Freelance or Employee for Your First Hire: Which One Do You Actually Need?

Why Freelance Feels Like the Safe First Step

The reasoning is easy to follow. A permanent contract in France comes with employer contributions, a trial period to plan, paperwork before day one, and the feeling that undoing it will be hard. A freelancer sends an invoice. If the revenue dips, the mission ends. If the person is not a fit, you do not renew. For a founder who has never hired, that flexibility looks like the cautious choice.

And for many needs, it is. Large organisations use freelancers for the same reasons. In Malt’s 2026 Freelance Maturity Report, run with Staffing Industry Analysts across 140 international organisations, companies say they turn to freelancers to access specialised skills (88%), to absorb activity peaks (68%) and to fill resource gaps (54%). The sample is made of large companies, not small teams, but the reasons translate well: expertise you need for a while, workload that comes in waves, a gap to cover.

What those three reasons have in common is that the need has edges. The trouble starts when a founder uses the same tool for a need that has none.

Project or Function: The Question That Decides

The useful question is not “freelance or employee?” but “is this work a project or a function?” A project has a deliverable and an end: a website redesign, a data migration, a first marketing campaign. A function is work that has to be done every week for as long as the company exists: answering customers, running sales, keeping the product shipping.

Most first hires are functions. Founders hire because something they used to do themselves now takes too much of their week, and that something rarely stops. If you read the right hand column and recognise your situation, a freelance contract is not a lighter version of a hire: it is a different arrangement that does not fit the need.

Where French Law Draws the Line

In France, a freelancer registered as a business is presumed not to be your employee. That presumption, set by article L8221-6 of the Code du travail, can be overturned when the person works for you in conditions that place them in a permanent relationship of legal subordination. The name on the contract does not decide the question: what judges look at is how the work actually happens.

The test has been repeated by the Cour de cassation for decades and was applied in the Uber ruling of 4 March 2020: subordination exists when work is performed under the authority of someone who can give orders and directives, monitor their execution, and sanction failures. Working inside an organised service whose conditions are set unilaterally can be a further indication.

The drift that small teams fall into

Nobody signs a freelance contract intending to disguise a job. The drift happens because the freelancer is good and the team is small, so they get pulled in a little more each month:

• Fixed hours and presence. They are expected at the Monday meeting, on Slack during office hours, and in the office on set days.
• Tasks instead of deliverables. The original scope has faded; you now send them a list of things to do each week, as you would to a team member.
• Your tools, your title. A company email address, a laptop you provided, a job title in the signature, a place on the org chart.
• A single client. Over time, you have become their only source of income, full time, with no end date.

No single item settles the question, but together they describe someone working under your authority. If the relationship is reclassified as an employment contract, the consequences can include social contributions claimed by URSSAF, the rights of an employee owed to the person, and, where the article’s conditions are met, a finding of concealed employment. This is not a reason to avoid freelancers. It is a reason to keep a freelance relationship looking like one.

What the Day Rate Does Not Show

Founders often compare a day rate with a gross salary and conclude the freelancer is more expensive per day but cheaper overall, because there is no commitment. That comparison misses the costs that do not appear on either invoice.

• Knowledge that leaves. Everything the freelancer learned about your customers, your product and your mistakes leaves with them when the mission ends, unless you planned for a handover.
• Availability you do not control. A good freelancer has other clients. When you need them most, they may be fully booked elsewhere.
• A role you never defined. Because there was no hiring process, nobody wrote down what success looks like. When you eventually hire, you start that work from zero.
• Time spent re-briefing. Part time presence means context has to be rebuilt at each engagement, and that context lives in your head.

The employee side has its own hidden costs, covered in our article on how much to pay your first employee, which details the real employer cost behind a gross salary. The point is not that one option is cheaper. It is that the right comparison includes what each one costs you in time, continuity and risk, not just the number at the bottom of the invoice.

From Freelance to Hire, Done Properly

Many founders end up with a hybrid path: a freelancer for a first scoped project, then a permanent hire once the need is proven. It works well when each step stays what it is.

Keep the freelance mission a real mission

• Write the scope as deliverables with dates, not as a list of daily tasks.
• Let the freelancer organise their own time and methods; agree on milestones, not on hours.
• Review the arrangement at each renewal. If the scope has turned into a function, that is the signal to open a role.

Do not use a mission as an extended trial period

It is tempting to “try someone out” as a freelancer for six months before offering a contract. If they work under your direction during that time, you are creating exactly the situation described above. France already has a tool for testing a new employee: the trial period. Our piece on why the probation period is not a safety net explains how to use it to confirm a decision rather than to make it.

When the freelancer is the person you want to hire

It happens often, and it can be a great hire: you have seen their work. Still run a real process. Define the role, compare them with at least a few other candidates, and make a written offer. The freelancer may also prefer to stay independent, and knowing that early saves you a long open position.

With or without a recruiting tool

Once you decide the need is a function, the first hire starts. If you have never recruited, the process usually lives in your inbox, a spreadsheet and a calendar, and restarts from scratch each time. If you already tried an applicant tracking system, it may have felt built for a recruiting team you do not have. What helps either way is a single place where the role is defined, candidates are sourced and screened against the same criteria, and interviews are scheduled without endless email threads. That is what Kynto for founders hiring without an HR team brings together: sourcing, screening, scoring and scheduling in one tool, so that the first hire is a structured decision rather than a leap.

Key Takeaways

• A freelancer fits a need with edges: a deliverable, a peak, a specialised skill for a while.
• Most first hires are functions, recurring work with no end date, and those call for an employee.
• In France, a registered freelancer is presumed not to be an employee, but that presumption falls when the work happens under your authority.
• Compare costs in time, continuity and risk, not just day rate against gross salary.
• Do not turn a mission into an extended trial period: use the trial period that the employment contract provides.

FAQ

Should my first hire be a freelancer or an employee?

It depends on the shape of the need. If the work has a deliverable and an end date, or calls for senior expertise you only need for a while, a freelancer is often the right choice. If it is recurring work that will exist as long as the company does and that you will direct week to week, it is a function, and a hire fits better.

Can a freelance contract be reclassified as an employment contract in France?

Yes. The presumption that a registered freelancer is not an employee can be overturned when the person works in a permanent relationship of legal subordination: you give orders, monitor the work and can sanction it. Courts look at how the work actually happens, not at the title of the contract.

Can I hire a freelancer I already work with as an employee?

Yes, and it can work well since you know their work. Treat it as a real hire: define the role, consider other candidates, send a clear written offer and agree on a trial period in the contract. Check with them early whether they want to give up their independence.