My Partner wants to set up a small business, tiling, plastering, and general house maintenance and repairs. Is Micro-Entrepreneur the best route or is their an alternative? We dont plan to earn more than 10,000 a year. Thanks in advance. Fiona
Probably. If he goes for micro entrepreneur he needs to keep overheads and expenses to a minimum, because you pay cotisations and taxes on turnover not on profit, you can’t offset actual expenses. So ideally, he should get his clients to pay for materials so that these costs don’t go through his account and bump his turnover up.
He also needs to find out about insurance. Some activities require trade insurance, some require ten year insurance which can be very pricey. If in doubt his chambre de métiers will explain what the insurance obligations are for each trade (and remember that he has to put his insurance details on all his devis and facures). Again, as a micro, especially with that level of turnover, he needs to be focusing on keeping overheads down, so IMHO he should definitely keep well away from activities that needs decennale insurance, and he should consider how many different trades he wants to insure for. That’s why most French artisans stick to one trade rather than offering lots of trades and having to pay for insurance for each of them, it doesn’t make sense.
Hope this helps.
Could you clarify… is the 10,000 you mention… going to be turnover or profit?
Indeed, it makes a difference!
Artisan activities have a flat rate allowance for expenses of 50% built into the tax calculation, so officially, 10000 turnover=5000 profit (on which you pay a little over 2000 charges), 20000 turnover=10000 profit (on which pay between 4000 and 4500 charges)…
If you want to register as a general builder you need to provide information as to where you worked and what qualifications you have - you cant just set yourself up as a builder. Go to the L’autoentrepreneur website (microentrepreneur) they should have some info on what you need. There is also the Chamber de Metiers - they were great for a friend of ours, full of information. You may need to make an appointment on line though.
Hi Thanks for your question. 10,000 would be turnover.
In that case you really do need to keep expenses and overheads low, otherwise they’ll be a disproportionate percentage.
I seem to remember this came up on another thread a month or two back but I can’t remember which thread, so I thought I’d stick it here because it might be of interest to the OP.
It seems that the online option for the obligatory preparatory course for artisans starting up a micro has now launched, only available in certain départements at the moment but no doubt it will spread: http://spienligne.omendo.com/