Reimburse your employees' charging costsno tax risk, no HR friction.
Your company is going electric. Very quickly, a question no one had anticipated lands on your HR department's desk: how do you reimburse home charging? The Spark Plus measures exactly what the company vehicle consumes. Spark Pilot calculates the reimbursement according to your internal policy. HR validates and pays. No rough expense reports, no risk of tax reclassification.
Unlike fuel, home charging doesn't generate a pump receipt.
Sparklin solves this problem end to end. The socket installed at the employee's home measures exactly what is consumed for the company vehicle. The platform calculates the amount to be reimbursed according to the rate set by the company. HR validates and pays. No friction, no disputes, no guesswork.
Managing home-charging costs is today one of the most common blind spots in companies' electric-mobility policies. And it's not for lack of good will: it's simply a topic that traditional expense-management tools were never designed to handle.
Four obstacles every company runs into
Managing home-charging costs is today one of the most common blind spots in companies' electric-mobility policies.
⚖️ A poorly understood legal obligation
Since the LOM (French mobility orientation law) and its implementing decrees, an employer who provides an employee with a company electric vehicle used from home is required to cover the electricity costs related to business travel. This obligation also applies to a personal vehicle used for business purposes, via the electric mileage allowance scheme. Failing to reimburse these costs exposes the company to labour-court and tax risks.
📄 Expense reports that are impossible to verify
How can an employee prove they consumed 47 kWh on business travel last month? They can't. They estimate, round off, and sometimes overstate. HR validates blindly or gets drawn into deadlocked discussions. Some companies apply a fixed monthly flat rate, which is tax-risky if the flat rate doesn't match actual consumption.
🏛️ Uncertain tax and social-security treatment
The reimbursement of home-charging costs is only exempt from social security contributions if it corresponds to documented actual costs. An undocumented flat rate may be reclassified as a benefit in kind subject to contributions. HR and payroll teams often operate in the dark on this topic, with practices that vary from one employee to the next.
📋 A mounting administrative burden
Multiplied across ten, twenty or fifty employees with electric vehicles, the manual processing of charging expense reports quickly becomes a time-consuming task for HR teams, with no added value and a source of recurring errors. Every month, the same sequence: collect the declarations, check them, handle disputes, correct discrepancies. Then start over.
Measurement replaces estimation. Automation replaces manual entry.
Sparklin has designed a solution that eliminates the problem at its root, replacing estimation with legally certified measurement, and manual processing with full automation.
A MID-certified socket installed at each employee's home
The setup relies on installing a Spark Plus socket at the employee's home. This socket incorporates a MID-certified meter (Measuring Instruments Directive), the European standard that guarantees the legal compliance of electricity-consumption measurements. It's the same level of certification as Enedis's Linky meters.
Each charging session is recorded with precision: date, start time, end time, energy consumed in kWh. This data is time-stamped and tamper-proof. It constitutes legal proof of actual consumption, enforceable in the event of a tax audit or a labour-court dispute.
The socket installs onto the existing electrical circuit at the employee's home, with no changes to their installation and no increase to their EDF subscription in the vast majority of cases. Spark Pilot's intelligent load balancing ensures that the power allocated to charging dynamically adapts to the household's overall consumption, with no risk of tripping the breaker.
Automatic calculation of the amount to reimburse
Each month, Spark Pilot aggregates the consumption data from each home socket and automatically calculates the amount to reimburse each employee. The calculation is based on the applicable regulatory rate — the URSSAF reference rate for the electric mileage allowance, or a custom rate defined by the company.
The result is a consolidated reimbursement file, ready to be imported into the company's payroll or expense-management software: employee name, period, kWh consumed, amount to reimburse. No manual entry, no tedious checking, no guesswork.
HR management gains full visibility over the actual charging costs across the entire home fleet, with detailed monthly reports by employee, by vehicle and by period. This data feeds directly into CSR (corporate social responsibility) reporting and total-cost-of-ownership analyses for the electric fleet.
A user experience as simple as an ordinary socket
On the employee's side, the experience is designed to be as simple as possible. They plug their vehicle into their Spark Plus socket just as they would with any socket. Authentication is done via the Sparklin app or an RFID badge. The session starts, and consumption is recorded automatically. The employee has no expense report to fill out and no supporting document to produce. They can easily download their monthly expense report as a PDF and submit it through the usual channels. At the end of the month, the reimbursement appears on their payslip or as a separate transfer, depending on the company's choice.
This simplicity is a strong asset in recruiting and retaining employees. Offering a company electric vehicle with a turnkey home-charging solution removes employees' main barrier to adopting an electric vehicle: the complexity of day-to-day charging.
Guaranteed tax and social-security compliance
The data produced by Spark Pilot constitutes the documentation required by URSSAF and the tax authorities to justify the exemption from social security contributions on charging-cost reimbursements. The amount reimbursed corresponds to measured actual costs, not to an estimated flat rate. This is the necessary and sufficient condition for the reimbursement to be treated as a reimbursement of business expenses — exempt from social security contributions and non-taxable for the employee.
Sparklin supports its corporate clients in bringing their reimbursement policy into compliance, in line with regulatory developments from URSSAF and the French Labour Code on this subject.
A single dashboard for the entire home fleet.
Spark Pilot centralises the supervision of all your fleet's home sockets from a single interface — whatever the number of employees involved, whatever their geographic location.
Centralised multi-employee management
Add or remove employees in a few clicks. Each home socket is linked to a named employee profile, with a complete and exportable session history.
Monthly export ready for payroll
The consolidated reimbursement file is generated automatically every month: name, period, kWh consumed, amount to reimburse according to the rate set by the company.
CSR reporting and carbon footprint
The home fleet's consumption data feeds your CSR (corporate social responsibility) reporting and your carbon footprint. CO₂ avoided per vehicle, per department, per period — exportable into your business tools.
Alerts and remote maintenance
In the event of a fault on a home socket, Spark Pilot detects the incident and automatically alerts your team and our technicians. The vast majority of problems are resolved remotely.
SME · 15 mobile sales reps · Company electric vehicle
Beyond the direct savings on reimbursed costs, the gain in HR time and the elimination of tax risk represent real value that few companies have quantified before switching to Sparklin.
| Indicator | Without Sparklin | With Sparklin |
|---|---|---|
| Reimbursement method | Estimated monthly flat rate, €80/employee | Actual measured consumption (MID-certified) |
| Total monthly charging cost | €1,200 (fixed flat rate) | €590 (actual measured) |
| Tax risk (undocumented flat rate) | High — reclassification possible | None — MID-certified data |
| Monthly HR processing time | ~4h (checking, disputes, corrections) | ~20 min (export-file validation) |
| Sparklin subscription cost | N/A | €75 / month |
| Net monthly saving | ~ €535 / month |
Assumptions: fleet of 15 vehicles — 40,000 km/year/vehicle, 17 kWh/100 km, €0.20/kWh. Actual cost measured by MID = €590/month vs fixed flat rate €1,200/month. The gap varies depending on travel profiles and the home electricity rate.
What the law says — in plain terms
Four regulatory points your HR director (DRH) and finance director (DAF) need to know before choosing a reimbursement method.
⚖️ Reimbursement obligation
Enshrined in law since 2019. Any employer who provides an employee with an electric vehicle used from home is required to cover the electricity costs related to business travel.
✅ Exemption from social security contributions
Conditional on documenting the actual costs. An undocumented flat rate may be reclassified as a benefit in kind, subject to employer and employee social security contributions, and taxable for the employee.
Automated reimbursement calculation
Define your reimbursement policy, with a single reimbursement rate or one per home. Costs are calculated automatically as charging takes place, and your reimbursement policy always stays compliant.
🏠 Home charging station — benefit in kind
Providing a charging station at the employee's home is tax-neutral for them when it is done in the context of a company vehicle — subject to conditions defined by BOFIP (French official tax bulletin).
Frequently asked questions — Employees working from home
The Spark Plus has its own electrical line within the installation, and its meter is built in and MID-certified. As a result, the Spark Plus only measures the energy it delivers to the car.
The vast majority of residential installations are compatible. The Spark Plus runs on a standard 16A circuit, present in almost every home. Our certified IRVE (EV-charging infrastructure) installer partners carry out a preliminary assessment at each home to verify that the existing installation complies with standards and to identify any necessary adjustments.
The employee's access is deactivated within seconds from Spark Pilot, with no physical intervention on the charging station. The socket can also be reassigned to another employee or recovered according to your internal policy.
Yes, completely. The Spark Plus is compatible with all electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles sold in Europe, regardless of how the vehicle is held (LLD long-term lease, LOA lease-to-own, ownership). Consumption tracking is tied to the charging station, not to the vehicle.
Yes. The 2019 Wargon law (known as the "right to plug in") requires owners not to object to the installation of a charging point in the private areas of the home. The employee must notify their landlord by registered letter. Our teams support this administrative process if needed.
Ready to automate the reimbursement of your employees' charging costs?
Our experts configure your solution from A to Z — from installing home sockets and charging stations to setting up your Spark Pilot. Custom quote within 48 hours.