Definition
The registration form asks the question among a dozen others: "adresse de l'entreprise", the address of the business.
Most founders type their flat's address in three seconds and move to the next screen.
What they have actually just done is name the local council that will vote their business tax for years to come.
Domiciliation is the administrative and tax address of your business: the one recorded in the registre national des entreprises (national business register), the one printed on your commercial documents, the one that ties you to a particular tax office and a particular council.
It is declared when you register, through the INPI One-stop shop, with supporting evidence, and it is changed later in the same place.
A micro-enterprise has no registered office: it has a business address. The registered office belongs to the vocabulary of companies, which are legal persons separate from their director.
A micro-enterprise is a Sole proprietorship: it is you, with a declared address.
The distinction is not cosmetic, it explains why running the business from home is by far the most common case, and why it is perfectly legal.
The four options
| Option | Evidence required | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Your own home | A utility bill or tax notice in your name | Your lease or the building rules may forbid it |
| Dedicated premises, rented or owned | The professional lease or the title deed | Premises have a rental value, which becomes your tax base only if it exceeds the minimum base |
| A société de domiciliation (business address provider) | The domiciliation contract | It must hold a prefectural licence, and the mail terms are in the contract |
| A business incubator or hosting by a third party | The contract or hosting certificate | Not every shared workspace issues that document |
Home remains the default choice, and the only free one.
Where a lease or a building's rules stand in the way, the French commercial code opens a temporary tolerance, provided you inform the landlord or the building manager in writing, and for a limited period set by the text: once it runs out, you have to move to one of the other three options.
The other three cost money, but they separate your professional address from your private one, which is usually the real reason for choosing them.
Your address decides your local tax bill
Camille and Sofia are both graphic designers, both micro-entrepreneurs, both with €40,000 of turnover collected in 2024. Camille works from her living room and registered her home address.
Sofia signed with a business address provider based in another town.
For the CFE (cotisation foncière des entreprises, the local business tax) due for 2026, the administration looks at the turnover of the year before last, so €40,000 for each of them.
They therefore fall into the same band of the 2026 scale: turnover above €32,600 and up to €100,000, whose minimum base sits between €250 and €2,509. That is where the similarity ends.
Each council votes the amount it keeps inside that range, then the rate applied to it.
Two different addresses produce two different bills, on strictly identical turnover. A council can even go further and vote a three-year exemption, running from the year after the year of creation.
It depends on a local resolution and is never an acquired right. You check it with your local business tax office.
The amount actually due depends on the rate voted by your local authority: the national scale only sets the calculation base, and the result appears on your notice, in your professional account on impots.gouv.fr.
"I work from home with no premises, so I owe no CFE" is false. With no premises, or with a negligible rental value, the Minimum CFE base automatically replaces the lower real base: you still owe the minimum contribution.
Two exemptions apply as of right in 2026, and neither of them depends on your address.
The year of creation is not taxed, and for a micro-entrepreneur with no employees that year of creation is the first year the business collects any turnover, not the year of registration.
And below €5,000 excluding tax of reference turnover, threshold included, no minimum contribution is charged: that is an exemption from the minimum contribution, not from the CFE itself.
Three addresses that get confused
Domiciliation is the declared address.
The place of work is where you actually work, at your clients' offices, in a coworking space or in your kitchen: the two have no obligation to match, and for a travelling service provider they never do.
The address to print on your invoices, as part of the Mandatory invoice details, is the first one, not the second.
Third point, the least anticipated: this address is public.
It shows in the open business directory, as the SIRET number entry explains, and it also feeds the Fraudulent register letters that land in the weeks following registration.
INSEE lets you request non-diffusible status through its online service, but the request does not claw back the copies already harvested by private directories.
One reassurance: registering your business at home does not turn the flat into commercial premises, as long as you receive neither clients nor goods there.
Changing address later
A move is declared at the guichet unique like any other amendment.
It closes the original establishment and opens a new one: the SIRET changes, the SIREN stays the same. The local business tax moves to the new council, with the minimum base it has voted inside the national scale's range and the rate it applies, which can push the bill either way.
What remains are the updates nobody makes on the day itself: invoice templates, terms and conditions, the legal notice on your website, and cancelling the domiciliation contract if you had one.
Frequently asked questions
Can my landlord refuse to let me register my business at home?
A residential lease or a building's rules may forbid professional activity on the premises.
The French commercial code then provides a temporary tolerance, on condition that you inform the landlord or the building manager in writing, for a limited period set by the text.
When that period ends, you must have moved to dedicated premises, a business address provider or hosting by a third party.
Does a business address provider exempt me from the CFE?
No, and the confusion is an expensive one.
The contract gives you an address, it removes no tax: you simply become liable in the council area of that address, which votes its own minimum base inside the scale's range and its own rate.
The one certain effect of the choice is to keep your home address out of the public files.
Can I use my coworking space's address?
Only if the space issues you a domiciliation contract or a hosting certificate, and many do not: a desk subscription is not proof of address.
Ask before you sign, because the guichet unique requires that document at the moment of declaration, and again at every change of address.
Is a post office box enough as a business address?
No. A post office box is a place to receive mail, not a business address: it ties the activity to no premises and no council, and it is refused as evidence of domiciliation.
A licensed société de domiciliation is the legal version of that need, with a real address and mail forwarding or scanning set out in the contract.