14 ms·

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

154 points by christpetron 6y ago

lifeisstillgood 6y ago
I suspect my first question is - does it matter now, post-COVID. Is there any investment money out there still? If I get a visa, have a plan, is there anyway to raise enough money to even keep me in baguettes?
- stunt 6y ago
  Many startups were still founded during 2008 recession. There are new needs after every crisis, and entrepreneurs just have more time and motivation to build something. Investors also try to diversify their capital like always. They're just more careful now. Crisis definitely has a negative impact overall. But, it can't stop everyone. https://news.crunchbase.com/news/lessons-from-2008-how-the-downturn-impacted-funding-two-to-four-years-out/ https://news.crunchbase.com/news/lessons-from-2008-how-the-d... https://mattermark.com/2007-2009-financial-crisis-surprisingly-kind-tech-startups/ https://mattermark.com/2007-2009-financial-crisis-surprising...
Uberphallus 6y ago
Honestly, this reads as those books titled "How to make money selling books on Amazon". Living in France, I can tell, France is very startup hostile. The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd. The only way a small tech company can make any money and be sustainable (let alone grow) is having all employees as associates (with all the organizational problems that such thing will bring) and take dividends instead of salaries, otherwise literally more than half of the salary is gone in taxes. And of course, this is all having their own day job, or taking a "company creation" sabbatical year, which is the only actually helpful thing for startups you'll find in France. You can take a year off from your job, try to create a company, and after the year your employer has to take you back in the same position (if you want, obviously). You need to have worked a number of years before, both in global and with your current employer, though. VC culture is close to non existing, so you need very good connections to have investors, and those connections often times aren't in France. Financial and investing groups in France are very conservative. Literally all new companies I've seen founded are like that, and from those that live longer than a year, about 50% move their HQ elsewhere, normally the place where the funding came from. With the numbers we made back in the day (we were 5), the gap from "we're making some money on the side" to "we need to hire someone who isn't a founder" was about €300,000 yearly in extra revenue. Otherwise it wasn't worth it.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  Also, some European countries require a pension deposit of a million euros per employee for new companies in case they go BK. There's a documentary on one European founder who built a factory and bought CNC machines for mfg., but couldn't afford the pension deposit, so couldn't hire any full-time employees. C'est dommage. :) I remember watching French art movies in Toronto in the 90's, and all the young characters worked for the phone company or the government.
- belzebalex 6y ago
  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 is, now that France is in the neo-liberal EU, France is dismantling its super-big-yet-working-ok public sector to make place for private companies... That can't exist because of 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 to work in other countries where it's possible to create and operate a company.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    As the other commenter says, and I'll add: I think French people love complaining while continuing on their bubble A lot of countries have more regulations, but if you complain about every one of them and take it as an obstacle, yeah, really, nothing is going to come out of it. France is not, by a long shot, the most bureaucratic country in the world. Wow 200eur to open a company? How much does that compare to, I don't know, a yearly salary? Of course it's stupid fee, the US is full of them as well but I don't see people whining. People in France can't complain that the taxes are high and there's no money when every time some reforms are proposed such and such union goes to protest because god help them if the train conductors don't have high fashion vests right? Or complain about "loss of work rights" like, I don't know, a "right" to a lifetime employment.
not_a_moth 6y ago
Thank you for sharing these details, however what you've described seems to fall under "visa abuse" in eyes of developed countries who offer startup visas... mocking up something one weekend in order to go live in the country certainly goes against the spirit of these visas.
csomar 6y ago
tl;dr: France made a program where they defer idea/talent assessment to third-party "incubators". Some of these guys are now taking the opportunity to give you the approval for a "fee". That's around 5.000 euros. ps: UK/Hong Kong have similar programs.
rmason 6y ago
I'm intrigued on how it's just the opposite of the United States. Here if you get accepted into an incubator they pay you. In France you pay them! If France really wanted foreigners to start companies there why wouldn't they make the tech visa as close to free and frictionless as possible?
- csomar 6y ago
  See my comment over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24233291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24233291 Some of these incubators are gaming the system to make money. I'd not be surprised if they are giving these approvals to people who should not be eligible (ie: people not interested in starting a startup).
  - fakedang 6y ago
    Incidentally like the author of the linked article. He states he lifted off the idea template for his first startup from Canva. Fortunately for him, he lucked out because he found another startup co-founder for an actual idea much later on.
CalRobert 6y ago
For those interested in moving to Europe, seedtable maintains a list of European Tech Visas which could be handy https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wLPGB2BdRxHWbdOXXtKAoCQimY_4RjBjRH8Grv3U0tI/edit?ck_subscriber_id=855671361#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wLPGB2BdRxHWbdOXXtKA...
jwr 6y ago
Please write a blog post with a more complete list of podcasts that you listen to and sites that you read! It turns out it is surprisingly difficult to find pointers to sites and podcasts if you speak French, but do not live in France. The internet is really good at keeping us in our bubbles, making a lot of assumptions on geolocated IPs. As a side note, I will add that there is one thing that is somewhat problematic about the French business culture, namely that French companies will really go out of their way to deal only with other French companies. It is very difficult to do business with France because of this. It does help if you speak fluent French, but even then, unless you are a French business, you are at a big disadvantage and your product needs to be really much better than the competition. I guess in the case of the OP this worked well, because the business was based in France after all.
- bondant 6y ago
  > Please write a blog post with a more complete list of podcasts that you listen to and sites that you read! >It turns out it is surprisingly difficult to find pointers to sites and podcasts if you speak French, but do not live in France. The internet is really good at keeping us in our bubbles, making a lot of assumptions on geolocated IPs. If you have a good level in french, I would advise you to listen to France Culture. I think the programmes are quite good, I personally really liked the audio series, for instance "L'incroyable expédition de Corentin Tréguier au Congo". Another interesting programme of this summer is the ongoing interviews with "modern mercenaries/privateer" [3] [1] https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions [2] https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/lincroyable-expedition-de-corentin-treguier-au-congo https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/lincroyable-expeditio... [3] https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/le-monde-des-espions-saison-2-les-nouveaux-corsaires/saison-29-06-2020-23-08-2020 https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/le-monde-des-espions-...
- jclos 6y ago
  > The internet is really good at keeping us in our bubbles, making a lot of assumptions on geolocated IPs. PocketCast, and I assume a lot of other podcast apps, let you change your country in the settings when you are browsing for new podcasts to listen.
therealmarv 6y ago
Don't. There are so many other countries with great programmers in Europe. I would go with Bulgaria or Romania when EU is a requirement. Otherwise I would go to Georgia (the country). First row countries like France or Germany are start up hostile.
victor106 6y ago
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 EU. Till that changes no matter how easy it is to get a startup visa it won’t make a difference. I don’t know how true that is. Can someone with more experience please validate?
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  Am asian, born and grew up in Germany. Apart from the very, very occasional dickhead I don't think anyone's racist. Can't make a comparison to the US though.
- ttwy2020 6y ago
  As an immigrant who has been living in France (Paris) for 7 years, I didn't personally experience any racism, on the contrary, my collegues, neighbours and strangers, all treat me respectfully as I would treat them. On the other hand, my wife, being a Hijabi, did experience it in subtle ways (if we can call it racism): sometimes not-so-friendly gazes from strangers, she can not go to the public swimpool because burkini is not allowed, and she struggled for a year to find work even though she had a good engineering degree (the reason was not always disclosed, but some recruiters did explicitly tell her that it was because of her Hijab). Which is different from the UK and other European countries from what I have been told. I don't watch French media, but I hear that that's where racism mostly emerges. And I must admit, the behaviour of some immigrant communities (especially some north-african ones, saying this as a north-african myself), partly justifies the hostile attitude towards them.
  - realusername 6y ago
    > (the reason was not always disclosed, but some recruiters did explicitly tell her that it was because of her Hijab). Which is different from the UK and other European countries from what I have been told. That's because the French culture does not work on the same basis as the UK and northern european countries. The french society strongly goes towards integration and not multiculturalism. It has a lot of deep consequences in the society, starting that people expect you to identify and behave as French, regardless of your background, skin color or anything else. This means you will really be treated as a local from day one and just a small racist minority will really care about your background. But it also means as a double edged sword that if people perceive that you reject this identity, they will think that you are rejecting the society and will react negatively.
seapunk 6y ago
Hi Christian, welcome to France. My suggestion to add to your French podcasts list: Tête à Tech - https://teteatech.fr/ https://teteatech.fr/ This is my favorite podcast about technology by Awa Ndiaye and Jeremy Lezac. Enjoy the croissants.
maxmouchet 6y ago
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...
- nix23 6y ago
  Denmark Nr1 ATM: https://startupdenmark.info/ https://startupdenmark.info/
- _Wintermute 6y ago
  Starting a private limited company in the UK is amazingly easy, it's £12 and a web-form that takes about 10 minutes. https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register-your-company https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register-your-c... Obviously things get more complicated once you start hiring other people but the government does a good job of trying to streamline things compared to France.
- pjc50 6y ago
  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 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 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.
- moltar 6y ago
  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.
rootsudo 6y ago
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.
smnrchrds 6y ago
French Talent Passport has streams for employees as well as founders. Does anyone know what happens if you use the employee stream and then lose your job, e.g. because the company who hired you has gone under? Do you have to leave France immediately, or is there a grace period for you to find another job? Also, does France have similar to Permanent Residency in other countries? How long do you need to live in France before you can obtain a status that allows you to stay, live, and switch employers in France and does not depend on keeping your job?
- ttwy2020 6y ago
  I have the Talent Passport as an employee, and my first company went under. I was lucky to find another job before quitting, but generally, there is no obligation to "leave France immediately".
  - lma21 6y ago
    Also, if you've worked for at least 6 months in the past 2 years and your company went under / you got fired / the company did not renew your CDD (temporary contract) / you had to quit because your SO is moving, you're given unemployment benefits (whether you're French or not) as well as help to get back to employment.
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    Maybe not immediately, but I believe in the US if you lose your job and you are not a US citizen or Permanent Resident, you have 90 days to either get a new job and a visa to go with it or leave the country. How do these things work in France?
x87678r 6y ago
Taxes and paperwork in France (and Europe) really doesn't sound that bad to me. What does sound very different are the labor laws. You can't just fire someone because its illegal to do so. You can't just hire a bunch of people quickly because people dont switch jobs as often. The team can't work 80 hrs a week because that isn't allowed either.
- amarka 6y ago
  What's worse is that I heard rumors they don't allow slave labor either. Labor laws, ugh, they're the worst.
  - x87678r 6y ago
    OK then, in your opinion what are the main reasons there are many more successful tech companies in the US vs EU?
- refurb 6y ago
  The one that got me was an employee needs to give 3 months notice that they are quitting. It’s typically 2 weeks in the US and that’s more a nice to have than a requirement.
fredo 6y ago
Well I lived in US and created a company in Paris. US administration didn't look simpler to me... Tax in NYC were huge and it didn't include the schools for my kids. If you're 18 yr old and care only about your own needs, go to US (if you can get a visa, remember trump don't like foreigners and 401k). France is better when you want a family or life conditions of a rich country.
- refurb 6y ago
  NYC is arguably the highest taxes locale in the US. Try the same comparison with say, Seattle.

154 points by christpetron 6y ago

I suspect my first question is - does it matter now, post-COVID. Is there any investment money out there still? If I get a visa, have a plan, is there anyway to raise enough money to even keep me in baguettes?

stunt 6y ago
Many startups were still founded during 2008 recession. There are new needs after every crisis, and entrepreneurs just have more time and motivation to build something. Investors also try to diversify their capital like always. They're just more careful now. Crisis definitely has a negative impact overall. But, it can't stop everyone. https://news.crunchbase.com/news/lessons-from-2008-how-the-downturn-impacted-funding-two-to-four-years-out/ https://news.crunchbase.com/news/lessons-from-2008-how-the-d... https://mattermark.com/2007-2009-financial-crisis-surprisingly-kind-tech-startups/ https://mattermark.com/2007-2009-financial-crisis-surprising...

Uberphallus 6y ago

Honestly, this reads as those books titled "How to make money selling books on Amazon". Living in France, I can tell, France is very startup hostile. The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd. The only way a small tech company can make any money and be sustainable (let alone grow) is having all employees as associates (with all the organizational problems that such thing will bring) and take dividends instead of salaries, otherwise literally more than half of the salary is gone in taxes. And of course, this is all having their own day job, or taking a "company creation" sabbatical year, which is the only actually helpful thing for startups you'll find in France. You can take a year off from your job, try to create a company, and after the year your employer has to take you back in the same position (if you want, obviously). You need to have worked a number of years before, both in global and with your current employer, though. VC culture is close to non existing, so you need very good connections to have investors, and those connections often times aren't in France. Financial and investing groups in France are very conservative. Literally all new companies I've seen founded are like that, and from those that live longer than a year, about 50% move their HQ elsewhere, normally the place where the funding came from. With the numbers we made back in the day (we were 5), the gap from "we're making some money on the side" to "we need to hire someone who isn't a founder" was about €300,000 yearly in extra revenue. Otherwise it wasn't worth it.

redis_mlc 6y ago
Also, some European countries require a pension deposit of a million euros per employee for new companies in case they go BK. There's a documentary on one European founder who built a factory and bought CNC machines for mfg., but couldn't afford the pension deposit, so couldn't hire any full-time employees. C'est dommage. :) I remember watching French art movies in Toronto in the 90's, and all the young characters worked for the phone company or the government.
belzebalex 6y ago
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 is, now that France is in the neo-liberal EU, France is dismantling its super-big-yet-working-ok public sector to make place for private companies... That can't exist because of 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 to work in other countries where it's possible to create and operate a company.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  As the other commenter says, and I'll add: I think French people love complaining while continuing on their bubble A lot of countries have more regulations, but if you complain about every one of them and take it as an obstacle, yeah, really, nothing is going to come out of it. France is not, by a long shot, the most bureaucratic country in the world. Wow 200eur to open a company? How much does that compare to, I don't know, a yearly salary? Of course it's stupid fee, the US is full of them as well but I don't see people whining. People in France can't complain that the taxes are high and there's no money when every time some reforms are proposed such and such union goes to protest because god help them if the train conductors don't have high fashion vests right? Or complain about "loss of work rights" like, I don't know, a "right" to a lifetime employment.

not_a_moth 6y ago

Thank you for sharing these details, however what you've described seems to fall under "visa abuse" in eyes of developed countries who offer startup visas... mocking up something one weekend in order to go live in the country certainly goes against the spirit of these visas.

csomar 6y ago

tl;dr: France made a program where they defer idea/talent assessment to third-party "incubators". Some of these guys are now taking the opportunity to give you the approval for a "fee". That's around 5.000 euros. ps: UK/Hong Kong have similar programs.

rmason 6y ago

I'm intrigued on how it's just the opposite of the United States. Here if you get accepted into an incubator they pay you. In France you pay them! If France really wanted foreigners to start companies there why wouldn't they make the tech visa as close to free and frictionless as possible?

csomar 6y ago
See my comment over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24233291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24233291 Some of these incubators are gaming the system to make money. I'd not be surprised if they are giving these approvals to people who should not be eligible (ie: people not interested in starting a startup).
- fakedang 6y ago
  Incidentally like the author of the linked article. He states he lifted off the idea template for his first startup from Canva. Fortunately for him, he lucked out because he found another startup co-founder for an actual idea much later on.

CalRobert 6y ago

For those interested in moving to Europe, seedtable maintains a list of European Tech Visas which could be handy https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wLPGB2BdRxHWbdOXXtKAoCQimY_4RjBjRH8Grv3U0tI/edit?ck_subscriber_id=855671361#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wLPGB2BdRxHWbdOXXtKA...

jwr 6y ago

Please write a blog post with a more complete list of podcasts that you listen to and sites that you read! It turns out it is surprisingly difficult to find pointers to sites and podcasts if you speak French, but do not live in France. The internet is really good at keeping us in our bubbles, making a lot of assumptions on geolocated IPs. As a side note, I will add that there is one thing that is somewhat problematic about the French business culture, namely that French companies will really go out of their way to deal only with other French companies. It is very difficult to do business with France because of this. It does help if you speak fluent French, but even then, unless you are a French business, you are at a big disadvantage and your product needs to be really much better than the competition. I guess in the case of the OP this worked well, because the business was based in France after all.

bondant 6y ago
> Please write a blog post with a more complete list of podcasts that you listen to and sites that you read! >It turns out it is surprisingly difficult to find pointers to sites and podcasts if you speak French, but do not live in France. The internet is really good at keeping us in our bubbles, making a lot of assumptions on geolocated IPs. If you have a good level in french, I would advise you to listen to France Culture. I think the programmes are quite good, I personally really liked the audio series, for instance "L'incroyable expédition de Corentin Tréguier au Congo". Another interesting programme of this summer is the ongoing interviews with "modern mercenaries/privateer" [3] [1] https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions [2] https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/lincroyable-expedition-de-corentin-treguier-au-congo https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/lincroyable-expeditio... [3] https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/le-monde-des-espions-saison-2-les-nouveaux-corsaires/saison-29-06-2020-23-08-2020 https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/le-monde-des-espions-...
jclos 6y ago
> The internet is really good at keeping us in our bubbles, making a lot of assumptions on geolocated IPs. PocketCast, and I assume a lot of other podcast apps, let you change your country in the settings when you are browsing for new podcasts to listen.

therealmarv 6y ago

Don't. There are so many other countries with great programmers in Europe. I would go with Bulgaria or Romania when EU is a requirement. Otherwise I would go to Georgia (the country). First row countries like France or Germany are start up hostile.

victor106 6y ago

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 EU. Till that changes no matter how easy it is to get a startup visa it won’t make a difference. I don’t know how true that is. Can someone with more experience please validate?

read_if_gay_ 6y ago
Am asian, born and grew up in Germany. Apart from the very, very occasional dickhead I don't think anyone's racist. Can't make a comparison to the US though.
ttwy2020 6y ago
As an immigrant who has been living in France (Paris) for 7 years, I didn't personally experience any racism, on the contrary, my collegues, neighbours and strangers, all treat me respectfully as I would treat them. On the other hand, my wife, being a Hijabi, did experience it in subtle ways (if we can call it racism): sometimes not-so-friendly gazes from strangers, she can not go to the public swimpool because burkini is not allowed, and she struggled for a year to find work even though she had a good engineering degree (the reason was not always disclosed, but some recruiters did explicitly tell her that it was because of her Hijab). Which is different from the UK and other European countries from what I have been told. I don't watch French media, but I hear that that's where racism mostly emerges. And I must admit, the behaviour of some immigrant communities (especially some north-african ones, saying this as a north-african myself), partly justifies the hostile attitude towards them.
- realusername 6y ago
  > (the reason was not always disclosed, but some recruiters did explicitly tell her that it was because of her Hijab). Which is different from the UK and other European countries from what I have been told. That's because the French culture does not work on the same basis as the UK and northern european countries. The french society strongly goes towards integration and not multiculturalism. It has a lot of deep consequences in the society, starting that people expect you to identify and behave as French, regardless of your background, skin color or anything else. This means you will really be treated as a local from day one and just a small racist minority will really care about your background. But it also means as a double edged sword that if people perceive that you reject this identity, they will think that you are rejecting the society and will react negatively.

seapunk 6y ago

Hi Christian, welcome to France. My suggestion to add to your French podcasts list: Tête à Tech - https://teteatech.fr/ https://teteatech.fr/ This is my favorite podcast about technology by Awa Ndiaye and Jeremy Lezac. Enjoy the croissants.

maxmouchet 6y ago

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...

nix23 6y ago
Denmark Nr1 ATM: https://startupdenmark.info/ https://startupdenmark.info/
_Wintermute 6y ago
Starting a private limited company in the UK is amazingly easy, it's £12 and a web-form that takes about 10 minutes. https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register-your-company https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register-your-c... Obviously things get more complicated once you start hiring other people but the government does a good job of trying to streamline things compared to France.
pjc50 6y ago
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 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 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.
moltar 6y ago
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.

rootsudo 6y ago

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.

smnrchrds 6y ago

French Talent Passport has streams for employees as well as founders. Does anyone know what happens if you use the employee stream and then lose your job, e.g. because the company who hired you has gone under? Do you have to leave France immediately, or is there a grace period for you to find another job? Also, does France have similar to Permanent Residency in other countries? How long do you need to live in France before you can obtain a status that allows you to stay, live, and switch employers in France and does not depend on keeping your job?

ttwy2020 6y ago
I have the Talent Passport as an employee, and my first company went under. I was lucky to find another job before quitting, but generally, there is no obligation to "leave France immediately".
- lma21 6y ago
  Also, if you've worked for at least 6 months in the past 2 years and your company went under / you got fired / the company did not renew your CDD (temporary contract) / you had to quit because your SO is moving, you're given unemployment benefits (whether you're French or not) as well as help to get back to employment.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  Maybe not immediately, but I believe in the US if you lose your job and you are not a US citizen or Permanent Resident, you have 90 days to either get a new job and a visa to go with it or leave the country. How do these things work in France?

x87678r 6y ago

Taxes and paperwork in France (and Europe) really doesn't sound that bad to me. What does sound very different are the labor laws. You can't just fire someone because its illegal to do so. You can't just hire a bunch of people quickly because people dont switch jobs as often. The team can't work 80 hrs a week because that isn't allowed either.

amarka 6y ago
What's worse is that I heard rumors they don't allow slave labor either. Labor laws, ugh, they're the worst.
- x87678r 6y ago
  OK then, in your opinion what are the main reasons there are many more successful tech companies in the US vs EU?
refurb 6y ago
The one that got me was an employee needs to give 3 months notice that they are quitting. It’s typically 2 weeks in the US and that’s more a nice to have than a requirement.

fredo 6y ago

Well I lived in US and created a company in Paris. US administration didn't look simpler to me... Tax in NYC were huge and it didn't include the schools for my kids. If you're 18 yr old and care only about your own needs, go to US (if you can get a visa, remember trump don't like foreigners and 401k). France is better when you want a family or life conditions of a rich country.

refurb 6y ago
NYC is arguably the highest taxes locale in the US. Try the same comparison with say, Seattle.