Your headcount falls 10 %, your SAP invoice doesn't move

Constructed figure, assumptions listed

You reduced headcount by 14 % over two financial years. A plan, departures, unfilled positions, a payroll that genuinely fell.

Your software maintenance invoice, though, is identical to the euro. Nobody found that strange, because that is how it has always worked.

What changed on 9 July 2026

The European Commission made binding, for ten years and worldwide, SAP’s commitment to allow licence termination in five situations. One of them is a headcount reduction.

The wording matters, and it is not the one you read in the summaries. In the event of a headcount reduction of 10 % or more over a two-year period, the customer may reduce 10 % of its licences and the associated maintenance costs.

Two practical consequences. The 10 % threshold is a trigger, not a calculation rate. And the right that opens is capped at 10 % of licences, whatever the actual scale of the fall.

What it is worth

A company that has lost 30 % of its headcount does not drop to 28,000 euros on a 40,000 contract. It drops to 36,000, and the rest of the gap between what it uses and what it pays is a separate discussion, the one about unused licences.

This is not a commercial discount. It is a right whose exercise does not depend on your contact’s goodwill.

The three pieces of evidence to prepare before writing

Headcount over two financial years, with a single definition at both endpoints. Average annual headcount or headcount at closing date, it does not matter, but the same one on both dates. An executive who changes definition mid-demonstration loses the argument.

The inventory of paid licences, by metric and by module, as it appears in the contract. The percentage is calculated on this basis, not on an estimate.

The count of licences actually used. If the gap works in your favour, it strengthens the request. If it works against you, know it before the vendor discovers it.

The calendar, which decides everything

A right is exercised within a window. Identify the expiry date of your maintenance contract and the length of the notice period, and submit the request at least one month before that notice period opens.

Ask for written confirmation that it has been taken into account, with the effective date and the new amount. A verbal agreement in July that does not appear on the January invoice never existed.

If SAP applies the commitment poorly, two remedies exist outside the commercial channel: the internal complaints structure SAP must set up, and the independent monitoring trustee who oversees the commitments’ implementation and reports to the Commission.

The caveats

The scope is SAP software installed at the customer’s premises. The cloud is excluded.

The table’s calculation assumes a uniform maintenance cost per licence. On a fleet with mixed metrics, named users on one side, usage metrics on the other, the result will differ and must be calculated line by line.

And the exact legal wording, published in the case register under number AT.40823, prevails over any summary, including this article.

The sentence to remember

A payroll that falls while the maintenance invoice stays flat signals a contract nobody has reopened since 9 July 2026.

Open in a spreadsheet · The gain from the reduction, as a spreadsheet (677 bytes)

Sources

• Commission accepts binding commitments by SAP to address competition concerns about services for its popular business management software · Commission européenne, 9 July 2026

  Licence: CC BY 4.0 · Communiqué IP/26/1554, affaire AT.40823. Formulation exacte de l'engagement : en cas de réduction d'effectifs de 10 % ou plus sur une période de deux ans, les clients auront la possibilité de réduire 10 % de leurs licences et les coûts de maintenance associés. Réutilisation sous CC BY 4.0 selon la décision 2011/833/UE, avec attribution. Le texte intégral des engagements publié sous AT.40823 prévaut.