Hi, I am interested in opening a business in France. What are the very first steps I need to take - the category I would go into is auto-entrepreneur or micro-entrepreneur.
The services I would offer are simple - house cleaning, child minding, dog sitting and mothers aide (assistance with shopping, household tasks).
Where do I start? I am based near Hossegor.
Thank you,
Tilly
These services all sound like they fall into the category of âservice Ă la personneâ.
You can provide these services via the CESU platform, which is a government scheme that gives those who use your services (your âemployersâ) a tax credit (provided they are French taxpayers). It works out cheaper for them more advantageous for you. For example for 1 hourâs work at SMIC (national minimum wage) you would receive 8,66 net, with full employer cotisations paid, and taking the tax credit into account the total cost to your employer would in most cases be 6,90âŹ. As a micro entrepreneur paying your own cotisations you couldnât afford to charge anywhere near as little as 6,90⏠per hour so it would be hard to compete.
So in your case I wouldnât rush into opening a business. Thereâs nothing to stop you if you want to, you can have your own micro entreprise alongside working via CESU, but setting up a business brings certain obligations. Unless you can see advantages that would make it worthwhile, and especially if youâre feeling overwhelmed and confused already at the thought of starting a business, why not keep life simple, start off under CESU and see how it goes?
Sorry - I just looked back at some of your other posts.
It seems youâre not an EU citizen, and that being the case the first step would be to obtain a carte de sĂ©jour that gives you the right to work in France. Without that you wouldnât be able to start the process of setting up a business as you wouldnât get past the ID checks, nor would you be able to work under CESU without a French social security number Iâm afraid.
Isnât that her Catch-22? Without an income stream she wonât be able to get a carte de sĂ©jour, and without a carte de sĂ©jour it will be difficult to set up a business. Life as a non-EU citizen is not very easy. Especially if you are already here as the standard long stay visa must be applied for from your country of residence, and I donât know if having already had a working holiday visa would rule out a further application.
Tilly⊠Havenât you already told us on another thread that you have used up all Visa possibilites ⊠so I rather think you may need to ask your Embassy for advice, in case you end up staying here illegally⊠which doesnât bear thinking about, does it 
It is a bit of a catch-22 but the way out of it is to come up with a convincing business plan. Thatâs how France controls immigration and itâs not an unreasonable ask. Itâs to ensure that immigrants will be able to look after themselves, and preferably be net contributors to France,.
By comparison the requirements for a UK Tier 1 entrepreneur visa makes France look positively welcoming. Australia doesnât exactly make immigration easy either.
Get your thinking cap on Tilly. What skills do you have?
Iâm presuming that when Tillyâs Visa runs out, she will need to go back to Australia (wherever) and apply againâŠ
or doesnât it work like that⊠???
I believe that in some circumstances you can apply for a change of status while youâre here. But I donât know a lot about it and what little I do know is second hand - Brits arenât usually the best people to ask about visas, for obvious reasons. Though it looks like weâll have to get a lot more knowledgeable about them in the future 
Thank you for everyoneâs responses so far. What an incredible group of people willing to help and share their knowledge!!
It is exactly how I feel re. this scenario - the catch 22. The Long Stay Visa is the one I would like to obtain.
I am currently on a Dutch working holiday visa so I have temporary Dutch residency - the fact that I would need to apply in my country of residency wouldnât matter as itâs technically the Netherlands for now. This also means I am âsafeâ, I havenât over stayed anywhere and as I am not working, I am doing no wrong by âholidayingâ in France.
I understand that if the above jobs isnât a strong enough cause for a business - I am sure there are loads of other things I could do. Do places exist in France that help you forecast your business plans? That might be a good start point for thinking outside of the box.
I found a list of required documents for the Long Stay Visa. There are things like the below I donât understandâŠ
Would anyone that has commented previously be willing to have a look at the list and just clarify - where & who would provide what? Or should it all to this thread?
ALSO what about Tour guiding for example? I could quite easily conduct environmental & educational tours in my region for example⊠Would that have more business substance than a the âservice a la personneâ examples I gave in my original post?
The things you quote are for people creating a business ie when they say âlegal personâ they mean a legally recognised entity with financial means, which could for example buy or rent business premises, provide services, pay taxes, employ people, that sort of thing.
The second thing is purely to make sure you have funds.
Do you speak/read/write French? What are you qualified to do, job-wise? We like qualifications in France.
Not sure what youâre asking but a âpersonne moraleâ or a âlegal personâ is a business entity, if that helps at all.
Out of context itâs a bit hard to see what this relates to, but Iâm not sure this is the right bit for you to be looking at if youâre thinking micro entreprise, this sounds like itâs aimed at big corporate investors.
Have you got much business experience, do you know how to write a good business plan? If not, there is plenty of info on the internet or you can buy books. A business plan isnât just about saying what services you will be offering. Itâs about showing that youâve done your market research (gathered facts and statistics and produced a report), youâve identified a market for that service, you have a solid marketing strategy for targeting customers, youâve done realistic projections of turnover and expenses in year 1, year 2, year 3, you have funding in place to launch your business and provide sufficient cashflow until you start making a profit. Thatâs what will be assessed to evaluate how feasible your business proposal is. Tour guiding sounds interesting, so what substance can you give it? Who would your customers be, what booking system would you use, how and where and when would you market the tours, who are your main competitors, would you be positioned more towards the budget end or the upmarket end, what would your USP be? Having a good idea is just the starting point, after that thereâs a lot of work to be done to turn it into a business proposal. The CCI does have business advisors but you might get back into the Catch22 situation there because as a visitor to France Iâm not sure youâd qualify for business advice, CCIs are basically about helping the local business community.
Are you sure about that? I thought working holiday visas were for temporary visits. By definition, being on holiday means that your permanent home, ie your country of residence, is somewhere else.
(Edit - sorry Vero I didnât see your post, I started replying, then I wandered off to get something to eat, then I finished the post and never checked to see if anyone else was still awake and answering!)
That is what I thought too. A working holiday visa doesnât confer residence, it is just a temporary thing.
Exactly that. I have no residency or working rights in France, hence trying to apply for a long-stay visa. I have had all these things previously (when I was on a French working holiday visa -valid 12 months - now expired).
Now I am on a Dutch one (it was one of the closest countries and one that took applications for age) - Any rights I currently hold are just for the Netherlands, I am allowed to physically be in other countries. As I have zero status in France, I am just visiting (again).
Re. the status of residency - you are an official resident of the country to which visa you hold for that period of time stated on your visa. On my French visa, for example, I had enough residency rights to apply for a bank account, carte vitale, even access the chĂŽmage on my temporary rights. Iâve had the same for the UK (access to the NI, tax status, banking rights) and now for the Netherlands⊠Unfortunately!!! When I had my French visa I didnât set myself up properly- bumbling backpacker, loving life on a ski season, backed up by a intoxicated summer coast side!
Hi Tilly,
Throwing this out here as a suggestion - can you set up a business entity in the Netherlands with your current Dutch visa ? That would seem to me to be a possible way in - you could then perhaps use the Dutch legal entity as your legal basis (e.g. Dutch entity sending detached employee to work in France, etc), then decide whether or not to transfer all of your activities over to a French legal entity as a subsidiary of the Dutch entity that you would have created in the meantime. The problem I see with such an approach is that you would still need to make a showing of having sufficient funds to cover all of the payments that would need to be made, including not only your salary, but also private healthcare and the obligatory detached employee state contributions that would be due to the French state. I think really you would need someone well versed in immigration and employment law as it applies to non-EU citizens to help you out here.
Trouble is Alex, working holiday visas are what they are
https://ind.nl/en/exchange/Pages/working-holiday.aspx
they are for a specific purpose, and setting up a business while youâre there does not really fit with that purpose. Yes in a sense you are âan official residentâ of the host country in the sense that the visa gives you temporary rights, but, on the understanding that you will go back home at the end of that time.
Pitting your wits against immigration rules looking for loopholes to explore is a fun mental challenge, but a lot of experience and expertise has gone into writing those rules and theyâre designed to be bomb proof. In the end itâs usually more constructive to spend your time working out how to meet the criteria rather than looking for a way round them, IMHO.
Just to clarify on the detached worker rules - detached workers remain covered by the social security system of the country where their employer is based (ie a posted worker in France doesnât contribute to the French soc sec system); they need a work permit to work in their host country unless they have the automatic right to work there; their detachment is time limited; and the time they spend in the host country doesnât count as legal residence as such (eg. a Brit posted to work in France canât apply for a CdS on the basis of living and working there because by definition he is a UK resident on a temporary posting, covered by the UK social security system and expected to return to the UK at the end of the posting). So in effect the scheme has inbuilt protection against being used to bypass immigration.
The other thing that occurs to me is that even if you have a Dutch visa that allows you to physically be in in other EU states, you canât actually be in France for more than 90 days without a French visa unless you are an EU citizen - which you are not. (And even if you are an EU citizen you are supposed to request one, but up to now this has been ignored).
So you are potentially getting yourself into the sort of muddle which would not be good if picked up by French authorities. Itâs the kind of black mark on your record that could go against you in applying for any sort of French visa.
I know it might sound unlikely, but the French can be draconian about these sorts of thingsâŠtalk to any non-EU immigrant without significant financial resources. If you are âsans papiersâ life is not easy. I hope you at least have adequate health insurance.
âI only hold an Australian passport and am currently here âhanging outâ with thanks to a UK working holiday visa and a temporary residency card for the UK.â
âI am currently on a Dutch working holiday visa so I have temporary Dutch residency - the fact that I would need to apply in my country of residency wouldnât matter as itâs technically the Netherlands for now.â
So which is it? UK or NL?
What qualifications do you have?
What skills do you have that we need in France? We have plenty of baby-sitters, dog-walkers, plant waterers etc.
How will you support yourself? (since none of those jobs seem to me to be a way of earning a living).
Obviously, bureaucracy is the motherâs bane of creativity ;-), unless you happen to be the bureaucrat, I guess.
I was tempted to write âGo home, re-apply from there via the proper immigration channels with all the paperworkâ ;-), but âoff-the-top-of-my-headâ beat me to it.
Thatâll be Merriam Websterâs third definition of âcreativityâ, as in âcreative accountingâ, will it ? 
â3 : managed so as to get around legal or conventional limits
creative financing
also : deceptively arranged so as to conceal or defraud
creative accountingâ
Marketing them to whom? If you want to be doing educational tours in the sense of teaching schoolchildren or students, you have to be qualified and have endorsement from the relevant body.