Brexit turned every British freelancer in France into an immigration file. Where you once registered online and sent your first invoice, you must now prove, before you bill a euro, that your self-employed activity is economically viable, that it feeds you, and that it complies with French law — and you must prove it again every year to keep your residence card. The carte de séjour entrepreneur/profession libérale is the key that unlocks freelance life here, the micro-entrepreneur regime is the vehicle most Britons drive, and the two systems judge you on different numbers: the préfecture wants net resources after expenses, while the tax office taxes turnover minus a flat allowance. Confuse the two and your renewal fails even in a good year. This guide walks the whole path — visa, viability opinion, registration, tax, VAT, social charges — and arms you with two recent court decisions: one where an auto-entrepreneur lost his card over a thin file, one where another defeated a reclassification claim because his independence was real. Read it before you invoice, not after the refusal letter.
I. Getting the legal right to work for yourself: visa, entrepreneur card and registration
You are British, you live in France or you are about to move, and you want to earn your living as a freelancer: consultant, designer, translator, developer, artisan, therapist or coach. Since 1 January 2021, British citizens are third-country nationals in France. That single fact changes everything about self-employment. You cannot simply invoice clients and register online the way a French citizen would. You need a visa that authorises self-employed work, then a residence card with the right wording, then a properly registered business, and you must keep all three aligned every year. Get one step wrong and the préfecture (the state authority in each département that issues residence cards) can refuse your card, sometimes with an order to leave France attached.
This guide explains the full path in the order you will actually meet it: the long-stay visa and the first carte de séjour entrepreneur/profession libérale (the temporary residence card for entrepreneurs and members of liberal professions), the registration of your business and the renewal of your right to stay, the tax and social-charge rules of the micro-entrepreneur regime (also still called auto-entrepreneur, France’s simplified sole-trader scheme), and finally how to challenge a refusal or an OQTF (obligation de quitter le territoire français, the order to leave French territory). Every decisive rule below is quoted from the statute or the judgment that states it, with a link to the official text.
A. The long-stay visa and the first entrepreneur card: what the préfecture really examines
Start with your personal situation. If you were lawfully resident in France before 1 January 2021, you fall under the Withdrawal Agreement and you hold (or should hold) a dedicated Agreement card; changing activity is then largely an administrative update. Everyone else — the consultant arriving from London in 2026, the spouse of a salarié (employee) who wants to launch a coaching practice, the second-home owner who decides to settle and work — must enter through the ordinary third-country route. The British government’s own Living in France guide sends you to the French government’s visa wizard to identify the correct visa before you travel: do this first, because arriving on a visitor visa or visa-free and then trying to switch can waste a year.
For self-employment, the gateway is the long-stay visa for activité non salariée (non-employed, i.e. self-employed activity), followed by the temporary residence card marked entrepreneur/profession libérale. The statute sets the test in one sentence, and every refusal decision in France is measured against it:
“L’étranger qui exerce une activité non salariée, économiquement viable et dont il tire des moyens d’existence suffisants, dans le respect de la législation en vigueur, se voit délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention ” entrepreneur/ profession libérale ” d’une durée maximale d’un an.” (Article L421-5 of the CESEDA, the Code on the Entry and Residence of Foreigners and the Right of Asylum). In plain English: a foreigner who carries on a self-employed activity that is economically viable, that provides sufficient means of subsistence, and that complies with the law in force, is issued a one-year temporary card. Three conditions, all cumulative: viability, sufficient income, legality.
If you still live in the United Kingdom, you apply at the French consulate covering your home area; if you already hold a French residence card for another reason (say, vie privée et familiale, private and family life, as the spouse of a French resident), you apply to the préfet (prefect, the state’s representative) of your département of residence (Article R421-8 of the CESEDA). Either way, one step is mandatory and often underestimated: “Préalablement au dépôt de sa demande de délivrance de la carte de séjour prévue à l’article L. 421-5 , l’étranger sollicite un avis sur la viabilité économique de l’activité non salariée auprès du service en charge de la main d’œuvre étrangère compétent pour le département dans lequel il souhaite réaliser cette activité.” (Article R421-9 of the CESEDA). Before filing, you must obtain an opinion on the economic viability of your project from the foreign-labour service of the département where you will work. In practice this means a serious file: a written presentation of the project, a business plan and a multi-year budget, proof of funds (a guarantee from a bank or insurer authorised in France, or a credit balance on an account in your name opened in France), and, for a regulated activity such as health, law, architecture or accountancy, the authorisation to practise. The official service-public.fr page for this card lists every document for each track — commercial, craft or liberal — and you should treat it as your checklist.
Two distinctions matter enormously at this stage. First, commercial, artisanal or liberal are three different doors. A consultant or translator enters through the liberal door and will register with Urssaf (the body that collects social-security contributions); a builder or plumber enters through the craft door and joins the craft register; a shop owner or e-commerce seller enters through the commercial door and the companies register. The regulation confirms that Article L421-5 covers all of them: it applies to foreigners whose activity requires registration “soit au Registre national des entreprises en tant qu’entreprise du secteur des métiers et de l’artisanat ou au Registre du commerce et des sociétés, soit à l’Union de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales (URSSAF)” (Article R421-7 of the CESEDA). Choose the wrong door and your file will be judged against the wrong criteria. Second, the préfet also checks “la compatibilité de l’activité en cause avec la sécurité, la salubrité et la tranquillité publiques ainsi que, le cas échéant, l’absence de condamnation ou de décision emportant l’interdiction d’exercer une activité commerciale en France” (Article R421-10 of the CESEDA). A criminal-record extract from the UK and clean tax documents are therefore not decoration; they answer a statutory check.
Practical points British applicants repeatedly miss: every civil-status document needs a translation by a sworn translator (traducteur assermenté); the medical certificate issued by Ofii (Office français de l’immigration et de l’intégration, the immigration and integration office) is presented when the card itself is manufactured, not on day one; and the file must show resources, not just revenue — a point developed below with a real court decision, because it is the number one cause of refusal. Language does not block the first one-year card, but look ahead: the four-year card later requires proof of attendance at the contrat d’intégration républicaine (the Republican integration contract: civic and language training), success in the civic examination and French at an everyday level (Article L433-4 of the CESEDA). Starting French lessons in year one is an investment in year two.
B. Registering the business and keeping the right to stay: micro-entreprise, resources and the four-year card
Once the visa logic is settled, you must give your activity a legal vehicle. France channels all business registrations through the guichet unique (the single online portal run by the INPI, the industrial-property institute, which forwards your file to the tax office, Urssaf and the relevant register). For most British freelancers the natural vehicle is the entreprise individuelle (sole proprietorship) under the micro-entreprise tax regime — the status still universally called auto-entrepreneur. It is cheap, fast and proportionate: social charges are a flat percentage of what you actually bill, and there is no company to administer. Creating a French company (SASU, EURL) or a branch of your UK limited company is a different exercise with different residence, tax and accounting consequences, and it falls outside this guide; if a single client suggests you “just keep billing through your Ltd”, read the warning in Part II first.
The micro regime is a tax simplification, not a separate legal universe. For sales of goods, food and accommodation, it covers businesses whose pre-tax turnover for the previous year (or the year before) does not exceed “203 100 €“; for “autres entreprises” — which includes virtually all services and liberal professions — the ceiling is “83 600 €” (Article 50-0 of the General Tax Code, the CGI). Taxable profit is then turnover minus a flat-rate allowance (abattement forfaitaire): 71% for sales, 50% for services, with a floor of 305 euros. If your activity is liberal rather than commercial — advice, design, translation, therapy — the parallel provision is Article 102 ter: where non-commercial receipts do not exceed “83 600 €“, taxable profit “est égal au montant brut des recettes annuelles diminué d’un abattement forfaitaire de 34 %. Cet abattement ne peut être inférieur à 305 €.” (Article 102 ter of the CGI). Above these ceilings you leave the micro regime for a real (actual-revenue) regime, with full accounts; you can also opt out voluntarily each year. Two details British service providers often discover too late: the micro regime excludes certain operations (notably property dealing), and you must keep a day-by-day revenue journal with invoices available for the tax office on request.
On the social side, the mirror provision is Article L613-7 of the Social Security Code: contributions of micro-regime independents “sont calculées mensuellement ou trimestriellement, en appliquant au montant de leur chiffre d’affaires ou de leurs recettes effectivement réalisés le mois ou le trimestre précédent un taux global fixé par décret pour chaque catégorie d’activité” (Article L613-7 of the Social Security Code). You declare each month or quarter what you actually received, and the percentage applies. The 2026 rates published by the administration are 12.3% for sales of goods, 21.2% for commercial services, 21.2% for furnished-letting, 6% for classified tourist accommodation, 25.6% for unregulated liberal activities and 23.2% for regulated liberal activities under Cipav (the pension fund for many regulated liberal professions) (service-public.fr page on micro-entrepreneur contributions). If you bill nothing in a quarter, you pay nothing — but you also validate nothing for your pension, and a run of empty quarters will starve your renewal file.
Renewal is where British freelancers most often stumble, so read this twice. The temporary card lasts one year. To renew it, the administration requires proof that the business is real and that the income drawn from it reaches at least 1,867.02 euros per month — roughly the net minimum wage (Smic) — evidenced by the company tax-status slip, bank and accounting extracts, the income-tax notice and, failing that, the last twelve months of remuneration records (service-public.fr, renewal section). Turnover alone proves nothing: as the Lyon appeal court confirmed (see Part II), the préfet looks at turnover minus contributions, charges and professional expenses. A consultant billing 25,000 euros a year with 8,000 euros of costs is far weaker than the headline suggests. Build the paper trail from month one: separate bank account, numbered invoices, expense receipts, quarterly Urssaf declarations kept and filed.
The reward for a clean first period is stability. A foreigner who already holds a card for another reason and meets the entrepreneur conditions receives a one-year temporary entrepreneur card, then, if the conditions still hold at expiry, “il bénéficie, à sa demande, d’une carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la même mention” (Article L421-6 of the CESEDA) — the four-year multi-annual card. The full text adds that first-time multi-annual applicants must also satisfy the integration conditions of Article L433-4: diligence in the integration-contract training, success in the civic examination and working French. In the Paris region, where files are handled by the Paris police préfecture rather than an ordinary préfecture, appointment lead times are long; file renewal within the two months before expiry and keep every receipt (récépissé) the counter gives you, because it extends your right to stay and to work while the decision is pending.
II. Paying the right tax and charges, then fighting back when the administration says no
A. Income tax, VAT and social charges on your freelance earnings: the micro system end to end
Once resident in France — and a British freelancer living and working here year-round will normally be French tax-resident — you are taxable in France on your worldwide income, with the France–United Kingdom double-tax treaty allocating taxing rights and France generally granting a credit for UK tax paid on UK-source income. Concretely, your freelance profits join your French income-tax return through the supplementary self-employment pages alongside the main return, and any UK-source income (a London rental flat, UK dividends) is declared with the foreign-income schedules so the treaty credit can apply. Keep the two countries’ paperwork strictly separate: HMRC and the Direction générale des finances publiques (the French tax administration) each want their own forms, and paying tax in one country never exempts you from declaring in the other.
Within the micro regime, the default is taxation of the computed profit (turnover minus the flat allowance) at the progressive income-tax scale. But micro-entrepreneurs can opt for the versement libératoire (a final flat payment of income tax collected on turnover): “Les contribuables peuvent sur option effectuer un versement libératoire de l’impôt sur le revenu assis sur le chiffre d’affaires ou les recettes de leur activité professionnelle lorsque les conditions suivantes sont satisfaites : 1° Ils sont soumis aux régimes définis aux articles 50-0 ou 102 ter” (Article 151-0 of the CGI). The further conditions are that your household’s reference income for the year before last stays within the top of the second income-tax band (increased per half-share), and that you are under the micro-social scheme of Article L613-7. The rates are then disarmingly simple: “1 %” for sales at the higher micro threshold, “1,7 %” for other commercial activities, and “2,2 %” for liberal activities under Article 102 ter — each applied to pre-tax turnover or receipts for the period. The option is filed with Urssaf by 30 September of the preceding year (or within three months of starting up for a new business) and renews silently until you denounce it; it lapses automatically if you leave the micro regime or if your household income exceeds the ceiling for two years running. Urssaf then collects tax and contributions together, which is why the all-in quarterly rates read 13.3% for sales, 22.9% for commercial services, 27.8% for unregulated liberal work and 25.4% for Cipav liberals. The flat payment suits modest, regular earnings; if your margins are thin or your household income is high, the ordinary scale often costs less — run both calculations before 30 September rather than after.
VAT (TVA) is the next surprise for Britons used to the UK registration threshold. France exempts small businesses outright through the franchise en base (the basic exemption): taxable persons established in France enjoy “une franchise qui les dispense du paiement de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée” (Article 293 B of the CGI, whenever their French turnover stays below the statutory ceilings — 85,000 euros for sales and 37,500 euros for services, the 2026 thresholds of that same article. Below the ceiling you charge no French VAT and you recover none on your expenses; your invoices must state that VAT does not apply. Cross the ceiling and you enter the VAT system mid-year with registration, VAT returns and a new price structure — a sensitive moment for a freelancer whose British clients assumed a stable day rate. Note also that services to UK clients are exports outside the EU: the place-of-supply rules keep shifting, so confirm each year with your accountant whether French VAT, UK VAT or neither applies to a given mission.
One warning deserves its own paragraph because it targets British freelancers directly. After Brexit, some advisers suggest keeping a UK limited company and billing French clients from London while living in France. That structure is exactly what Article 155 A of the CGI and the doctrines of effective management and permanent establishment are designed to catch: France can tax in your hands, as a French resident, the sums paid to your foreign vehicle for services you personally perform here. Our office has published a dedicated analysis of consultants in Paris billing through Estonian, American or British companies, with the defence routes when the reassessment arrives (consultant billing via a foreign company: Article 155 A and how to challenge). If a single client proposes this montage, invoice as a French micro-entrepreneur instead — or take advice before the first invoice, not after the audit notice.
B. When the préfecture says no: refusals, appeals and the single-client trap
The most instructive recent judgment for a British freelancer is a 2024 appeal-court decision about an auto-entrepreneur — and the administration won. Mr B., a handyman working under the auto-entrepreneur regime through a company he had created and registered in January 2021, was refused renewal by the prefect of Côte-d’Or in December 2022, with a 30-day order to leave France; the Dijon administrative tribunal upheld the refusal in May 2023, and he appealed asking the court to order the prefect to issue the entrepreneur/profession libérale card (CAA Lyon, 17 October 2024, No. 23LY02014, full text on Légifrance). His argument was the one every refused freelancer makes: the prefect committed an error of fact because the business did provide sufficient means, in breach of Article L421-5.
The court’s answer is now the clearest statement of what a renewal file must contain. First, the burden is on you: “Dès lors que l’étranger est lui-même le créateur de l’activité, il lui appartient de présenter à l’appui de sa demande les justificatifs permettant d’évaluer la viabilité économique de son activité ou entreprise, que celle-ci soit encore au stade de projet ou déjà créée.” (CAA Lyon, 23LY02014) If you created the activity, you must supply the documents that let the administration assess viability, whether it is still a project or already trading. Second, turnover is not income: “la somme à prendre en compte pour apprécier les revenus tirés de son activité ne saurait, par principe, être réduite au montant résultant de l’application, au chiffre d’affaires déclaré, des abattements fiscaux de 71 %, de 50 % et de 34 %” (CAA Lyon, 23LY02014) — the tax allowances do not measure your means — while “doivent notamment être soustraites du chiffre d’affaires les charges et cotisations versées, ainsi que les dépenses professionnelles engagées” (CAA Lyon, 23LY02014) (charges, contributions and professional expenses must be subtracted from turnover). Mr B. showed 20,918 euros of 2022 turnover and 2,738 euros of contributions, but produced nothing on his professional expenses either at first instance or on appeal; half his turnover had landed in the last quarter, including a 6,079-euro invoice dated after the refusal itself. Result: the court rejected the application outright (Article 1er of the operative part, CAA Lyon, 23LY02014) Three lessons for a British applicant: file complete accounts before the decision date, because the judge assesses your means as they stood when the prefect decided; prove net resources after real expenses, not gross billings; and show regular activity across the year, not a last-minute spike.
If refusal comes, the procedure is strict but navigable. Every refusal must be reasoned in fact and in law — a bare “unfavourable opinion” is challengeable. You can file a recours gracieux (informal appeal to the prefect who decided) and a recours hiérarchique (appeal to the Minister of the Interior), which buy time and sometimes a re-examination, but the decisive route is the recours pour excès de pouvoir before the administrative tribunal (tribunal administratif) within two months of notification, asking the judge to annul the refusal and order re-examination or even the issue of the card. Where an OQTF is attached, challenge both together, and treat the papers as an emergency: some removal orders carry challenge deadlines counted in days, not months. Never let a refusal sit while you “improve the business and reapply” — the OQTF clock keeps running, and an expired appeal route cannot be reopened by a fresh application alone.
The second trap runs in the opposite direction: the client who treats you as an employee. French law starts from a presumption that protects genuine independents: “Sont présumés ne pas être liés avec le donneur d’ordre par un contrat de travail dans l’exécution de l’activité donnant lieu à immatriculation ou inscription : 1° Les personnes physiques immatriculées au registre du commerce et des sociétés, au registre national des entreprises en tant qu’entreprise du secteur des métiers et de l’artisanat, au registre des agents commerciaux ou auprès des unions de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales” (Article L8221-6 of the Labour Code). Registration creates the presumption — but a single-client relationship can destroy it if the facts show employment. In a May 2026 judgment, the Paris Court of Appeal restated the test while rejecting a requalification claim brought by an auto-entrepreneur working for one company since 2017: “le lien de subordination est caractérisé par l’exécution d’un travail sous l’autorité d’un employeur qui a le pouvoir de donner des ordres et des directives, d’en contrôler l’exécution et de sanctionner les manquements de son subordonné.” (CA Paris, RG 24/00218) “Peut constituer un indice de subordination le travail au sein d’un service organisé lorsque l’employeur en détermine unilatéralement les conditions d’exécution.” (CA Paris, RG 24/00218) “En revanche, le lien de dépendance économique ne caractérise pas un lien de subordination juridique.” (CA Paris, Pôle 6, Ch. 11, 19 May 2026, RG 24/00218, full text on courdecassation.fr). The claimant lost — weekly meetings, an organisation chart and holiday references proved only normal collaboration, and he managed his own time — but the stakes visible in the file explain why the fight matters: over 39,000 euros of back pay, 19,205 euros of holiday pay, and 20,022 euros each for concealed employment and unfair dismissal were on the table. For a British freelancer with one dominant London client directing daily work, the mirror risk is an Urssaf or tribunal finding of concealed employment (travail dissimulé) with back contributions and penalties. Protect yourself structurally: several clients, your own equipment and premises, freely set hours, fixed-price missions, substitution clauses, and professional-indemnity insurance (responsabilité civile professionnelle) in your own name.
Conclusion
Going freelance in France after Brexit is entirely possible, but it is a regulated path, not an informal one. Secure the right visa before you start, build a viability file the foreign-labour service can believe, register through the single portal under the correct door — commercial, craft or liberal — and choose the micro regime with open eyes about its ceilings, its allowances and its flat-rate charges. Keep net-resources proof from the first invoice, because renewal is judged on means after expenses, not on turnover. And when the administration refuses, answer with procedure: reasoned appeals, the two-month tribunal deadline, and case law that rewards complete files. The Lyon handyman lost because his file was thin and late; the Paris consultant survived reclassification because his independence was real and documented. Be the second file, not the first — and take advice the moment a refusal, an OQTF or a single-client arrangement appears, when every option is still open.
Need a quick opinion on your case
Freelance project, visa file, card refusal or Urssaf dispute in France after Brexit? Get a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write via our contact page. We advise British clients across France, and in person in Paris and Île-de-France.