loy loy

It will not be financially viable for you to be PAYE in the UK working France I doubt. Your boss will incur huge cotisations and taxes.

I resigned from my UK company, set up a french company and became self employed and invoice my old company monthly.

I would say this would be your easiest and most beneficial way to do it.

EuroTrash

As loy loy says, this is probably going to be your most practical option.

The disadvantages are firstly, that the cotisations you pay as self employed don't entitle you to any unemployment benefit at all and very reduced sick pay.

Secondly, it's the Friday to Monday issue that HMRC have been cracking down on isn't it - leaving on Friday and coming back as a consultant on Monday, to avoid charges. France takes the same view only harsher. However the only time it might be picked up is you were unlucky enough to be picked for a random URSSAF inspection, but if that happened and the inspector found you issue one invoice a month to the same company, you'd be up the creek without a paddle. If it's the kind of work where you can pick up other clients, you can muddy the waters. It's very unlikely this will cause a problem but you do need to be aware of it. Whatever you do, don't invoice for exactly the same amount every month - no freelancer ever earns exactly the same every month and who knows what their systems are designed to flag up

And you'd need to negotiate a fee that will cover your cotisations, because even the 25/26/27 percent or whatever that you will pay as an AE is quite a chop.

I came here having been freelancing in the UK for a long time thinking I could just keep my UK clients and business as usual. I very soon discovered that a 25 per cent drop in disposable income is major and started looking for French clients to replace them with, who were accustomed to paying that bit more. Now I have 2 of my old UK clients left, all the rest are French. I don't think I'd have survived otherwise.

TinaBee

If you are considering Autoentrepreneur as as option, check very carefully as there are turnover limits which may mean it is not a viable option. For other business structures in France the charges are generally a lot higher than the 25/26/27% paid on the AE scheme.

howiet01

Eurotrash, was there not someone on here who set themselves up as an enterprise individuelle (Not AE) and apart from having to pay for an accountant, everything else was ok for them?

dmu

When I was an Sàrl, my côtisations as employer were at least 50% of my declared salary on which I paid the usual côtisations (I've forgotten the percentage) as employee.
Crippling is the best adjective to describe this...
.... but I'm now enjoying a decent Pension!

richarde3

Many thanks for all the info guys - even if it's all a little confusing Seems there's more than one way to skin a cat, I just need to do a lot more reading up. Everything is still a way off yet, so plenty of time to research properly.
Thanks again

EuroTrash

There are various types of entreprise individuelle. Comprehensive info here
7 - Choisir un statut juridique - APCE, agence pour la cr�ation d'entreprises, cr�ation d'entreprise, cr�er sa soci�t�,l'auto-entrepreneur, autoentrepreneur, auto-entrepreneur, auto entrepreneur, lautoentrepreneur, reprendre une entreprise, aides � l, however bear in mind that as of 1 Jan there are various changes going to happen. The idea is to iron out the anomalies between AE and other options, and in fact I think that it will no longer officially be called 'auto entrepreneur' although no doubt people will still call it that.
But as dmu says, if essentially your UK employer is going to keep paying you the same amount as they do now, and that is all you will have coming in, then by the time you've paid all the business costs out of it, you will be left with a small fraction of what you have now. Whichever way you look at it, the problem is that there is a layer of costs in France that as a UK employee you don't have.
If you still have several years to go, anything might happen between now and then, for one thing the cotisation rates will have gone up significantly because that's already been announced, but I think there may be some fairly radical changes besides because a lot of people aren't happy about a lot of things. Keep your finger on the pulse and see what transpires.

loy loy

This could be me, I'm not AE.

I have one UK and it's fine.

And as far as I am aware I would be eligible for unemployment benefit should I need it. And Pension etc just like anyone else.

I pay enough for it!!!!

EuroTrash

You can't assume entitlement to chomage. Normally it's only salariés/employees who are entitled to unemployment benefit. For obvious reasons, since if you run your own business you're not employed in the first place so can't exactly 'lose your job'. It's the same in France and the UK.
Pension yes, everybody gets that if they pay sufficient cotisations.

loy loy

I was under the impression if you have paid into the system for long enough then you are entitled.

dmu

In my Sàrl (in the olden days when Auto-Entrepreneurs hadn't been created), I wasn't entitled to unemployment benefit, as I was the salaried "Gérante" of my own company. OH was in the same boat, as salaried PDG of his (small) professional S.A.
If this weren't the case, any one could start up a company and let it go into liquidation for the purpose of getting dole money....

EuroTrash

No it doesn't work like that.
What you pay in cotisations doesn't all go into one big pot. It's split between lots of different pots, with different percentages allocated to this that and the other - healthcare, training, pension, etc etc. Unless your cotisations include a percentage earmarked for chomage, nothing of what you pay goes into the chomage pot and you have no chomage entitlement. AFAIK, only employees and their employers pay towards chomage.

loy loy

lets hope my works lasts out then!

babyposer

Hi!

I found a temporary job for an english employer and I had to declare myself as an auto entrepreneur so it's not easy!

Good luck.