How to start a catering business in France in 2026: steps, status and budget

Pick your market before the paperwork

In France, traiteur covers very different jobs. The caterer who cooks for Saturday weddings does not live like the one who delivers meal trays to offices on a Tuesday lunchtime. The first works weekends, on large one-off events, often with waiting staff. The second works weekdays, office hours, on smaller orders that come back again and again.

Decide who you are cooking for before you fill in a single form. Private clients (weddings, birthdays, christenings), companies (meeting breakfasts, working lunches, cocktail receptions, seminars) or events (trade shows, film shoots, large gatherings): each market has its own hours, prices and buying habits, and your choice shapes everything else, from premises to vehicle.

The corporate market has an underrated advantage: it orders on weekdays, pays on invoice and repeats. A happy executive assistant books the same caterer for the next meeting. We cover that market, and how to break into it, in our guide to starting a corporate catering business.

The seven steps to becoming a caterer in France

None of the formalities is hard, but they come in a fixed order: you cannot register premises you do not have yet, and you cannot register a business without choosing its legal form. Here is the sequence that saves you trips back and forth.

Do you need a diploma?

No. The French Crafts Code reserves a list of activities for qualified professionals, including making fresh bread, pastries, butchery, charcuterie and fish products. Catering as such is not on it. If you bake your own pastries or make your own fresh charcuterie, a qualification may become necessary (yours, or that of a qualified person who actually supervises production): a CAP or equivalent diploma in that trade, or three years of hands-on experience. Have your local chamber of trades and crafts (CMA) confirm your case.

Food hygiene, on the other hand, applies to everyone. The EU hygiene regulation requires procedures based on HACCP principles, and the business needs at least one person trained to put them in place. The 14-hour hygiene course imposed on restaurants targets commercial restaurants; an April 2026 instruction from the Ministry of Agriculture states that it does not cover businesses registered as caterers. Taking that course anyway is still the easiest way to build your food safety plan.

The full list of what is and is not required is in becoming a caterer in France without qualifications.

Which legal status?

The micro-entrepreneur scheme is the simplest way in: light formalities, social contributions calculated on the turnover you actually collect, minimal bookkeeping. In 2026 it applies up to €203,100 of turnover for a sales activity. Its weakness is well known: you cannot deduct any costs, and a caterer has plenty (food, packaging, fuel, rent).

A company (SASU or EURL) makes sense if you plan to hire, borrow a large amount or bring in a partner. It costs more to run but keeps your personal assets separate and reassures banks. Thresholds, VAT and the traps of the micro scheme are covered in our guide to running a catering business as a micro-entrepreneur. If you are not an EU, EEA or Swiss national, check first that your residence status allows you to be self-employed.

Premises and food safety registration

A caterer prepares food for other people, so the premises must allow it: washable surfaces, a hand-wash basin, separate clean and dirty flows, enough chilled storage, packaging stored apart. The EU regulation does set rules for domestic kitchens used for business, but they are demanding and inspectors judge them case by case; most caterers work from dedicated premises.

Before opening, the premises are registered on form Cerfa 13984 with the departmental food safety authority (DDPP or DDETSPP). Registration is enough to sell directly to the final consumer. The much heavier food safety approval (agrément sanitaire) is only required if you sell prepared dishes to intermediaries such as restaurants, canteens or shops, unless an exemption applies. Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 (article 3, point 18) defines the final consumer as the ultimate consumer of a foodstuff who does not use it as part of a food business operation. A company ordering for its own meeting seems to fit that definition, but no text says so explicitly: to be confirmed with the DDPP in your department.

How much money do you need?

It all depends on the premises. Renting premises that already meet the standards, buying professional refrigeration and a second-hand refrigerated van adds up to tens of thousands of euros. Building a 150 to 300 m² production kitchen from scratch, as the large franchise networks require, runs into hundreds of thousands. Between the two there are as many projects as founders.

The most expensive item is often not equipment but time without clients. Budget enough working capital to cover several months of rent, insurance and fuel before orders start repeating. The line-by-line budget is in our guide to catering startup costs in France.

On your own, as a franchisee or under a brand?

Going it alone means building everything: menu, prices, website, reputation, sales. It is the freest route and the slowest. A franchise gives you a brand and a method, in exchange for an entry fee of €18,000 to €40,000 and a royalty of 5 to 9% of all your revenue: orders of magnitude found in catering franchise offers published in France in 2025 and 2026, for guidance only. A brand licence is lighter, and its terms vary from one network to the next.

Crozy offers a middle route. You open a Crozy in your area: the website sells, collects payment and assigns you the orders delivered in your area, of which you keep 75%; you prepare, deliver and set up following the method taught over five days at the Crozy Workshop. You bring compliant, registered premises (their exact food safety status is to be confirmed with the DDPP before opening), a refrigerated vehicle or insulated containers, and at least 15,000 euros of personal funds. The models are compared in catering franchise or brand licence in France.

The mistakes that cost the most

Signing a lease before checking the premises can be brought up to standard. Drainage, ventilation or wall and floor finishes can double your budget; have someone who knows hygiene requirements visit before you sign.

Copying competitors' prices without knowing your own cost price. An order is costed piece by piece: food, packaging, preparation time, travel, set-up time. A price that is too low fills the diary and empties the bank account.

Relying on a single client or a single channel. A company that orders every Tuesday can move offices, and a platform can change its rules. Aim for about ten regular clients in your first year, and at least one source of orders you control.