Changing from ME to SASU

Hello Valerie,

I have been advised to change from ME to SASU and I’d like to get a second opinion. Please note I plan to apply for citizenship in 12 months (I have a Diplôme d’ingénieur which qualifies for a resident time reduction), which may be important to your advice.

I arrived in France in July 2019 have been a microentrepreneur for three years, this has worked out well for me. Unfortunately, I have two issues: 1) I am over the income threshold (90,000 USD/yr) and I have only have one client which I was advised makes me “shadow employed” and would be an issue if I was ever audited.

I was advised to change to SASU and have a pretty good overview of it now. There are a few positives, including looking more stable with the prefecture for citizenship and more business flexibility. The issue is, with my current income I was advised to take ~1,500 EUR/month in salary as payslips for a stable salary when I apply for citizenship and have the rest paid out in dividends. I am a consultant with very few expenses. When this SASU set up it seems I am paying higher taxes and also would not have a consistent salary throughout the year since I’d be paid mostly in dividends.

Do you agree this is probably the best way forward? I will make the change if it is what’s needed, but I’m not seeing too many benefits and it would be a financially difficult year before the first dividend payout for a consultant like myself.