Hi Folks, we would be very grateful for any advice with our current situation.
My wife and I have recently moved to France, a small village called Musculdy in the Pyrenees Atlantique, and purchased a house that will enable us to do a Gite, sleeping 4 - it is attached to the main house - and eventually a couple of rooms B&B in the main house, with the possibility of offering dinners a few nights of the week. We completed the end of August and have had our stuff shipped and have moved in. We want to live here permanently.
Now, the difficulty is trying to ascertain what it is we must do officially, and in what order. We have been given advice from well meaning folk, and read lots on the internet, but they all seem to contradict each other!
We went to our local Marie and introduced ourselves and they tooka copy of our house purchase documents and said that was all we needed to give them.We were told that we had to get Carte de Sejour, asked about this and were told we had to go to the Prefacture in Pau to do this. We went, and eventually saw a lady who spoke at 90 miles an hour told us we needed a load of info, including proof of funds to survive. We tried to tell her we are not retired and do not intend to be so for a long time, but intend to set up our Gite, bb business and make our living from that.
We came away frightened and confused! We were then told we had to apple for Carte Vitale, but needed to go to our local Assurance de Maladie in Mauléon. A very nice lady tried to help us but I think she wasn’t very sure of what to do, but told us we can’t do anything until we have been in residence for at least 3 months. Again we came away with forms we are not sure what to do with! We then read up about Micro Entreprenuer after being told this is what we should do, and as far as I can see from the info I’ve read it looks the most suitable. It also says that this is what you should do first and that there are online applications and once you’ve done that we will be sent our Carte Vitale by the authorities, thus avoiding any need for a separate application?!
So, our dilemma is what to do and in what order! Can anyone help or has anyone in similar circumstances been through the same process?
We would be grateful for any advice!,
Many thanks.
Andrew.
Did the Mairie give you anything to show you that you had registered as resident in the commune ? That would be a minimum start, and you could at least then add that to your respective dossiers for applying for a resident’s card and a Carte Vitale when the time comes.
As a first though, yes, register yourselves with either the URSSAF, or your local Chamber of Commerce, depending on what kind of professional activity you see yourselves as doing. From what you say, if micro-entrepreneur is the best fit for what you intend to do, then you will need to declare it with either the URSSAF or the local chamber of commerce. Unfortunately, I don’t know which one as it depends on the specifics, see for example, the following link.
Once you’ve been resident for 3 months you should be able to apply for a Carte Vitale.
Applying for a Carte de SĂ©jour is slow and painstaking, in terms of the required documentation, especially given the current situation with regards to Brexit, where uncertainty is causing some Prefectures to go slow (even slower than usual) on processing new applications.
There’s a new website with a wealth of information you can look at which might give you some of the help/answers you require.
Just to clarify - workers don’t have to wait 3 months in limbo. Workers are classed as resident from the time they start correctly exercising freedom of movement as workers, and their social security cover starts on the start of their employment contract or the date they started self employment. The 3 months wait only applies to inactifs. So the first thing to clarify is, what your status in France is. From you post you clearly want to be workers in the future but what criteria can you meet right now?
I will just throw into the mix that micro entrepreneur is not a panacea. Firstly, for the purposes of establishing legal residence both of you need a valid status in France. Micro entrepreneur is basically a one person regime, ie it potentially gives one person worker status, it gives one person access to health insurance etc. There are ways to include a spouse on micro entrepreneur but you need to look into it carefully. In the long term if you want to work in partnership ME might not be the best regime to choose.
Secondly, merely setting up a micro entreprise does not automatically give you worker status. as defined by the EU Freedom of Movement directive. In order to exercise freedom of movement as a worker you need to demonstrate that your work in France is “genuine and effective” and not on so small a scale as to be a hobby business. That is the rule that the prefecture applies when considering carte de séjour applications and you would be on dodgy ground applying for a CdS claiming to be exercising FoM as a worker but unable to show any proof of economic activity, ie business accounts, declarations of turnover, evidence of social security contributions paid. In that case you would likely be reclassified as a self supporting inactif who happens to have a hobby business on the side - but then you would need sufficient unearned income to meet the criteria for self supporting inactifs. If you do, that might be the way to go.
There is so much information and advice out there, and yet you seem to have arrived without even a sketch of a plan - what on earth went wrong???
Hi Andrew and welcome to the forum.
First thing is to find a way to communicate with folk.
Do you have any level of French???
If someone speaks fast - you need to be able to say “please slow down” or “please explain again”… whatever may be appropriate… until you DO understand.
With a good French/English dictionary - you can work out short questions you want to ask and what you want to say …
Google Translate (or similar) is very useful. Keep the phrases very short and simple.
To begin with, I went everywhere with pen and notebook and at least 2 small dictionaries… 
I advise you to revisit each Office you have been to and speak with them to clarify whatever they have been advising/saying.
No-one thinks any less of someone who asks for help - and being seen to make some effort to use French will be seen as a good sign.
I’m with Anna on this. You first need to work out what status you are going for, and then follow the right path for that status.
And part of that will depend on when you anticipate getting an income from your business, and how much. If you have only just arrived then I guess you won’t be earning much this year? So it will be next year’s income that will be used - remember the French tax year runs from Jan to Dec. Unless you have something really special a 4 person gîte and a couple of B&B rooms will have to do very well to meet the financial threshold for residency for two people. Have you done your business plan to get a feel for turnover?
And do you have other income to bolster your case for residency?
I would urge you to stop, do some research, and think before you launch off down one path or another. For example, once you fall into URSAFF’s line of sight it will be hard to get away from them if it turns out you are actually a different status. Look here which is a specific page of website Graham liked, which sets it all out clearly
I’ve just done a quick search. There are 40 gîtes within 10km of Musculdy and the average rental is for 2 bed/4 person is 500€ in high season and 300€ in low. A lot are closed between October/November and March/April, which suggest that the tourist demand is not high enough to keep them open. So a possible income would be 10 weeks high season and 10 weeks low, ie 8,000€. From that you have to take off running costs, tourist tax, income tax, social charges, marketing costs, maintenance and replacements etc.
Are you by any chance actually early retired inactifs with another source of income? That would be so much easier!!