I spent maybe 40 minutes looking for information online on how to set up your company, figured I wanted to register as "auto-entrepreneur", a new kind of registration created in 2009 with very simplified way to register your company and pretty much tax free.

I still couldnt figure out how to register online so found the phone number of a "maison de l'entreprise", a "one of all" place to go when you want to start a business and exchange with an counselor who confirm I could register online with nothing much then a digital ID. Good move, she warned me against websites where they ask you to pay something to register. I looked for the site, only found "fake" sites that send you to paid services.

I finally googled "lautoentrepreneur.fr", found the site, start the registration process (that's from there that it took me about 18 minutes). Only to realize I need my social security number… and I dont have it with me. Not even sure I have a paper with it somewhere in Beijing. But probably.

Not that easy to be an entrepreneur in France.

A French specificity is that there is a lot of state/regional support you can receive when you create your company, it seems that only because I am under 30 years old and from an oversea department (Reunion island) I am eligible for a State financial support of about 7000 euro. To explore. Seems there is also support for women creating companies. To explore.

The downside is that it is additional paper work and another step in creating your company (so another reason to stop doing it). And that it seems you have to make any claim BEFORE registering your business, which make you scare that if you do it to fast and not the right way…you will miss your shoot at getting extra money.

So I tried to call back the "maison de l'entreprise" to clarify this point…and it was closed. It is 4:30, Friday afternoon (but 23 December for their defense)…

I guess I will know more on Monday.

What is sure is that starting your business is France – even though it has been simplified and you can do it pretty easily so they said – appeared to me to be very procedural and very… administrative. All websites explaining you how to do are not straightforward and make you really feel like you SHOULD be a professional to start a business. It is not for the average Jo. But a professional in what.. I have no idea.

Site I visited:

http://www.creersaboite.fr/ (Supported by the region Ile de France)

http://www.apce.com/ (Supported by the State)

http://www.entreprise-reunion.re/ (Same but specifically for my hometown)

http://www.lautoentrepreneur.fr/( redirected to??https://www.cfe.urssaf.fr/autoentrepreneur/CFE_Bienvenue – Where you actually can register as Auto Entrepreneur)

Informative websites that direct you to paid service to register your company: