Working as a solo entrepreneur in France.

Over the past 15 years, France has been making it easier to run your own business. Not only has the country been expanding the choice of passeports and work visas for those of us from abroad, but the government has also been investing to make administration a lot simpler for the nation’s small businesses, artists, artisans and freelancers. And among the most popular changes has been the introduction of a reporting system for solo entrepreneurs. If you have a work visa, here is how to take advantage of France’s freelancing-friendly rules.

Are you a micro-entreprise?

The new status of micro-entreprise (in English, “micro-business”) came into being in 2009, originally as auto-entrepreneur. The idea was to provide an inexpensive streamlined processes for reporting your income without the hassle and cost of registering a formal business structure. As you can imagine, this idea works well for a whole host of freelancers, artists, authors, artisans and people just trying to earn a little extra income. You can use the micro-entreprise régime as long as you are on your own (employees or business partners necessitate a formal business structure) and as long as your  annual turnover is below the threshhold. Right now those threshholds are €77,000 if you are are providing professional services and €188,700 if you are selling goods.

What does it mean in practice?

The micro-entreprise régime is based on your business turnover. This simply refers to the amount of sales or service income you receive before you deduct any costs or expenses of the business. And that is significant because one of the most important components of the micro-entreprise régime is that you will not need to do any traditional bookkeeping. The law requires only that you keep a copy of your business receipts and a record of all of the invoices and payments made by your clients in case you are ever audited. From the amount of your reported turnover, the tax office will take an automatic 34%, 50% or 71% off the top (the figure depends on the type of business activity). They will then calculate for you the taxes and social charges based only on the rest. Thankfully for those of us from the U.S., the micro-entreprise is also exempt from the TVA (value-added tax) system.

Registration for small business and freelancers in France has also been simplified (at least theoretically). Beginning on January 1, 2023, the government site for registering business trademarks, INPI, became the guichet unique (“single portal”). Despite a very rocky launch, the site now seems to be functioning. It allows you to do every type of filing related to your business activity – starting with the first registration – from one spot. The portal automatically passes on your necessary information to the assortment of French government agencies that handle different aspects of economic life in the country. All of this means that, once you create your account at INPI and register your business activity, you should have just one place to keep everything going.

What you should look for…

As you get started, you should note that you have some options on how your estimated taxes are paid, including whether you want social charges and income taxes to be paid at a flat rate. Taxes are also all paid online. And you will be invited to use something called a PEIRL form to list all the equipment and resources you use in your business activities. Thanks to some recent changes, this simple form creates a separation between your business activity and personal resources to give you some legal liability protection.

Is the micro-entreprise régime right for you?

Not surprisingly, the auto-entrepreneur business status has been resoundingly popular in France. According to François Hurel, Président of the union of auto-entrepreneurs, France sees 3,500 new micro-entrepreneur businesses registered every day, with about 3 million auto-entrepreneurs in total. Of these, about 30% are commercial or artisanal businesses. The rest are in the French category of “professions libérales,” a catch-all for everything from lawyers to translators to wellness coaches.

Of course, French business law still offers a variety of formal business structures that might work better for you if you anticipate having higher turnover, if you have business partners or if you plan to grow. But if the micro-entrepreneur régime looks right for you, start with this page from Bercy, the French Ministry of Economy and Finance: https://www.economie.gouv.fr/cedef/micro-entrepreneur-auto-entrepreneur. When you are ready to register, you can find the guichet unique here: https://www.inpi.fr/acces-au-guichet-unique.

As always, let us know in the comments if you have questions.