Funding options for business owners and self-employed workers
If you manage a business, funding is available for you to train and develop your professional skills. We guide you through the options...
The CPF (Compte Personnel de Formation)
You don't pay anything - the course is paid for you at the end. It's a funding envelope that you accumulate every year from the moment you have a social security number.
-
Who is it for ?
- Part-time or full-time employees
- Year-round contracted staff
- Gérant salarié et non-salarié
- Self-employed
- Unemployed
IMPORTANT: In order to use CPF, you must have a final social security number that has been active for at least 2 years.
-
What is it?
- The CPF is like a bank account. You are the only person who can access it and every year, you are credited a certain amount that you can use towards training courses.
- You must have a final social security number to access your account.
- The amount credited is proportional to the work done the previous year. If you work full-time, you’ll get credited 500€ / year.
- If you wish to use your credit, you can only enrol on a course approved by CPF.
- PDS Formation is one of the training centres approved by the CPF platform and our packages respect all their requirements.
- All courses on the CPF platform must lead to a diploma or a certification. In our case, we work with a recognized French level certification which is very easy to complete.
-
How does it work?
- You create your CPF account and check your balance.
- We guide you through the packages available, test your level and guide you through the best options.
- We guide you through the enrolment procedure and prepare your schedule.
- You attend the course.
- At the end of the course, we send details for your level test (or exam).
- Once completed, we declare your course finished, which you also must confirm online.
- The course is paid directly to PDS Formation at the end of the course. You have nothing to pay.
-
What do I need to do next?
- Open your CPF account and check your credit.
- Contact us so we can discuss your course options.
- You MUST have the Identité Numérique set up to use your CPF. If you are European or with a 5-year CDS, the procedure will be longer as you need to validate your ID Numérique manually. Contact us at least 6 weeks before you wish to start your course so we can guide you through the process.
- CPF accounts are only accessible after at least one year of having a final social security number.
-
Important information about this funding option:
- Allow time to set up your Identité Numérique with La Poste. We strongly recommend going directly to your Post Office to do this. Otherwise, click on our instructions below.
- If you don’t have enough credit to use your chosen package, you can pay the difference directly on the CPF platform when you enrol on the course.
- You must allow 2-3 weeks between applying and starting your lessons as the CPF platform has a 2 week ‘cooling-off’ period to avoid fraud etc..
- Your employer can top up your CPF account if they choose to. Contact us for more details on this.
Check my CPF account
Take 2 mins to check if you've got credit towards a course
The FAF (Fonds d'Assurance Formation)
It's a training envelope allocated to self-employed professionals and designed to develop skills specific to their work. The FAF envelope is applied for and approved ahead of the course and refunded after the training is completed.
-
Who is it for ?
- Employers
- Gérants non-salariés
- Self-employed professionals (in France)
- Auto-entrepreneurs or micro-entrepeneurs
- Conjoint-collaborateur
-
What is it?
- Every year, as part of your social charges’ declarations, you contribute a small percentage towards professional training, which is passed onto a funding provider.
- The following year, providing you are up to date with your Urssaf payments, you gain access to a funding envelope to use towards training courses.
- The funding provider is determined according to your trade.
- The amount available depends on the funding provider and will need to respect specific criteria (hourly rate, number of hours, online or face-to-face etc…)
- PDS Formation takes all this into account and designs course packages which can be fully funded.
-
How does it work?
- PDS Formation helps you to determine who your funding provider is by downloading a document called ‘Attestation de Versement CFP’.
- The attestation states which funding provider you are attached to. Although an amount is mentioned on your attestation, this is not your funding amount. You will be entitled to funding even if the amount shown is small.
- Once we receive the attestation, we send you a selection of course packages that would be approved by your funding provider. We guide you through your choices and assess your level.
- We prepare a course schedule based on your availability.
- We prepare all the documents for your funding application (at least 3-4 weeks in advance).
- Provided the funding provider doesn’t need additional information, your application is approved and you can attend your course.
- Payment must be paid by the student at the start of the course (instalments available from 1000€ courses)
- At the end of the course, we send documents proving your attendance.
- 6-8 weeks after sending off documents, providing all the documents are signed correctly, you receive your refund from your funding provider.
-
What do I need to do next?
- Download your attestation de versement CFP (see instructions below).
- Send us your attestation OR check out our pricelist to download our packages.
- Get in touch at least 4-5 weeks prior to the start of the course (or more if you wish) to organise details such as:
- Evaluating your level
- Discussing the best learning package for your needs
- Arranging your lesson schedule
- Preparing the funding application with our team
- Attend your course and sign the presence sheet and documents required as and when required.
-
Important information about this funding option:
- This type of funding requires:
- Sending a funding application ahead of the course (4-6 weeks beforehand).
- Paying for the course at the start of the lessons.
- Sending proof of attendance at the end of your course in order to receive the refund 6 weeks later.
- For this reason, PDS Formation offers instalment payment options from 1000€.
- Funding providers are very meticulous about paperwork. PDS Formation has a lot of experience with their organisation and our team is here to guide our clients with our knowledge and our experience. However PDS Formation is not a funding provider and acts as a consultant and will not be held responsible if the funding provider requests additional information or refuses funding. As a benchmark, 98% of our applications got approved in 2023.
- Funding can be suspended towards the end of the year due to lack of government funds. We recommend applying as early in the year as possible even if you wish to train later on.
- This type of funding requires:
