You formed your French company from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore. The Kbis (the official identity certificate of a French company, issued by the greffe, the registry of the commercial court) arrived, the corporate bank account is open, and business can start. Then the quiet part of French company law begins: every year, on fixed dates, your SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company most foreign founders choose) or your SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the limited liability company with stricter statutory rules) must approve its accounts, file them, pay its taxes and keep its registers. Miss one deadline and the penalties arrive automatically, even if you live 5,000 kilometres away and nobody warned you. French law does not excuse a foreign shareholder who did not know the calendar.
This guide gives foreign owners the full annual legal and tax calendar of a French company in one place: the general meeting that approves the accounts, the filing at the greffe, the auditor thresholds, corporate income tax instalments, VAT returns, dividend taxation, and what happens the month you hire your first French employee. Every acronym is explained, every rule is linked to its official source, and every deadline comes with the practical move a non-resident owner should make. Read it once, diary the dates, and your French subsidiary will never be the reason your group accounts are late.
I. When must a foreign-owned French company approve and file its accounts?
A. How do you validly approve annual accounts when the shareholders live abroad?
In a SARL, the ordinary general meeting (assemblée générale ordinaire, the yearly meeting of shareholders) is the body that signs off the financial year. The official business guidance describes its role in plain terms: it is the meeting that decides on the yearly approval of the accounts and on the appointment, removal and pay of the manager. Decisions at that meeting are taken by shareholders holding at least half of the company shares on first call, which means a foreign majority owner can approve alone but must still convene formally, document the vote and keep the minutes. An extraordinary meeting, by contrast, is reserved for changes to the articles (transfert of registered office, change of company name, capital operations), so do not mix the two in one sloppy minute: keep an ordinary meeting for the accounts and a separate extraordinary process for structural changes. The rules sit in Article L223-29 of the Commercial Code for ordinary meetings and Article L223-30 of the Commercial Code for extraordinary ones.
In a SAS, freedom is the rule and paperwork is the price. The SAS framework of Articles L227-1 to L227-20 of the Commercial Code lets the articles of association decide who approves the accounts, how shareholders are consulted, and whether a video call, a written consultation or a physical meeting in Paris counts. That flexibility is exactly why foreign founders love the SAS, but it creates a trap: if your articles are silent or vague about collective decisions, a minority shareholder or a future buyer can attack the approval years later. Before your first year-end, check three clauses in your statuts (the articles of association): the body competent to approve the accounts, the convening method and notice period, and the majority required. If you are the sole shareholder of a SASU (the one-person SAS), you approve alone but you must still sign a written decision and file it in the company register, because an unwritten approval is treated as no approval at all.
Distance changes nothing about validity, but it changes everything about proof. Send convening notices by a traceable channel, keep time-zone-friendly evidence of attendance, have foreign-language minutes translated, and store everything at the registered office (siège social) in France, where a judge or an auditor will ask to see it. The registers page of the official business service states the standard for a sole-shareholder company plainly: decisions must be recorded in the register of decisions of the sole shareholder, an electronic register is allowed only if the articles permit it and the system guarantees authenticity through identification, numbering and dating, and entries must be kept for 6 years. The supporting texts are Article R225-20, Article R225-47 and Article R225-49 of the Commercial Code. Lose the minute book and you lose the ability to prove dividends were lawfully voted, which is precisely what a tax audit or a shareholder dispute will test first.
Approving accounts is also the moment dividends are born. No dividend can be paid without a lawful approval of the accounts showing distributable profits, and the tax cost is immediate. The official guidance puts it bluntly for both SAS and SARL shareholders: dividends fall into the category of investment income and are taxed automatically under the flat levy (prélèvement forfaitaire unique, the single flat-rate levy) of 31.4 percent, made of 12.8 percent income tax and 18.6 percent social charges, with an option to elect progressive income-tax rates instead. The levy mechanism sits in Article 117 quater of the General Tax Code. Foreign shareholders add a second layer: the France–UK, France–US or applicable double-tax treaty usually caps French withholding at 15 percent or less, but the cap only applies if the reclaim forms are filed, so ask your accountant about the 5000-series forms before voting a large distribution, not after the cash has left the account.
Non-resident shareholders should also organise powers in advance. A shareholder who cannot fly to Paris for the meeting can vote by proxy or by correspondence where the articles allow it, and a sole shareholder simply signs. What matters is the chain: convening proves everyone was invited, the attendance sheet proves who decided, the minutes prove what was decided, and the register proves it was kept. Foreign groups sometimes approve the French accounts by a one-line email from headquarters and consider the matter closed; under French law that email is not a corporate decision until it is transposed into the proper form and filed in the French register. When the articles require a statutory auditor report before approval, diaries must work backwards: close the books, send them to the accountant, leave the auditor a real review window, then convene. Rushing the sequence the other way round is how approvals get annulled.
B. Where and when do you file the accounts, and when do you need an auditor?
Approval is step one; publicity is step two. Once the shareholders have approved, the company must deposit (file) its annual accounts at the greffe of the commercial court, where they become publicly searchable and feed the Kbis ecosystem. The deposit is made through the one-stop company formalities portal (guichet des formalités des entreprises, run by the INPI, the French intellectual-property and business-registry institute) and the publication is announced through the BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, the official gazette for company filings). The publicity framework lives in Articles R123-172 to R123-177 of the Commercial Code. Foreign owners often discover this filing through their bank: French banks re-check the filed accounts every year when they renew overdrafts or review the file of a non-resident-owned company, and missing filings are the single most common reason a renewal stalls. Diary the filing as strictly as the approval, because courts treat a company that never files as a company with something to hide when a creditor later asks for disclosure.
Small companies may file in a lighter way, but they may not skip the filing. Micro and small companies can ask for confidentiality of the profit-and-loss account, yet the balance sheet filing itself remains compulsory, and a holding company or a company controlled by a foreign group often loses the lightest options. Ask your accountant (expert-comptable, the French chartered accountant) each year which confidentiality option your size and group position still allow, and keep the filing receipt (récépissé de dépôt) next to the approved accounts: in a sale of the company, the buyer data room will ask for every receipt since incorporation.
The auditor question arrives earlier than foreign founders expect. A commissaire aux comptes (the French statutory auditor) becomes compulsory in a SARL as soon as two of three thresholds are crossed, and the official business service states them exactly: 5,000,000 euros of balance-sheet total, 10,000,000 euros of pre-tax turnover, and 50 employees, with appointment made at the ordinary general meeting. Groups preparing consolidated accounts must appoint two independent auditors. The texts are Article L223-35 of the Commercial Code for the SARL, Article L227-9-1 of the Commercial Code for the SAS, and Decree 2019-514 of 24 May 2019 fixing the thresholds. The trap for foreign groups is consolidation: a tiny French SAS can trigger an audit because the foreign parent consolidates, so confirm the analysis at group level, not company level. Appointing an auditor late means the approval already voted may have to be re-done once the auditor has reviewed the accounts, which doubles the cost and the embarrassment.
Two documents prove your company exists while all of this runs: the Siren number (the 9-digit national business identifier issued at registration) and the Kbis extract (the identity card of the company, re-issued by the greffe whenever the file changes). The official guide to obtaining a Kbis extract explains the chain every foreign founder should memorise: registration first, Siren second, Kbis third, tax numbers fourth. The company-number framework sits in Articles R123-220 to R123-234-2 of the Commercial Code, and invoice mentions are governed by Articles R123-237 to R123-238. Never let a provider invoice on behalf of your French company using only the foreign parent letterhead: French invoices must show the Siren, the VAT number and the registered office, and customers are entitled to refuse invoices that do not.
II. Which tax and social deadlines can never slip?
A. How do you pay French corporate tax and VAT through the year?
French corporate income tax (IS, impôt sur les sociétés) is paid before it is finally computed. The standard rate is set by Article 219 of the General Tax Code and has stood at 25 percent for financial years opened since 2022, with reduced rates surviving only for small turnovers under strict conditions. A profitable SAS or SARL pays four quarterly instalments (acomptes) during the year, then settles the balance (solde) after the tax return (liasse fiscale) is filed, roughly three months after year-end. Foreign owners get this wrong in two predictable ways: they budget the 25 percent once a year like a British corporation-tax bill and forget the quarterly cash calls, or they assume a loss-making first year means no paperwork, when the return and its annexes remain compulsory and carry-forward of losses (report en avant) is only preserved if properly declared. Give your accountant a standing instruction to call each instalment with the exact amount and date, and keep a euro float for it: late instalments accrue interest automatically, without any reminder letter.
VAT (TVA, taxe sur la valeur ajoutée) runs on its own faster clock. Companies under the standard regime declare and pay every month on form CA3 through the professional tax account (compte fiscal professionnel) on impots.gouv.fr, the French tax authority portal; only the smallest payers are allowed quarterly returns. The official business service states the rhythm without ambiguity: the company must pay the VAT it owes each month or each quarter at the time of its VAT return, with payment made online from the professional account. The return obligation sits in Article 287 of the General Tax Code, the simplified-regime annual return in Articles 302 septies A to 302 septies AA, and deduction rights in Articles 271 to 273 septies E. If your French company trades across borders, read our companion guide on French VAT registration for foreign founders: the intra-Community number (numéro de TVA intracommunautaire, the FR-prefixed number built from your Siren) is issued by the corporate tax office (SIE, Service des impôts des entreprises) after registration, it is compulsory for any company that must charge and remit VAT, in the words of the official service, and getting it late means your first cross-border invoices are wrong from day one.
Territoriality decides whether French VAT applies at all. The place-of-supply rules of Articles 258 to 259 D of the General Tax Code, read with the EU VAT Directive (Directive 2006/112/EC), allocate each sale of goods or services to one country; the person liable (redevable) follows the allocation. A foreign founder whose French SAS merely re-invoices the US parent for management fees can accidentally create French taxable supplies, while a French company selling B2B services to German clients usually zero-rates with reverse charge, provided the customer VAT numbers are validated. Diary a quarterly VAT health check with your accountant: customer and supplier numbers re-validated, place-of-supply of any new offer confirmed in writing, and refund claims for VAT paid abroad filed through the EU portal before the September deadline of the following year, under Articles 242-0 M to 242-0 Z ter of Annex 2.
Two annual extras complete the tax picture. The local business tax (CFE, cotisation foncière des entreprises) bills every company with premises or activity in France, including a one-room Paris office, and the first bill often surprises founders who assumed corporate tax was the only company tax. The annual return also carries annexes that foreign groups forget: related-party and transfer-pricing documentation when the French company deals with its parent, and the dividend reporting that reconciles the levy withheld with the treaty reclaim. Keep a single year-end file per financial year holding the approved accounts, the filing receipt, the tax return, the VAT annual summary where relevant, and the dividend minutes with their tax forms. When you sell the company or raise funds, that file is the first thing diligence asks for, and a complete set shortens the process by weeks.
B. What must be done the month you hire your first French employee?
Hiring transforms your calendar overnight, because French labour and social law runs on prior declarations, not post-hiring paperwork. Before the employee starts work, the company must file the pre-hiring declaration (DPAE, déclaration préalable à l’embauche) with URSSAF (Unions de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales, the social-contributions collection network). The framework sits in Articles L1221-13 to L1221-15-1 of the Labour Code with the procedures in Article R1221-26. No DPAE means the employment is invisible to the system on day one, and concealed work (travail dissimulé) is the criminal and financial risk foreign employers underestimate most: back-charges, flat-rate penalties and, in serious cases, a ban on public contracts. File the DPAE from the company account before the start date, keep the acknowledgement receipt, and never let anyone start on a promise that the papers will follow.
The same week, three more clocks start. First, the employee must be entered in the single personnel register (registre unique du personnel) at hiring time, in indelible form, with records kept for 5 years after each departure, in the official wording of the business service. Second, the applicable collective agreement (convention collective, the industry-wide bargain setting minimum pay, probation and notice) must be identified and applied: the SMIC (salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance, the national minimum wage) is only the floor, and the agreement almost always sits above it, as our guide on minimum salary for a first hire in France explains. Third, payslips, monthly social charges (DSN, déclaration sociale nominative, the single monthly payroll return) and the supplementary pension and mandatory health cover (mutuelle) must be wired into your payroll provider before the first month closes. A foreign director who signs an employment contract with their own SAS should also read our analysis of director pay, dividends and social security, because cumulating a corporate mandate with an employment contract is valid only under strict conditions of real subordination and distinct duties.
Keep the registers as carefully as the money. Beyond the personnel register, the company maintains its minute books, its shareholder accounts (comptes courants d’associés, the running loan accounts recording cash the owner advances to the company, capped-interest and minuted), and its safes of originals: articles, Kbis history, bank agreements, tax receipts. Falsifying or destroying company records falls under forgery provisions in Articles 441-1 to 441-12 of the Criminal Code, and operating without registration at all is punished as a criminal offence under Article L123-38 and Article L123-38-1 of the Commercial Code, with the official service recalling the headline figure: carrying on a commercial, craft or freelance activity without registration in the national business register (RNE, registre national des entreprises) is an offence punished by a 7,500 euro fine. Foreign founders sometimes park activity in the overseas parent while the French company sleeps; if French staff, French premises or French customers exist, the sleep is usually an establishment in disguise, and the calendar applies in full.
Finally, align the calendar with the group timetable abroad. French accounts feed foreign consolidation, and the French approval date drives when dividends can legally leave France for the parent. Hold the French meeting early enough that audited figures reach group finance on time, coordinate dividend votes with the treaty-reclaim filings so cash moves once and correctly, and never distribute interim dividends (acomptes sur dividendes) without checking that the articles and the half-year position allow them. A foreign parent that sweeps cash monthly through an undocumented shareholder loan account builds the exact fact pattern French courts reclassify in insolvency: keep loan agreements written, interest at arm length, and repayments minuted.
Conclusion
The annual life of a French company is a fixed sequence, not a set of suggestions: approve the accounts in general meeting, file them at the greffe, check the auditor thresholds, pay corporate tax in quarterly instalments, declare VAT every month or quarter, vote dividends lawfully before paying them, and declare every hire before day one. Each step has its own register, receipt and portal, and the foreign owner who diaries all of them spends a few hundred euros a year on compliance instead of tens of thousands on penalties, re-filings and blocked bank files. Start this year with three actions: confirm in your articles who approves the accounts and how, ask your accountant for the written list of your company filing dates, and validate your VAT number and Kbis details before the next invoice run.
Need a quick opinion on your case?
Need a quick opinion on your French company calendar? Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm, to review your approval minutes, your filing receipts or your first-hire paperwork before a deadline bites. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 (Maître Reda Kohen) or reach us through our contact page. We receive clients in Paris and across Île-de-France, and we advise foreign founders in English from incorporation to the third approved financial year and beyond.