Starting a business in France in 2026: the complete pillar guide

You want to start a business in France in 2026? This guide brings together what you need to know: legal form, formalities, banking, taxation, social protection, grants and what follows registration. It is written by Samuel HAYOT, chartered accountant registered with the Paris Île-de-France Order of Chartered Accountants.

This guide centralises everything you need to know: legal form choice, formalities, banking, taxation, social protection, grants, post-setup. It links to our 9 specialised guides for deep dives, and includes interactive tools (simulators, calculators) to model your project in real time.

Promise: by the end of this guide, you will know exactly which legal form to pick, how much it costs, how to optimise your compensation, which grants to apply for, and how to set up your company in 2-6 weeks.

1. Step 0: validate the business opportunity
2. Step 1: pick the right legal form
3. Step 2: tax election IR vs IS
4. Step 3: director social protection
5. Step 4: incorporate (INPI single window)
6. Step 5: 2026 grants and financing
7. Step 6: post-setup obligations
8. Special cases: foreigner, employed, jobseeker
9. Fatal mistakes to avoid
10. How Hayot Expertise helps

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Before any incorporation, 3 documents are essential:

1. Market study (1-2 weeks): market size, 5-year trend, competitors, pricing, ICP
2. Financial business plan (1 week with CPA): 3-year P&L, 36-month cash flow, financing plan, documented assumptions
3. Year-1 cost budget: equipment, capital + setup fees, rent, director cost (30-45% of net pay for a TNS, or around 63% of gross pay, i.e. roughly 80% of net, for an employee-equivalent officer), CPA + insurance + bank, marketing

If any of these is missing, the project is not ready to be costed or presented to a lender.

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The most structuring decision: 80% of your future taxation depends on it.

Detailed guides

• Set up a SASU step by step
• Set up an EURL: solo guide
• Set up a micro-entreprise
• SAS / SASU / SARL / EURL comparison
• Set up a rental SCI
• Family SCI & transmission
• Holding vs SCI comparison
• Set up a French company as a foreigner

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2026 rule of thumb: opt for IS at €40-50k+ expected profit or MTR ≥ 30%.

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TNS regime (majority gérant SARL/EURL, EI, micro)

• Contributions 30-45% of net compensation
• No unemployment (private cover Macif/AMA/GSC)
• Limited daily allowances
• Pension based on income

Employee-equivalent (SAS/SASU presidents, minority gérant SARL)

• Contributions of around 63% of gross pay (employer and employee shares), i.e. roughly 80% of net pay
• No unemployment either (unless employee + officer)
• General regime pension + IJ
• Mandatory payslips

Numbers (€50k net compensation)

• TNS: ~€17-22k contributions
• Employee-equivalent: ~€38-42k contributions
• Difference: ~€20k/year

Our director compensation simulator compares both regimes for your profile.

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Total timeline: 2 to 6 weeks

Official costs

For 2026, the incorporation legal notice is not priced by the line: the order of 19 November 2021, as amended on 19 November 2025, sets a flat fee per legal form by way of derogation for that year. Two practical consequences that most comparisons miss: the price depends neither on the length of the notice nor on the département, with the exception of La Réunion and Mayotte. Grouping EURL and SASU under one rate, as is commonly done, is therefore inaccurate: they are 18 euros apart.

The two columns cannot simply be added: the order sets the legal notice excluding VAT, whereas the registry fees published by service-public.fr include VAT. A commercial agent pays €23.21. Legal-notice rates are higher in La Réunion and Mayotte.

These amounts cover official fees only. Depending on the file, add the capital deposit (free at a bank, charged by a notary), the registered office, and professional support.

Setting up from abroad

You do not need to live in France to own or run a French company. Three points decide the timetable in a cross-border file.

Capital deposit. The funds are placed with a French bank or a notary before registration, and only with one of those two: the Caisse des Dépôts route was closed in June 2021, and a payment institution is not an option. Where a shareholder is a foreign company or a non-resident individual, the notary is the usual route, because bank onboarding runs its own compliance review on top of the incorporation.

Registered office. The company needs a French address. A domiciliation provider is accepted, and its contract goes into the registration file.

Documents issued abroad. Company extracts, powers of attorney and identity documents generally have to be produced with an apostille and a sworn French translation. Ordering both early is what keeps a file from stalling at the single window, since neither is obtained overnight.

With CPA support

• Simple bylaws (solo SASU/EURL): €800-1,200 excl. VAT
• Complex bylaws (multi-SAS, SCI, SELARL): €1,500-2,500 excl. VAT

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1. ACRE: 25% relief on social contributions. Self-employed: 25% for 12 months where professional income is at or below €36,045 (75% of the PASS), tapering between €36,045 and €48,060, nil above. Micro-entrepreneur: reduced rate equal to 75% of the normal rate, i.e. 25% relief, until the end of the 3rd calendar quarter after the declared start of activity (setups and takeovers from 1 July 2026). ACRE is no longer automatic: claim it from Urssaf within 60 days of starting activity; Urssaf rules within 30 days and silence counts as acceptance
2. ARCE: capital equal to 60% of remaining ARE rights, paid in two instalments six months apart, subject to having obtained ACRE; a 3% deduction for supplementary pensions applies and ARCE is subject to CSG and CRDS
3. Regional support schemes (formerly NACRE): the national scheme was transferred to the regions in 2017; each region now runs its own, with its own terms and amounts. Check what your region actually offers
4. Prêt d'honneur Création-Reprise: €1,000 to €80,000 interest-free, over 1 to 7 years, with a 0 to 24-month grace period, granted personally, through Initiative France and Réseau Entreprendre
5. Bpifrance: bank guarantees, loans and innovation support, with ceilings that depend on the scheme and the project
6. Regional grants: scheme-specific to each region (PM'up in Île-de-France, etc.), to be checked with the region concerned

What actually stacks depends entirely on the founder's situation: neither eligibility nor amounts are given in advance.

Fundraising (tech startup)

• Pre-seed: €100-500k (BA, micro-funds)
• Seed: €500k - €3M (Bpifrance, early-stage VC)
• Series A: €3-15M (French + EU VCs)
• Tools: BSPCE for talents, AGA, BSA for investors

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1. Annual accounts within 6 months of the year-end
2. Approval by AGM or sole-member decision
3. Filing with the registry within one month of approval, extended to two months where the filing is made electronically (art. R. 123-111 of the Commercial Code)
4. Tax return 2065 (corporate tax) / 2031 (income tax): for a 31 December year-end, by the 2nd business day after 1 May; for any other year-end, by the end of the 3rd month following closing. Electronic filers get 15 extra days
5. VAT according to the regime and filing frequency of the file
6. CFE: initial return 1447-C-SD before 31 December of the year of setup (the company is exempt in its first year, and its base is halved in the second), then the balance by 15 December, with a 50% instalment in mid-June where the previous year's CFE reaches €3,000
7. CVAE due above €500,000 of turnover; the 1330-CVAE-SD return is required from €152,500, unless the company has a single establishment and completes the CVAE box of its tax return
8. DSN monthly if employees
9. Ten-year retention of accounting records (art. L. 123-22 of the Commercial Code)

Annual CPA fees

CPA pricing guide 2026.

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Setting up while employed

• Check non-compete / exclusivity clauses
• Loyalty duty to employer
• Available: business creation leave (1 year renewable) or part-time

Setting up while jobseeker

• Partial ARE top-up: the monthly allowance paid equals monthly ARE minus 70% of declared earnings. Where income is not yet known, France Travail pays 70% of the allowance provisionally, then reconciles. Since 1 April 2025 the top-up is capped at 60% of remaining rights where the ARE follows a contract ending, or a dismissal procedure started, on or after that date
• OR ARCE (60% capital in 2 instalments)
• • ACRE (Y1 exemption)
• Resigning does not, as a rule, open unemployment rights, since the employee ends the contract. The rules allow a closed list of exceptions, including a career-change project (setting up a business counts), subject to three cumulative conditions: 1,300 days worked over the 60 months before resigning, a career-guidance interview (CEP) started before resigning (otherwise the project is inadmissible), and the project validated by Transitions Pro. Resigning before those steps are under way forfeits this route

Foreigner setting up in France

• EU/EEA/Swiss: full freedom
• Non-EU: free to set up and own a company, a residence permit is required to live and work in France. Since 2024 the founder's permit carries the wording « talent-porteur de projet » (multi-year card, maximum four years, CESEDA art. L. 421-16)
• Impatriation regime (article 155 B): up to 30% salary + 50% foreign passive income exempt, 8 years

See our complete guide for foreign founders. Staying abroad without relocating? Follow our company formation in France for non-residents guide instead.

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1. Setting up without a costed business plan → no funding, no cash-flow visibility
2. Wrong legal form → a tax and social regime you then have to live with, hard to undo once registered
3. €1 capital → bank decline, no fundraising
4. Generic copy-paste bylaws → litigation, lost tax optimisation
5. Failing to apply for ACRE: no longer automatic since 1 January 2026, it must be claimed from Urssaf within 60 days of starting activity, otherwise the claim is inadmissible. ARCE is claimed separately from France Travail after registration and requires ACRE first
6. Mixing personal/pro accounts → URSSAF requalification
7. No CPA Y1 → wrong filings, penalties
8. Distributing dividends without modelling → TNS contribution surprise
9. Under-declaring micro-entreprise revenue → URSSAF audit
10. No RC pro insurance → unlimited personal exposure

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A structure chosen without modelling is paid for later in contributions and tax, and is hard to undo once the company is registered.

Our complete setup service: Paris

• A first conversation to scope the project: legal form, tax points to model, grants worth checking
• 3-scenario modelling: SASU vs EURL vs micro
• Tailored bylaws (FR or EN, optimised clauses)
• INPI / bank / insurance / visa coordination
• First tax filing included
• 12-month post-setup support

Pricing: €800 excl. VAT (standard SASU/EURL) to €2,500 excl. VAT (multi-SAS / SCI): see our Paris business creation service page.

Book a first call

• Director compensation simulator: TNS vs employee-equivalent
• Employer cost calculator
• CIR / JEI startup simulator
• Mileage allowance simulator

• service-public.fr: starting a business
• Business formalities single window
• service-public.fr: cost of registering a company
• service-public.fr: cost of registering a sole trader
• Legifrance: order of 19 November 2025 on legal-notice rates
• Legifrance: order of 19 November 2021 on judicial and legal notices
• Legifrance: order of 25 February 2026 on commercial-court registry fees
• URSSAF: understanding and paying your contributions
• service-public.fr: ACRE relief
• France Travail: ARCE
• service-public.fr: regional support schemes (formerly Nacre)
• Bpifrance Création: encyclopedia
• BOFiP: micro-regime thresholds (BOI-BAREME-000044)
• Legifrance: article R. 123-111 of the Commercial Code (filing of accounts)
• Legifrance: article L. 123-22 of the Commercial Code (ten-year retention)
• impots.gouv.fr: tax-return filing deadlines

Pillar guide updated 7 September 2026 by Samuel HAYOT, chartered accountant registered with the Paris Île-de-France Order of Chartered Accountants.