ACRE and ARCE: The Two Schemes Most Foreign Freelancers in France Don't Know About

If you've already read our guide on freelancing in France, you know we mentioned ACRE and ARCE in passing. A lot of people wrote to us asking the same question: what exactly are they, and do I qualify?

Here’s how it actually works

Most foreign freelancers launching an auto-entreprise in France focus on one thing: how much they'll pay in social contributions. What they don't realize is that if they recently lost a job in France, the rules are very different in their first year — and potentially much more favorable than they think.

This is usually something people only discover months later, when it's already too late.

There are two separate schemes worth knowing about. They're often confused, sometimes combined, and almost never explained clearly to non-French speakers.

ACRE — a 50% reduction on your social contributions

When you register as an auto-entrepreneur in France, your social contributions are normally around 26% of your revenue. With ACRE, that rate is cut in half for your first year — bringing it down to approximately 13%.

To put that in concrete terms: on 10,000€ invoiced in a month, you'd pay around 1,300€ in contributions instead of 2,610€. That's an extra 1,300€ in your pocket, every month, for up to a year.

The two most common situations that make you eligible:

You are receiving unemployment benefits (ARE) at the time you register your auto-entreprise — typically because you were laid off. This is the most common case for foreign professionals who worked in France before going independent.

You have been registered as a jobseeker with France Travail for at least 6 months out of the last 18, even if you are not currently receiving benefits.

One important detail: ACRE is not automatic. You need to submit a request to URSSAF immediately after registering your auto-entreprise — not weeks later, immediately. We've seen people miss this by a few days and lose the entire benefit.

The form goes through your URSSAF messaging space, along with proof of your eligibility.

One more thing worth knowing: the exoneration runs until the end of the third calendar quarter following your registration date. This means the timing of when you launch matters. Starting in January, April, July, or October maximizes the duration of your ACRE benefit. Starting in March, for instance, means you lose most of that first quarter.

ARCE — taking your unemployment allocation as a lump sum

ARCE is a completely separate scheme, and it has nothing to do with your social contributions. It's about what you do with your remaining unemployment allocation.

Normally, if you're receiving ARE, France Travail pays it out month by month until your rights are exhausted. ARCE gives you a different option: take 60% of whatever is left as a capital payment, paid in two instalments — one when you launch, one six months later.

If you have 20,000€ in remaining unemployment rights when you start your auto-entreprise, that's 12,000€ paid directly to you as a business launch fund. The other 40% is forfeited.

This is where the decision becomes less obvious than it looks.

Is it always the right choice? Not necessarily. If your activity takes time to generate revenue, the monthly payments might offer more security. But for someone who is confident in their ability to find clients quickly, the lump sum can make a real difference in those first months.

The condition is the same as ACRE: your job loss must have been involuntary. A resignation doesn't qualify.

How to approach this before you do anything else

If you were recently laid off in France and are considering going independent, the sequence matters.

Talk to France Travail before you register anything. Understand your remaining allocation, confirm your eligibility for ARCE, and decide whether you want the lump sum or the monthly payments. Once you've registered your auto-entreprise, some options close.

Then register your auto-entreprise at the start of a calendar quarter, and submit your ACRE request to URSSAF immediately after.

Most foreign freelancers figure this out six months in, when it's already too late. The information exists — it's just never been explained in plain English.

We started working on Cleo after seeing too many foreign freelancers miss out on thousands of euros simply because they didn't have the right information at the right time.

That's exactly what we're trying to fix.