The French subsidiary was incorporated in June. The US or UK parent closes on 31 March. The French statutes, the statuts, still say 31 December. The expert-comptable in Paris, the chartered accountant who keeps the books, now asks whether you want a long first year, a short second year, or a permanent alignment with the group calendar. The date of clôture, the year-end, is not a private accounting preference. It is an énonciation of the RCS, the registre du commerce et des sociétés (Trade and Companies Register). It starts the six-month clock for approving the annual accounts. It moves the corporate-tax instalments, the acomptes d’impôt sur les sociétés (IS, corporation tax). It can leave a hole in the Kbis file, the official extract issued by the greffe, the registry office of the commercial court, if the INPI guichet unique, the one-stop shop of the Institut national de la propriété industrielle, is not updated in the month after the vote.
This guide is for a foreign founder or group counsel who already has, or is about to have, a French SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the simplified joint-stock company) or SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the private limited company). It does not deal with an individual moving to France, and it does not deal with buying French property. It answers two questions. First, what the tax and accounting rules actually allow: a first year that can run to 31 December of the calendar year after incorporation, a later year that can be longer or shorter than twelve months, and an inventory that still has to be taken at least once every twelve months. Second, how you vote the change from abroad before the current year expires, file it on the guichet unique, and keep the six-month approval meeting, the assemblée, from slipping. The quotations are taken from the Commercial Code, the General Tax Code and decisions read for this article. Every French acronym is explained. The starting point remains the same as for any other corporate housekeeping step described in the guide to setting up a French company as a foreign founder.
I. Why change the French year-end, and what the tax and accounting rules actually allow
A. Aligning with the parent, a short or long first year, and the 31 December deadline of the following calendar year
Most French companies close on 31 December. Nothing in the Commercial Code forces that date. Article R. 123-53 of the Commercial Code only requires the company, when it applies for registration, to declare, among other particulars, “S’il s’agit d’une société soumise à publicité de ses comptes et bilans annuels, la date de clôture de l’exercice social”. In English: if the company is subject to publication of its annual accounts and balance sheets, the closing date of the financial year. The date therefore appears on the Kbis file because it was in the statutes and in the registration file, not because 31 December is a legal default. A US parent that reports on the calendar year often leaves the French date as it is. A UK parent that closes on 31 March, a German parent that closes on 30 September, or a group that wants the French numbers in the same pack as the consolidation, has a reason to move it.
The first financial year is the moment when the question usually appears. The company was formed in March, June or October. The statutes copied a 31 December close. The accountant then asks whether the first accounts should cover three months, nine months or something longer. For corporation tax, the answer is not free-form. Article 209 of the General Tax Code states, in the first paragraph of I, that “par dérogation aux dispositions du deuxième alinéa de l’article 37 , l’impôt sur les sociétés dû par les entreprises créées à compter du 1er janvier 1984 est établi, lorsqu’aucun bilan n’est dressé au cours de la première année civile d’activité, sur les bénéfices de la période écoulée depuis le commencement des opérations jusqu’à la date de clôture du premier exercice et, au plus tard, jusqu’au 31 décembre de l’année suivant celle de la création”. In English: by way of derogation from the second paragraph of article 37, corporation tax due by companies created from 1 January 1984 is assessed, when no balance sheet is drawn up during the first calendar year of activity, on the profits of the period running from the start of operations to the closing date of the first financial year and, at the latest, to 31 December of the year following the year of creation. A company incorporated in June 2026 that draws no balance sheet in 2026 must still close its first IS period by 31 December 2027. That is the hard tax stop for the first period. It is not a licence to keep the books open indefinitely.
Article 1668 of the General Tax Code then relieves a newly created company of quarterly instalments during that first period: “Les sociétés nouvellement créées ou nouvellement soumises, de plein droit ou sur option, à l’impôt sur les sociétés sont dispensées du versement d’acomptes au cours de leur premier exercice d’activité ou de leur première période d’imposition arrêtée conformément au deuxième alinéa du I de l’article 209 .” Newly created companies, or companies newly subject to corporation tax as of right or by option, are exempt from paying instalments during their first year of activity or their first tax period determined in accordance with the second paragraph of I of article 209. The first-year alignment is therefore cheap in cash-flow terms and expensive in documentation: you still need a closing date that the statutes, the greffe and the tax office can all read.
A later change, once the company already has a twelve-month rhythm, is a different act. It is a modification of the statutes. It lengthens or shortens the year that is already running, so that the next close matches the parent. It cannot rewrite a year that has already closed. The public service page on the subject, verified on 8 October 2024, is explicit: the extraordinary general meeting, the assemblée générale extraordinaire (AGE), must take place before the closing date of the current year. If you want to leave 31 December 2026 and move to 31 March 2027, the vote has to happen in 2026, while that year is still open. If you want to cut 31 December 2026 back to 30 September 2026, the vote has to happen before 30 September 2026. A foreign owner who discovers the mismatch in January, after the French year has already closed, is too late for that year. The next open year is the one you can still move.
The commercial reason is usually consolidation, a bank covenant, or a buyer who wants twelve comparable months. The legal reason is narrower. The date of clôture is the starting gun for the ordinary meeting that approves the accounts, for the filing of those accounts at the greffe, and for the IS instalments of the following period. Moving it without rewriting the statutes leaves the Kbis and the statutes in contradiction. Banks, notaries and the tax office read the Kbis. The greffe reads the statutes that were filed. A foreign parent that “decides internally” to report the French company on 31 March, while the French file still says 31 December, has not changed the year. It has created two calendars.
B. Inventory every twelve months, tax on the actual financial year, and instalments when the year is not twelve months
French accounting law does not treat a long year as a holiday from inventory. Article L. 123-12 of the Commercial Code is the basic bookkeeping duty of every trader: “Toute personne physique ou morale ayant la qualité de commerçant doit procéder à l’enregistrement comptable des mouvements affectant le patrimoine de son entreprise. Ces mouvements sont enregistrés chronologiquement. Elle doit contrôler par inventaire, au moins une fois tous les douze mois, l’existence et la valeur des éléments actifs et passifs du patrimoine de l’entreprise. Elle doit établir des comptes annuels à la clôture de l’exercice au vu des enregistrements comptables et de l’inventaire.” Every natural or legal person with the status of trader must record the movements affecting the assets of the business, chronologically. That person must check by inventory, at least once every twelve months, the existence and value of the assets and liabilities. That person must draw up annual accounts at the close of the financial year on the basis of the accounting records and the inventory. The annual accounts are the bilan (balance sheet), the compte de résultat (profit and loss account) and the annexe (notes), which form an inseparable whole.
A year of fifteen or eighteen months therefore still requires an inventory by the twelfth month, then a second inventory at the new closing date. That is also how the public service page on changing the closing date describes the long year: two inventories, one at twelve months and one at the new close. Article L. 232-1 of the Commercial Code, still in force until 1 January 2027, repeats the closing duty for companies: “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.” At the close of each financial year the board, the management board or the managers draw up the inventory, the annual accounts and a written management report. For an SAS, those tasks fall on the président, the president named on the Kbis, or on the other officers the statutes designate. For an SARL, they fall on the gérant, the manager.
Corporation tax follows the accounts, not the calendar year, once a balance sheet exists. Article 37 of the General Tax Code says: “Si l’exercice clos au cours de l’année de l’imposition s’étend sur une période de plus ou de moins de douze mois, l’impôt est néanmoins établi d’après les résultats dudit exercice.” If the financial year that closes during the year of assessment covers a period of more or less than twelve months, tax is nevertheless assessed on the results of that financial year. A nine-month year is taxed on nine months. An eighteen-month year is taxed on eighteen months. There is no pro-rata fiction that turns every close into a calendar year. That is the point of moving the date: the French IS return, form 2065, will cover the new period, and the group’s consolidation pack will finally match. It is also the trap. A long year can concentrate two seasons of profit into one IS bill. A short year can leave unused losses and a thin comparable.
Instalments move with the year. Article 1668 of the General Tax Code also states that “L’impôt sur les sociétés donne lieu au versement, au comptable public compétent, d’acomptes trimestriels déterminés à partir des résultats du dernier exercice clos.” Corporation tax gives rise to quarterly instalments determined from the results of the last closed financial year. Payments are due on 15 March, 15 June, 15 September and 15 December. The tax administration’s official commentary, BOI-IS-DECLA-20-10, illustrates the effect of a short year: when a company sets a nine-month year (1 March to 30 November), it pays three instalments for that year, due on 15 June, 15 September and 15 December. The same commentary states that a change of closing date can exceptionally take the number of instalments to eight. The example given is a company that closed on 31 January and then does not close again until 31 December of the following year. That is not a reason to refuse the change. It is a reason to have the expert-comptable recompute the acomptes before the first 15th after the vote, rather than discovering a double schedule when the impots.gouv.fr account already shows a missed instalment.
None of this is a reason to treat the change as a tax-planning device to skip a year. Article 37 still taxes the period that actually closes. Article 209 still stops the first period on 31 December of the following year if no balance sheet was drawn in year one. A foreign parent that tries to “jump” 2026 by moving the close from 31 December 2026 to 31 March 2028 in one step will hit both the first-year stop, if the company is still in its first period, and the inventory duty of L. 123-12. The workable pattern is narrower: choose the first close no later than 31 December of year n+1; later, move the date by one vote that lengthens or shortens only the year that is still open; take the twelve-month inventory if the open year will run beyond twelve months; recompute the acomptes; then file the modification so that the RCS date matches the statutes.
II. How you vote the change from abroad, file it in time, and keep the six-month approval clock
A. SAS versus SARL majorities, the decision before the current year ends, and the one-month guichet unique filing
The closing date lives in the statutes. Changing it is a modification of the statutes. Article 1836 of the Civil Code supplies the default rule for every company whose statutes are silent: “Les statuts ne peuvent être modifiés, à défaut de clause contraire, que par accord unanime des associés. En aucun cas, les engagements d’un associé ne peuvent être augmentés sans le consentement de celui-ci.” The statutes may be amended, failing a clause to the contrary, only by unanimous agreement of the members. In no case may a member’s undertakings be increased without that member’s consent. For a foreign-owned SAS, this default is the first thing to read. Many SAS statutes, drafted for a sole shareholder, say that the associé unique, the sole shareholder, decides everything in writing. Many others, drafted for a joint venture, set a two-thirds or three-quarters majority for amendments. If the statutes say nothing about amendments, article 1836 means unanimity. A US parent that owns 90 percent and a French co-founder who owns 10 percent cannot be outvoted on the year-end unless the statutes already allow it.
Article L. 227-9 of the Commercial Code does not itself list the year-end among the decisions that an SAS must take collectively. It says: “Les statuts déterminent les décisions qui doivent être prises collectivement par les associés dans les formes et conditions qu’ils prévoient.” The statutes determine which decisions must be taken collectively by the members, in the forms and on the conditions they provide. The year-end is a statutory clause, so the amendment follows the clause on amendments, or article 1836. The same article L. 227-9 does, however, lock the approval of accounts: in a one-member SAS, “Dans les sociétés ne comprenant qu’un seul associé, le rapport de gestion, les comptes annuels et le cas échéant les comptes consolidés sont arrêtés par le président. L’associé unique approuve les comptes, après rapport du commissaire aux comptes s’il en existe un, dans le délai de six mois à compter de la clôture de l’exercice.” The president draws up the management report and the annual accounts. The sole shareholder approves the accounts, after the statutory auditor’s report if there is one, within six months of the year-end. Moving the year-end therefore moves that six-month date. It does not abolish it.
An SARL is more rigid. Article L. 223-30 of the Commercial Code states: “Toutes autres modifications des statuts sont décidées par les associés représentant au moins les trois quarts des parts sociales. Toute clause exigeant une majorité plus élevée est réputée non écrite.” All other amendments of the statutes are decided by the members representing at least three-quarters of the shares. Any clause requiring a higher majority is deemed unwritten. Changing the nationality of the company still requires unanimity. Moving the registered office, the siège social, can be done by members representing more than half of the shares. The year-end is neither of those. It is an “other” amendment. Three-quarters of the shares, computed on the SARL rules that apply to the company’s date of incorporation, must vote for it. A foreign parent that owns 70 percent of an SARL cannot change the year-end alone. The minority’s 30 percent is enough to block the AGE.
The meeting itself, for an SARL, is an extraordinary general meeting. The greffe of the Paris commercial court, on its page devoted to changing the SARL closing date, lists the steps that have to be taken before the file is lodged: hold an extraordinary general meeting that decides to change the closing date of the financial year. The documents to produce are one copy of the corporate act that decided the change, certified true by the manager, and one copy of the updated statutes, certified true by the manager. If the legal representative has not signed the M2 form, an original power of attorney, a pouvoir, is required. For a foreign manager who will not be in Paris, that power of attorney is the practical document. It should identify the person who will sign on the guichet unique, and it should be original, as the Paris greffe asks.
The file is no longer walked to the greffe counter as a first step. The same Paris page states that the complete file must be lodged on the electronic one-stop shop operated by the INPI. Article R. 123-66 of the Commercial Code fixes the time: “Toute personne morale immatriculée demande, par l’intermédiaire de l’organisme unique mentionné à l’article R. 123-1 , une inscription modificative dans le mois de tout fait ou acte rendant nécessaire la rectification ou le complément des énonciations prévues aux articles R. 123-53 et suivants .” Every registered legal person applies, through the one-stop body referred to in article R. 123-1, for an amending registration within one month of any fact or act that makes it necessary to correct or complete the particulars set out in articles R. 123-53 and following. The closing date is one of those particulars, under R. 123-53, 8°. The month runs from the decision, not from the new closing date. A vote on 20 November to move the close from 31 December to 31 March must be on the guichet unique by 20 December, even though 31 March is still four months away.
The official public-service page on changing a company’s accounting year-end, verified on 8 October 2024, says the same two things in administrative language: hold the AGE before the current closing date, then declare the modification within the month following the decision on the guichet des formalités des entreprises. A legal notice in a journal d’annonces légales is not required for this modification alone, unless the original incorporation notice had mentioned the closing date and a later publication rule is triggered. The Paris CCI note on the duration of the financial year makes the same point: no insertion in a legal-notice journal is needed, except if the incorporation notice mentioned the date. BODACC, the Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, is not the driver of this filing. The driver is the RCS inscription modificative through the INPI.
From abroad, the workable pack is therefore: a written resolution or minutes that quote the old date and the new date, signed according to the SAS statutes or the SARL three-quarters rule; updated statutes with the new article on the exercice social; a power of attorney if the président or gérant will not click the guichet unique; and a French electronic identification or a mandated local signatory, because the one-stop shop is built around a French filing identity. The vote must happen while the year you want to shorten or lengthen is still open. Filing after the month of R. 123-66 does not magically invalidate the members’ decision, but it leaves the Kbis on the old date. Banks and the tax office will keep reading 31 December until the greffe has recorded 31 March.
B. The six-month approval clock after the new close, missed meetings, and Paris / Île-de-France filings
Changing the year-end does not relax the duty to approve the accounts. It moves the starting point. For an SARL, article L. 223-26 of the Commercial Code provides: “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.” The management report, the inventory and the annual accounts drawn up by the managers are submitted for the members’ approval in a meeting, within six months of the year-end, unless that time is extended by a court decision. If the meeting is not held in time, the public prosecutor or any interested person may apply to the president of the competent court, sitting in interim relief, to order the managers, if necessary under an astreinte (a periodic penalty payment), to convene the meeting or to appoint an agent to do so.
The Tribunal judiciaire of Strasbourg applied that text on 3 June 2026 in order no. 26/00855. The company’s statutes required approval of the annual accounts within six months of the year-end. The court quoted article 14 of those statutes: “Aux termes de l’article 14 des statuts constitutifs de la société [P], les associés doivent approuver les comptes annuels dans les six mois de la clôture de l’exercice social, soit avant le 1er juillet 2024 s’agissant de l’exercice social clôturé au 31 décembre 2024.” The members must approve the annual accounts within six months of the close, that is before 1 July 2024 for the year ended 31 December 2024. It then quoted L. 223-26: “Aux termes de l’article L223-26 alinéa 1 du code de commerce, 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.” A member who had not obtained the meeting was held entitled to the order. The lesson for a foreign owner is mechanical. If you move the close from 31 December to 31 March, the six months end on 30 September, not on 30 June. If you move it the other way, the six months end earlier. The statutes should be updated so that they do not still say “within six months of 31 December” while the RCS says 31 March.
For a one-member SAS, the Cour d’appel of Lyon said the same thing on 7 May 2025 in case no. 25/01024, on the basis of L. 227-9: “En application de l’article L.227-9 alinéa 3 du code de commerce, les comptes annuels de la société Gifrer Barbozat, qui ne comprend qu’un associé unique, doivent être arrêtés par le président, l’associé unique approuvant les comptes après rapport du commissaire aux comptes, s’il en existe un, dans le délai de six mois à compter de la clôture de l’exercice.” The annual accounts of that one-member company had to be drawn up by the president, the sole shareholder approving them after the auditor’s report if there was one, within six months of the year-end. The court also recorded that the company’s year-end was 31 December each year, and that successive orders of the president of the commercial court had already extended the time. Article L. 223-26 and article L. 225-100 of the Commercial Code both allow a court extension: “L’assemblée générale ordinaire est réunie au moins une fois par an, dans les six mois de la clôture de l’exercice, sous réserve de prolongation de ce délai par décision de justice.” The ordinary general meeting is held at least once a year, within six months of the year-end, subject to extension of that time by a court decision. The extension is not automatic, and it is not granted from abroad by email. It is an application to the president of the commercial court of the registered office, before the six months expire.
After approval, the accounts still have to reach the greffe. Article L. 232-23 of the Commercial Code provides, for a company limited by shares: “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”. Every company limited by shares must file at the greffe, to be annexed to the RCS, within one month of approval of the annual accounts by the shareholders’ meeting, or within two months of that approval when the filing is made electronically. An SAS is a company limited by shares. The electronic route is the one a foreign owner actually uses. Missing that filing is a separate incident from missing the year-end vote. It is the incident described in the guide to the annual-accounts filing deadline. Changing the year-end without a plan for the next filing date simply moves the same problem to another month.
The Court of Cassation, commercial chamber, on 3 March 2021, appeal no. 19-10.086, published in the Bulletin, refused to treat the special injunction of article L. 123-5-1 as the only way to force the filing. After recalling article L. 123-5-1 of the Commercial Code — “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” — the Court held that “les actions prévues par ces dispositions spéciales ne sont pas exclusives de celle fondée sur les dispositions de droit commun prévues par l’article L. 232-23 du code de commerce, qui font obligation à toute société par actions, et non à son dirigeant, de déposer ses comptes.” The special actions are not exclusive of the ordinary action based on L. 232-23, which requires every company limited by shares, and not its officer, to file its accounts. A foreign parent that lets the French filing slip can be sued as the company, not only through an injunction against the président. The year-end change does not shrink that exposure. It only changes the date on which the six months, and then the one or two months for filing, begin to run.
In Paris and Île-de-France the competent greffe is the greffe of the Tribunal de commerce de Paris when the siège social is in Paris, and the greffe of the commercial court of the département when the siège is in the inner or outer suburbs. The INPI guichet unique is still the front door. The Paris greffe page is useful because it lists the acts and the power of attorney; it is not a second filing channel that replaces the one-stop shop. The CCI Paris Île-de-France note adds two practical limits that match the codes already quoted: the decision must be taken before the current year expires, and, if the year is being shortened, before the new date expires; a lengthening of the year must not defeat the duty to hold an ordinary meeting at least once a year. A foreign owner who stretches 31 December 2026 to 30 June 2028 in a single step would not only collide with the inventory duty of L. 123-12. That owner would also skip an ordinary meeting year, which L. 225-100 does not allow without a court extension.
The Paris file is also where a power of attorney earns its keep. The président who lives in New York or Dubai will not have a French electronic identity on the day the greffe queries the file. A local lawyer or the expert-comptable can be given an original pouvoir to sign the guichet unique, to answer a request for a certified copy of the minutes, and to collect the updated Kbis. The updated Kbis will not scream “year-end changed” in a banner. It will simply show, in the particulars of the person morale, a different date of clôture. That is the document the bank will ask for when the next facility agreement is renewed, and the document the tax office will expect to match the 2065 period. If the Kbis still says 31 December, the change has not happened for third parties, whatever the board minutes in the group’s dataroom say.
Conclusion
A French year-end is a clause in the statutes, a line on the RCS, the starting gun for the six-month approval of the accounts, and the base for IS instalments. A foreign parent may align it with the group calendar. It may also run a long first year, but article 209 of the General Tax Code stops that first IS period on 31 December of the calendar year after creation if no balance sheet was drawn in year one. A later change lengthens or shortens only the year that is still open. Article 37 taxes that year as it actually is. Article L. 123-12 still demands an inventory at least once every twelve months. Article 1668 still collects quarterly acomptes after the first period, on a schedule that a short or long year will distort.
The vote follows the SAS statutes or, failing a clause, the unanimity of article 1836 of the Civil Code; in an SARL it follows the three-quarters of L. 223-30. It must be taken before the current close, and before the new close if the year is being shortened. The INPI guichet unique must receive the amending registration within the month of R. 123-66. The six-month clock of L. 223-26, L. 227-9 and L. 225-100 then runs from the new date. If that clock is missed, a member or any interested person can ask the president of the commercial court to order the meeting, as the Strasbourg tribunal did on 3 June 2026, and the company can still be forced to file the accounts under L. 232-23, as the Court of Cassation recalled on 3 March 2021. In Paris and Île-de-France the practical pack is the AGE or written decision, the updated statutes, an original power of attorney, and a guichet unique filing that makes the next Kbis readable. That sequence is what a foreign owner can still do from abroad, without waiting for a bank, a buyer or the greffe to notice that the French calendar and the group calendar are not the same document.
Need a quick opinion on your case
Get a phone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer from the firm. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write through the contact page. We assist foreign companies in Paris and across Île-de-France, in English, from the year-end vote and the INPI filing to the six-month approval of the accounts.