Photive

Looking for a little advice on registering with the local Greffe.
If I am working different jobs (whatever I can find) will the Auto-Entrepreneur be suffice? Or are several registrations required for each type of employment?
Or is it specific to each department?
Thanks in advance!
Peter

dmu

Hi,
The Greffe (Office of Clerk of the Court) is at the Tribunal, and as far as I know, they don't deal with registering the self-employed.
ET will come along with details as to where you register, but, there again, AFAIK you can't register as a jack-of-all-trades under one Auto-Entrepreneur entity.
Good luck!

EuroTrash

You're not supposed to do anything and everything, you're supposed to decide what you're going to do, register for that and stick to it.
When you register you tell them what your main activity will be (depending what it is you might need to prove your qualifications and take out trade insurance), and you can also request to add a number of subsidiary activities, which again you might need to show your certificates and/or take out insurance, all depends what activity it is.
Whatever kind of work you do, it has to be covered by your registration, so you need to work out what activity codes to list.

It's not like the UK where everyone can be a jack of all trades. Labour laws are a lot tighter here, it's designed to ensure that people only provide services they're qualified to provide and that competition is kept fair. Artisans tend to be protective about their trade and they don't like it if cowboys try to butt into their market.

So to answer your question: one business, and within that business you list all the activities you are aiming to offer.

PS I'm not accusing you of being a cowboy! just explaining what the culture is here.

dmu

But you didn't say WHERE to register as an AE (micro-entreprise or whatever), and where to find the various activity codes....
Good point about qualifications, esp. for such professions as electricians, plumbers, ... where work has to be signed off by a France-registered artisan with professional insurance.

EuroTrash

Online at https://www.lautoentrepreneur.fr/ or https://www.guichet-entreprises.fr/fr/
Or I believe you can register at the CCI and various other business support services (we have a centre formalités d'entreprise at our communauté des communes office for instance, and some mairies have a person from the CCI that holds regular surgeries there), or possibly at URSSAF's own offices. I don't know whether any of these places charge a fee for processing the paperwork or not.

I can't advise on activity codes I'm afraid - back in the day you had to figure out your own code, but from what I hear the online process has got more intuitive and it helps you find your code these days. Failing that there is a list here http://www.union-auto-entrepreneurs....e-code-APE.pdf but if you have the patience to look further down google you might find a searchable list - google code APE or code NAF.

Photive

amazing ET and dmu, i'll have a look at those sites, I'm a qualified biology teacher (PGCE) at the moment, I also do wedding photography in Ireland and am hoping to get into that in France, i'm making contacts and registered with a few of the big destination wedding sites but progress with this will inevitably be slow at first. I teach piano and guitar (have qualifications here too) and have a TEFL course, also have a qualification in digital fabrication and am speaking to leggett immobiler about possibly working through them as a way to get started.
It would be fine if the activities were even slightly related..
I know it's all a bit mad..
For me it's about doing whatever it takes to make it work.. i'm not a cowboy. just slightly confused about the system...Although beginning to understand the culture a little more.

EuroTrash

You're going to make life complicated for yourself, I'm afraid.

You'd need to check the categories of all these activities but I suspect that you'll find some are profession libérale (teaching activities for instance), some are commercial (sellit and leggit), not sure exactly what digital fabrication is - artisan? service? You'd need to keep separate sets of accounts for each category and declare the turnovers separately, because cotisations are calculated differently for each category.
(Although this might change in the future when RSI is fully phased out.)

petitefrancaise

Can I give yet another plug for Valerie Aston? Starting a business in France

EuroTrash

+1.

Signing up with Valérie is an excellent suggestion, especially since I seem to recall that there's a little trap flying in wait for the unwary here, in that if you register mixed prof lib / commercial activities with prof lib as the main activity, you have to pay cotisations at the higher rate on everything. (Your main activity has to be the one you focus on, that has the highest turnover.) So in effect, if your main activity is under the prof lib umbrella, it's hardly worth registering a subsidiary commercial activity because you would be penalising yourself heavily. The system has one or two little quirks like this, which I'm sure Valérie will flag up for you.

Photive

Thanks PetiteFrancaise and ET,
I've had a look at Valéries Site and will make contact with her, I guess at this stage not knowing what the 'main' area that will get the most turnover will make any decisions difficult at this stage, the sites are great, but incredibly complicated to understand fully,
one thing that stand out is the qualifications required for any venture.
must I get all my certificates translated into French? Including birth certs for children etc?
Thanks again for your help with this!
Peter

EuroTrash

Should say "lying in wait", doh

EuroTrash

Probably not. But don't worry, if you don't send translations and they decide they want them, they won't be shy of asking

petitefrancaise

qualified biology teacher (PGCE)
wedding photography
I teach piano and guitar (have qualifications here too)
TEFL course, also have a qualification in digital fabrication
and am speaking to leggett immobiler about possibly working through them as a way to get started

some thoughts...
Biology teacher - in France, Biology is taught in schools as "sciences de la vie et de la terre" and includes chemistry. Not taught as a separate subject. Would you be looking to teach in the english speaking international school or trying to get your french teaching qualifications? Other option would be to find one of those online schools that teach to mainly British expats or home schooled kids. In terms of long term stability for you and your family, having a long term goal to get qualified to teach in french schools might well be your best bet.
TEFL might be the quickest way for you to get work
teaching piano and guitar - is your french good enough to teach to french students?
doing what with the immobilier?

In France, lesson #1 is to prepare, prepare and prepare and only set up your business structure when you absolutely cannot leave it a moment longer. If your french is good enough then the chambre de commerces (CCI) are going to be very good places to go and learn stuff. IIRC you live near Bordeaux? The big one in the city would probably have a good one and maybe, in english. I went on a 5 day how to start a business course in Toulouse which cost about 250 euros and it was brilliant.

Valerie's forum is great, imo the best english language source of information for you in France and for 99 euros a year, certainly the best value.

EuroTrash

+1 to all that.

As you'll have picked up on by now, the nuts and bolts of a business do need to be taken seriously. In the UK, as a self-employed person you can pretty much leave the business side to run itself and be confident that as long as you do plenty work you'll make money, and the busier you are the more profit you can expect to end up with. Here you need to understand how the business side works, take an interest in it and keep an eye on it all the time. Structuring your business so as to maximise the benefits of whatever regime you chose, being selective in what you do and how you do it, making sure you don't keep having to pay fines for declaring late and overlooking things, and generally running a tight ship, is what will keep your business profitable and sustainable. It really is a case of, work smarter not harder.

dmu

Never having studied Biology in the UK, I can't compare, but do know that the subject is very broad here.
Be aware that piano teaching is completely different from the UK. My daughters learned to play with a French teacher, which completely floored me and we couldn't "speak music" until they understood my way.