Hiring American artists in France, welfare contributions payable in France

For foreign artists you hire on an employment contract, the principle is that the registration and contribution requirements are the same as for French artists (see Foreign artist hired by a company based in France ).

However, in view of the bilateral agreement on social security between France and the United States, the artist does not have to b registered under the French social security scheme if he can produce form SE 404-02 (or TAJAI, sometimes in practice called “the Baltimore form”) as this agreement provides for (see www.cleiss.fr - section "Documents" the "Bilateral agreements" for details on secondment, download the full text of the agreement).

The Franco-American agreement applies to artists not having salaried status, whereas most bilateral agreements on social security only apply to artists employed as salaried workers by an employer based in the other state and seconding them to work in France on a temporary basis (see Foreign artist seconded to France under a sales contract entered into with an entertainment promoter based abroad ).

So, the bilateral agreement on social security states that there are no and contribution requirements in France if the person ordinarily works as a non-salaried person in the United States and temporarily does non-salaried work in France (article 7.2 of the agreement dated 2 March 1987).

This article (7.2) can pose a problem in the case of living entertainment artists, because this activity is qualified as a salaried activity by French legislation (article L. 762-1 of the labour code).
 
However, further to the administrative arrangement of 21 October 1987, which clarifies several points in regard of the application of this social security agreement, the term “non-salaried activity” should be understood in the sense given to it by applicable legislation, in this instance American legislation (decree 88-610 of 5 May 1988).

Furthermore, in its circular on foreign artists, the AUDIENS group (formerly GRISS) states that “we do not challenge the form (SE 404-02 or TAJAI) qualifying an artist as "self employed" on the grounds that in France he is deemed salaried, because the administrative arrangement for the application of the Franco-American agreement stipulates that the applicable qualification is the one in force in the country that issues the form”.

As a result, if you have the social security certificate issued by the relevant institution in the United States, you do not need to pay any contributions to URSSAF or the AUDIENS group. The other contributions are calculated according to the standard statutory terms.