Can we set up a company and continue to receive unemployment benefits?
Verified 29 September 2026 - Entreprendre Service Public / (Prime Minister)
As a jobseeker, you can set up a company while keeping your unemployment benefit (ARE). This cumulation has implications in particular for the amount of the allowance as well as for the applicable taxation and social security contributions.
Activity of the company
The creation of a company may enable a jobseeker to resume a professional activity. This activity may be carried out in individual business. The activity can be commercial, artisanal or liberal (regulated or no).
To start their activity, the jobseeker can also choose the status of micro-entrepreneur (self-employed). The regime of the micro-company It can indeed be an interesting solution because of its very simplified social and tax system.
However, the following activities are excluded of the micro-company regime:
- Activity liberal covered by a pension fund other than the Cipav or the Social security for the self-employed (e.g. legal, judicial and medical professions, accountants, artist-authors...))
- Activity subject to TVA real estate : real estate agent, real estate developer or property dealer, renter of bare or professional buildings...
- Activity agricultural attached to the MSA: titleContent
Please note
If a jobseeker wishes to associate with other persons, he may also take up or pursue self-employed activity within a business as an executive, manager or corporate officer.
Non-compete clause
Before embarking on the creation of a company, the jobseeker must check whether his former employment contract provided for a non-compete clause.
That clause prevents the exercise, after the termination of the employment contract, of an activity similar to the former employed activity. To be valid, this clause must be limited in time and space (place). It only applies to a specific activity. Finally, she must be paid.
This way, you can't set up a company that can compete with your former employer. On the other hand, there is nothing to prevent you from working in another field.
THEARE: titleContent is the aid granted to the jobseeker when he fulfills certain conditions. This aid may be cumulative with income from self-employment.
The modalities of this cumulation vary according to the date of registration at France Travail :
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Registration at France Travail before the creation of a company
If you are already enrolled in France Travail at the time of the creation of your company (individual business or micro-company), you can accumulate the return-to-work (ARE) allowance and your professional income.
FYI
Rather than accumulating monthly ARE with income from your company, you can, under certain conditions, choose theAid for the resumption or creation of a company (Arce). It allows you to receive part of your unemployment benefits as capital to finance the creation or recovery of your company.
Cumulation is possible within the limit of 60% the ARE rights you have left on the date the company was created or taken over.
Once this ceiling of 60% has been reached, ARE payments cease.
Exceptionally, where the 60% If rights have been reached, you can apply to the Regional Joint Body (RJI) for continued payment of the ARE if you have not earned any income from your activity, including dividends, since the creation or takeover of your company.
To benefit from this possibility, you must in particular justify that you are actually continuing your activity.
The request for an exceptional continuation of the payment of the ARE to the IPR must be made within a maximum period of 6 months after the month in which the 60% has been reached.
FYI
France Travail can assist you in the constitution and filing of your application with the IPR.
Cumulation of ARE and income from activities
The amount of theARE normally due (i.e. in the absence of a resumption of activity) is reduced by 70% income from the activity.
For micro-entrepreneurs (or self-entrepreneurs), the income taken into account is turnover after deduction of the allowance for business expenses. This allowance shall be:
- 71% turnover for sales and similar activities
- 50% turnover for services and furnished rentals
- 34% of turnover for activities relating to non-commercial profits
However, the combined income from self-employment and unemployment benefit cannot exceed the gross average monthly salary used to calculate your ARE.
Interim payment and advance payment
When a company creator cannot declare his income to France Travail every month because they will not be known before filling in the tax return of income, or when he cannot justify the amount, he benefits, according to his situation:
- or an interim payment of the ARE
- or an advance payment pending the transmission of the supporting documents (e.g. tax assessment).
Registration at France Travail after the creation of a company
An employee who carries out several activities, both as an employee and self-employed person, may, if he unintentionally loses his salaried employment (due to dismissal or termination of employment) CDD: titleContent for example), accumulate in full a return-to-work allowance (ARE) and income from self-employment.
To learn more about the accumulation of ARE and professional income, you can consult the sheet of France Travail dedicated to this subject:
Please note
When the conditions are met, an entrepreneur enrolled in France Travail may renounce ARE to benefit from Aid for the resumption or creation of a company (Arce). This aid consists in paying not a monthly allowance (ARE) to the contractor but a capital equal to 60% the remainder of his rights.
One simulator France de Travail provides information on allowances and aid in the event of the creation or takeover of a company:
Know the France Travail aids to the creation or recovery of company
The criteria for choosing betweenARE: titleContent orArce: titleContent shall be specified on the page of Bpifrance Création.
Calculation of unemployment benefit
The tax and social obligations of the job seeker who creates a company depend on the legal status he has chosen.
Traditional self-employed worker
Aid received under theARE: titleContent in addition to professional income is subject to income tax. The total ARES paid must be reported in the annual tax return, to the line "Other taxable income" of the heading ‘Salaries and wages’ . This section is usually pre-filled by the tax administration.
The self-employed must file this declaration each year by logging into its Public Finance area on the website impots.gouv.fr.
Taxes: access your Public Finance area
At the end of the declaration, the information necessary for the calculation of personal social contributions and contributions shall be automatically transmitted to theUrssaf: titleContent.
The following simulator allowsevaluate the amount of these social contributions:
Income simulator for self-employed
Micro-entrepreneur
The micro-entrepreneur must declare his turnover (CAHT: titleContent) every month (default) or every 3 months (on request). This CAHT is imposed according to the micro-fiscal regime and subject to the micro-social. The micro-entrepreneur pays social contributions and contributions on the turnover generated by its micro-company.
The payment of these social contributions and contributions shall be made to theUrssaf: titleContent, together with the periodic tax return:
The micro-entrepreneur registered at France Labor is also liable to pay social contributions under theARE: titleContent that he could perceive (CSG: titleContent and CRDS: titleContent).
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