French stereotype #5: “There are too many administrative procedures to create a company in France”

You have identified an opportunity to grow your business in France. You believe there are the right resources and the qualified workforce in France for your business.  And yet, you are worried about taking the next step. You have heard about the difficulty of settling in France due to an incomprehensible and tricky administration. Well, let us deconstruct these rumours and appease your worries.  

Starting a business in France

France is one of the European countries in which opening a business can be done the most rapidly. It takes only 3.5 days to start a business in France, compared to 4.5 days in the UK and 10.5 days in Germany. This is notably thanks to the “guichet-entreprise” online platform. All the formalities needed to open a business in France (i.e. determining the legal status of the company, protecting the name of the company etc.) can be done via this platform. According to your project, the platform suggests a personal path and then ensures the transfer of information to the appropriate agencies or institutions.  

Simplified labour law to smoothly run a business 

One might then argue that while opening a business in France is very easy, running it is much more difficult due to the complicated labour laws. Again, this is another prejudice. Since 2017, the government has worked towards simplifying labour laws. Not only have regulations changed to, for example, increase social dialogue or facilitate restructuration plans, but the labour code itself has also become more accessible and easier to understand. It has been designed in cooperation with frequent user types like employees, employers and HR specialists. Additionally, aware of the importance to cater for the legal needs of smaller structures like start-ups and SMEs, the Labour ministry has put on its website simplified templates of contract agreements negotiated at the sector level (in French). The SMEs and start-ups can thus have a solid base for their contract even though they do not have a legal department within their structure.  

Settling in France

As part of your entrepreneur journey, you or your employees may have to consider moving to France. Once again, this has been made very simple thanks to the “Welcome to France” platform. It covers all the aspects of expatriation such as social protection, tax system, housing, opening a bank account etc. in a tailored way. This means that the platform creates a personalised timeline to guide you through the procedure in the order in which they need to be done. Thanks to this system you only receive the information which are relevant to your situation and your project.