Paper restaurant vouchers will disappear by “2026”, announces Olivia Grégoire

End clap announced for the paper restaurant ticket. One of the traveling companions of hundreds of thousands of employees, who use them every day to pay for their meals, will disappear, announced this Monday morning the Minister Delegate responsible in particular for Consumer Affairs. Objective: to replace this aging object that more and more professionals are refusing with a dematerialized solution.

Since the end of February, restaurateurs and merchants who collect paper restaurant vouchers have had to process them themselves, then send them directly to one of the issuing organizations, such as Edenred, and be reimbursed. A change leading to an overload of work for professionals. Previously, they sent the securities to the Securities Settlement Center, which then took care of the administrative part. More and more of them are therefore no longer accepting these products, which are too complex to manage: “A quarter of restaurants and businesses refuse them,” explained Olivia Grégoire, speaking to Franceinfo, pointing in particular to “steps too heavy. In addition, significant commissions charged make this system unattractive for establishments.

The government will therefore launch the “dematerialization of meal vouchers”, which will soon all have to be in card format or 100% virtual. The executive wants to have completed this transition “before 2026”, promising to support companies which still depend on paper titles. “We will also support employees [...]. “It’s simplifying, making it less expensive for the restaurant owner to take restaurant tickets,” explained the delegate minister.

The executive will therefore discuss with representatives of companies, and in particular SMEs, in order to identify the blocking points. For their part, the giants of the sector are already supporting dematerialization: “It is clear that since the launch of the meal voucher card and then the dematerialized version, the paper voucher is less popular,” notes Edenred, on its site.

At the same time, the government is also awaiting the results of an investigation by the Competition Authority into the meal voucher market, to determine whether it is “fair”. In the event of proven dysfunction, the government threatens to cap the commissions charged by the organizations, currently set at between 3% and 5%. In the event of a problem, “we will rather cap them on the floor than on the ceiling,” warned Olivia Grégoire. So many points that the nearly five million employees who use these titles on a daily basis will closely examine.