Creating a work-integration enterprise (SIAE): EI, ETTI, ACI, AI and conventionnement in 2026

Quick answer. Creating a work-integration enterprise involves three linked decisions: choosing the right type of work-integration structure (EI, ETTI, ACI or AI depending on your activity and target audience), selecting a legal form (association under the 1901 law or commercial company), then signing the conventionnement with the State (DREETS or DDETS) that validates the project and unlocks the aid, including the aide au poste. Without that agreement, no SIAE status and therefore no aid. Work integration through economic activity is governed by articles L5132-1 and following of the labour code.

Running a work-integration project means running two businesses at once: a market activity that must hold its own commercially, and a social mission that structures the support of workers far from employment. The challenge is rarely to justify the project's usefulness; it is to build a legal, conventionnement and accounting architecture that does not contradict itself. In the files we support, the most frequent stumbling blocks come not from the substance, but from the order in which decisions are made.

Work integration through economic activity (IAE) is governed by articles L5132-1 and following of the labour code. The law provides for four structures, and this choice shapes everything else: the relevant legal form, the audience served, the economic model and the type of conventionnement.

The first mistake we see is choosing the legal form before the type of SIAE. It works the other way around: the type of structure flows from your actual activity and from the audience you want to support. Starting with the bylaws means risking having to redo everything once the conventionnement is reviewed.

In practice, the right reflex is to start from your business and from the employment relationship with the pathway workers:

• You sell a market service and directly employ your pathway workers: the EI is the natural route.
• Your business is to place those workers with clients on temporary assignments: the ETTI falls under insertion temping.
• Your activity has a strong social-utility and reinforced-support dimension: the ACI, often run by a non-profit structure, matches that logic.
• You meet short-term needs for a broad pool of users (individuals, associations, local authorities, companies): the AI organises the provision of staff for one-off assignments.

A SIAE can be run by an association under the 1901 law or by a commercial company (SARL, SAS). In practice, the association is common for ACIs and AIs, and the commercial company for EIs and ETTIs, but no rule imposes this pairing.

An important point many people miss: social utility does not require the association form. You can perfectly well pursue an insertion mission as an SAS or a SARL. The choice plays out elsewhere: desired governance, ability to raise funds, how the result is allocated and access to certain financing.

Our reading: weigh three criteria before signing the bylaws.

1. Governance: a commercial company allows tighter decision-making and the entry of investors into the capital; the association rests on a logic of members and a board.
2. Financing: some subsidies and some funds favour one or the other form; at this stage, ESUS approval can tip the balance.
3. Allocation of the result: the association does not distribute profits, the company can remunerate its partners within a framed setting.

Hayot Expertise tip. Choose the legal form to mirror your three-year financing plan, not your initial conviction. A structure targeting bank loans and public contracts is not run like one targeting solidarity savings and impact funds. The same insertion mission can justify an SAS in one case and an association in the other.

Whatever form is chosen, incorporation follows the logic of a conventional business setup, with one extra layer: the corporate purpose and governance must stay consistent with the insertion project you will present to the State.

This is the step that turns a project into a genuine SIAE. Every insertion structure must sign an agreement with the State, through the DREETS at regional level or the DDETS at departmental level. This agreement validates the insertion project, sets the number of positions and unlocks the aid, including the aide au poste.

Without an agreement, no SIAE status, and therefore no aid. Conventionnement is not a late administrative formality: it is the very condition of your economic model. We recommend building the conventionnement file in parallel with the legal incorporation, not afterwards, to avoid launching an activity whose balance depends on aid not yet secured.

In practice, a solid conventionnement file rests on a few structuring elements:

• A legible insertion project: target audience, typical pathway, social and professional support arrangements and employment partners.
• A number of insertion positions consistent with your actual activity and your supervision capacity.
• An activity forecast that articulates market revenue and expected aid.
• An organisation of technical supervision and social support that holds over time.

The financial mechanism that follows, notably the aide au poste, deserves a precise accounting reading from the forecast stage: we cover it in detail in our article on the IAE aide au poste, amounts, conditions and accounting treatment.

ESUS approval (solidarity enterprise of social utility), provided for in article L3332-17-1 of the labour code, unlocks access to solidarity savings and certain dedicated financing. Conventionned SIAEs may be eligible automatically or on request, depending on their form.

We treat it as a financing tool, not a mandatory box. If your project targets solidarity savings funds or impact investors, ESUS becomes a real asset. If it relies mainly on the market and the aide au poste, it may remain secondary at first, with the option of requesting it later once the financing strategy firms up.

A SIAE lives on a mix of market revenue (sales and services) and subsidies (the aide au poste and other financing). This dual engine characterises the sector, and it is also its main piloting fragility.

The underestimated risk: not knowing, during the year, what share of your activity rests on the market and what share rests on subsidy. We stress an accounting system that clearly separates market revenue (account 70) and subsidies (account 74). This separation is not just an accounting requirement: it lets you measure the market coverage rate, a key indicator for any dialogue with the DREETS, funders and your bank.

Useful piloting relies on a few benchmarks tracked from day one:

In a file we supported, a founder had set up an association before stabilising the activity, convinced that social utility required that form. The actual business, selling a market service to client companies with workers employed internally, matched the logic of an insertion enterprise rather than an association designed for support work. The association governance slowed the founder's need for quick decisions and complicated bringing a partner into the capital.

Our view is clear: the legal form is never the starting point, it is the consequence of a trio to settle in order, type of SIAE, financing plan, desired governance. Many difficulties met in the second year stem from choices made too early, before testing the project against conventionnement and the economic model. Reworking the structure once the activity is running costs time, money and sometimes the funders' trust.

The other point of vigilance we systematically raise is cash flow. Market revenue and aid do not arrive on the same rhythm, and an insertion structure can post an acceptable result while running into a cash squeeze. This is precisely where separating accounts 70 and 74, combined with a monthly cash-flow plan, changes how the project is run. On these files, our role aligns with a full accounting and social mission, from bookkeeping and payroll through to financial steering.

• Do not freeze the legal form before qualifying the type of SIAE and the financing plan.
• Do not launch the activity before securing the conventionnement, or you risk basing the balance on aid not yet granted.
• Do not confuse accounting result and cash flow: the timing gap on aid can strain a structure that looks profitable on paper.
• Do not neglect the accounting split between market revenue and subsidies, which conditions all dialogue with funders.
• Do not treat ESUS approval as an obligation: it is a lever to activate according to your financing strategy.

1. Qualify your project: activity, target audience, territory, and from this deduce the type of SIAE (EI, ETTI, ACI or AI).
2. Choose the legal form (association under the 1901 law or commercial company) with governance and financing in mind.
3. Draft the bylaws and incorporate the structure.
4. Prepare the conventionnement file and submit it to the DREETS or the DDETS.
5. Assess the relevance of an ESUS approval according to your financing strategy.
6. Set up accounting that separates market revenue (account 70) from subsidies (account 74).
7. Build a forecast integrating the market-plus-aid mix, with a target coverage rate.

Choosing between EI, ETTI, ACI and AI, arbitrating between association and company, securing the conventionnement and building a legible economic model: these are structural decisions taken upstream. Our firm supports these projects from start to finish; you will find the detail of our sector approach on our dedicated page on the accounting support of work-integration enterprises. This article is for information; a decision specific to your situation requires examining your project, your documents and the law in force.