If you are proposing to run a business activity in France you are required register the business and obtain a registration number, called a 'Siret'.
The rule applies to anyone who is resident in France, irrespective of whether the activity is already registered in another country.
It also applies to non-residents where the business activity is carried out from France.
Landlords of furnished accommodation are also required to use the site to register their activity.
There are several different official business registration centres (Centre de Formalités des Entreprises - CFE), each of whom have their own rules and processes.
Thus, those seeking to register an artisan business would do so through the Chambre de Metiers; a trading business would be registered through the Chambre de Commerce; an agricultural business through the Chambre d’agriculture and one of the ‘liberal’ professions through URSSAF, the social security contributions collection agency. Sales agents needed to register through the local commercial court, the Tribunal de Commerce.
To compound the complexity there is also a generic registration portal called Guichet Entreprises (GE), but not all of the registration bodies have IT systems that permit them to receive and process applications from GE. Some are simply unwilling to do so.
From 1st January 2023 that is all to be wiped away under a new single registration portal run by the Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI).
The new portal can be found at E-Procédures. The service is already operational, with all applications to GE now being automatically transferred to it.
The portal must be used irrespective of the type of legal structure to be used for the business, whether micro-entrepreneur or limited liability company (SARL etc)
In addition to new business registrations, the website must also be used for any changes to your circumstances, such as your legal status, address, business activity, or termination of your activity. It will no longer be possible to make a manual application to any of the existing business registration centres.
Your application will continue to be considered by the relevant chambre, but processing of the application will take place through the website.
What remains unclear is just whether all the CFEs are set up to comply, as they will still need to process and make the decision on the applications, and whether greater consistency in the treatment of applications will emerge. We doubt it.
There is a reasonable English-language version of the on-line application form and instructions, although the system assumes that you have some familiarity with French tax and business lexicon.
In assisting several readers with their registrations, we also encountered numerous technical failures with the system, which in one case completely deleted an application that had been prepared! In other cases, foreign addresses were not accepted, and documents requested that were not relevant to the application.
We also found that the templates of certain forms to be completed are not provided and need to be sourced from other websites and that the system did not always flag up all of the documents needed; we later received requests to submit additional documentation, presumably at the instigation of the CFE. Neither does there appear to be an e-mail confirmation of submission or status, so it is necessary to go back to the website to check on the progress.
The portal is definitely 'work-in-progress'.
Nevertheless, if you do get into difficulties there is a telephone help-line that you can reach from the application page, which, after a delay, does actually respond to a telephone call for assistance. It is also possible to submit a written enquiry.
The system does retain the information submitted in a draft form, so it is possible to start the application and come back to it later to add documents, amend or complete new fields.
UPDATE: In February 2023 the government announced that due to continuing problems with the new portal, the previous registration arrangements remained in place, at least for the time being, including paper submissions.
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