For a founder based outside France, hiring the first French employee is the moment when a commercial project becomes an employer’s legal relationship. The occupational-health step is often reduced to the vague instruction “arrange the medical visit”. That is too imprecise. The company must identify the correct service, transmit the right information, distinguish the ordinary Information and Prevention Visit (VIP) from Enhanced Individual Monitoring, and preserve proof that the process was started on time. A foreign founder must also connect that process with the prior-to-hiring declaration, payroll registration and the employee’s actual workplace.
For an ordinary office, sales or technology position, the first employee normally receives a VIP within three months from the effective start of work. The deadline is not calculated from the date on which the articles of association were signed, from the date of the company’s Kbis (the official extract showing its registration), or from the date on which the employment contract was negotiated. A high-risk position, night work, a minor employee or an adapted health-monitoring situation can require an earlier examination or a different follow-up. The company remains responsible even when the occupational-health service has a long waiting list.
This article addresses a French company owned or managed from abroad. It explains the legal sequence, the documents to keep, the limits of the DPAE (prior-to-hiring declaration), and the response to a missed or delayed appointment. It does not treat an individual moving to France, a property purchase, or a French-language employment-law strategy. The practical objective is simple: when the first employee starts, the founder should be able to show who was contacted, when, for which position, with which risk information, and what the service replied.
I. When does a French company have to arrange the first occupational health visit?
A. What the first employee’s three-month deadline actually means
The first question is not whether a foreign-owned company has a special exemption. It does not. Under Article L. 4622-1 of the French Labour Code, employers organise occupational prevention and health services. The official wording is direct: Les employeurs relevant du présent titre organisent des services de prévention et de santé au travail
. A French subsidiary, a French branch employing staff under French employment law, and a newly incorporated French company must therefore build the occupational-health step into the first-hire timetable.
The employment relationship also starts with the DPAE. Article L. 1221-10 states that L’embauche d’un salarié ne peut intervenir qu’après déclaration nominative accomplie par l’employeur
. The DPAE is not the medical visit itself. It is the declaration through which the employer supplies information and makes several linked requests. Under Article R. 1221-2, the DPAE includes the request to join an occupational-health service and the request for the VIP or, where appropriate, the medical fitness examination. In other words, a correctly filed DPAE can trigger the administrative request, but the employer still has to check that the service has received it and that an appointment is actually arranged.
The DPAE timetable matters for a founder working across time zones. Article R. 1221-4 provides that the declaration is sent no earlier than eight days before the expected hiring date. The current electronic rule appears in Article R. 1221-5, which begins: La déclaration préalable à l’embauche est effectuée par voie électronique
. A paper fallback exists, but the unavailability of one transmission method does not release the employer from the duty to use the other. The first employee’s DPAE also commonly opens the employer record with URSSAF, the body that collects French social-security contributions; the URSSAF DPAE guidance expressly explains that the first DPAE can trigger that employer registration.
The medical deadline runs from the employee’s effective assumption of the post. Article R. 4624-10 provides that every worker receives a VIP within a period not exceeding three months from taking the job in fact. The exact statutory phrase is dans un délai qui n’excède pas trois mois à compter de la prise effective du poste de travail
. A contract signed on 1 September with a first working day on 15 September therefore creates a different reference date from a contract signed on 1 September with work deferred to 1 October. A Kbis issued on 20 September does not reset the employee’s health clock, and a delayed bank account does not suspend it once work has actually begun.
The ordinary VIP is not an old-style pre-employment aptitude clearance. It is an individual health-and-prevention appointment. Article R. 4624-11 says that the visit is individual and has several purposes, including asking about health, explaining workplace risks, discussing prevention and identifying whether the worker should be referred to the occupational physician. Its wording includes: La visite d’information et de prévention dont bénéficie le travailleur est individuelle
. The professional may be a doctor, an occupational-health nurse, a resident in occupational medicine or another authorised professional under the statutory framework. At the end, Article R. 4624-14 requires an attestation of follow-up for the worker and employer: Le professionnel de santé délivre une attestation de suivi au travailleur et à l’employeur
.
The consequence for a foreign founder is practical. The founder, payroll provider or French representative should begin the SPST process before the employee’s first day, not on the day the three-month period is about to expire. SPST means Service de prévention et de santé au travail, the occupational prevention and health service. A company with fewer than 500 employees generally joins an inter-company SPST; the official Service-Public explanation of occupational medicine describes that organisation. The choice is connected to the establishment and workplace, not to the nationality of the shareholder or to the country where the chief executive is physically located.
Consider a foreign technology founder who incorporates a French SAS, appoints a French-based developer and asks a UK payroll adviser to handle the first payslip. The company should identify the French workplace, choose or confirm the SPST, include the service information in the DPAE, provide the job description and risk information, and request the appointment as soon as the effective start date is known. If the developer starts on 15 September, the ordinary legal limit is 15 December, subject to the special rules discussed below. Waiting until December to discover that the DPAE was sent to the wrong establishment is not a defensible compliance process.
B. Which employer, worker and service documents must be ready?
A first-employee file should make the company identifiable to a French service even if the founder has never visited France. Begin with the company’s legal name, SIREN number, SIRET number for the employing establishment, APE or NAF activity code, registered office and actual workplace. SIREN identifies the legal entity; SIRET identifies an establishment; APE or NAF describes the economic activity. The Kbis is the registry extract traditionally requested by banks and counterparties. Since the single formalities portal, company information is also connected to the RNE, the National Business Register, through INPI, the French National Institute of Industrial Property. The French business formalities portal is relevant to the company’s registration, but it does not replace the SPST appointment.
The founder should keep the DPAE receipt, the employer’s URSSAF account confirmation, the SPST membership confirmation and the appointment request in one dated folder. If a French accountant, payroll provider or lawyer acts for the company, retain the mandate or written instructions that identify the person authorised to transmit data and respond to the SPST. A foreign parent’s internal authorisation may be useful for governance, but it is not a substitute for the French employer’s operational record. The greffe, meaning the court registry that records commercial proceedings and certain company filings, does not organise occupational-health visits. The BODACC, the Official Bulletin of Civil and Commercial Announcements, does not record the employee’s medical appointment either. These are company-law and insolvency-publicity concepts, not a health-service booking channel.
The worker’s part of the file must be accurate. The DPAE rules request the employee’s identity, date and place of birth, hiring date and hour, contract type, and other information; the national social-security number is supplied if already known. A founder should not invent a French social-security number for a foreign employee who does not yet have one. The payroll provider should follow the official identification process and correct any rejection. The job title must also reflect the real work. “Consultant” is not enough if the employee will operate machinery, enter construction areas, handle chemicals, drive for work, work at night or supervise a risky process.
The risk description should be short but concrete. It can state the normal working location, travel, screen work, lifting, noise, chemical or biological exposure, electrical work, work at height, night schedules, isolated work, contact with the public, psychosocial demands and foreseeable emergencies. This information allows the SPST to assess whether ordinary monitoring is appropriate. It also connects the appointment with the company’s DUERP, the document unique d’évaluation des risques professionnels, or single occupational-risk assessment document. Article R. 4121-1 requires the employer to record and update its risk assessment in a single document and to inventory identified risks in each work unit. The text says: L’employeur transcrit et met à jour dans un document unique les résultats de l’évaluation des risques
.
For a one-person French office, the DUERP should still address the actual work. A remote arrangement does not mean that there are no risks. Display, posture, workload, isolation, travel and the organisation of work can be relevant. Article R. 4121-2 requires an update at least annually in companies with at least eleven employees, after a significant change in working conditions, or when new information about a risk becomes known. A first employee may be below the annual-update threshold, but the initial evaluation and an update after a material change remain part of a serious prevention system. A founder should not wait for a medical professional to write the company’s DUERP; the employer must assess and prevent risks, while the SPST advises within its mission.
Privacy needs a separate line in the process. The company needs the job, risk and administrative information required to arrange the visit. It does not need the employee’s diagnosis. The occupational-health professional keeps medical information within the health system and sends the employer the document legally intended for the employment relationship, such as an attestation of follow-up or a written measure concerning the position. A foreign founder who asks an overseas payroll provider to collect medical details creates an unnecessary data-protection risk. The better practice is to give the worker the appointment instructions, keep only the employer-facing document and direct health questions to the SPST.
The minimum first-hire file can therefore be organised in four parts: the company and establishment identifiers; the worker and contract information; the DPAE and SPST evidence; and the job-risk and prevention documents. Keep dates in French local time, identify the person who made each request, and retain the service’s confirmation or refusal. That evidence is more useful than a general statement that the company “intended” to arrange the visit.
II. What changes when the employee, the job or the appointment creates a risk?
A. When the ordinary VIP becomes enhanced individual monitoring
The three-month rule is the ordinary route, not a universal safe harbour. The founder must first classify the job. Under Article R. 4624-22, a worker assigned to a position presenting particular risks for the worker, colleagues or nearby third parties receives Enhanced Individual Monitoring, commonly called SIR for suivi individuel renforcé. The current text identifies categories including asbestos, lead, carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic agents, biological agents in groups 3 and 4, ionising radiation, hyperbaric risk and falls from height during the assembly or dismantling of scaffolding. The correct classification comes from the real exposure and statutory risk rules, not from the reassuring wording of the job title.
In the SIR route, the employer cannot simply book an ordinary VIP within three months. Article R. 4624-24 provides that the enhanced monitoring includes a medical fitness examination replacing the VIP and performed by the occupational physician before the employee is assigned to the position. The official text describes the purpose as ensuring that the worker is medically fit for the proposed post and as preventing serious risks to the worker, colleagues or third parties. It begins: Le suivi individuel renforcé comprend un examen médical d’aptitude
. If a foreign founder assigns an employee to a risk-bearing position before that examination, the issue is not a late routine appointment; it is a potentially improper allocation to the post.
The same caution applies to employees whose situation requires adapted monitoring. The rules may be shorter or more protective for a night worker, a person under eighteen, a worker recognised as disabled, a person receiving an invalidity pension or a worker exposed to a particular risk. The official Ministry of Labour summary explains that some workers must be seen before assignment, while the ordinary route allows a VIP within three months. The founder should ask the SPST to classify the situation and should state night work, age, disability status where the worker chooses to disclose it for this purpose, and the risk profile in the request. A founder should never decide that a worker is “ordinary” only because the employee works from a laptop.
Previous medical monitoring can sometimes remove the need for a new VIP, but the conditions are cumulative. Article R. 4624-15 refers to a prior visit within five years, or three years for the adapted-monitoring category, and requires an identical job with equivalent exposure, possession of the last attestation or fitness opinion by the health professional, and no relevant measure or unfitness opinion during the applicable period. A founder cannot rely on the employee’s verbal statement that a visit happened. The prior document must reach the professional who will monitor the worker, and the job and exposure must truly match.
Once the first visit is completed, normal follow-up continues. Article R. 4624-16 sets a maximum five-year periodicity for renewal of the initial VIP, subject to the factors that the occupational physician considers. The law says the renewal is arranged according to a period that ne peut excéder cinq ans
. For an adapted-monitoring case, the relevant period can be shorter. The first-hire calendar should therefore have a next-review date and should not end when the first attestation arrives.
Remote work and overseas management do not alter the need to assess the position. The Code permits occupational-health professionals to use remote practices in the individual monitoring framework, but consent and confidentiality are required. A video appointment may be useful when the service offers it; it is not a private examination performed by a foreign HR contractor. The employee should know which French professional is providing the follow-up, what document will be issued and how to contact the service. The employer should keep the appointment record without asking for medical content.
The employer’s prevention duty is broader than the appointment. Article L. 4121-1 requires measures to protect physical and mental health, including prevention, information, training and an adapted organisation. Its opening sentence is: L’employeur prend les mesures nécessaires pour assurer la sécurité et protéger la santé physique et mentale des travailleurs
. Article L. 4121-2 then lists general prevention principles such as avoiding risks, evaluating unavoidable risks and combating risks at source. A VIP is therefore one part of the first employee’s compliance file, not a certificate that permits the founder to postpone training, equipment, instructions or risk assessment.
B. What should a foreign founder do if the visit is late, refused or impossible to book?
A waiting list is a problem to document, not a reason to do nothing. If the SPST does not respond, the employer should resend the request through the service’s stated channel, identify the DPAE and establishment, request the earliest available slot, and ask for written confirmation that the worker has been registered. Save the original request, the transmission receipt, the service’s automatic response, the follow-up messages and the appointment finally offered. A payroll provider may perform those actions, but the French company should remain able to produce the evidence.
The company should also check whether the delay is caused by an incomplete file. Common causes include an incorrect SIRET, the wrong workplace, a missing activity code, a DPAE filed for another establishment, a worker’s identity mismatch, an unclassified risk or a request sent to a service that does not cover the location. Correct the data and make the correction traceable. Do not create a second employer identity merely to obtain a faster appointment. That can produce inconsistent URSSAF, payroll, contract and company records.
If the appointment cannot be obtained before the three-month date, the employer should make a dated escalation before the deadline and continue to seek the earliest slot. The company should not write that the employee “passed” the visit because a DPAE was filed. The DPAE proves a declaration and a request; the attestation under Article R. 4624-14 proves the visit’s outcome. If the service schedules the visit late, keep the proof that the employer applied for it promptly. That evidence does not erase a breach, but it distinguishes active compliance efforts from total inaction and helps identify whether a service or an employer caused the delay.
The distinction matters in litigation. In Cass. soc., 9 October 2024, no. 23-16.271, the Court of cassation censured a judgment that failed to answer the employee’s submissions about the employer’s failure to organise medical examinations. The official decision records the criticism that the court had acted sans répondre aux conclusions de la salariée qui soutenait que son employeur avait manqué à son obligation de santé et de sécurité
. The case concerned limitation and periodic or return examinations, not a general rule that every late VIP automatically produces a fixed award. Its practical lesson is narrower and important: a company must preserve and answer the chronology of its health-and-safety actions instead of allowing the file to become silent.
If the employee does not attend, the employer should distinguish a refusal from a failed appointment. Send a clear written invitation, explain that the appointment is part of the health-monitoring process, record the date and channel, and ask the SPST how a new appointment should be arranged. Keep the service’s notice of non-attendance. Do not pressure the employee to disclose medical reasons, and do not treat an absence as proof of fitness. If the employee repeatedly refuses after proper information, the company should obtain tailored employment advice before taking disciplinary action; the response must consider the contract, the risk, the employee’s explanations and the service’s instructions.
If the occupational professional recommends an adjustment, the company should ask for the written employer-facing document and implement or challenge it through the correct route. A founder cannot replace the professional’s assessment with a message from an overseas manager. Where an employer or worker contests medical conclusions, Article R. 4624-45 provides for an application to the employment tribunal under the accelerated procedure within fifteen days of notification. The statute says: le conseil de prud’hommes statuant selon la procédure accélérée au fond est saisi dans un délai de quinze jours
. The company should record the notification date immediately; a foreign time zone or internal approval chain does not extend that statutory period.
The employer should also protect the employee’s time and expenses. Article R. 4624-39 provides that the time required for visits and medical examinations is taken on working hours without salary deduction, or paid as effective working time when it cannot take place during working hours. It adds that the employer bears the transport time and costs. The operative sentence is Le temps et les frais de transport nécessités par ces visites et ces examens sont pris en charge par l’employeur
. A foreign payroll system should therefore code the appointment as paid work time and preserve reimbursed travel records where relevant.
The founder can use the following operational sequence for the first employee:
- Before the start date: confirm the employing establishment, workplace, role, risk profile and SPST coverage; prepare the DUERP entry and the worker’s contract information.
- Between eight days before hiring and the first day: file the DPAE through the appropriate channel, keep the receipt and confirm that the SPST request was transmitted.
- At the start of work: record the actual date and time the employee takes the post, give the employee prevention and safety instructions, and check whether the role falls under SIR or another pre-assignment rule.
- During the first three months: obtain the VIP appointment and attestation for an ordinary role, or the medical fitness examination before assignment for a qualifying high-risk role.
- If the service is silent: escalate in writing before the deadline, correct any establishment or worker data, ask for the earliest slot and preserve every response.
- After the visit: store the attestation, update the risk and prevention file when working conditions change, and calendar the next monitoring date without collecting medical diagnoses.
This sequence also helps a founder answer a bank, investor, auditor or future buyer who asks whether the French employment function is operational. The company can show a coherent trail from incorporation and establishment data, through INPI and URSSAF formalities, to the SPST request and the employee’s health-monitoring document. That is more persuasive than a generic policy copied from the foreign parent.
A failure to organise health and safety measures can also create regulatory exposure. Article L. 4741-1 of the Labour Code provides a €10,000 fine for an employer or delegatee who, through personal fault, breaches the listed health-and-safety provisions and their implementing decrees, with the statutory treatment depending on the offence and circumstances. This provision should not be presented as an automatic fine for every late appointment. It does show why a foreign founder should not assume that a small headcount makes the first hire legally invisible.
Conclusion
For an ordinary first French employee, the company should arrange the Information and Prevention Visit within three months from the employee’s effective start of work. The correct process begins earlier: identify the French establishment and SPST, file the DPAE before hiring, transmit an accurate role and risk description, prepare the DUERP, and keep proof of each request. The DPAE is not the appointment and a Kbis is not a health certificate.
The founder must then test the exceptions. A high-risk job can require Enhanced Individual Monitoring and a medical fitness examination before assignment. Night work, age, disability, previous monitoring and the actual exposure can change the route. If the service is late, the company should escalate and document rather than wait silently. If a medical measure is challenged, the fifteen-day employment-tribunal deadline must be protected. A foreign shareholder, foreign payroll provider or overseas manager may assist, but the French employer remains responsible for a traceable, accurate and confidential process.
For a company preparing its first hire, the safest practical question is not “Do we have a medical appointment?” It is “Can we prove that the right French employer, establishment, service, role, risk classification, employee information and dates were connected before work began?” That is the file that supports the company when the first employee, the SPST, URSSAF, an inspector, an investor or a court asks what happened.
For the wider incorporation sequence, see the French company formation and corporate compliance service and the related guide on hiring a first employee in France as a foreign-owned company. Those links are intended to help a founder move from registration to a documented first payroll and employment process.
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