CDI or Auto-Entrepreneur, which one?

Hi there,

I’m interviewing for a Polish company, who would like to know if I want to be employed via a B2B contract (auto-entrepreneur) or a CDI. I have the option and I’m already set up as an auto-e.

They have a fixed amount they would pay for me in either case, lets say 5K Euro per month. This would be my only work - 40hrs per week etc, but I also have a startup business/ side hussle I will be working on alongside this (not moneymaking at the moment - will be a slow burn anyway).

As an auto-entrepreneur, according to this https://mon-entreprise.urssaf.fr/simulateurs/auto-entrepreneur it seem I would earn much more eg 3 505EUR per month but miss out on chomage if I lost this work.

On a CDI, according to this https://mon-entreprise.urssaf.fr/simulateurs/salaire-brut-net I would make 2 628EUR net per month eg significantly less, but get chomage if I lost the job.

Couple of questions on this here:

  • Are there any other benefits to selecting a CDI over being auto, other than chomage?
  • Would I need to charge them VAT? I dont think I do, as they’re not in France. Is that correct?

Thanks in advance!

I don’t know about the VAT but I do know that as an auto-entrepreneur you may well face many questions about travail dissimulée unless you have more clients or can show that the relationship between you and Polish company is not one of employer:employee.

The retirement is no where near as good with AE. Also very difficult to get loans or a mortgage on AE.

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How is the Polish company going to deal with the issue of employee contributions to the French URSSAF ?
Are you going to be a detached worker, cf. for example here:

https://www.urssaf.fr/portail/home/les-risques-du-travail-dissimule/les-risques-du-travail-dissimule/le-recours-a-un-cocontractant-so/les-entreprises-etrangeres-inter.html#:~:text=Modalités%20du%20détachement,Sipsi%20»%20du%20ministère%20du%20Travail

You might want to enquire whether the Polish company, or its French entity, is proposing a complementary healthcare scheme - this is obligatory (with a few exceptions) at least for French businesses.

Note that all of this would eat into your salary as an employee on a CDI, so you would need to carefully weigh up the pros and cons.