If you’d like to work independently or start a business in France, or you’ve an idea of starting an individual project beside your regular job, you've to register yourself as a Micro-entrepreneur.

In the beginning, in 2009, the status was designated as ‘Auto-entrepreneur’ to allow people with low paying jobs to supplement their income by providing services to individuals or companies, with the exception of certain regulated activities.

In 2016, the two legal statuses, Auto-entrepreneur and Micro-enterprise, were merged into a single status 'Micro-Entrepreneur' to facilitate stronger economic activities.

The benefits of Micro-entrepreneur status :

1. Social charges to be paid as a percentage of revenue depending on the line of work. For example, if you work as a food delivery partner, you've to pay 22.10% of your income to URSSAF. It is12.30% for sale of goods.

2. Exempt from Value added Tax (TVA) on a turnover limit of 36,800€ for services, and 91,900€ for the sale of goods

Micro-entrepreneur status is not appropriate for all lines of work, such as artistic or a regulated profession. Before registration make sure whether your professional activity complies with the law. In case of doubt, talk to a competent person or write to us.

Attention: Salaried resident card holders (Titre de séjour -salarié) are not entitled to open micro-entrepreneur account.

Please note that the INPI registration system sometimes confuses a 4-year subsidiary protection card with a multi-annual salary card. In this case, your application may be rejected initially. 

Students holding nationality of one of the twenty-eight countries of the EU and Algeria can become a micro-entrepreneur. The only condition is that  the address of his/her micro-enterprise should be in France. But this is not possible for students from other countries. They need to change status.  Those who want to give up their student residence permit and apply for a temporary professional residence permit, to validate the change of status, they will need to justify a viable project and provide all the documents in this regard to the prefecture (projections over three years, business plan, etc.).

NOTE: Support for business creators and takeovers (ACRE) is a contribution reduction scheme designed to encourage the creation and takeover of businesses. Currently, for food delivery services, you have to pay 11% of your income to URSSAF after the reduction for the first three quarters of the working year, after which the contribution rate will increase in instalments to the normal rate.

• Job seeker receiving unemployment benefits
• Job seeker registered with Pôle Emploi (Work office) for 6 months during the period of last 18 months who is not receiving unemployment benefits
• Recipient of Revenu de Solidarité Active (RSA) or Allocation de Solidarité Spécifique (ASS)
• Young people between 18 and 25 years old
• A person under 30 years who does not receive unemployment benefits (insufficient employment period to qualify) or person under 30 years of age who is recognized as disabled
• An employee who is dismissed from a company in safeguard, in recovery or in judicial liquidation takes over the activity of the company
• A person who has signed a business project support contract (mentioned in article L. 127-1 of the French Commercial Code), provided that he or she meets one of the 6 conditions listed above on the date of signing this contract
• Person creating a company located in a priority district of the city policy (QPPV)
• Recipient of the shared child education benefit (PrePare)

Additional conditions to benefit from the ACRE :

• Not having benefited from it during the previous 3 years
• Have complied with a waiting period of one calendar year in case of resumption of activity

Important information:
If you are considered to be under one of the above conditions, you must submit a certificate to that effect to apply for ACRE. This request must be made within 45 days following the date of publication of the K-Bis.

As it is mentioned above, micro-entrepreneurs are exempt from Value added Tax (TVA) on a turnover limit of 36,800€ for services, and 91,900€ for the sale of goods

But note that under the micro-enterprise scheme, maximum turnover ceiling is set at 77,700€ for services falling into the industrial and commercial profits (BIC) or non-commercial profits (BNC) categories.

Sales of goods, sales for consumption on the premises and the provision of accommodation cannot exceed the maximum turnover limit of 188,700€.

If your revenues are higher than the abovementioned slabs, you are obliged to move your business to a different legal structure, such as an individual enterprise (EI) or a limited company (SASU, SAS, SARL or EURL).

If you don’t want to start working after opening your micro-enterprise, it will remain active for around two years. On the other hand, even if you do not work, you must declare quarterly income to URSSAF mentioning ‘0’ . If you don’t do that, you may have to pay fines in the future.

If you decide not continuing your micro-entreprise activities, it would be better for you to close the account to avoid administrative formalities related to it.

Being a micro-entrepreneur, you've to pay the CFE at the end of the year, except in the following cases:

• If you are in your first year of activity, for example, you've started working in 2021, you will not pay CFE in 2021, but in 2022.
• If your annual turnover is less than €5,000 (even after the first year of activity)

In this case you will receive an email from the Income Tax Office (impôts.gouv.fr) instructing you to open a professional account. You can pay CFE through that account.