Corporate domiciliation means giving your company legal and tax status. It also reassures your customers and suppliers when they contract with you.
As a self-employed entrepreneur, domiciling your company gives it a nationality. Above all, theaddress of your registered office determines which court has jurisdiction over any disputes arising from your activity, and which law applies.
The domiciliation address is also used to determine the basis of assessment for local taxes, in particular the CFE (cotisation foncière des entreprises).
In this case, it's important to know that it varies greatly from one part of the country to another. Even from one commune to another.
Choosing the right address for your head office means taking into account local tax rates. The advantage of this domiciliation address is that you can choose it independently of the address of your place of business. So you can domicile your company :
- To the President's home address,
- In commercial premises,
- In a business incubator,
- In an online domiciliation company.
To help you choose the solution that's best for you, we're going to detail all these domiciliation methods.
As a self-employed person, you are thesole representative of the company. You are therefore the Chairman, and can choose your home address as the location for your registered office.
The advantage of auto-entrepreneur status is that you don't need to reach any agreements with potential partners. You alone decide to domicile your company at your home address. However, this choice is subject to certain conditions. You must be :
- Homeowner or tenant,
- The property must be your principal residence.
As a result, a home that you occupy free of charge and of which you are not the owner is excluded. This is particularly true of young entrepreneurs who are still living with their parents, or those who have had to return to their parents' home following a reversal of fortune.
These two elements are not the only restrictions on setting up your company's head office in your home. In fact, this may be prohibited by :
- The provisions of the lease contract,
- Co-ownership regulations,
- Local planning regulations.
However, if you fall into one or more of these three categories, you still have the right to choose to domicile your company at your personal address, but only for a period of 5 years.
It's worth weighing up the cost of changing your registered office address. You'll have to amend your company's articles of association, pay for one or more publications in a legal gazette, as well as the court clerk's fees, VAT, INPI and so on.
What's even more annoying is that once the five-year period has expired, if you forget to make this change of address, your company will be automatically struck off the register by the clerk's office of your local commercial court. Fortunately, there are other solutions.
As always, as anauto-entrepreneur, you alone decide to set the address of your company's registered office at the address occupied by your business premises. Provided, of course, that you have commercial premises where you can carry on your business.
In this case, you either own your commercial premises outright, or you operate them under a commercial lease. If this is not the case, don't think about renting or buying commercial premises to house your business.
Why would you do this? Because this solution is far too expensive for the benefits you'll derive from being able to set up your registered office there. Other solutions exist so that you don't have to domicile your company in commercial premises.
On the face of it, this solution is quite appealing. The term "pépinière d'entreprises" is often associated with "dynamism", "start-up" or "incubation". The idea of using a business incubator is often linked to the fact that you were supported by such a structure when you launched your business.
What's more, you'll find the resources you need at the business incubator, including printers, scanners and other essential office tools.
Unfortunately, this type of domiciliation is not a long-term solution. In fact, the duration of domiciliation in a business incubator rarely exceeds six months. After that, you'll have to change your registered address, with all the consequences we've already mentioned:
- Change of articles of association,
- Clerk's fees,
- VAT,
- Etc.
So when none of these forms of domiciliation can be applied to your business life, either because you don't own the real estate that constitutes your home, or because you don't own business premises, or even because a lease contract prohibits you from domiciling, you're left with one last solution: the domiciliation company.
This is undoubtedly the most durable solution. Known as " commercial domiciliation ", it involves domiciling your company with a specialized domiciliation company.
This company specializes in company domiciliation. In addition to the simple domiciliation address for your head office, there are many other advantages. First and foremost, you can choose your domicile from a list of addresses located in several French towns , and often in several districts of the same city.
All this is done directly online, via established companies such as Se Domicilier, which even offers addresses in Belgium.
As we've said, there's a wide choice of domiciliation addresses. What we haven't said yet is that, with a domiciliation company, you can choose to domicile your company on the Champs-Elysées, in Paris. You'll benefit froma prestigious address.
Consider the fact that this address will appear on all your official communications, from quotations and invoices to advertising and your website. So having a prestigious address can help you negotiate contracts with suppliers more easily, as well as find customers more easily.
What's more, a domiciliation company will enable you to clearly separate your professional activity from your private life. It's always annoying when unhappy customers or suppliers whose payment has been delayed for whatever reason turn up at your home and make a scene in front of your children.
Above all, contracting with a domiciliation company guarantees you personalized services, such as :
- Telephone hotline,
- Receiving, sending and scanning mail,
- Office rental,
- Rental of meeting rooms,
- Provision of office equipment, etc.
The difference between domiciling your business with a domiciliation company and another type of domiciliation is the time and money you save.
Save time, because everything is done directly online. You contact the Se Domicilier team, for example, and without any effort you'll be domiciled at the address you choose. The money you save is based on the certainty that you won't have to change your address, for whatever legal reason, or because your landlord doesn't agree, or because your business premises change address, or you move, and so on.
With a domiciliation company, you're guaranteed an address for your registered office, protected by a contract between you and a company approved by the prefecture. No nasty surprises with a domiciliation company.
You have a number of options for domiciling your registered office, but few of them offer a permanent solution. The formalities can be cumbersome, with few advantages. Conversely, choosing to domicile your company through a domiciliation company guarantees you peace of mind and independence. When you're self-employed, that's the minimum you can aspire to.
With a large number of individualized services, its durability, and its wide choice of prestigious addresses, the domiciliation company is the best solution for :
- Separate your private life from your professional life,
- Avoid being struck off by the commercial court clerk's office,
- No need to amend the articles of association every time you change address.
To save time, find the best local tax rate and save money, the best solution is often a domiciliation company.
