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What are the obstacles faced by dependent employees who want to become self-employed and/or start their own business in Europe?

The Flash Eurobarometer on entrepreneurship in the EU and Beyond has identified several barriers to self-employment. This includes:
- Lack of access to finance
- Lack of suitable opportunity or market
- Complex administrative procedures
- Lack of information on how to start a business
- Fear of the possibility of going bankrupt
- Difficulty to change of professional status
- Not appropriate economic climate.
- The perspective of having no regular fixed income
- The fear of losing your property
- The fear of losing social protection (social security and insurances)
- Age constraint
- Inadequation to family life


Those factors come into play differently according to the age, the gender or even the country of origin. Depending on one’s situation, the risks and consequently the barriers are not exactly the same. For example, young people are generally more willing to become self-employed and/or to start a business than older ones and men more than women.


Two third of EU citizens who were not entrepreneurs at the moment the study was held felt it was impossible for them to become self-employed in the next five years.


This report completes a former study launched in 2003 by DG Enterprise among the EU 15 countries on the obstacles that dependent employees face when they try to become self-employed.

The report results can be downloaded here: "Overcoming the obstacles faced by dependent employees who want to become self-employed and/or start their own business". It is also available in French and German.