Everyone will tell you to check that your contract carries no exclusivity clause. Look anyway: should you find one, it will not be enforceable against you for twelve months, whatever it says.
You will know what your situation allows, what remains a breach even where no clause binds you, and the date your first year runs out. If you are a public employee, you answer different questions: for you, holding both is forbidden in principle, and each exception has its own formality.
In the private sector, holding both is free and needs no step. In the public sector, it is forbidden unless authorised.
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Information verified on October 16, 2026. Indicative assessment with no legal force. The rules it applies are taken from official sources and dated, but it knows of your situation only what you tell it: only the authorities can settle your case.
The official pages where we read the rules and amounts applied here.
Believing the opposite is the most widespread misreading of the subject. Article L1222-5 of the labour code sets the clause aside for one year for an employee creating or taking over a business, « even where there is a contractual or collective stipulation to the contrary ». Three points the articles skip:
The duty of loyalty applies even if your contract says nothing about it: article L1222-1 is enough. It never lifts, and it grounds almost every dismissal handed down in this situation:
The ceiling of 10 hours a day and 48 hours a week adds up salaried jobs. A self-employed activity does not enter into it: article L8261-3 only counts your salaried share. So no maximum working time applies to your activity, but keep an eye on your tiredness.
A public employee may not carry on a private profit-making activity on a professional basis: that is the principle laid down by article L123-1 of the general code of the public service. To start a business, two ways open up, and only one needs no authorisation:
| Private-sector employee | Public employee | |
|---|---|---|
| Principle | Holding both is free | Holding both is forbidden |
| Formality | None | Authorisation, or written declaration under 24.5 hours |
| Exclusivity clause | Set aside for a year | Not applicable |
| Duration | No limit | Three years, renewable for one |
| What can stop it | Competition and working time | A refusal from the line authority |
Many articles mix these two columns up, and public employees then give up on a route that was open to them.
No law generally requires it of a private-sector employee. But your contract or your collective agreement may make it subject to prior authorisation, or even forbid it, as the official page points out: read them again. In a craft trade, working for your employer's clients requires their consent. A public employee has no such choice, since everything there goes through an authorisation or a written declaration.
Not during the first year, and not through an exclusivity clause: article L1222-5 sets it aside for twelve months, even where your contract carries one. They can, however, sanction a competing activity or one carried on during your working time, and that from the very first day.
Invoicing your own employer raises a question of reclassification as an employee, more than one of holding both: a former employee invoicing the same work to the same client often brings together the three powers that characterise a relationship of subordination. The reclassification assessment covers that case.
You will contribute to both schemes, each on its own income: your salary on one side, your turnover on the other. Your health insurance benefits remain served by the scheme of the activity you carried on before holding both.
No. That ceiling adds up salaried jobs. A self-employed activity does not enter the calculation, and no text limits the time you devote to it outside your job.
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