate — for example, the price per share in the company’s latest investment round, or a figure the company itself gives you. In a company not listed on a stock exchange there is no public price to look up.

To work out the IRS attributable to this gain:

Salary, rents, other categories. Leave blank if this is your only income.