What is the informal way to say goodbye in French?

Salut or à plus, both familiar and kept for people you call tu.

What does à bientôt mean?

See you soon. It is a goodbye that expects another meeting without fixing the day.

It is neutral: right in a shop and with friends alike.

French · phrasebook

How to say goodbye in French

Goodbye in French is au revoir. It suits every situation, from leaving a shop to ending a meeting. Among friends the familiar salut does the same job, and it is also a way of saying hi.

Aurélien CuvelierSep 19, 2026

au revoir

goodbye

anyone

The ways to say it

au revoir

goodbye

anyone

salut

bye

anyone · familiar

à bientôt

see you soon

anyone

à plus

see you later

anyone · familiar

How to use it

French goodbyes often say when the next meeting is. À bientôt promises it without a date. The first exchange below adds a precise one: goodbye, see you tomorrow. Naming the next time is ordinary politeness, not insistence.

Salut and à plus are familiar. They belong with friends and family, as in the third exchange. With a shopkeeper or someone you call vous, stay with au revoir, the way the second exchange does.

Watch out

Salut means both hi and bye. Only the moment tells you which: said on arrival it greets, said on the way out it takes leave.

In a real conversation

Each exchange is a line and its reply. Greyed letters are written and not pronounced. A tie marks a liaison, with the sound you hear under it. A label under a verb names its tense when it is not the present.

Je rentre à la maison. Au revoir, à demain !I'm going home. Goodbye, see you tomorrow!Au revoir ! Tu m'appelles ce soir ?Goodbye! Are you calling me tonight?

Je vous remercie, madame. Au revoir !Thank you, madam. Goodbye!Au revoir, monsieur. Bonne journée !Goodbye, sir. Have a good day!

Je dois partir, mon bus arrive. À plus !I have to go, my bus is coming. See you!Salut ! Bon week-end !Bye! Have a good weekend!

Questions people ask

What is the informal way to say goodbye in French?: Salut or à plus, both familiar and kept for people you call tu.
What does à bientôt mean?: See you soon. It is a goodbye that expects another meeting without fixing the day.
Is au revoir formal?: It is neutral: right in a shop and with friends alike.

More French phrases

Each one with its tu and vous forms, its register and real exchanges.

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Written by

Aurélien Cuvelier Founder, NuanceDeck

Aurélien Cuvelier builds NuanceDeck: the app, and the verification pipeline behind its dictionary. Every entry is grounded in the official TORFL lexical minimum and a 20,000-word frequency corpus, and every example sentence passes a certification review before it ships.

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