Regulated activity: check your obligations before incorporating

Quick answer. Before registering, check whether your activity is regulated, meaning whether it requires a diploma, a qualification, a prior authorisation, an approval, a professional card or compulsory insurance. According to the texts in force in spring 2026, these prerequisites must be checked activity by activity, before filing the application with the single window, failing which the creation may be blocked or carried out unlawfully.

Most founders concentrate their energy on choosing the legal form and drafting the articles of association. That is useful, but it says nothing about a prior and often decisive question: are you entitled to carry out this activity? A significant share of projects involve a regulated activity, access to which is conditional on a diploma, a qualification, an administrative authorisation or insurance.

The problem, in incorporation files, is that this check comes too late. The requirement for an approval or a professional card is discovered once the company is registered, sometimes after incurring costs and signing a lease. We set out here an ordered checking method, from the most structuring to the most technical point, to frame this question before incorporating rather than after.

An activity is regulated when the law or a regulation makes its exercise subject to one or more specific conditions. These conditions do not depend on the legal form: they apply whether you operate as a sole trader, a SASU, a SARL or a SCI.

The conditions of exercise fall into four broad families, which can be cumulative:

1. A condition of diploma or professional qualification (certain crafts, health professions, accountancy).
2. A prior authorisation, an approval or a declaration to an authority (prefecture, regional health agency, sector control authority).
3. A professional card or registration with a professional body, a register or a list (estate agents, legal and accounting professions, health professions).
4. Compulsory insurance, often professional liability cover, provided for by the text specific to the profession.

The difficulty lies in the fact that these families come from scattered texts. No single document lists all regulated activities with their precise conditions. The work therefore consists of qualifying your actual activity, then matching it with the applicable sector texts, as we do alongside our review of the legal obligations of business creation.

The underestimated risk. Many founders reason on the commercial label of their project, not on its real legal nature. Yet it is the activity actually carried out that triggers the regulation. A service presented as "consulting" may, depending on its content, fall under a regulated profession. Checking the exact qualification of the activity before registration avoids building a project on an unlawful basis of exercise.

The first reflex concerns crafts subject to a qualification requirement. Certain craft activities can only be carried out by a qualified person, that is the holder of a diploma or sufficient professional experience, or under the effective supervision of such a person.

This qualification requirement now appears in article L121-1 of the Crafts Code, which is the legal basis in force. Historically, it had been set by article 16 of law no. 96-603 of 5 July 1996, repealed on 1 July 2023 by ordinance no. 2023-208 of 28 March 2023, when crafts law was recodified. The substantive rule, the requirement of a qualification, therefore remains, but its legal basis has changed.

The list of activities concerned, which previously appeared in decree no. 98-246 of 2 April 1998, also repealed on 1 July 2023 by decree no. 2023-500 of 22 June 2023, is now attached to article L121-1 of the Crafts Code, with its terms set out in articles R121-1 and following. The families of activities remain the same, including:

• The maintenance and repair of vehicles and machinery.
• The construction, maintenance and repair of buildings.
• The installation, maintenance and repair of networks and equipment using fluids, gas, heating and electricity.
• Aesthetic care of the person, other than medical and paramedical, and hairdressing.

Our view. For these trades, qualification is not an accessory formality: it conditions the lawfulness of the exercise. Where the director is not personally qualified, the company must secure the effective and permanent supervision of a qualified person for the activity concerned. This point is checked before creation, because it shapes recruitment, organisation and sometimes the project timeline. We systematically include it in our support for artisans and traders.

Beyond qualification, many activities require an administrative authorisation, an approval or a professional card. The logic differs from that of the diploma: it is an act of a third-party authority, which validates access to the profession or the exercise of the activity.

Some structuring examples, according to the texts specific to each profession:

• Estate agents operate under the Hoguet law regime and must hold a professional card issued by the chamber of commerce and industry.
• Many health activities and certain medico-social establishments require an authorisation or an approval issued by the regional health agency.
• Certain sensitive activities, such as private security, transport or the sale of alcoholic beverages, require a prefectural authorisation or a specific licence.

What the authorities look at. For activities subject to prior authorisation, the competent authority checks the reality of the required conditions: good standing, qualification, financial guarantees, compliance of premises. A registration obtained never amounts to authorisation to operate: these are two separate steps. The role of the accountant, together with legal advice on the articles and conditions of exercise, is to map these requirements before filing the application.

The single window does not issue prior authorisations#

One organisational point is often misunderstood. Since 2023, creation formalities go through the electronic single window of the INPI. But this window does not carry out the prior authorisations, approvals or professional cards: these steps are handled by third-party bodies specific to each activity (prefecture, regional health agency, chamber of trades, sector control authority).

There is no generic deadline applicable to all these authorisations. The deadline varies according to the activity and the competent body: some applications give rise to a tacit authorisation once a certain period has elapsed without a reply, others involve a long examination with a compliance visit. This specific timeline must be anticipated, because it may condition the date on which you can actually start, regardless of the registration date.

Professional liability insurance often comes up in the discussion on regulated activities. We need to be precise here, because a false idea circulates.

There is no single general obligation of professional liability insurance for every regulated activity. The insurance obligation is set profession by profession, by the text specific to each activity. It is compulsory for certain professions, for example:

• Estate agents, under the Hoguet law.
• Building professions, through the ten-year guarantee, distinct from simple civil liability.
• Regulated liberal professions, such as lawyers, accountants or health professionals, according to their own texts.

For many other activities, professional liability insurance remains strongly recommended without being legally compulsory. Where the obligation exists, it applies whatever the legal status chosen, sole trader as well as company.

As a quantified illustration, the professional liability insurance of an estate agent must guarantee a minimum amount of 75,000 euros per year and per insured, according to the order of 1 September 1972 amended by the order of 1 July 2015. Any deductible may not exceed 10 % of the indemnities due. These conditions are of public order: a contract that does not comply with them does not satisfy the obligation.

This table guides the first check. It does not remove the need for a case-by-case review, because the same activity may combine several conditions, and some projects fall under several regulations at once.

Checking the obligations of a regulated activity is carried out in a precise order, from the most structuring to the most operational. Here is the sequence we follow in our incorporation files:

1. Describe precisely the activity actually carried out, beyond the commercial label and the future corporate purpose.
2. Check whether there is a requirement for a diploma or professional qualification, particularly for crafts governed by the Crafts Code.
3. Look for an authorisation, an approval, a professional card or a prior declaration specific to the profession.
4. Identify the competent third-party authority or body, separate from the single window, and its examination timeline.
5. Check whether there is compulsory insurance specific to the profession and its minimum conditions.
6. Fit these prerequisites into the overall project timeline, before signing the lease and incurring costs.

We coordinate these steps as part of our support for business creation and our expertise as an accountant specialised in business creation. The documentary tracking of supporting documents (diploma, insurance certificate, approval) is best centralised early, for example via accounting management with Pennylane, so that it remains available in the event of a check.

One scenario recurs regularly in incorporation files. A project holder prepares their activity, chooses their legal form and moves towards registration, convinced that their activity is unrestricted. The regulation only appears at the time of effective start-up, when a partner, an insurer or a client asks for a professional card, a qualification certificate or compulsory insurance.

The consequences are concrete: start-up delayed while the prerequisite is obtained, unbudgeted insurance costs, or even the impossibility of operating as is if the qualification is missing. This type of blockage is almost always avoidable. It is enough to treat the regulation question as a full step of the creation, in the same way as the choice between legal forms that we detail when it comes to comparing the SARL and the SAS.

Our view. Compliance with a regulated activity is not a side issue to be settled after creation: it is a prerequisite that can condition the very existence of the project. The logic is the opposite of that of the articles. For the articles, you have great freedom of drafting. For the regulation, there is no margin: either the conditions are met, or the exercise is irregular.

As an accountant and statutory auditor registered with the Order of Chartered Accountants, we treat this verification as the first building block of the incorporation file, articulated with legal advice when the qualification of the activity is complex. The right reflex is to raise the question of prerequisites before any financial commitment, and to trace the supporting documents from the outset, on the same principle of caution that we apply to reading what to check in an engagement letter.