Compulsory changes to the auto-entrepreneur business in France from 1 Jan 2015

By Valérie Aston on 18 January 2015 · Viewed 8975 times · Questions

Back in August last year I highlighted a list of changes possibly coming to auto-entrepreneur businesses in France in January 2015. I can confirm the following changes now apply to auto-entrepreneurs from the 1st January 2015:

  1. Compulsory registration for trading activities and activites commerciales with Registre du Commerce et des Societes (RCS), and artisans with Registre des Metiers (RM). This may represent a cost of 90 euros for trade and 180 euros for artisans. Auto-entrepreneurs already in business in France have one year to comply with this new registration. The deadline is 19 December 2015.
  2. Trading activities and artisans will have to pay a tax called frais to chambre for joining Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie or Chamber de Metiers. This tax is a fixed percentage of the auto-entrepreneurs turnover, i.e. 0.015% for trade and 0.48% for artisans. This new tax should be declared and paid with the auto-entrepreneur turnover declaration.
  3. Artisans must attend a five-day mandatory training course, called Stage Prealable à l’Installation (SPI), with the Chambre de Metier. The course costs about 180 euros and in most cases must be completed before an auto-entrepreneur business can be registered.

Valerie Lemiere: Start Business in France

About the author: Valérie Aston

I've been helping people who want to start or already have a small business set up in France since 2009. After graduating from a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, I worked as a senior marketing consultant in the UK and France for various International companies. I worked as a conseillère en création d'entreprises (senior business advisor) for BGE here in France and run this independent business on a daily basis.