You are a British builder, plumber, electrician, plasterer or kitchen fitter, and France is where you want to work. Perhaps you have followed clients to the Dordogne, married a French partner, or simply decided that your future lies on the French side of the Channel. Since Brexit, that project faces two locked doors instead of one. The first is immigration: as a British citizen you are now a third-country national, and you need a visa and then a residence card before you can lawfully work for yourself. The second is professional: the building trades in France are regulated artisan occupations, and nobody can simply pick up tools and start charging customers. Each door has its own paperwork, its own officials and its own refusal letters, and a failure at either one can sink the whole project. This article opens both doors in order. It explains which residence card a self-employed Briton must hold, how a British trade qualification is assessed by the French authorities, how registration, tax and social charges work once you are set up, and what to do when the pr\u00e9fecture \u2014 the local office of the State that issues residence cards \u2014 says no. Every legal statement below is tied to the statute or court decision it comes from, and every French term is explained the first time it appears.<\/p>\n
Yes, but nothing is automatic any more. Before Brexit, a British citizen set up in France under European freedom of establishment with no visa and no residence card. That world is gone. Today you must satisfy the immigration rules for a self-employed foreigner and, separately, the professional rules for practising a craft trade. The two sets of rules ignore each other: a residence card does not prove your qualification, and a French trade diploma does not give you the right to stay.<\/p>\n
Any foreigner over eighteen who wishes to stay in France for more than three months must hold a stay document, and the starting point is a long-stay visa: “tout \u00e9tranger \u00e2g\u00e9 de plus de dix-huit ans qui souhaite s\u00e9journer en France pour une dur\u00e9e sup\u00e9rieure \u00e0 trois mois doit \u00eatre titulaire de l’un des documents de s\u00e9jour suivants” (article L. 411-1 of the CESEDA, the Code de l’entr\u00e9e et du s\u00e9jour des \u00e9trangers et du droit d’asile<\/a>). That requirement bites twice for a tradesman, because the first issue of a temporary or multi-year residence card itself depends on producing that visa: “Sous r\u00e9serve des engagements internationaux de la France et des exceptions pr\u00e9vues aux articles L. 412-2 et L. 412-3, la premi\u00e8re d\u00e9livrance d’une carte de s\u00e9jour temporaire ou d’une carte de s\u00e9jour pluriannuelle est subordonn\u00e9e \u00e0 la production par l’\u00e9tranger du visa de long s\u00e9jour mentionn\u00e9 aux 1\u00b0 ou 2\u00b0 de l’article L. 411-1” (article L. 412-1 of the CESEDA<\/a>). In practice, this means you apply from the United Kingdom for a long-stay visa covering self-employed or liberal activity \u2014 the France-Visas portal maintains a dedicated page for a self-employed person or liberal activity<\/a> \u2014 and only then, once in France, do you seek the card itself. Arriving on a 90-day visa-free short stay and trying to convert it into an artisan’s residence card at the pr\u00e9fecture is the single most common planning error British applicants make, and it is the one the statute forgives least.<\/p>\n The card you are aiming for is the temporary residence card marked “entrepreneur \/ profession lib\u00e9rale” (self-employed person \/ liberal profession), valid for a maximum of one year and renewable. The statute sets three cumulative conditions in one sentence: “L’\u00e9tranger qui exerce une activit\u00e9 non salari\u00e9e, \u00e9conomiquement viable et dont il tire des moyens d’existence suffisants, dans le respect de la l\u00e9gislation en vigueur, se voit d\u00e9livrer une carte de s\u00e9jour temporaire portant la mention ” entrepreneur\/ profession lib\u00e9rale ” d’une dur\u00e9e maximale d’un an” (article L. 421-5 of the CESEDA<\/a>). Economically viable activity, sufficient means of existence drawn from it, and compliance with current legislation: miss any one of the three and the pr\u00e9fet \u2014 the prefect, the State’s representative in the d\u00e9partement who decides on residence cards \u2014 can refuse. The official English-language guidance on service-public.fr<\/a> spells out what those abstract words mean in a file: your activity must be economically viable and provide sufficient livelihoods, and it must match your qualifications or professional experience. For a tradesman, that second sentence is where immigration law and trade regulation shake hands: the pr\u00e9fecture will look at your diplomas and your track record as a builder or electrician, not just at your turnover forecast.<\/p>\n What goes into the file matters more than anything else, because judges assess the refusal strictly on the papers as they stood on the day the pr\u00e9fet decided. The file for a first application must show registration of the business \u2014 company statutes or an extract, or proof of affiliation to the self-employed social security scheme \u2014 together with a free-form written presentation of the creation project including a business plan and a multi-year budget, plus proof of financial security from a bank or insurer, or a credit balance on a French account. Where the trade is regulated, which the building trades are, you must add the authorisation to practise. At renewal stage, the bar becomes numerical: the same official page requires proof of company registration or self-employed affiliation plus any evidence that the company is genuinely active and that the resources drawn from the activity reach at least \u20ac1,867.02 a month. Keep that figure in mind from day one, because it is the yardstick your renewal will be measured against, and organise your invoicing and your accounts so that the money drawn from the business is visible, regular and documented.<\/p>\n Two court decisions, both concerning the entrepreneur card and both read in full for this article, show exactly how judges apply article L. 421-5 \u2014 one refusal upheld, one refusal annulled \u2014 and together they form the instruction manual for a British artisan’s file. In the first, the Administrative Court of Appeal of Toulouse confirmed the prefect’s refusal for an associate-manager whose evidence consisted, for one company, of an annual salary summary and monthly VAT returns for a single year, and for his new business, of monthly VAT returns for seven months only. The court held that those papers “ne suffisent pas \u00e0 d\u00e9montrer la viabilit\u00e9 \u00e9conomique de ses activit\u00e9s, ni qu’il en tirerait des moyens d’existence suffisants” \u2014 they are not enough to demonstrate the economic viability of the activities, nor that he would draw sufficient means of existence from them (CAA Toulouse, 1st chamber, 16 October 2025, No. 24TL00710<\/a>). The same judgment adds two warnings that every tradesman should memorise. A one-off dividend payment received after the date of the prefect’s decision proves nothing, because the judge checks resources “\u00e0 la date de la d\u00e9cision attaqu\u00e9e” \u2014 as they stood on the date of the contested decision \u2014 and the applicant “ne d\u00e9montre pas qu’il disposait, \u00e0 la date de la d\u00e9cision attaqu\u00e9e, intervenue le 27 avril 2023, de ressources suffisantes tir\u00e9es d’une activit\u00e9 non salari\u00e9e ni que cette activit\u00e9 \u00e9tait, \u00e0 cette m\u00eame date, \u00e9conomiquement viable au sens de l’article L. 421-5 pr\u00e9cit\u00e9”. And wages from a salaried job inside the applicant’s own company cannot fill the gap, since he “ne peut utilement se pr\u00e9valoir des salaires qu’il a per\u00e7us de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Abacab d\u00e8s lors que ces revenus rel\u00e8vent d’une activit\u00e9 salari\u00e9e” \u2014 he cannot usefully rely on wages, because that income comes from salaried activity, whereas the card requires income from self-employed activity. For a British builder tempted to top up quiet months with a salaried site job, that sentence closes the door: only drawings from the independent activity count.<\/p>\n The mirror image comes from Bordeaux. There, the same court annulled a refusal issued to the sole manager of a decoration and building-works company, recalling first the governing principle: “Il r\u00e9sulte de ces dispositions que la d\u00e9livrance d’une carte de s\u00e9jour temporaire autorisant l’exercice d’une activit\u00e9 professionnelle \u00e0 l’\u00e9tranger qui souhaite exercer en France une profession commerciale, industrielle ou artisanale est subordonn\u00e9e, notamment, \u00e0 la viabilit\u00e9 \u00e9conomique de l’activit\u00e9 envisag\u00e9e”, and “D\u00e8s lors que l’\u00e9tranger est lui-m\u00eame \u00e0 l’origine de l’activit\u00e9, il lui appartient de pr\u00e9senter \u00e0 l’appui de sa demande les justificatifs permettant d’\u00e9valuer la viabilit\u00e9 \u00e9conomique de son activit\u00e9 ou entreprise, que celle-ci soit encore au stade de projet ou d\u00e9j\u00e0 cr\u00e9\u00e9e” (CAA Bordeaux, 6th chamber, 18 April 2023, No. 22BX02749<\/a>). The applicant won because his file proved viability with hard numbers rather than promises: annual turnover of 237,419 euros in 2021, up 273 percent on the previous year, 28,355 euros of corporation tax paid on profits, a net accounting result of 24,467 euros for the year \u2014 monthly net resources above 2,000 euros \u2014 plus recent payslips and, decisively for a tradesman, training courses completed in 2020 and 2021 connected with the activity, covering energy efficiency, energy renovation of housing and electrical certification. The court ordered the prefect to issue a temporary card marked “entrepreneur” within three months and awarded 1,200 euros in costs. Read the two cases together and the message for a British artisan is plain: VAT returns alone lose, while filed accounts showing profit, tax actually paid, regular drawings above roughly 2,000 euros a month and trade training certificates win. Broader guidance on which visa leads to which card is set out in our overview of long-stay visas and residence cards for British newcomers<\/a>, which this article completes for the specific case of the manual trades.<\/p>\n Immigration permission is only half the battle. In France, craft activity \u2014 the artisanat, the sector of manual trades such as masonry, carpentry, plumbing, heating, electrical work, plastering, painting and roofing \u2014 cannot be practised without proven qualification and registration. The official business-creation portal states the rule in English: obtaining the status of artisan requires carrying on an activity on one of the craft lists, proving professional qualification, registering on the National Business Register (the Registre national des entreprises, abbreviated RNE) as a business in the crafts sector, and employing fewer than eleven people (entreprendre.service-public.gouv.fr<\/a>). Each of those four conditions deserves a paragraph, because each one traps unwary Britons.<\/p>\n Qualification first. The portal requires a professional qualification in the trade: an approved diploma or title registered in the national repertory of professional certifications (the RNCP, the R\u00e9pertoire national des certifications professionnelles) at the required level, or, failing a diploma, proven professional experience, and the proof must be attached when registering through the online business-formalities portal. For a British tradesman this raises the hard post-Brexit question: what is a City & Guilds, an NVQ, a CSCS card or twenty years on the tools worth before a French Chambre de M\u00e9tiers et de l’Artisanat (the Chamber of Trades and Crafts, the consular body that oversees artisans)? The honest answer is that there is no automatic conversion table. Before Brexit, European recognition machinery smoothed the path; today a Briton is a third-country national, and the file is examined on its merits. The practical consequences are straightforward. Have every British diploma, certificate and apprenticeship record translated by a sworn translator (a traducteur asserment\u00e9). Assemble proof of at least three years’ effective practice \u2014 payslips, contracts, accounts, client attestations, tax records \u2014 because experience is the recognised substitute where the diploma is missing or unrecognised. And where the trade touches safety \u2014 electricity, gas, heating \u2014 obtain the French habilitations, the safety authorisations such as the electrical certification the successful Bordeaux applicant held, before the pr\u00e9fecture or the Chamber asks for them. The Bordeaux case shows that training certificates do double duty: they reassure the Chamber about competence and they persuade the immigration judge about seriousness. Conversely, arriving with no papers and relying on a reputation built in Kent will satisfy neither body.<\/p>\n Registration second. Since 1 January 2023 the old R\u00e9pertoire des M\u00e9tiers has been replaced by the Registre national des entreprises, and a craft business must register on it as a business in the crafts and trades sector; the same portal warns that carrying on a craft activity without RNE registration is an offence punishable by a \u20ac7,500 fine. Registration runs through the online guichet unique \u2014 the single portal for business formalities \u2014 and it is that registration, or affiliation to the self-employed social scheme for a micro-entrepreneur, that the pr\u00e9fecture will demand to see in the residence-card file. Note the historical trap: older English-language guides still describe registration on the Chambre de M\u00e9tiers directory as it worked in 2010, including advice to wait for the Chamber to write to you. That advice is fifteen years out of date. Today registration is your proactive step, it happens online before or alongside the visa application, and the extract it produces is a document your immigration file cannot do without. Businesses on the RNE as craft companies also pay the chamber-of-trades tax (the taxe CMA), a modest professional tax whose existence surprises Britons used to no such levy \u2014 budget for it rather than discovering it.<\/p>\n Two further points complete the picture. Where the craft activity is carried on through a company, such as a SARL (a soci\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 responsabilit\u00e9 limit\u00e9e, the French limited company), it is the manager personally who must hold the diploma, title or experience in the trade performed \u2014 the qualification attaches to the person running the work, not to the corporate shell. And a foreigner who holds only a residence card as an employee should not moonlight as a tradesman on the side: the Labour Code provides that “Un \u00e9tranger autoris\u00e9 \u00e0 s\u00e9journer en France ne peut exercer une activit\u00e9 professionnelle salari\u00e9e en France sans avoir obtenu au pr\u00e9alable l’autorisation de travail” (article L. 5221-5 of the Labour Code<\/a>), and the same logic of strict cards applies in reverse \u2014 each card authorises the activity it names, and working outside it exposes you to a refusal at renewal, an obligation to leave, and, on site, the full range of undeclared-work penalties.<\/p>\n Once the visa is stamped and the qualification file is ready, the project enters its operational phase: registering the business, choosing a tax regime, paying social contributions, and knowing exactly what to do if an administration says no. This second part follows the money and the remedies in that order.<\/p>\n Registration is the gateway to everything else. The Commercial Code still expresses the underlying principle through the Trade and Companies Register (the Registre du commerce et des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s, or RCS): “Il est tenu un registre du commerce et des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s auquel sont immatricul\u00e9s, sur leur d\u00e9claration : 1\u00b0 Les personnes physiques ayant la qualit\u00e9 de commer\u00e7ant, m\u00eame si elles sont tenues \u00e0 immatriculation au registre national des entreprises” (article L. 123-1 of the Commercial Code<\/a>), and for an artisan that declaration today lands on the RNE as a craft business, filed through the guichet unique. Most British tradesmen starting out will choose the micro-entreprise \u2014 the simplified individual-business regime formerly called auto-entrepreneur \u2014 because it combines online registration, pay-as-you-earn social charges and simplified accounts. But the micro-entreprise is a tax and social-security choice as well as a registration, and the choice must be made with the immigration threshold in mind: the business must generate drawings of at least about 1,867 euros a month at renewal, so pick the regime whose arithmetic lets you prove that figure cleanly.<\/p>\n On the tax side, two micro regimes matter depending on the nature of the work. A builder who mainly sells and installs \u2014 supply-and-fit kitchens, for example \u2014 falls under the micro-BIC regime for industrial and commercial profits: businesses qualify while turnover, adjusted where relevant pro rata for the operating period, does not exceed 203,100 euros for principally selling goods, and “Le r\u00e9sultat imposable, avant prise en compte des plus-values ou des moins-values provenant de la cession des biens affect\u00e9s \u00e0 l’exploitation, est \u00e9gal au montant du chiffre d’affaires hors taxes diminu\u00e9 d’un abattement de 71 % pour le chiffre d’affaires provenant d’activit\u00e9s de la cat\u00e9gorie mentionn\u00e9e au 1\u00b0, d’un abattement de 50 % pour le chiffre d’affaires provenant d’activit\u00e9s de la cat\u00e9gorie mentionn\u00e9e au 2\u00b0”, with minimum allowances of 305 euros (article 50-0 of the General Tax Code, the Code g\u00e9n\u00e9ral des imp\u00f4ts<\/a>). A tradesman selling pure labour \u2014 an electrician billing hours, a plumber billing interventions \u2014 more often falls under micro-BNC for non-commercial profits: “Le b\u00e9n\u00e9fice imposable des contribuables qui per\u00e7oivent des revenus non commerciaux dont le montant hors taxes de l’ann\u00e9e civile pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente ou de la p\u00e9nulti\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, ajust\u00e9 s’il y a lieu au prorata du temps d’activit\u00e9 au cours de l’ann\u00e9e de r\u00e9f\u00e9rence, n’exc\u00e8de pas 83 600 \u20ac est \u00e9gal au montant brut des recettes annuelles diminu\u00e9 d’un abattement forfaitaire de 34 %” (article 102 ter of the General Tax Code<\/a>). Get the classification right at registration, because the wrong box means the wrong allowance and a corrected assessment later \u2014 and a corrected assessment is precisely the kind of document that weakens an immigration renewal file. Above the thresholds, or by option, the business moves to a real-profit regime with full accounts, which stronger files generally prefer once turnover grows: the Bordeaux winner’s filed accounts and corporation tax payments were the backbone of his case.<\/p>\n VAT follows its own logic. Small businesses established in France benefit from the franchise en base \u2014 the basic exemption that releases them from charging and paying VAT \u2014 while their turnover stays below the statutory ceilings: “les assujettis \u00e9tablis en France b\u00e9n\u00e9ficient d’une franchise qui les dispense du paiement de la taxe sur la valeur ajout\u00e9e lorsqu’ils n’ont pas r\u00e9alis\u00e9 en France un chiffre d’affaires, \u00e9valu\u00e9 dans les conditions pr\u00e9vues \u00e0 l’article 293 D, exc\u00e9dant les plafonds suivants” (article 293 B of the General Tax Code<\/a>). The exemption keeps quotes simple for private customers, but remember the Toulouse lesson: monthly VAT returns on their own proved nothing about viability. File them, pay what is due, but build the immigration file on accounts, bank movements and drawings, not on VAT slips alone.<\/p>\n Social charges run through Urssaf \u2014 the Union de recouvrement des cotisations de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale et d’allocations familiales, the body that collects social-security contributions. For a micro-entrepreneur, contributions are calculated periodically by applying a rate to turnover or receipts: “Les cotisations et les contributions de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale dont sont redevables les travailleurs ind\u00e9pendants mentionn\u00e9s au II du pr\u00e9sent article b\u00e9n\u00e9ficiant des r\u00e9gimes d\u00e9finis aux articles 50-0 et 102 ter du code g\u00e9n\u00e9ral des imp\u00f4ts sont calcul\u00e9es mensuellement ou trimestriellement” (article L. 613-7 of the Social Security Code<\/a>). Declare every month or quarter from the start, even at zero, because gaps in the Urssaf record read, in a renewal file, as gaps in the activity itself. One more shield is worth knowing: registration creates a legal presumption that you are genuinely independent rather than a disguised employee of a single client \u2014 “Sont pr\u00e9sum\u00e9s ne pas \u00eatre li\u00e9s avec le donneur d’ordre par un contrat de travail dans l’ex\u00e9cution de l’activit\u00e9 donnant lieu \u00e0 immatriculation ou inscription : 1\u00b0 Les personnes physiques immatricul\u00e9es au registre du commerce et des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s, au registre national des entreprises en tant qu’entreprise du secteur des m\u00e9tiers et de l’artisanat” (article L. 8221-6 of the Labour Code<\/a>). For a British subcontractor working mainly for one French builder, that presumption is valuable \u2014 but it is only a presumption, and it survives only if the reality matches: your own clients, your own invoices, your own tools, your own schedule.<\/p>\n Even a well-built file can meet a refusal, and the system attaches a departure order to it almost automatically. The statute lists the cases in which the administration may require a foreigner to leave French territory, and a refused residence application is expressly among them: “3\u00b0 L’\u00e9tranger s’est vu refuser la d\u00e9livrance d’un titre de s\u00e9jour, le renouvellement du titre de s\u00e9jour, du document provisoire d\u00e9livr\u00e9 \u00e0 l’occasion d’une demande de titre de s\u00e9jour ou de l’autorisation provisoire de s\u00e9jour qui lui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9livr\u00e9 ou s’est vu retirer un de ces documents” (article L. 611-1 of the CESEDA<\/a>). Concretely, the arr\u00eat\u00e9 \u2014 the prefect’s written order \u2014 that refuses your entrepreneur card will usually, in the same envelope, oblige you to leave France within thirty days and fix the country of destination. Do not treat that second page as routine: it starts deadlines running, and it is the decision that can put you on a plane.<\/p>\nB. Getting the trade itself recognised: qualification, registration and the regulated building trades<\/h3>\n
II. How do you register, pay tax and social charges \u2014 and challenge a refusal?<\/h2>\n
A. Guichet unique, micro-entreprise, VAT and Urssaf: the money side of an artisan business<\/h3>\n
B. When the administration says no: refusals, departure orders and how judges decide<\/h3>\n