# Opening a micro-company as a self-employed person in France, and subsequent payment of social charges and taxes



## van_suso (Aug 10, 2015)

Hello,

First, my apologies if my questions are somewhat broad (in this case, links for self-study would be good enough with few pointers). 

*Relevant intro: *I'm an Indian citizen based in France, before with a salaried worker permit and currently with a self-employed residence permit. I've been working as self-employed since January 2021, have been declaring trimesterly social charges and will pay my first time self-employed income tax soon.

Next, some of my questions (esêcially question ii) below) may give the impression of performing something illegal, but *it's really not my intention*, I'm merely trying to understand the corresponding laws better, and everything I'll write next is* relayed to me by a third party*, so I'm not sure how correct the information is. I was recently told by someone that:

i) it's possible to transfer at least part of my micro-business to Portugal even being based in France and thereby declare social charges and taxes for that part to the Portuguese government.* Is it true or false?*

ii) Unlike France, it's enough to declare a certain minimal account as income and the social charges are calculated on this. Now, I strongly believe I either understood it wrong, or oversimplified it, or that it was relayed incorrectly - because this does sound illegal to me. In France, if I earn 3000€ in say January, it's obligatory to declare that 3000€, and not say 200€, so intuitively, the law of declaration of income shouldn't be that different. But my question is: is there really any loophole in the law that says anything about declaring income to the Portugese government? *Once again, I'm not trying to do anything illegal, but merely examining the law carefully.*

iii) It is possible to successfully apply for Portugese residency based on the self-employed status, even though I'll continue to live in France, thus having part of micro-business in France and the other part in Portugal. *Again, it seems highly counter-intuitive, but is there really any truth to it?*

iv) (Broad question) Is there any realistic possibility of being based in France and opening a micro-business in Portugal? If so, what is the step by step process please?

Thank you and kind regards.


----------

