You registered your SAS or SARL in France, opened the bank account, received the Kbis (the company’s official registration extract), and the first financial year closed on 31 December. Nothing visibly happened. No letter arrived, no portal flashed red, and the accountant is somewhere between two time zones. In France, that silence is misleading. The closing of the first financial year starts three separate legal clocks at once: the shareholders must approve the annual accounts, the approved accounts must be filed with the commercial court registry, and a corporate tax return must be transmitted to the tax administration. Each clock has its own deadline, its own authority watching it, and its own sanction when it runs out. Foreign founders regularly discover all three only when the bank freezes a file for missing public accounts, when a customer sues to force publication, or when a penalty notice lands from the tax office.

This guide is written for a foreign owner who runs a French company from abroad, in English, with every French term explained. It sets out the approval and filing calendar that applies from the first closing, what exactly goes into the filing file, and the confidentiality choices most founders never hear about. It then walks through what concretely happens when a filing is missed — registrar’s alert, court injunction with a daily penalty, criminal fine, prevention inquiry, tax surcharges — and finishes with a recovery plan that regularises the situation and protects the next financial year. All statutory references below are quoted word for word from the official texts in force on 9 September 2026, with their Légifrance links, and the court decision cited is linked to its official Cour de cassation record.

I. The approval and filing calendar that starts the day your first French financial year ends

A. Approve the accounts: six months by law for the SARL, a bylaw deadline for the SAS, and a statutory auditor above certain thresholds

The first duty is internal: someone must draw up the accounts. Article L. 232-1 of the Commercial Code, the version in force since 3 May 2025, provides: A la clôture de chaque exercice le conseil d’administration, le directoire ou les gérants dressent l’inventaire, les comptes annuels conformément aux dispositions de la section 2 du chapitre III du titre II du livre Ier et établissent un rapport de gestion écrit. In plain English, at the close of each financial year the managers must prepare the inventory, the annual accounts (balance sheet, profit and loss account, and notes) and a written management report. One relief is built into the same article: Sont dispensées de l’obligation d’établir un rapport de gestion les sociétés commerciales qui sont des microentreprises ou des petites entreprises au sens de l’article L. 230-1, which exempts micro and small companies from the management report. Most foreign founders’ first-year entities fall in that exemption, but the accounts themselves are never optional.

Preparation is not approval. In a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the French limited liability company) or its single-member form the EURL, article L. 223-26 of the Commercial Code fixes the deadline by law: Le rapport de gestion, l’inventaire et les comptes annuels établis par les gérants, sont soumis à l’approbation des associés réunis en assemblée, dans le délai de six mois à compter de la clôture de l’exercice sous réserve de prolongation de ce délai par décision de justice. Six months from closing, extendable only by court order. For a 31 December closing, the approval meeting must happen by 30 June. The same article adds real teeth for blocked situations: le ministère public ou toute personne intéressée peut saisir le président du tribunal compétent statuant en référé afin d’enjoindre, le cas échéant sous astreinte, aux gérants de convoquer cette assemblée ou de désigner un mandataire pour y procéder. Any interested person — including a co-shareholder stuck abroad while the local manager does nothing — can obtain a summary order compelling the meeting, backed by a daily financial penalty, or the appointment of an agent to hold it.

The SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible share company most foreign groups choose) works differently. No statute fixes its approval deadline: the bylaws decide, and the official administration portal confirms that in practice a six-month deadline is most often used. There is a structural reason why six months is the sane maximum even in an SAS: dividends. Under article L. 232-12 of the Commercial Code, Après approbation des comptes annuels et constatation de l’existence de sommes distribuables, l’assemblée générale détermine la part attribuée aux associés sous forme de dividendes — no approved accounts, no lawful dividend distribution. And article L. 232-13 caps the payment mechanics: Toutefois, la mise en paiement des dividendes doit avoir lieu dans un délai maximal de neuf mois après la clôture de l’exercice. La prolongation de ce délai peut être accordée par décision de justice. Approval late in the autumn therefore squeezes the nine-month payment window, and any dividend paid without approved accounts showing distributable sums is exposed as a fictitious dividend, which article L. 232-12 brands in one sentence: Tout dividende distribué en violation des règles ci-dessus énoncées est un dividende fictif, recoverable from the shareholder who received it.

One governance point changes the whole timeline for a growing entity: the statutory auditor, the commissaire aux comptes (CAC). For a SARL, article L. 223-35 of the Commercial Code makes the appointment mandatory above decree-fixed levels for two of three criteria: Sont tenues de désigner un commissaire aux comptes au moins les sociétés à responsabilité limitée qui dépassent à la clôture d’un exercice social des chiffres fixés par décret pour deux des critères suivants : le total de leur bilan, le montant hors taxes de leur chiffre d’affaires ou le nombre moyen de leurs salariés au cours d’un exercice. If the CAC exists, the accounts must be handed to them well before the meeting so their report can be appended to the file — which means the practical approval deadline moves forward by several weeks. A foreign owner who crosses the thresholds without noticing inherits a double breach: no auditor appointed, and accounts approved without the required report, an approval decision exposed to annulment.

For the single-shareholder forms — SASU and EURL — approval is a written sole-shareholder decision rather than a physical meeting, which a founder abroad can sign electronically. The decision still covers the same ground: approval of the accounts, allocation of the result, and discharge wording as the bylaws require. Keep the signed decision with its date: it is the document that starts the filing clock described next.

B. File at the greffe within one month — two if you file electronically — and choose your level of public disclosure

Approval triggers the second clock: filing with the greffe, the registry of the commercial court, so the accounts are annexed to the registre du commerce et des sociétés (RCS), the companies register. For sociétés par actions — the SA and the SAS/SASU — article L. 232-23 of the Commercial Code states: Toute société par actions est tenue de déposer au greffe du tribunal, pour être annexés au registre du commerce et des sociétés, dans le mois suivant l’approbation des comptes annuels par l’assemblée générale des actionnaires ou dans les deux mois suivant cette approbation lorsque ce dépôt est effectué par voie électronique. One month on paper, two months if filed electronically. The official administration page on filing annual accounts restates the same one-month and two-month deadlines for the SARL and EURL, so in practice every commercial company lives on the same rhythm: approve by end of June for a calendar-year closing, then file by the end of July on paper or the end of August online.

The filing file contains the approved annual accounts, the management report where one is required, the CAC report where an auditor exists, the proposed allocation of the result and the allocation resolution actually voted. Article L. 232-23 also covers the refusal scenario: En cas de refus d’approbation des comptes annuels, une copie de la délibération de l’assemblée est déposée dans le même délai — even a refusal to approve must be filed, so deadlock is public too.

Since 1 January 2023, every business formality in France goes through the guichet unique, the one-stop portal for company formalities run under the INPI (the national industrial property institute), and the registry filing is made online through the guichet des formalités des entreprises, by the manager or a mandated person such as the accountant or a lawyer. Filing online is therefore both the default channel and the one that buys the second month. A modest registry fee applies; the accountant who prepared the accounts can normally file in the company’s name with a simple mandate, which is the standard setup for an owner who is not in France.

Publication is the part foreign founders underestimate: filed accounts are public, purchasable by anyone from the registry and reused by commercial databases. French law gives small entities calibrated opt-outs, and article L. 232-25 of the Commercial Code details them. Micro-companies — as a guide, the administration page sets the micro thresholds at a balance sheet total up to 450,000 euros, turnover up to 900,000 euros and up to 10 employees — peuvent déclarer que les comptes annuels qu’elles déposent ne seront pas rendus publics: full confidentiality, declared at filing. Small companies peuvent demander que le compte de résultat ne soit pas rendu public: the profit and loss account stays out of public view while the balance sheet and notes remain published. Medium-sized companies can publish only a simplified presentation of the balance sheet and notes. Two limits matter for group structures: Les sociétés appartenant à un groupe, au sens de l’article L. 233-16, ne peuvent faire usage de cette faculté — subsidiaries of a consolidated group cannot opt out — and confidentiality never hides the accounts from the State: Les autorités judiciaires, les autorités administratives… ainsi que la Banque de France… ont toutefois accès à l’intégralité des comptes. The declaration must be attached at the moment of filing; it cannot be added retroactively, so the choice is made once, on filing day.

Running in parallel with the registry filing is the third clock: the corporate tax return, the liasse fiscale built around form 2065, which carries the same accounting data to the tax administration. Article 223 of the Code général des impôts fixes the deadline: la déclaration du bénéfice ou du déficit est faite dans les trois mois de la clôture de l’exercice. Si l’exercice est clos le 31 décembre ou si aucun exercice n’est clos au cours d’une année, la déclaration est à déposer au plus tard le deuxième jour ouvré suivant le 1er mai. Three months after closing, and for a 31 December closing no later than the second working day following 1 May — transmitted electronically through the EDI gateway, generally by the accountant. This return is earlier than the approval meeting: the tax office receives the numbers before the shareholders approve them, which is normal and expected. Our guide on French corporate tax for foreign owners details the tax side, and the broader setup sequence — bank account, Kbis, VAT — is covered in our formation guide for foreign founders.

II. What actually happens when the filing deadline is missed — and the way back

A. The sanction chain: registrar’s alert, injunction under daily penalty, criminal fine, prevention inquiry and tax surcharges

Missing the filing is not a passive omission; it starts an enforcement chain written into the Commercial Code. The first link is the registrar. Article L. 232-24 provides: Le greffier, lorsqu’il constate l’inexécution du dépôt prévu au I des articles L. 232-21 à L. 232-23, informe le président du tribunal de commerce pour qu’il puisse faire application de l’article L. 123-5-2 ou du II de l’article L. 611-2 ainsi que le représentant de l’Etat dans le département. The registrar who notices the missing filing alerts the president of the commercial court and the State representative. No one needs to denounce you: the registry flags it mechanically.

The second link is the injunction. Under article L. 611-2, II of the Commercial Code, Lorsque les dirigeants d’une société commerciale ne procèdent pas au dépôt des comptes annuels dans les délais prévus par les textes applicables, le président du tribunal peut, le cas échéant sur demande du président d’un des observatoires mentionnés à l’article L. 910-1 A, leur adresser une injonction de le faire à bref délai sous astreinte — an order to file within a short time under an astreinte, a sum payable per day of delay. And if the injunction fails, the same paragraph lets the court president treat the silence as a warning sign and summon the directors for an examination of the company’s situation under the prevention procedure. Alongside it, article L. 123-5-1 opens the same weapon to private parties: A la demande de tout intéressé ou du ministère public, le président du tribunal, statuant en référé, peut enjoindre sous astreinte au dirigeant de toute personne morale de procéder au dépôt des pièces et actes au registre du commerce et des sociétés auquel celle-ci est tenue par des dispositions législatives ou réglementaires, with the option of appointing an agent to perform the formality instead.

The Court of Cassation showed how far this goes in a decision of 3 March 2021, number 19-10.086, published in the Bulletin: the official record of the Copirel ruling. A single-member SAS supplying furniture had filed no accounts at all for eight financial years, 2008 to 2015. Two customer companies — not shareholders, not the administration, just trading partners who wanted to see the numbers — sued in summary proceedings and obtained an order compelling publication under a provisional penalty of 500 euros per day of delay. The Court of Cassation confirmed that the private action was admissible next to the special statutory actions, and on the limitation defence it approved the lower court’s reasoning verbatim: il y avait lieu de lui enjoindre de le faire pour les exercices clos le 31 décembre des années 2008 à 2015 afin de mettre un terme au trouble manifestement illicite résultant de l’absence de transparence, sans que puisse être opposée la prescription alléguée. Translation: filing was ordered for every missing year, back to 2008, to end the manifestly unlawful disturbance caused by the absence of transparency, and the passage of time was no defence. For a foreign owner, the practical reading is blunt: any interested third party — a customer, a supplier, an employee, a lender — can force publication through a fast summary procedure, and years of silence accumulate rather than expire.

On top of the civil chain sits a criminal exposure: the official administration page on filing annual accounts states that a manager who does not file faces a criminal fine of 1,500 euros, raised to 3,000 euros on repeat, with prosecution possible for one year from the date the accounts should have been filed. It is a modest fine, rarely the real problem, but it creates a record, and it is personal to the manager — not to the company — which matters for a foreign director who travels to France.

The tax clock has its own sanctions. A late corporate tax return triggers article 1728 of the Code général des impôts: Le défaut de production dans les délais prescrits d’une déclaration ou d’un acte comportant l’indication d’éléments à retenir pour l’assiette ou la liquidation de l’impôt entraîne l’application, sur le montant des droits mis à la charge du contribuable ou résultant de la déclaration ou de l’acte déposé tardivement, d’une majoration de : a. 10 % en l’absence de mise en demeure ou en cas de dépôt de la déclaration ou de l’acte dans les trente jours suivant la réception d’une mise en demeure d’avoir à le produire dans ce délai ; b. 40 % lorsque la déclaration ou l’acte n’a pas été déposé dans les trente jours suivant la réception d’une mise en demeure. Ten per cent surcharge on the tax due for a late return, forty per cent once a formal notice has been ignored for thirty days, plus late-payment interest. A founder who fixes the registry filing but forgets the tax return still bleeds.

Finally, the commercial consequences arrive before any court does. Banks re-papering their files ask for the latest filed accounts; a file showing nothing published for the last financial year is the classic trigger for the compliance blockage we describe in our guide on bank freezes and registry blockages. Buyers, landlords and factoring companies read the registry too: an empty filing history reads as distress or opacity, and under article L. 611-2 the court president can treat it exactly that way and open a prevention examination. The sanction chain is therefore not a remote theoretical risk; it starts with an automated registry flag and ends, at worst, with a judge looking into the company’s finances.

B. Recovering from a missed filing: regularise fast, disclose deliberately, and rebuild the calendar

The recovery sequence is short, but the order matters. First, close the approval gap. If the accounts were never approved, hold the approval decision now: for a SASU or EURL the sole shareholder signs the written decision; for a multi-shareholder SARL or SAS the manager convenes the meeting under the bylaws, or any shareholder uses the référé route of article L. 223-26 against a passive manager. If no accounts exist at all, have the accountant reconstruct the financial year from the bank statements and invoices — the Copirel ruling shows the court will order filing even eight years back, so reconstruction is unavoidable either way, and doing it voluntarily is cheaper than doing it under astreinte.

Second, file immediately, electronically, through the company formalities portal. Once the deadline is missed, the two-month electronic window no longer matters; speed matters, because every day of delay is a day the registrar’s alert can turn into an injunction. Make the confidentiality decision at this exact moment if the company qualifies and is not part of a consolidated group: attach the confidentiality declaration for a micro-company, or request non-publication of the profit and loss account for a small company. Filed accounts remain retroactively visible otherwise, and the Copirel case is a reminder that third parties care about what is on the register.

Third, answer the letters. If the registrar or the court president has already sent a reminder or an injunction, reply in writing with the filing receipt; if an injunction under astreinte has been issued, comply within the time it fixes, because the astreinte is liquidated — converted into money actually owed — when the order is ignored, and the judge can adjust but rarely erases it. If a prevention summons arrives, treat it as the opportunity it partly is: the procedure is confidential, aimed at avoiding insolvency proceedings, and arriving with freshly filed accounts and a credible cash-flow view usually closes it quickly.

Fourth, settle the tax side in parallel: transmit the late 2065 return, budget the ten per cent surcharge of article 1728 if no notice has yet been served, and file within thirty days of any formal notice to stay out of the forty per cent bracket. Where the delay has a genuine cause — an accountant’s failure, a postbox abroad, an ill director — a motivated request for remission of the surcharge can be addressed to the tax office with the filing evidence attached; it is discretionary, but silence guarantees the surcharge.

Fifth, rebuild the calendar so the miss never repeats. For a 31 December closing, the working spine is: accounts closed and handed to the accountant in January; draft accounts to the statutory auditor, if one is required, in spring; tax return transmitted by the second working day following 1 May; approval meeting or sole-shareholder decision by 30 June; registry filing by 31 July on paper or 31 August online; dividends, if any, paid within nine months of closing. Write these five dates into the bylaws compliance file and into the manager’s diary with sixty-day alerts, and give the accountant a standing mandate to file — the standing mandate is the single most effective fix for an owner who does not live in France, because none of the five steps physically requires the owner’s presence.

Two situations call for counsel rather than an accountant alone. The first is deadlock: a co-shareholder or local manager who refuses to approve or convene, where the référé injunction and the court-appointed agent of articles L. 223-26 and L. 123-5-1 are the working tools. The second is accumulation: several missing financial years, an injunction already issued, or a prevention summons pending, where the order in which steps are taken — and what is said to the court — conditions both the astreinte and the prevention outcome. Those are litigable situations with a judge at the end of the chain, and they are handled like litigation from day one.

Conclusion

A French company’s annual accounts are governed by a simple spine — approve within six months, file within one or two, report to the tax office within three — and by an enforcement chain that starts automatically at the registry when the spine is not followed. The foreign owner’s failure mode is almost never bad faith; it is distance, a silent accountant and the false comfort of an uneventful first year. The fixes are equally unglamorous: approve on time, file electronically with the right confidentiality choice, answer every registry letter, and keep a standing mandate with someone on the ground. Done once and calendared, the whole discipline costs a fraction of a single astreinte — and it keeps the company’s public face, its bank file and its dividend capacity intact.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Missed a filing deadline, received an injunction or a prevention summons, or stuck in an approval deadlock with a co-shareholder? Get a phone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer from our firm. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write through our contact page. We assist foreign companies in Paris and across Ile-de-France, in English, from the first accounts to the courtroom.