You’ve decided to move to France and freelance or start a small business. The bad news is that because you are non-European, you need to apply for a business visa: visa profession liberale, visa talent or carte de sejour profession liberale / entrepreneur from the UK.
You’re doing your best to prepare your business visa application, but you are wondering what could lead to your visa application being rejected.
In this article, I’m sharing the 6 most common mistakes people make in their business visa application for France, which can lead to a visa rejection.
Mistake #1 - Applying for a regulated activity without realising
This is an easy mistake if you've never lived in France, as you don’t know French rules. I’m afraid some activities are regulated and you have to abide by those rules if you don’t want a NON from the French Embassy.
Many manual activities in France are regulated and need a qualification such as CAP/City of Guild, or 3 years of experience as an employee or self-employed for this particular field (with actual proof).
For instance:
- Medical professionals need to be registered with Ordre des Medecins and their qualifications are validated by Agence Régionale de Santé (ARS). This applies to psychiatrists, midwives, doctors or physiotherapists. Medicine douce on the contrary isn’t regulated in France, for instance, aromatherapy, reiki, or ayurveda.
- Insurers, lawyers, accountants and financial markets.
- Regulated manual activities such as carpenter, roofer, tiler, hairdresser, and beautician. If you do want to work in these fields, make sure to dig out your qualifications, get them validated by a body called ENIC-NIRAC or dig out your payslips/bookkeeping to prove your experience.
Not only will it impact your ability to get a business visa, but your business registration will also be blocked without them. I have an example of a customer who successfully received a business visa - But has been stuck at the registration stage for 9 months, as his qualification wasn’t validated by ENIC-NIRAC.
You can download my 100 Business ideas to Freelance in France - to double-check if your activity is regulated. I have highlighted those in this PDF.
Mistake #2 - Simplistic business plan
When you write your business plan for your French visa application, think of it as if you were applying for a 30,000€ business loan from a bank.
I’m slightly exaggerating here, but the French Embassy is looking at it like a bank manager. “If I give you the business visa, will you be able to work, make money and be self-sufficient in France?”.
You therefore have to build a proper business plan and not a 3-page slide on Canva or PowerPoint with broad information. Forget automated business plans 100% done with ChatGPT which may be too broad and blurby - write it with your own words and strategy.
Yes, you can use AI, but please keep it for the market analysis or research. You have to decide exactly what you will be selling, to whom, at what price and how you will target your ideal customer.
If we simplify the business plan to the max, it comes back to answering 5 questions: Who, what, when, why and how, but with detailed information and strategy. En Français Qui, Où, Quoi, Comment et Pourquoi?
I know it’s a pain to write a business plan but believe me - by doing so, you are saving yourself some time for your future business. Once you are in France, your strategy will be clear and you are also likely to be able to reuse chunks of your business plan to write content for your website. And recycle it again, when you renew your business visa one year later with your local prefecture!
If writing a business plan feels daunting - Take my 5 days to Freelance in France challenge. I’ve included a 2-page business plan to get you started on the ideas.
Mistakes #3 - No or poor sales projections
A business plan and a financial plan usually go together, like cheese and wine or butter and jam (you can tell that I’m based in Normandy, it’s 100% butter AND jam). The financial plan is the next logical step when we talk about business or business visas.
Yes, you do have to include a 3-year projection for your visa application. It’s daunting for most people, especially if you’ve never made a Financial Plan before.
What you want to show in your financial plan is:
- What do need to get started - i.e. your investment plan? Hopefully, you won’t need too much (laptop, phone, 3 months of cash flow) or you may already have it (French property).
- How much you will make: i.e. projected sales minus running expenses.
Here are the most common mistakes people make with their financial plans or projections:
- Random turnover. What I mean here is “OK, I need to sell 30KE, so I’ll just take that.” Remember that your financial plan is read by someone who thinks like a bank manager. Their first reaction (like mine as a former business advisor to French entrepreneurs) is to say: “OK, what is the average product/service price and how much do they need to sell to make this? Per year or month. Does that sound reachable? Is it realistic with the strategy they’ve shared with me or with their current network or potential customers?
- Being too cautious, to the point of showing a loss. No CHANCE! Show me a PROFIT if you want to come to France! If you make a loss, you either need to increase sales or reduce expenses. What can you do about it? Or maybe even change the business idea altogether!
- Not including business taxes. Social charges will represent a large chunk of your business expenses. Make sure you include the right social charges in your financial plan, based on your chosen legal structure.
Help with My French Business Visa
If your head is starting to spin at this stage or you are starting to think it might be harder than planned - I’m inviting you to look at My French Business Visa Course.
This is my signature course where I’ll work with you to build your French business project.
By joining My French Business Visa Course you get:
- Lifetime access to the course.
- Videos and templates on how to create a business plan + financial plan.
- An overview of the French business types, to choose the best option for you.
- Visa application tutorials to follow for visa profession liberale & visa talents.
- My support for 6 months with 1-to-1 on Zoom.
- We’ll collaborate on what you’ve done and I’ll walk you through the tough bits - Hello financial plan and weird application forms.
With My French Business Visa Course you’ll see steady progress, while your project of moving to France becomes a reality week after week.
Mistake #4 - No or low savings
This common mistake is not showing any or enough savings in your business visa application for France.
When I work with my customers, I like to show a double win:
- We are showing that the business will generate enough income to live from. The reference is the French minimum wage called SMIC. Which is at 16,800 net in 2024*. (Make sure you check this amount as it’s updated yearly).
- AND that we have savings too, just in case the business doesn’t do as well as planned. If you can show the SMIC amount or more, great! You also want to show it on a savings account preferably rather than a current account.
Now what if you don’t have any savings?
- Delay your move to France by 6 months, to have more time to save.
- Start a side hustle to boost your savings.
- Start freelancing in your home country to start saving AND show that you’ll have some customers to bring over to France when you move.
You want to have a few signed contracts if your savings are low. Even for your own safety, you want to be moving to France with ease - rather than struggle after a couple of months… Even if that means postponing your move to France, so you have time to save a bit more.
Mistake #5 - Your business set-up is too complex
If you’ve read some of my articles, you’ll know that my motto is the acronym- KISS - Keep it simple. Even - keep it simple stupid.
There is nothing wrong with having a simple business, with a simple business structure. For instance a consultant or coach with a micro entrepreneur. To me, those tend to be the “Easy yes for a profession liberale visa”.
As much as possible, avoid looking at setting up a French incorporated or subsidiary of a foreign business from the start.
Why?
- For many people, there are no real advantages to creating a subsidiary of a foreign business, if your foreign business was just you as an LLC or UK Ltd. It’s just easier to split the two.
- As soon as you mention a French incorporated business (EURL, SARL, SAS, SASU), the French Embassy will expect 1) A copy of your letters of incorporation + KBIS 2) A copy of your working capital in a French bank “apport de capital”. And let me tell you - This is a no-go if you don’t have a foothold in France.
- Lawyers or accountancy firms will charge you thousands of pounds to do this for you. Expect delays too, as this is hard to do.
- This is likely too complex for you as a first-time business owner in France. Why do you make it hard on yourself when you already have so much to do: moving country, settling down with your family, launching a business?
I recommend going for the easy route: start with a micro entrepreneur and trade for one year. Then review your business visa and move up (preferably after you’ve renewed your one-year profession libéral visa for instance).
Mistake #6 - Visa Talents catch 22
This last mistake is specific to those applying for a visa Talent. I know this visa is appealing because it gives you a 4-year stay and your other half also gets a visa for the same length of stay.
I get that for some of you, it makes sense to invest the requested 30,000€. But it is also the visa with the most rejections because it’s technically tougher to do.
I want to warn you of this catch 22, so you have no bad surprises:
- The 30,000€ need to be in a French business bank account - i.e. in France.
- The French Embassy expects an incorporated business and the business needs to be created.
You probably think - Yep, that’s only fair. BUT:
- It’s pretty much unfeasible to open a bank account in France for someone who doesn’t live here yet. It’s worse for American citizens, as our banking system doesn't use the same standards.
- You’ll need a business visa to register an incorporated business!
Now you see what I mean by Catch-22 - we are going in a loop with needing an official business and needing a visa.
I therefore only tend to recommend the visa Talent if:
- You already have a property in France or a personal bank account. And therefore your bank is more likely to help you.
- Your business partner has European citizenship and will therefore facilitate the creation of the business. But again this would need to be a 50-50 split of the shares and this may cause an issue for you (or you might sign an agreement to buy-back some of the shares later on).
- This is the subsidiary of a foreign business and the foreign business would lead the creation of the subsidiary and French bank account. Be ready to show legal documents, loss and profit accounts, and spend a significant amount of money on lawyers and accountants.
Voilà, these were the 6 Common Mistakes in Business Visa Application for France
Hopefully, you haven’t spotted anything wrong with your business project or visa application or you now know what to do and tweak it.
Get in touch for a Power Hour to brainstorm your project and options. Or join My French Business Visa Course to work together on your business visa application
