L'équipe Texto SMS Gratuit
30 September 2026 · 12 min read
Introduction: 11 years old, and a mobile line in their name (almost)
The request usually lands at the start of middle school, framed as self-evident: "everyone else has one." Arcep's surveys on the spread of digital usage confirm it, too: smartphone ownership becomes the majority around ages 11-12 in France, and is close to universal by high school. You give in, you sign up for a €2 plan, you put an old handset in your child's hand, and you consider the matter closed.
Three months later, the bill reads €34.80. In detail: €9 of "out-of-plan data," €6.40 of calls to short codes, €12 of purchases on an app store linked to your payment method, and a €4.99-a-month subscription taken out inside a game. Nobody lied, nobody committed fraud: the plan simply wasn't capped, and the phone wasn't configured.
Equipping a minor in 2026 is no longer just a question of price. It's a three-storey structure: the contract (who signs, who pays, who is liable), the plan (capped or not — and that's the whole issue), and the device (parental controls, now governed by French law). This guide covers all three, in the order in which they cost you money.
Storey 1: legally, the child signs nothing
An unemancipated minor does not have the legal capacity to enter into a phone subscription contract on their own. In practice, in France:
- The account holder is the parent (or legal guardian). Their name is on the contract, their IBAN on the direct debit, their liability for unpaid bills.
- All usage is legally yours. An operator has no obligation to work out who was holding the phone. "It was my son who made that call" is not a valid defence.
- So-called "youth" or "teen" offers are therefore adult contracts with marketing packaging. They provide no additional legal protection whatsoever.
Two practical consequences. First, if you have several children, attach the lines to a multi-line account with the same operator: you get a single bill and, above all, the ability to set caps line by line. Second, be wary of prepaid cards bought by the child themselves at a newsagent: the law requires the subscriber to be identified for any SIM card, including prepaid ones, and a poorly registered card can be deactivated overnight.
Useful benchmark: a contract can be terminated at any time after 12 months if the commitment period is 24 months (Article L224-28 of the French Consumer Code), with at most a quarter of the remaining monthly payments due. For a child's line, a no-commitment plan sidesteps the issue entirely.
Storey 2: capped plans, the only concept that really matters
This is the heart of the problem, and where 90% of nasty surprises happen. Operator jargon keeps the confusion alive. Let's clear it up.
| Type of offer | What happens once the allowance runs out | Out-of-plan risk |
|---|---|---|
| Standard (uncapped) plan | Charged beyond the allowance, per MB and per minute | High, theoretically unlimited |
| Plan with reduced speeds | Internet throttled, not charged | Low on data, real on special-rate calls |
| Capped plan | Data and/or chargeable calls cut off | Almost nil |
| Prepaid card / top-up | No credit, no service | Nil by design |
The trap: most "reduced speed" plans only cap data. Calls to premium-rate numbers, short codes such as SMS services, international calls and calls to special numbers are still charged. A teenager who replies to a text saying "Reply YES for your horoscope" triggers a billable subscription, and the data allowance makes no difference.
The three locks to request explicitly
When you open the line, ask in writing (via your online account or a message to customer service — keep a record):
- A block on premium-rate numbers and SMS+ services (often called "premium services blocking" or "premium SMS/MMS restriction"). Free with all the major operators, rarely enabled by default.
- A block on international calls and roaming outside Europe. Pointless for a middle-schooler, potentially ruinous.
- An out-of-plan spending cap set to €0 if the operator offers one, or failing that an SMS alert as soon as the first euro is exceeded.
Operators are also required to alert you before out-of-plan roaming charges spiral within the European Union (a default threshold of €50 excluding tax, under the European roaming regulation) — but that obligation does not cover domestic out-of-plan usage.
What it actually costs in 2026
The French market has shifted: entry-level plans at €2 for two hours of calls and a few hundred MB remain the benchmark among MVNOs and low-cost brands, while 50 to 100 GB offers hover around €8 to €12 with no commitment. In its annual reviews of the electronic communications market, Arcep reports an average bill of around €15 per month per SIM card, but that average includes premium plans with a subsidised handset.
For a child, the realistic calculation:
| Item | Middle-schooler (11-14) | High-schooler (15-18) |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly plan | €2 to €5 | €7 to €12 |
| Useful data | 2 to 10 GB | 30 to 100 GB |
| Handset amortised over 3 years | €3 to €6/month | €5 to €10/month |
| Protection and accessories | ~€1/month | ~€1/month |
| Realistic annual total | €80 to €150 | €160 to €280 |
Data is the item that explodes in high school, not middle school: at 11, usage is mostly over Wi-Fi at home. Starting small and increasing the allowance later costs far less than the reverse, especially since every operator allows in-house plan changes at no charge.
Storey 3: parental controls, now a legal obligation
This is the structural change of recent years, and it's still poorly understood. The law of 2 March 2022 aimed at strengthening parental control over means of internet access, implemented by decree, requires manufacturers to provide a preinstalled, free parental control feature on devices sold in France, activable during initial setup. It applies to smartphones, tablets and computers, including refurbished ones.
In practice, the first time you switch on a phone bought in France, a step invites you to set up a child profile. Don't skip it: reconfiguring it later often means a full factory reset.
What parental controls can do (and what they can't)
The tools built into mobile operating systems — family accounts on Android, family sharing and screen time on iOS — currently cover:
- Content filtering by age rating on app stores and the built-in browser.
- Parental approval before installing any new app.
- Blocking in-app purchases, the number one source of surprise bills. Absolutely must be enabled, and should be paired with removing any saved payment method from the child's account.
- Time windows: the device locks at night, which settles a good share of arguments without discussion.
- Per-app screen time, more useful than an overall limit.
Their blind spots are real and worth knowing:
- Filtering doesn't work in third-party browsers installed separately, nor always in the browsers embedded in certain apps.
- A child who knows the parental passcode can switch everything off in thirty seconds. That code must be different from the unlock code, and should never be entered in front of them.
- Family location sharing is not a safety device: it shows where the phone is, not where the child is.
- No tool can read encrypted messages in messaging apps. Claiming otherwise is fantasy, and apps that do claim it are often spyware — tightly regulated by law, including between a parent and a minor child.
For guidance, the leading French-language resources are free and solid: the government site jeprotegemonenfant.gouv.fr, the CNIL factsheets on minors' rights and data protection, and the Internet Sans Crainte programme used in schools. Many parents also find a family digital-education guide left lying on the coffee table more effective than a lecture.
The phone itself: new, handed down, or purpose-built?
Three strategies, three profiles.
The family hand-me-down. The best value for money, on one condition: check that the device still receives security updates. A model released six years ago no longer patches its vulnerabilities, and the repairability index — then the durability index — displayed in shops since 2024 gives an idea of the support to expect. Reset it completely before handing it over, otherwise your accounts stay linked.
A recent or refurbished mid-range model. The sensible option for a high-schooler. Budget for a reinforced shockproof case and tempered glass screen protector from day one: a cracked screen is by far the leading unplanned expense on a teenager's line, and a screen repair often costs more than the refurbished phone itself.
The simplified handset, known as a "button phone" or feature phone. Underrated. For a child of 9 to 11 whose real need is "being able to call Dad after football practice," a basic flip phone does the job, lasts a week on one charge, gives access to no social networks and costs under €40. Paired with a €2 plan, it's the cheapest and most peaceful solution on the market. Some models offer a programmable emergency call button.
Two accessories make a genuine day-to-day difference and cost next to nothing: a compact power bank slipped into the school bag (a phone that's dead by 5 p.m. cancels out the whole safety rationale) and, if the child listens to music on public transport, simple wired earphones rather than a wireless pair that gets lost within three weeks.
House rules: the part that prevents arguments
Operators and manufacturers handle the technical side. The rest is negotiated at home, and it's best done before handing over the device — in writing, in three lines stuck on the fridge.
The points that come up consistently in families who have no problems:
- No phone in the bedroom at night. The device charges in the living room. Santé publique France regularly highlights the impact of evening screen use on teenagers' sleep, whose needs are around 8 to 9 hours.
- Parents know the unlock code until an agreed age. This isn't a licence for daily snooping, it's an emergency clause.
- No signing up to a social network without permission. For the record: in France, registering a minor under 15 on a social network requires authorisation from the holder of parental authority (law of 7 July 2023), and the GDPR sets 15 as the age of independent consent to data processing.
- The phone stays off or put away during class. Its use has been banned in primary and middle schools since the 2018 law, with implementation tightening progressively (storage in a locker or pouch) in many schools.
- A rule on what to do if something goes wrong: receiving a threatening message, a request for a photo, an approach from a stranger. The expected response is "I show an adult," and the number 3018 (free, anonymous, the national service against online violence) deserves to be saved in the phone's contacts, just like 112.
The three most expensive mistakes
Leaving the family payment method on the child's account. This is the number one source of three-figure bills. In-app purchases in games are counted in clicks, not in euros perceived. A clean alternative: prepaid app-store gift cards, which physically cap spending and teach budget management.
Believing an "unlimited" plan protects you from everything. Unlimited applies to calls and texts to landlines and mobiles in mainland France. It always excludes premium-rate numbers, short codes, international calls, calls to the French overseas territories depending on the offer, and value-added services. Out-of-plan charges live precisely in those exclusions.
Signing a 24-month commitment to get a "€1" phone. On a child's line, the phone will be broken, lost or outdated before the commitment ends, and you'll pay for both. The maths is almost always unfavourable: add up 24 monthly payments and compare with the outright price of the same model plus 24 months of a no-commitment plan. The gap frequently exceeds €150.
The right combination, by age
| Age | Device | Plan | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8-10 | Basic phone or smartwatch phone | €2, premium-rate blocks enabled | Being reachable |
| 11-13 | Hand-me-down smartphone, up to date | €2-5, capped, 5-10 GB | Parental controls + purchases blocked |
| 14-15 | Refurbished mid-range | €8-10, 40-60 GB | House rules, social networks |
| 16-18 | Teen's choice, financial contribution | €10-12, no commitment | Supervised autonomy, line in their name at 18 |
One final point, often forgotten: plan ahead for adulthood. At 18, transfer the line into your child's name rather than keeping it. The process is free with every operator, preserves the number and its seniority, and spares you from discovering at 22 that you're still paying the plan of someone who has a job.
The real budget for a first phone isn't the price of the plan. It's the sum of the blocks you didn't switch on.
