Congrès des Audioprothésistes · 2027

Agoris analysis · updated September 2026

Key takeaways

• The Congrès des Audioprothésistes is the annual gathering of the hearing care profession in France: a two-day congress combining plenary conferences with a trade exhibition of manufacturers, distributors, retail chains and service providers in the hearing sector.
• Next edition: Thursday 11 and Friday 12 March 2027, at the Palais des Congrès de Paris, Porte Maillot. The programme, registration terms, exhibitor list and opening hours are listed as "information to follow" on the official website.
• Organiser: the Syndicat des Audioprothésistes (SDA), a professional trade union previously known as UNSAF. Day-to-day organisation is entrusted to Groupe SPAT SAS, which handles the general commissioning, exhibition sales and logistics.
• Annual frequency. Founded in 1978, the congress reached its 46th edition in March 2026. It was not held in person in 2020 and 2021.
• Report from the 2026 edition (19-20 March): close to 2,000 professionals and institutional figures in attendance, according to the SDA's press release of 9 April 2026.

Who exhibits

Typical profile

The exhibition brings together what a hearing care practice needs to operate: manufacturers of hearing aids and implants, distributors of batteries and accessories, ear moulds and hearing protection, measurement equipment, practice management software, retail chains and buying groups, insurers and lenders, publishers and training bodies. Patient associations and professional organisations also take part.

The 2019 edition's presentation document already described this logic: bringing hearing-sector professionals together around the manufacturers and distributors of hearing aid equipment, accessories and all related products and services.

Notable exhibitors

The official website's Exhibitors and partners page displays "information to follow" for 2027: no exhibitor is yet confirmed for this edition.

To gauge market coverage, the most recent catalogue published in the archives, from 2022, offers a dated snapshot. Its alphabetical index lists 55 exhibitors, including associations and media, among them the manufacturers Cochlear, GN Hearing, MED-EL, Signia, Starkey France, Widex France and Groupe Sonova France, the retail chains Amplifon, Audika, Audio 2000, Audition Conseil, Entendre, Krys Audition, Optical Center and Sonance Audition, as well as Centrale des Audioprothésistes, Dyapason, Cosium, Varta Microbattery and Energizer (Rayovac). There is no guarantee that these companies will be present in 2027.

Visitor quality

Access is restricted to professionals. The published terms for the 2022 edition admitted any hearing aid dispenser, speech and language therapist, ENT doctor, hearing-care student and professional with a direct link to the hearing care field, on production of supporting documents. The 2027 terms are not yet published.

The 2023 statistics, the most recent published by the organiser, break down the visitor mix: 28% independent hearing aid dispensers, 26% employed hearing aid dispensers, 23% hearing-care students, 8% dispensing assistants. ENT doctors, GPs and geriatricians, opticians and speech and language therapists each account for less than 2%. The audience is therefore highly homogeneous: for a supplier in the sector, almost every visitor is a potential prescriber or buyer.

The share of students, stable between 22% and 23% of visitors from 2019 to 2023, also makes the congress a recruitment venue.

Programme & community

Conference programme

The 2027 programme is not published. The 2026 programme shows the congress's usual structure, spanning health policy and clinical practice.

The first morning is devoted to the SDA's round tables. In 2026, one reviewed the 100% Santé scheme five years after it came into force, with a representative from the Caisse nationale d'Assurance maladie (France's national health insurance fund) among the panellists; the other covered compensating hearing loss as part of healthy ageing, with MP François Gernigon, who opened the congress. The afternoon covered the 100% Santé nomenclature, fitting outside dispensing centres, business referral partners and teleconsultation.

Friday 2026 alternated between updates from professional organisations (FNEA, BUCODES), market forecasts to 2030, testing in noise, then a half-day organised by the Société Scientifique d'Audioprothèse on guidelines, clinical reporting and the production of clinical evidence. A separate room, the assistants' room, offered a programme dedicated to hearing-care assistants: training, their place in the workforce, practice software, Auracast.

CPD training sessions, run by Audioforméa and Next Step Academy, and recruitment sessions hosted by the FNEA within the exhibition rounded out the 2026 edition. The corresponding pages display "information to follow" for 2027.

Awards

The congress rewards exhibitors for their stands. The 2026 programme scheduled a "stand awards ceremony" to close the Thursday. The 2022 catalogue specified that three awards are given based on several criteria: compliance with build rules, innovative materials, originality of the project and staging.

Community & networks

The congress is the flagship event of the profession's representative union, which describes itself as the professional body representing France's 5,100 hearing aid dispensers. Its board meets during the congress, and the 2026 edition closed with the election of Stéphane Gallégo to the presidency of the SDA.

Around the union gravitate the players featured in the 2026 programme: the Fédération nationale des étudiants en audioprothèse (FNEA, the national federation of hearing-care students), BUCODES, the Société Scientifique d'Audioprothèse, SNITEM, and the training bodies Audioforméa and Next Step Academy.

The congress's press relations are handled by Ortus Santé. The congress is present on LinkedIn and Instagram, and a mobile app is offered to attendees.

On site: what you need to know

The congress is held at the Palais des Congrès de Paris, 2 place de la Porte Maillot, in the 17th arrondissement. The exhibition occupies the exhibition hall, conferences the plenary room, and training sessions and workshops the adjoining rooms.

By public transport: metro line 1, Porte Maillot station; RER C, Neuilly-Porte Maillot station; buses 43, 73, 82, 244 and PC. The official website states around 23 minutes from Gare de Lyon, 25 from Gare de l'Est, 27 from Gare du Nord and 32 from Montparnasse, as well as 25 minutes from Charles de Gaulle airport and 30 from Orly. By car, the organiser recommends using public transport because of roadworks at Porte Maillot.

The 2027 opening hours, accommodation and preferential Air France and KLM fares are listed as to follow on the official website. As a benchmark, entry to visit the exhibition was paid on site in 2022: €50 including tax at the standard rate, €20 including tax for students.

How much it costs to exhibit

Preparing your visit

For the exhibitor

• Contact Groupe SPAT's sales team early; the relevant contacts are listed on the Organising committee page.
• Aim for a speaking slot or session sponsorship: as visitors are almost entirely hearing aid dispensers and students, speaking to the audience reaches the target directly.
• Invest in stand design: the stand awards are a visibility moment specific to this congress.
• Bring HR profiles to the stand: the recruitment sessions and strong student presence make it a hiring event for retail chains and laboratories.

For the decision-making visitor

• Watch for pre-registration to open, listed as to follow on the homepage.
• Book CPD training sessions early: in 2026, places were limited and booking was required.
• Follow the opening round tables, where the profession's regulatory and contractual developments are discussed.
• Watch the videos from the 2023 to 2026 editions, available online, to gauge the standard of the sessions.

CSR policy & initiatives

The congress website has no section devoted to the environment or to CSR, and the Syndicat des Audioprothésistes does not publish a sustainability policy specific to the event. The congress reports no ISO 20121 certification.

The operator, Groupe SPAT, publishes a sustainability charter. In it, the group commits to limiting the environmental footprint of its activities, developing as a responsible player in the events industry, and producing a regular report sharing its significant results. No figures specific to the Congrès des Audioprothésistes are published.

The venue provides a documented guarantee: Viparis, operator of the Palais des Congrès de Paris, describes itself as the world's leading events operator to be ISO 20121 certified across all its sites and its entire activity, under a sustainability strategy called Better Events.

How the trade show has evolved

Trajectory analysis

Attendance is remarkably stable. The organiser's statistics count 2,362 unique visitors in 2019, 1,990 in 2022 and 2,104 in 2023, excluding exhibitors and organisers; the 2026 report announces close to 2,000 professionals and institutional figures. The scopes are not strictly identical from one source to another, but the order of magnitude does not move: the congress reaches a significant share of a profession that numbers around 5,100 hearing aid dispensers, according to the SDA.

The format itself has tightened. The 2019 statistics show that in 2016 and 2017 the congress still ran a third day, with low attendance; since 2018, it has run over two days. After the two pandemic years, the 2022 edition was held on a Friday and Saturday, as in 2019; since 2023, the congress has shifted to Thursday and Friday, on weekdays, bringing it closer to a working event than a weekend outing.

The content follows the profession's policy agenda: reform of the 100% Santé scheme, relations with health insurance bodies and top-up insurers, and sector regulation. In 2026, the growth of a scientific programme led by the Société Scientifique d'Audioprothèse and of a room dedicated to assistants signals a congress opening up to all the professions within a hearing care practice.

Dates for the 2028 edition were not announced at the time of writing.

All data not attributed to a source comes from the organiser's website.

Unless otherwise stated, all factual data in this listing comes from the organiser's official website (congresdesaudios.org).