When the school announces a school trip costing 400 or 500 euros per child, the first reaction is often to seek a payment plan from the institution. It is easy to forget that the CAF offers several schemes that can reduce the bill, provided one knows which ones actually apply to school outings and which ones concern only summer camps.
Child Vacation Aid (AVE) and school trips: what is covered or not
The AVE, a flagship scheme of the CAF for children’s stays, finances trips with accommodation in Vacaf-certified organizations. Its operation is simple: the CAF pays its share directly to the organization, and the family only pays the remaining amount.
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The trap for families hoping to use it for a school trip: the Seine-et-Marne CAF specifies that sea, snow, and discovery classes are explicitly excluded from the AVE. In other words, the majority of trips organized by middle and high schools do not fall under this framework.
The AVE remains useful if your child goes to a camp or mini-camp during school holidays, with a contracted organization. To better understand the financial aids from the CAF for school trips, the distinction between Vacaf stays and school outings organized by the institution is the first filter to apply.
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Amounts vary according to the departmental CAF. In Morbihan, for children aged 6-17 with a family quotient between 0 and 950 euros, the CAF covers 70% of the cost of the stay, capped at 50 euros per day, for a maximum duration of 15 days. Other departments apply different caps and brackets.
Pass’colo: a national aid that can be combined with the AVE
Since 2024, the State has implemented the Pass’colo, an aid of 200 to 350 euros for a stay with accommodation. It targets children aged 11 (or 12 if the aid was not used the previous year), provided that the family quotient is less than or equal to 1,500 euros.
The Pass’colo is paid in third-party payment to the organizer of the stay. Eligible families receive a notification directly in their “My account” space on caf.fr, with no steps to take.
What makes this scheme particularly interesting: it is explicitly combinable with the CAF vacation aids. An 11-year-old going to a Vacaf-contracted camp can therefore benefit from both the AVE and the Pass’colo, which significantly reduces the remaining amount for low-income families.
Why the Pass’colo does not cover a traditional school trip
The Pass’colo finances stays of the summer camp type, not outings organized by a school. If your child’s school offers a language trip to England or a green class, neither the AVE nor the Pass’colo will apply directly.
We thus face a paradox: the most generous CAF aids concern vacations, not school trips in the strict sense. For the latter, one must turn to other levers.
Back-to-school allowance and social funds: the real support for a school trip
The back-to-school allowance (ARS) is automatically paid by the CAF to beneficiary families who meet the income conditions, for children aged 6 to 18. Its amount varies according to the child’s age.
There is nothing preventing the use of the ARS to finance a school trip. In fact, many families do this, setting aside this amount at the start of the school year to anticipate the year’s expenses. The ARS is not earmarked for a specific use: it covers expenses related to education in a broad sense.
The middle and high school social fund
Secondary schools have social funds intended for families in financial difficulty. These funds, managed by the head of the institution after the advice of a committee, can cover all or part of a school trip.
- The application is made directly to the secretariat or social worker of the institution, without going through the CAF.
- Eligibility criteria are set locally: family quotient, number of children in school, cost of the trip.
- The social fund can also cover necessary equipment for the stay (clothing, sports equipment).
Contacting the institution as soon as the trip is announced allows you not to miss the commission deadlines, which often fall several weeks before departure.
CAF family quotient: the criterion that conditions almost everything
Whether for the AVE, the Pass’colo, or the ARS, the family quotient is the common denominator. It is calculated based on the annual resources of the household divided by the number of shares. The CAF updates it each year in January.
Feedback varies on this point: some families notice a discrepancy between the quotient displayed in their account and the one used by the vacation organization. This is normal, as the Vacaf quotient may differ from the CAF quotient depending on local agreements.
- Check your family quotient in the “My account” space of the CAF at the beginning of the year.
- Compare this quotient with the eligibility caps of your departmental CAF (they vary from one department to another).
- Ask the stay organization which quotient it uses to calculate the coverage.
A family quotient just above the cap of an aid does not close all doors. Some CAFs offer complementary aids through their internal social action regulations, which can be consulted in the “My Caf” section on caf.fr.
For a school trip, the combination of ARS plus the social fund of the institution remains the most common arrangement. The AVE and the Pass’colo retain their interest for vacation stays like summer camps, where combining the two can cover almost the entire cost. In both cases, the reflex to have is to check your family quotient as early as January and to contact the institution without waiting for the last trimester.