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How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

christianpetroske.com

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Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#81

Post by pjc50 »

maxmouchet wrote: post #69

We often hear stories on how hard it is to start a business in France. As a French, I'd like to hear how easy it is in other countries (UK, US?). For example, what are the costs, the amount of paperwork...

UK company incorporation is especially easy; you use the templates, give them a bunch of personal information, and pay £12. There's an annual filing fee of about the same amount, and for small companies the accounting requirements are very simple.

Employing people: https://www.gov.uk/employing-staff (register with tax office, pay 13.8% of their pay over £166/w as national insurance. Very small employers don't have to register with PAYE: https://www.gov.uk/paye-for-employers

Usually you delegate that to some company like Sage.

Giving them shares or share options is potentially much more complicated, but by that point you'll retain an accountant for the purpose.

The big nightmares are visas (of any kind) and bank accounts. Small business banking doesn't have "consumer protection", and can come with all sorts of fees and predatory lending practices.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#82

Post by moltar »

maxmouchet wrote: post #69

We often hear stories on how hard it is to start a business in France. As a French, I'd like to hear how easy it is in other countries (UK, US?). For example, what are the costs, the amount of paperwork...

In Canada to become self employed is basically processless. You just file personal taxes as usual. They get slightly more complicated with deductions and such though. But many people do self employed taxes themselves.

Next level would be incorporating. The process is easy. Can be done online in a few minutes.

Taxes become more complicated. For a small one to three person company expect to pay about 2-5K annually to a professional accountant.

Corporate tax rate is 15% under 500K of revenue in Ontario. It varies province by province. Quebec as I understand is higher and also more complicated as they have their own tax system separate.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#83

Post by lm28469 »

jclos wrote: post #60
lm28469 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm French, French people are blind and most of them have no idea how easy it is to live in France compared to basically any other countries in the world. I guess it's a lack of perspective, anyone who spent any amount of time in eastern europe or in the US (places which aren't even that bad to begin with) would instantly see how lucky they are to live in France.

I hope you do realise that life is so easy because we are always complaining and not in spite of it. Worker rights and social safety nets did not magically appear out of thin air.

Sure, but what we're seeing here is people complaining the other way: "We pay too much taxes", "there are too many regulations", &c.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#84

Post by belzebalex »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #74
belzebalex wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, as a French I can only completely agree. The amount of paperwork is just absurd. For instance, when you create a company, you have to pay a separate fee (~200eur) to a private "official journal" to publish the fact that you're creating a company. That's just plain racket, and that kind of things is everywhere. France is dying, because France can't have a private sector because of its regulations. The fun part i…

>France is dying, because France can't have a private sector because of its regulations. >France is dying to me. As an 18-yo, I'm seriously concerned on what to do for my future. The country has a super good education system (I would easily say the best in the world, by far) (just check out the ENS's Nobel prize / admissions ratio) but has no companies where people do any work. Most of the brilliant French minds go t…

Airplanes? You're right. Rockets? Ariane is being eaten alive by SpaceX, and the bureaucrats won't move fast enough. They can't even agree on Ariane 6. AI: Yeah France's really good at supplying engineers for Facebook. There's a reason why François Chollet and Yann LeCun have fled away.

Old companies in France don't build anything new. Maybe we do have startups, but do we have successful ones?

Concerning your last point, saying that the current 3000-pages laws are just "preventing you from treating people like shit" is a simplification.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#85

Post by actuator »

tasogare wrote: post #46
victor106 wrote: post #34

From what a few of my colleagues told me: France is very racist. Apparently this is true in most of Europe. Everything looks okay on the surface but they are deep racial undertones. They tell me that believe it or not America is the one of the least racist countries. It does not mean there’s no racism in America just that it’s lesser. It’s easy for immigrants to assimilate into society in America than most places in…

> France is very racist Literally the biggest lie I read here for a long time. Yeah France is so racist that 20% of the population is of foreign non-white ancestry, nationality is easy to get (notably got automatic if botn on national soil), no welfare programs discriminates on nationality basis, illegal aliens are rarely expelled (being sentenced is not more automatic ground for it), there is laws forbidding critici…

Btw, just because people are immigrating, it doesn't mean racism is low. Economic opportunities and better quality of life might be the main drivers, even at the cost of facing discrimination.

Most of the French immigrants are from erstwhile French colonies like in the case of Britain, racism and exploitation of their homelands didn't stop them from moving to seek better life.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#86

Post by smcphile »

wink wrote: post #67
bouzouk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but no: a 30k salary does not cost the company 80k! It costs around 41k, or 49k if you take into account employee taxes (here is a simulator from the French government: https://entreprise.pole-emploi.fr/cout-salarie/ ). « Comité d’entreprise » are for 50+ employees and not 20. What’s the use in throwing around fake numbers just to make your point? Even if that sure must be a nice place to live, that is the…

From what I heard France has strong worker protection laws, even stronger than Germany. Do you think this is/could be a problem for startups? I am absolutely against the US way of just firing people, but I accept the realism of small businesses and startups where you -as en employee- simply can't take for granted that your job (or company) will exist in 5 or even 2-3 years. IIRC in Germany we have exceptions for <10…

> From what I heard France has strong worker protection laws, even stronger than Germany. Do you think this is/could be a problem for startups?

Yes, France has strong worker protection laws, but if someone is found to have been abusively fired there’s a cap on how much they can sue for. The amount is based on how long they’ve been with the company. For example, after 2 years, the amount is 3 months salary, after 5 years, 6 months salary. The complete table is here: https://droit-finances.commentcamarche.com/faq/54743-bareme-...

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#87

Post by user5994461 »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #74
belzebalex wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, as a French I can only completely agree. The amount of paperwork is just absurd. For instance, when you create a company, you have to pay a separate fee (~200eur) to a private "official journal" to publish the fact that you're creating a company. That's just plain racket, and that kind of things is everywhere. France is dying, because France can't have a private sector because of its regulations. The fun part i…

>France is dying, because France can't have a private sector because of its regulations. >France is dying to me. As an 18-yo, I'm seriously concerned on what to do for my future. The country has a super good education system (I would easily say the best in the world, by far) (just check out the ENS's Nobel prize / admissions ratio) but has no companies where people do any work. Most of the brilliant French minds go t…

France does have a strong defense and aerospace industry indeed. That's maybe the only thing that's still alive and doing well, propped up by military budget and large companies. Military related work is one of the rare domains that can't be externalized.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#88

Post by actuator »

itoocode wrote: post #72
victor106 wrote: post #34

From what a few of my colleagues told me: France is very racist. Apparently this is true in most of Europe. Everything looks okay on the surface but they are deep racial undertones. They tell me that believe it or not America is the one of the least racist countries. It does not mean there’s no racism in America just that it’s lesser. It’s easy for immigrants to assimilate into society in America than most places in…

I lived in France for 10+ years, I graduated at a French University and worked as software engineer, from what I have seen, France is not racist, but to assimilate into the society is not easy, I totally agree. I am fluent in French, so it is not about the language. Racism on streets of Paris does not exist at all, but racism exists at work, that is more worrying in France. Articles like this portray a welcoming imag…

Based on the anecdotes I have heard, I think it does exist. I had met couple of guys who had worked in France based companies and they did tell about feeling very isolated there.

In contrast, even with all the racism around Brexit, one of them loved living in London and would sing praises of the inclusiveness he felt in and out of office.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#89

Post by rootsudo »

I'm debating doing something similar for Japan. It's always nice to read how it is around the world.

In Japan, it is "Fairly" easy, provided you know Japanese and Japanese Culture.

For "hostility" a-lot of it comes under not knowing how to do things the Japanese way and finding an office location. Though there are government city sponsored incubators.

Mostly though, it's an excuse to just pay money to get a visa and residency, that can turn permanent.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#90

Post by Uberphallus »

bouzouk wrote: post #36
Uberphallus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not half of the salary More than half if you consider taxes on the company. A 30k salary costs the company about 80k. Sure, there are loads of social services, but still. In the company I created we did the work ourselves, and sometimes hired freelancers for certain things we're not familiar/experts in, but without external funding taking one single employee is a major blow to the accouting of a small company. With…

I’m sorry but no: a 30k salary does not cost the company 80k! It costs around 41k, or 49k if you take into account employee taxes (here is a simulator from the French government: https://entreprise.pole-emploi.fr/cout-salarie/ ). « Comité d’entreprise » are for 50+ employees and not 20. What’s the use in throwing around fake numbers just to make your point? Even if that sure must be a nice place to live, that is the…

It was a typo, I meant 40k costs 80k, and according to the simulator it's 72k (company pays 72k, employee gets 40k). It doesn't include Syntec as collective agreement but I don't think the results would be much different. So my bad, but still not far off. This level of fiscal pressure is on par with Scandinavian countries, to put it in perspective.

That's absolutely bonkers for a startup that is actually starting, as there's little to no cash flow.

Note I'm not defending lowering taxes, but in other countries companies have exemptions and/or reductions according to company age, revenue or activity sector (e.g. https://business.gov.nl/subsidy/tax-relief-new-companies/). That encourages companies to actually have a chance to take off and continue paying taxes, rather than suffocate them from the get go.

In France, the most I've seen are reductions applicable to taxe fonciere for new company, which is a tax too small to even matter.

Of course, if you have the contacts willing to invest, my whole point is moot.

> that is the first time I heard Sophia Antipolis being the « Silicon Valley of France »

Come over and they won't stop telling you :)

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