How to calculate your 507-hour counter as an intermittent du spectacle

Header illustration for the 507-hour article

The 507-hour threshold over 12 months is the key that unlocks your France Travail (formerly Pôle emploi) rights as an intermittent du spectacle. Every entertainment technician (annexe 8) and artist (annexe 10) knows it. But between hours counted as cachets, actual hours, the early review (examen anticipé) and the end of the reference period, it is easy to get lost. This guide sets things straight.

What exactly is the 507-hour counter?

The 507-hour counter is the number of hours of work (declared by your employers as an intermittent du spectacle) that you must accumulate over a reference period of 12 months to open or extend your rights to the intermittent unemployment allowance (ARE, return-to-work allowance).

In practice, at your France Travail review, they look at how many hours you have accumulated over the last 12 months before the review date. If you reach or exceed 507 hours, your rights are renewed for 12 more months of allowance. If you are below, your rights are not renewed (or are renewed on weaker terms).

Which hours count?

All the hours declared by your employers on an AEM (Attestation Employeur Mensuelle, monthly employer attestation), provided that:

The contract is a CDD d’usage (customary fixed-term contract) as an intermittent du spectacle (annexe 8 or annexe 10)
The employer has correctly sent your hours to France Travail Spectacle via the AEM (monthly employer attestation)
The hours are within your 12-month reference period

Watch out: cachets (flat-rate payments per day for annexe 10 artists) are converted into hour equivalents. Since 1 August 2016, France Travail counts 12 hours per cachet, whether it is « isolated » or « grouped » on the AEM. Always check what has been declared on your AEM.

How to calculate manually

The « old school » way to track your 507h:

Collect all your AEMs from the last 12 months (your employers send them to you at the end of each month worked)
For each AEM, note the number of hours declared and the period concerned
Add them up
Compare with 507. If you are below, look at your upcoming shoots and estimate whether you will reach the threshold before your review

It works but it is laborious. Especially since AEMs often arrive late (sometimes 1-2 months after the shoot), and you have to keep a spreadsheet up to date.

The early review: what you need to know

If you reach the 507 hours before the end of your reference period, you can request an early review from France Travail. This is advantageous in two cases:

You racked up a lot of hours quickly (a big feature shoot, for example) and you want to « reset » your reference period to start over on 12 fresh months
You know the next few months will be quiet and you would rather secure your renewal now

The early review is requested directly from your France Travail account. Once approved, your new reference period starts on the review date.

Common pitfalls

Prep and tour hours that are not counted

Some shoots only declare the shooting days and « forget » the prep. If you spent 2 weeks in prep before the shoot, check your AEM: if those hours are not on it, you are losing 80-100 hours.

Cachets forgotten or miscounted

For artists (annexe 10), each cachet is worth 12 hours for the 507-hour counter since 1 August 2016, whether it is « isolated » or « grouped ». The old rule (8 hours for a grouped cachet) no longer applies at France Travail. Above all, check that all your cachets appear on the AEM: one forgotten cachet is 12 hours less.

Undeclared overtime

You worked 12h in one day but the employer only declared 10h on the AEM? It has happened to many. Systematically compare your signed timesheets with the AEMs you receive, and ask for a correction if there is a gap.

Track your 507h automatically

Rather than maintaining an Excel spreadsheet manually, you can use Intermittor, the app developed by a gaffer for entertainment technicians. You enter your timesheets as you go from shoot to shoot (or you import your AEMs as PDFs directly), and the 507-hour counter updates automatically in real time.

The app tells you:

Your total hours accumulated over the last 12 months
How much you still need to reach 507h
Your reference period end date
Whether an early review would be advantageous in your case
A visual calendar of the days worked (and of the quiet periods to make up for)

1-month trial, no bank card required. Your data is synced securely to the cloud, never sold or analysed, exportable and deletable. → Discover Intermittor

Frequently asked questions

What is the 507-hour counter for an intermittent du spectacle?

The 507-hour counter is the number of working hours declared by your employers over a 12-month reference period, required to open or extend your rights to the intermittent unemployment allowance (ARE). At your France Travail review, they look at the hours accumulated over the last 12 months: if you reach or exceed 507 hours, you are renewed for 12 months; below that, your rights are not renewed or are renewed on weaker terms.

Which hours count towards the 507h?

All the hours declared by your employers on an AEM (Attestation Employeur Mensuelle, monthly employer attestation), provided that the contract is an intermittent CDD d’usage (annexe 8 or 10), that the employer has correctly sent the AEM to France Travail Spectacle, and that the hours are within your 12-month reference period. For artists (annexe 10), each cachet is converted into 12 hours since 1 August 2016, whether it is isolated or grouped.

What is the early review for the 507h?

If you reach 507 hours before the end of your reference period, you can request an early review from your France Travail account. Once approved, your new reference period starts on the review date. It is advantageous after a big shoot (to start over on 12 fresh months) or before a quiet period (to secure the renewal).

What happens if I do not have my 507h at the review?

If you are below 507 hours on the review date, your rights are not renewed, or are renewed on weaker terms. Hence the value of tracking your counter continuously and anticipating your upcoming shoots to estimate whether you will reach the threshold in time.

How can I track my 507-hour counter easily?

The manual method consists of collecting all your AEMs from the last 12 months, noting the hours on each one and adding them up to compare with 507. It is laborious because AEMs often arrive 1 to 2 months late. The Intermittor app automates this tracking by importing your AEMs and calculating your progress towards the 507h in real time.

Key takeaways

507h over 12 months to open/renew your intermittent rights
What counts: all the hours declared on AEMs by your employers (annexe 8 or 10)
Early review possible if you reach the 507h before the end of the period
Always check your AEMs (overtime, prep, all cachets declared at 12 h)
Tools like Intermittor automate the tracking to avoid surprises

Sources

Article written by Come Nolo, gaffer / chief lighting technician on film, music video and advertising shoots. See also: Intermittor: the intermittent du spectacle app · Cinecyclop: cinema photometry.

Related guides

Manage all of this automatically with Intermittor: 507-hour counter, timesheets, AEM import and France Travail tracking.

To go further, Intermittor’s intermittence guide covers this topic in detail with up-to-date rules and worked examples: How to calculate your intermittent hours. Complete contents: the intermittence guide.