[erin85]

Hello everyone. My husband and I are moving to France in June, and I will be employed through a government agency (French) on a scientist visa. I've been told I get my health insurance/benefits through the national program. As for my husband, he is starting a kind of consulting company (all of his clients will be in the US, work done on computer). What options are available for him? Can he be listed on my policy as well? Can he also sign up for the government system? To be honest, his business will probably make little to no money at first, so I don't know how this may affect things. But, I am told his visa will give him a work permit.

I'm just very confused about everything, and any help for what he needs to do would be appreciated. I am happy to answer more questions about our situation if needed...

 

[Bevdeforges]

Under the regular French system, you can include your spouse on your national health coverage and you can sign him up on whatever mutuelle your place of employment offers. You'll pay extra for him on the mutuelle only. The contributions for the national health care are a percentage of your pay.

For his consulting company, he should probably sign up to start with as an auto-entrepreneur, using the AE portal site: Portail Officiel des Auto-Entrepreneurs

As an AE, he'll pay a flat percentage of his take (I think it's currently 23% for a "service" business) and be covered for health, retirement and the other French social insurances. He'll still need the mutuelle (top up) coverage, so it's probably best to include him in any mutuelle available through your work.

The AE is a system of vastly simplified accounting for a small business. As long as his gross revenues are under the VAT threshold, he has no bookkeeping or reporting obligation other than to report (and pay his cotisations) on gross revenues. When his revenues exceed the VAT threshold (about 32K € for a service business), he'll have to take steps to register for VAT and convert his business to some other form, but that should give him a bit of time to learn how to deal with business practices here in France.

For more information on the auto-entrepreneur scheme, here is the government's page on it: http://www.gouvernement.fr/gouvernement/le-statut-de-l-auto-entrepreneur
Cheers,
Bev

 

[erin85]

Thank you Bev, that was extremely helpful.