UK Limited Company and French Micro-Entrepreneur

Hi Valerie,

First off, thank you for putting this forum together. It has been very useful going through all your responses to other people’s questions so far!

I have recently moved permanently from the UK to France and I am trying to work out the best way to structure my business.

Just for a bit of context, I have moved here on an Entrepreneur / Profession Libérale visa, so I need to create a French business structure of some kind. I am the sole director and shareholder of a UK limited company providing cybersecurity consultancy services.

Currently, all of my customers are UK-based and they require me to contract through a UK-registered limited company. Because of this, keeping the UK Ltd as the client-facing company is effectively non-negotiable, as I cannot simply move the existing contracts over to a French business.

However, I now live permanently in France and will be carrying out the actual consultancy work from France, so I want to make sure the income from this work is correctly declared and taxed here through a French business structure.

The main option I am considering is setting up as a French micro-entrepreneur for cybersecurity consultancy. My UK Ltd would continue invoicing the UK customers, and my French micro would then invoice my UK Ltd for the work that I actually perform from France. The UK Ltd would retain a relatively small amount to cover its genuine costs, such as insurance.

Initially, the UK Ltd would probably account for most, if not all, of the micro-entrepreneur’s income.

The other option I have looked at is registering the UK Ltd as having a French branch/permanent establishment, but this appears significantly more complicated for a one-person consultancy.

Would you consider the micro-entrepreneur arrangement appropriate in this situation, even though I own the UK company that the micro would be invoicing? Or is there a different structure or setup that you would recommend for my situation?

My main objective is simply to find the most straightforward legitimate structure while keeping the UK Ltd for the existing UK contracts and paying the appropriate tax and social contributions in France. I also need to have a registered French business of some kind as part of the requirements of my visa.

Many thanks,
Leonie