Best apps to make money in France for freelancers

Generic lists of the best apps to make money often focus on surveys, cashback, or games, but expats in France looking for real freelance income need something more practical. The most useful platforms are those that can help you find clients, set clear rates, and get paid while fitting the realities of working independently in France. Your visa or residence status, registration, invoicing rules, platform fees, and payout options can all affect which apps make sense for you. This guide compares the best freelance apps in France and explains the key checks to make before you sign up.

This guide is for general information only. Your right to freelance in France depends on your nationality, visa, and residency status, and tax or business setup rules vary by personal circumstances. For a wider setup view, read Expatica’s guide to freelancing in France.

Key takeaways

For most expat freelancers, Malt is a strong starting point for France and EU business clients, Upwork adds English-friendly international demand, and LinkedIn gives you a direct-outreach channel. An English-speaking designer in Lyon, for example, might use Malt to win local retainers and Upwork to fill slower weeks with overseas work.

• Platform mix: Start with one France-first platform and one international platform.
• Right to work: Check your visa or residency position before you publish client-facing offers.
• Pricing: Use euro pricing where local clients expect it, even if some clients pay from abroad.
• Payouts: Compare payout routes before accepting overseas work, especially if you also use a French bank account.

Wise Business for freelancer payouts from overseas clients

If your platform clients pay you from outside France, the payout route and currency can affect what you actually receive after fees and conversion. Wise Business can be one option for holding supported currencies, converting to euros when needed, and keeping payment records tidy for invoicing and accounting.

Open a Wise account

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Best freelance apps in France at a glance

Platform positioning, fees, availability, and help pages were checked on 19 August 2026. Features and terms may change, so confirm current conditions before signing up or accepting work.

If overseas client payments matter, compare your French account setup before choosing a platform. Expatica’s guide to banking in France can help you compare local account options with multi-currency tools.

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1. Malt

If you want France-based clients quickly, Malt is usually the first app to test. It is built around European B2B work and tends to suit consultants, marketers, designers, developers, and product specialists better than people chasing one-off micro tasks.

The local fit is the draw. Malt says freelancer service fees are usually 5% excluding tax, although some projects in France can start at 10% and later fall to 5%, and the exact fee appears before you send a quote. To appear in search, you need a complete profile, and French clients may ask for a SIRET, the business ID used on invoices, plus the right VAT or TVA setup where relevant. A city in France, a euro rate, and clear remote availability often do more for trust than a long skills list.

• Best for established B2B skills and euro day rates
• Works better if your profile looks specific rather than general
• Main drawback is higher friction for junior or vague profiles
• Verify your SIRET, invoice wording, and tax position before accepting work

Self-Employment

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2. Upwork

Living in France does not stop you selling to the wider world, and that is where Upwork earns its place. It gives you access to global demand, but that also means more bidding pressure, more low-budget listings, and a stronger need to position yourself around results and niche expertise rather than generic skills.

Upwork works best when you filter hard. Upwork says freelancer service fees range from 0% to 15% per contract, and available withdrawal methods and charges vary by account and country, so confirm your payout route before you accept work. Jobs that mention EU time-zone overlap, bilingual delivery, or remote Europe often fit expats in France better than a pure France location filter. If you work with non-French clients often, a Wise account can be practical for supported cross-border payouts, but only if the withdrawal options available to your Upwork account suit your setup.

• Target searches such as EU time zone, bilingual English/French, or remote Europe
• Skip vague jobs with unclear scope or unrealistic budgets
• Check the fee shown before you send a proposal
• Confirm your withdrawal method, FX costs, and tax information
• Review client history, spend, and feedback before bidding

3. LinkedIn

Some of the best freelance leads in France never appear on a marketplace at all. They start on LinkedIn, where expats can find agencies, founders, and hiring managers directly instead of competing inside a public bid queue.

That makes LinkedIn a lead-generation app, not a payout platform. You handle discovery, scope, contracts, and invoicing yourself, but you also keep more control over positioning and pricing. Add service keywords to your headline, publish proof of work, use a services page if it is available to you, and message decision-makers with a short note tied to a real business problem. For broader networking habits, Expatica’s guide to finding jobs in France is a useful companion.

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1. Rewrite your headline around your service, niche, and France or EU fit.
2. Feature work samples or posts that show clear outcomes.
3. Build a short outreach list and contact people with a specific offer.

4. ComeUp

Bilingual freelancers who can package a service neatly may find ComeUp easier to crack than a proposal marketplace. It works best for smaller, clearly defined offers where the buyer knows what they want and you know exactly what you will deliver.

The watch-out is economics. ComeUp’s free plan takes 20% of the pre-tax order amount, while Plus plans use a fixed €1 or $1 commission per order. The free plan also limits how many services and options you can list, so broad testing is harder than it looks. That can work well once your pricing rises, but it can hurt if you stay too cheap or let revisions grow.

• Use French copy only if you can deliver in French
• Put revision limits and deliverables in writing
• Check whether the free-plan commission still works for your pricing
• Verify withdrawal timing and any Hyperwallet fees

5. Fiverr

Fiverr rewards clear packaging more than long discovery calls. Design, writing, video editing, admin support, and short consulting packages fit well because buyers can compare scope quickly and buy without a separate proposal process.

The main risk is underpricing. Fiverr says freelancers earn 80% of the purchase amount, and gigs are often compared side by side, so very low entry prices can trap you in heavy revision work for weak margins. Your gig title, packages, and add-ons need to do the selling work, which is why vague offers usually struggle.

6. LeHibou

If your CV already looks like enterprise consulting, LeHibou can be more relevant than any broad marketplace. It is built for tech, data, cloud, cybersecurity, IT delivery, and consulting profiles that can match French corporate expectations and longer assignment cycles.

It does not feel like Fiverr or Upwork. Public pages emphasize curated matching, larger-company clients, and longer missions, which can be a real advantage if you already sell into B2B teams. LeHibou says it guarantees payment within 30 days, but its public pages do not clearly state a standard freelancer fee or margin, so confirm those terms during onboarding before you commit.

• Best for IT, data, and enterprise change work
• Better if your CV already fits French corporate expectations
• Less useful for beginners or broad creative generalists
• Verify fee, contract, and payment terms during onboarding

Taxes

Taxes for freelancers and self-employed workers in France in 2026

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Conclusion

Choosing the best app is less about finding one universal winner than matching the platform to the work you want. Malt fits France and EU B2B work, Upwork broadens the search to international demand, LinkedIn supports direct outreach, and ComeUp, Fiverr, and LeHibou suit more specific service or profile types.

Before accepting paid work, confirm that your status lets you freelance, understand the fee and payout route, and make sure your invoicing and tax setup fits your situation in France. Starting with one France-first platform and one international channel makes it easier to compare which route brings you viable clients.

Sources

• France-Visas: Self employed person or liberal activity — Visa route, supporting documents, and minimum-income checks for self-employed and liberal activity in France, checked on 2026-08-19.
• Service-Public: Carte de séjour “entrepreneur/profession libérale” d’un étranger en France — Right-to-work, residence card conditions, and liberal-activity rules, checked on 2026-08-19.
• Service Public Entreprendre: Professions libérales réglementées et non réglementées — Distinction between regulated and non-regulated liberal professions and registration paths, checked on 2026-08-19.
• Autoentrepreneur.urssaf.fr: L’essentiel du statut — Micro-entrepreneur thresholds, contribution rates, declarations, and account rules, checked on 2026-08-19.
• INPI: The One-Stop Shop for Business Formalities and the National Business Register — Formal registration route and the national business register explanation, checked on 2026-08-19.
• impots.gouv.fr: Je suis micro-entrepreneur ou à la tête d’une micro-entreprise. Ai-je des obligations déclaratives en matière de TVA ? — TVA rules, invoice wording, and threshold logic, checked on 2026-08-19.
• ameli.fr: Travailleur indépendant — Self-employed health cover and support routes, checked on 2026-08-19.
• Malt: How do the Malt service fees work for freelancers? — Malt freelancer fee structure and payment handling context, checked on 2026-08-19.
• Upwork Help: Learn about the Freelancer Service Fee — Upwork fee range and proposal-stage fee visibility, checked on 2026-08-19.
• Upwork Help: How to get paid on Upwork — Withdrawal methods, payout timing, and fee checks, checked on 2026-08-19.
• ComeUp Support: What commission do you take from the value of the order? — Free-plan commission and Plus-plan pricing structure, checked on 2026-08-19.
• Fiverr Help Center: Your earnings page — Fiverr’s 80% earnings rule for freelancers, checked on 2026-08-19.
• LeHibou: Find your next IT freelance mission — LeHibou’s positioning as a specialist IT and consulting platform in France, checked on 2026-08-19.