EuroTrash

My bad -I just checked and although the "année blanche" does seem to have been passed as be part of the finance law 2018, apparently it's going to be effective for businesses started in 2019 not 2018.
2019 : année blanche de cotisations sociales pour les créateurs d'entreprise
seems a bit daft, it will encourage start ups in 2019 but I would have thought it would severely discourage them in 2018

What would be the point of having a company if you use portage salarial? You're an employee of the portage salarial company and as an employee you don't have to sign up to any kind of business thing anywhere, it is purely a matter of getting your cotisations paid. Unless you employ staff or rent/own separate business premises, I don't see how owning a business would be useful. It wouldn't invoice clients because the umbrella company normally does that, and it wouldn't pay you your wages because the umbrella company by definition does that. All I can see you gaining from setting up a business, is extra costs and extra hassle.

Unless I'm missing something, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that for a consultant with a relatively high turnover and high expenses, portage salarial would be the most appropriate solution.

dmu

A quick google search for "exonération charges sociales micro-entreprises" gave
https://les-aides.fr/focus/bZVl/les-...ntreprise.html
which goes back to February 2017, but only concerns the first year's exoneration of social charges for newly created "entreprises". As ET says, this is a real incentive, as social charges are more crippling than taxes.
Another result:
https://www.service-public.fr/profes...sdroits/F31048
shows that, if you set up your business in a ZRR, your employer's contributions are exonerated, i.e. you, as employer/employee, would still have to pay the employee's contributions.
Your regional CCI can give up-to-date info if more recent links on micro-entreprises can't be found.

EuroTrash

As well as the ones DMU suggests, the two sites that I use are
Auto Entrepreneur et Micro Entrepreneur - Logiciel GRATUIT de facturation
and
https://www.federation-auto-entrepreneur.fr/

I've signed up for regular email updates from both of them. I think if you have a micro entreprise you really do need a reliable system to make sure you stay up to speed with new obligations and changes to the scheme, otherwise you're liable to miss things. In fact I use the invoicing tool on the myae site so I visit it several times a week in any case, but I still find the email updates useful.

south_bound

Thanks both, we'll spend some time going through these as my wife is starting up her micro entreprise shortly and will need to keep on top of the various rules and regulations. In general it would seem that things are going in the right direction to encourage small businesses by reducing the complexity and costs of doing this - would you agree, or will the reality be very different?

EuroTrash

Micro entreprise can be an excellent scheme as long as it suits your business model, or you can see a way to adapt your business so that it does suit. Of course the downside of its simplicity is that it's inflexible and there are businesses where its disadvantages would outweigh its advantages. Setting up has become a tad more complex and in some cases slightly more expensive now than it was when the scheme was first introduced because there were a few wrinkles and anomalies that had to be straightened out and tightened up, but it's still a very simple scheme as these things go. And as you say, there are encouraging indications that the government intends to reduce the burden for all businesses in the future.

Incidentally I recommend your wife considers myae as an option for her account keeping if she hasn't decided what software to use, it's specially designed for micros so you know your invoices and record keeping is compliant, and I find it a great timesaver.