Définition
A micro-entrepreneur benefits from the scheme of the same name (called auto-entrepreneur until 2014), which offers them simplified business start-up formalities, as well as a simplified method of calculating and paying social security contributions and income tax. It applies to individual entrepreneurs who request it, under certain conditions.
The micro-entrepreneur thus benefits in particular from:
- the tax regime for micro-enterprises;
- of the micro-social regime;
- an exemption from VAT.
The scheme may concern commercial, craft or liberal activities, as a main or complementary activity.
The following are excluded from the plan:
- activities related to the Agricultural Social Mutuality Fund (MSA);
- regulated liberal professions not covered by the "Cipav" pension fund (legal and judicial professions, health professions, chartered accountants, general insurance agents, etc.)
- activities relating to real estate VAT (transactions of property merchants, developers, real estate agents, etc.);
- artistic activities under the responsibility of the "Maison des artistes" or the "Agessa" association;
- the activities of a majority manager of a company;
- cumulation with an activity as a self-employed person already registered and covered by the Social Security for the self-employed.
The auto-entrepreneur scheme was initially created by the Law on the Modernisation of the Economy (LME) No 2008-776 of 4 August 2008 and came into force on 1 January 2009.
The Pinel law of 18 June 2014 transformed it into a micro-entrepreneur regime as from 19 December 2014. It has imposed new obligations on it, such as registration in the Trade and Companies Register (RCS) for traders or in the Trade Register (RM) for craftsmen. It also ended the exemption from the tax for consular room fees and required companies to pay their property tax in the second year of operation and no longer from the fourth year. It also provided for the merger of the micro-enterprise tax system and the micro-social system as of 1 January 2016. Thus, since that date, individual entrepreneurs covered by the micro-enterprise tax regime are automatically subject to the micro-social regime.
Since 1 January 2023, the turnover thresholds for access to the tax regime for
micro-enterprises and micro-social schemes have been doubled. They now apply to companies whose turnover in the previous calendar year or the penultimate year does not exceed:- 188,700 euros for an
activity involving the sale of goods, objects, food to take away or consume on the spot, or the provision of accommodation;- 77,700 euros for a service activity or a liberal profession.
This scheme must be distinguished from the category of micro-enterprises defined by
Article 51 of the Law on the Modernisation of the Economy (LME) and specified by Decree No 2008-1354.
Remarque
- Since January, 2011, the micro-entrepreneur can benefit from individual entrepreneur with limited liability(EIRL) status by allocating to his professional activity a specific patrimony separated from his personal patrimony. However he preserves the fixed tax and social regime connected to the micro-entrepreneur status.
- This status must be distinguished from both simplified tax scheme (sometimes called tax regime of micro-enterprise) and category of microenterprises defined under Article 51 of the law on the modernization of the economy (LME) and specified by Decree No. 2008-1354.