This paper contributes to the research about the relationship between off-farm employment and public support, by taking the issue upside down: does off-farm employment give an advantage to farms regarding the level of public support? Our hypothesis is that a higher degree of decoupling enables part-time farms to capture more easily direct payments than full-time farms. To test this, we compare the largely decoupled direct payment system in Switzerland in 2004, and the rather production-oriented payment system in France in 2003. Results show that Switzerland’s policy favoured farmers with an off-farm employment, while the French direct payment system had the opposite effect.