The first warning is rarely a court summons. It is a line on the Kbis — the official extract from the registre du commerce et des sociétés (RCS, the Trade and Companies Register) — or on the avis de situation issued from the Sirene directory, showing an APE code (activité principale exercée, principal activity carried on) that does not describe what the French company actually does. For a foreign founder the mismatch is common: the objet social (corporate purpose) was drafted in English, then translated too broadly or too narrowly; the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) coded the company as a holding, a software publisher or a “business support” vehicle; the bank, the insurer or a public buyer then treats that code as if it were a licence.

APE and NAF (nomenclature d’activités française, the French classification of activities) are the same five-character identifier: four digits and a letter. INSEE assigns it automatically when the company is registered on the Guichet unique des formalités des entreprises (the one-stop business formalities counter operated by the Institut national de la propriété industrielle, INPI). The founder does not pick the code. Service Public Entreprendre, in the fiche verified on 21 January 2026, is explicit: the code must reflect the activity that is really carried on, it must appear on employees’ payslips, and it is only an indicator for the convention collective (industry collective agreement), not an automatic match. The same official page states that the APE code has no legal value and cannot be relied on to justify, or to deny, the application of rights.

This article is for the foreign owner of a French SAS (société par actions simplifiée, a simplified joint-stock company) or SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, a private limited company) who has just discovered a wrong code and needs to know which door to knock on. An anomaly in INSEE’s coding is not the same thing as a change of activity. The second path also engages the statutes, because article L. 210-2 of the French Commercial Code places the objet social in the constitutional documents. The guide to setting up a French company as a foreign founder explains the first registration; what follows is the correction after the Kbis is already in circulation.

I. Why is the APE/NAF code wrong and what does it actually decide?

A. How does INSEE assign the APE code at incorporation, and why do foreign founders get a mismatch?

French companies are not optional guests of the register. Article L. 123-1 of the Commercial Code provides that “Il est tenu un registre du commerce et des sociétés auquel sont immatriculés, sur leur déclaration :” the persons listed in the article, including companies with their seat in a French département. The registration file is a declaration. Article R. 123-53 requires the company, in that application, to state among other items “Ses activités principales”. INSEE then reads those words — and the wording of the objet social — against the NAF and issues an APE code. The founder does not lodge a separate request. Service Public Entreprendre records that the identifier appears in the personal space on the Guichet unique once the application is accepted.

That mechanical step is where foreign files go wrong. An English-language business plan that says “software, consulting and holding services” can be coded as 62.01Z or 70.10Z even though the French vehicle only invoices intra-group management or, conversely, only sells a product. A parent that contributes a trademark and a small team in Paris may look, on paper, like a financial holding. A company that sells online from France to the rest of the EU may be coded as a warehouse, a retailer or an IT service depending on a single adjective in the statutes. INSEE does not inspect the warehouse and does not read the shareholders’ agreement. It classifies a text.

Where the company has several activities, Service Public Entreprendre sets out the official sorting keys. If every activity is industrial, the principal activity is the one that occupies the most employees. If the activities are commercial or services, the principal activity is the one with the highest turnover. If industrial and commercial activities are mixed, the activity is generally treated as industrial where the industrial share of turnover is at least 25 percent, but the same page warns that this is not a systematic criterion and that the file is examined case by case. The company still receives only one APE code. Foreign groups that run a French sales company and a French repair workshop under the same SIREN (the nine-digit système d’identification du répertoire des entreprises number) therefore cannot “keep two codes” on the legal entity. A second establishment can have its own SIRET (the fourteen-digit establishment number) and its own establishment-level APE, but the legal entity remains coded on its principal activity.

The NAF itself is a statistical instrument. The Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, in the decision of 17 September 2025, appeal no. 24-16.318, published in the Bulletin, recalled that the explanatory notes to the French classification of activities do not bind as a statute. The Court held: “Même si les notes explicatives de la nomenclature d’activités française n’ont pas de force obligatoire, aucune disposition ne prive le juge de la faculté de s’y référer pour interpréter les dispositions du décret du 30 décembre 2010 précité.” The quote matters for a foreign owner in two directions. First, you cannot treat an INSEE note as if it were a licence or a prohibition. Second, a judge who later has to characterise an activity — for a tax, a regulated profession, or a sectoral threshold — may still open those notes. A wrong code is therefore not “only statistics”, but it is not a substitute for the statutes or for the contracts either.

A further confusion is to treat the APE as if it were a mention that the greffe (the court registry that keeps the RCS) can rewrite on request. The greffier’s job is different. Article R. 123-95 of the Commercial Code states that the greffier “vérifie que les énonciations sont conformes aux dispositions législatives et réglementaires, correspondent aux pièces justificatives et actes déposés en annexe et sont compatibles, dans le cas d’une demande de modification ou de radiation, avec l’état du dossier.” The Cour de cassation, in the commercial decision of 1 June 2023, appeal no. 21-22.446, also published in the Bulletin, added that the greffier has no power to interpret the underlying acts: “le greffier vérifie que les énonciations d’une demande d’inscription au registre du commerce et des sociétés sont conformes aux dispositions législatives et réglementaires, correspondent aux pièces justificatives et actes déposés en annexe et sont compatibles, dans le cas d’une demande de modification ou de radiation, avec l’état du dossier, mais qu’il ne dispose d’aucun pouvoir d’interpréter lesdits actes et pièces justificatives.” If the activity clause in the statutes is vague, the greffe will not invent a better APE for you. INSEE will code the vagueness.

That is why the first practical step is not a lawyer’s letter to the commercial court. It is to put three documents on the same table: the current Kbis, the Sirene avis de situation, and the statutes. The Kbis reports the activities that were declared to the RCS. The Sirene notice reports the APE that INSEE assigned. They can diverge. A foreign founder who only reads the Kbis may think the code is “already correct” because the activity wording looks familiar, while every payslip, every call for tenders and every bank KYC form is using a different five-character code.

B. What does a wrong APE code change for payroll, CFE, banks and tenders — and what does it not decide?

Service Public Entreprendre states that the APE code must appear on employees’ payslips. That is the one hard documentary duty a foreign payroll provider cannot ignore. If the code printed on the bulletin de paie does not match Sirene, URSSAF (Unions de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales, the bodies that collect social-security contributions) and the labour inspectorate will ask why. The same official page is equally clear on what the code does not do: “Il peut également aider à déterminer la convention nationale collective (CNC) qui s’applique aux salariés. Il s’agit alors d’un indicateur et non d’une correspondance automatique.” And: “Le code APE n’a pas de valeur juridique. Il ne peut pas être avancé pour justifier ou non l’application de certains droits.”

The Labour Code says the same thing in a sentence that foreign HR teams should pin above the APE. Article L. 2261-2 provides: “La convention collective applicable est celle dont relève l’activité principale exercée par l’employeur.” The connecting factor is the activity actually carried on, not the statistical label. Changing the APE will not, by itself, move the company into a cheaper collective agreement, and keeping a flattering APE will not keep a more expensive agreement at bay if the real activity sits in another field.

That is the opposite of what many incorporation platforms tell a non-French founder. Captain Contrat and LegalPlace, which currently occupy the French-language results for “changer de code APE”, usefully distinguish an INSEE error from a genuine change of activity. They do not, however, walk a foreign parent through the fact that the collective agreement is a Labour Code question, that the APE is a Sirene question, and that the RCS activity line is a third question. Village de la Justice has insisted on the cost of identifying the wrong agreement; the legal point remains L. 2261-2. If the French subsidiary’s staff should be under the Syntec agreement because they write software, an APE of 70.22Z will not save the employer when a council de prud’hommes looks at the contracts, the clients and the turnover split.

Tax is another place where the code is over-read. Article 1447 of the General Tax Code, still applicable until 1 January 2030, provides that “La cotisation foncière des entreprises est due chaque année par les personnes physiques ou morales, les entités non dotées de la personnalité morale ou les fiduciaires pour leur activité exercée en vertu d’un contrat de fiducie qui exercent à titre habituel une activité professionnelle non salariée.” The CFE (cotisation foncière des entreprises, the local business-property contribution) is due because the company habitually carries on a non-salaried professional activity. The APE does not create that liability and does not cancel it. A wrong code can still confuse the local roll, the rate band used by a municipality, or a first-year exemption file, which is why a foreign founder who has already had a CFE notice sent to the wrong address should not ignore an APE that describes a shop when the company only renders intra-group services. The tax is not “the APE tax”. It is a tax on the activity.

Banks and public buyers are less subtle. Compliance teams search the APE against internal lists: money services, crypto, defence, health, property, employment agencies. A code that says “financial holding” when the company invoices software will slow the opening of the professional account or the release of the blocked share capital. A code that says “construction” when the company is an engineering consultancy can exclude it from a software tender, or include it in a contractor insurance that it does not need. None of those reactions is a rule of the Commercial Code. They are the reason a wrong code becomes a crisis before anyone has opened L. 2261-2.

One last trap is to confuse the APE with the CARSAT risk code used for workplace-accident contributions. That nomenclature is separate. A foreign group that “aligns” the APE hoping to cut the AT/MP rate (accidents du travail et maladies professionnelles) is solving the wrong equation. The APE correction described below does not replace a dispute with the caisse on the risk classification of an establishment.

II. How do you correct the APE code from abroad, and when must the company itself be amended?

A. INSEE correction of an anomaly versus a change of activity on the Guichet unique

Service Public Entreprendre divides the world into two questions, and the foreign file must answer them honestly. First question: has the company’s principal activity changed since registration? If yes, the modification of the principal activity — and therefore of the APE — is filed on the Guichet unique. The same official page adds, for a company: “Si l’entreprise est une société, il faut aussi penser à changer son objet social.” Second question: has the activity not changed, but the founder considers that INSEE’s code is wrong? Then the INSEE teleservice “Demander la modification du code d’activité principale (code APE, NAF)” is the correct door. The service-public form R44645, verified on 9 January 2025, is strict: “Ce téléservice doit être utilisé seulement dans les 2 situations suivantes : 1. L’entreprise n’a pas changé d’activité 2. L’entrepreneur ou le déclarant estime que le code APE que l’Insee a attribué à l’entreprise ou à l’un de ses établissement doit être corrigé.”

Using the INSEE form after the company has in fact pivoted is a way to collect a refusal. Using the Guichet unique to “correct a typo” when the statutes still describe the old activity is a way to collect a greffe rejection, because R. 123-95 requires the new mention to match the acts on file. The foreign founder’s first memo should therefore be a one-page chronology: what the statutes said on day one, what the company has invoiced since, what the employment contracts say, and whether the mismatch is a coding error or a silent change of business.

The INSEE path requires a table that recaps each activity in concrete terms. R44645 states that the online request “doit être accompagnée d’un tableau récapitulant la ou les activités de l’entreprise ou de l’établissement de façon très précise” and that “Si les consignes de rédaction ne sont pas respectées, la demande ne sera pas pris en considération.” The model “Contester le code APE de votre entreprise – Tableau d’activité” is the INSEE PDF. Foreign counsel who attach a marketing deck, a pitch, or a holding chart instead of that table waste a week. The useful evidence is dull: invoices by nature of service, contracts, payroll headcount by function, a short description of what people in Paris actually do between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. If several activities coexist, apply the official keys (staff for industry, turnover for commerce and services, the 25 percent industrial test as a starting point only) and show the arithmetic.

Access from abroad is a practical bottleneck. The January 2026 Service Public Entreprendre news item on the future APE recode notes that the Sirene procedure uses the SIREN number and ProConnect credentials, and that “Les demandes en ligne sont traitées en moins de 24 heures.” It also notes that persons without a ProConnect account can use a paper form. A président of a SAS who lives in London, Dubai or New York often has no French tax login. The workaround is not to send an employee’s personal FranceConnect. It is to have the legal representative, or a person with a written power of attorney, open the correct INSEE channel, or to file the paper form with the activity table. Do not let a local accountant “just tick a new code” on a Guichet unique modification if the statutes have not moved and the activity has not changed. That is the other door.

When the activity has really changed, the Guichet unique filing is only half of the work for a company. Because L. 210-2 places the objet social in the statutes, a SAS or a SARL that now does something the purpose clause does not cover should amend that clause. For a SARL, 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.” For companies formed after the law of 2 August 2005, the same article substitutes a quorum (one quarter of the shares on first call, one fifth on second call) and a majority of two thirds of the shares held by the members present or represented. “Les décisions prises en violation des dispositions du présent article peuvent être annulées à la demande de tout intéressé.” A foreign majority owner who signs a president’s certificate instead of holding that meeting is building a later nullity file for a minority, a buyer or a bank.

For a SAS, article L. 227-9 does not copy the SARL fractions. It states: “Les statuts déterminent les décisions qui doivent être prises collectivement par les associés dans les formes et conditions qu’ils prévoient.” The article then lists decisions that must in any event be taken collectively, in the conditions set by the statutes, including those that would be extraordinary in a public limited company as regards capital, merger, demerger, dissolution, transformation, auditors, annual accounts and profits. Amending the objet social is a statutory amendment. The majority, the form (meeting, written consultation, remote vote) and the notice rules are in the SAS statutes. A foreign parent that copied a one-page template at incorporation must read that page before promising an investor that “we will just update the APE.” If the statutes are silent on amendments, the safe course is a collective decision recorded in the register of decisions, not an email from the président.

Once the minutes exist, the Guichet unique modification attaches them, updates the principal activity, and lets INSEE recode. Legal notices in a journal d’annonces légales may be required where the statutes change. The BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales) publication follows the RCS filing. None of that is optional window-dressing. It is how third parties — including the bank that froze the account because the APE said “holding” — are told that the company is now what it does.

B. If INSEE or the greffe refuses: evidence, objet social amendment, RCS judge and the 2027 NAF recode

INSEE refusals are usually drafting failures. The activity table used adjectives (“innovative platform”, “ecosystem”, “advisory boutique”) instead of verbs and objects (“writes and maintains software for professional clients under licence; 80 percent of turnover; 6 employees”). Resubmit with numbers. If INSEE maintains a code that still contradicts the invoices, keep the refusal and the table: they are the file for a later dispute with a buyer, a works council or a tax auditor who asks why the code and the business diverged.

A greffe refusal on a Guichet unique modification is a different animal. Article L. 123-6 of the Commercial Code provides that the RCS “est tenu par le greffier de chaque tribunal de commerce, sous la surveillance du président ou d’un juge commis à cet effet, qui sont compétents pour toutes contestations entre l’assujetti et le greffier.” The foreign company contests the greffier before that judge, not before INSEE. Article L. 123-3 also allows the judge, including under an astreinte, to order a registered person “de faire procéder soit aux mentions complémentaires ou rectifications qu’elle doit y faire porter, soit aux mentions ou rectifications nécessaires en cas de déclarations inexactes ou incomplètes, soit à la radiation.” The Cour de cassation quoted that second paragraph in the 1 June 2023 decision and then drew a hard limit. After recalling the text (“Selon ce texte, le juge commis à la surveillance du registre du commerce et des sociétés peut enjoindre à toute personne immatriculée à ce registre qui ne les aurait pas requises dans les délais prescrits, de faire procéder soit aux mentions complémentaires ou rectifications qu’elle doit y faire porter, soit aux mentions ou rectifications nécessaires en cas de déclarations inexactes ou incomplètes, soit à la radiation”), the Court held: “le pouvoir d’injonction conféré au juge commis à la surveillance du registre du commerce et des sociétés ne peut porter que sur les mentions inscrites sur ce registre et non sur les énonciations des actes et pièces justificatives au vu desquelles le greffier procède aux inscriptions requises.” The judge can force a correction of an RCS mention. The judge cannot rewrite the statutes. If the objet social is the problem, the shareholders still have to amend it.

For a company whose seat is in Paris, that judge sits at the Tribunal de commerce de Paris, and the greffe that holds the file is the greffe of that court. For Nanterre, Bobigny, Créteil or Évry the file follows the seat. A foreign président does not need to fly in for the INSEE table; a power of attorney and a French electronic signature that meets eIDAS standards will usually carry the Guichet unique filing. A dispute with the greffe is more local. The practical Paris point is not a different APE law. It is that the commercial court of Paris is used to foreign SAS files, that the greffe will still reject an activity change that is incompatible with the statutes on the file, and that an injunction application which asks the judge to “change the APE” misunderstands L. 123-3. Ask for the RCS activity mention to be aligned with the new minutes. Let INSEE recode from that alignment.

There is now a third clock. Service Public Entreprendre, in the fiche of 21 January 2026 and in the news item of 23 January 2026, states that from 1 January 2027 every enterprise and establishment on Sirene will receive a new APE code under NAF 2025. Companies can already consult the future code on sirene.gouv.fr, where it appears as “Code APE 2025” and “Libellé d’activité 2025”, and can request a rectification of that future code. A correspondence table published by INSEE maps current codes onto 2027 codes. A foreign founder who only corrects the 2008 NAF code in 2026, and ignores the 2025 label already sitting in Sirene, may spend the winter fixing a code that will be overwritten on 1 January. Check both. If the current code is wrong, use R44645 or the Guichet unique, as the case may be. If the future code is also wrong, use the 2025 rectification teleservice (service-public form R75416) as well.

Evidence from abroad should be prepared as if a third party will read it. Certified translations of the foreign parent’s activity description are less useful than French invoices, French contracts, and a French-language activity table that a statistician can code. If the French company is a distributor of the parent’s goods, say so, and give the turnover split. If it is a genuine research shop that should support a later CIR or JEI discussion, describe the work, not the brand. If it is a holding that only holds shares, do not dress it as an operating company to obtain a more “industrial” APE: the next tax audit will read the accounts.

When the APE, the RCS activity line and the objet social finally coincide, update the downstream documents on the same week: payslips, DPAE and DSN settings, the professional-account KYC pack, insurance certificates, and any tender profile. A code that has been corrected at INSEE but still printed on six months of payslips is a gift to a labour auditor. A Kbis that still recites the old activity after a statutory amendment is a gift to a bank’s onboarding team. The foreign owner who treats the APE as a five-character nuisance, rather than as a classification that must follow the statutes and the real business, will meet the same letter again at the next financing, the next hire, or the next 2027 recode.

Conclusion

A wrong APE code on a French company is usually a drafting problem that has been allowed to harden into a compliance problem. INSEE classifies the words that were declared. The greffe checks those words against the acts. The Labour Code looks at the activity that is in fact carried on. Those three operations are not the same, and a foreign founder who sends a single email asking “please change our NAF” has not chosen a procedure.

If the business has not changed, the INSEE anomaly form and the activity table are the correct tools. If the business has changed, the Guichet unique and, for a company, a statutory amendment of the objet social under L. 223-30 or under the SAS statutes are the correct tools. The RCS judge can order a mention to be corrected; the Cour de cassation has said that the same judge cannot rewrite the statutes. The collective agreement follows L. 2261-2, not the five characters on the Kbis. From January 2027 the NAF 2025 recode will replace every current code: the future label is already visible, and it can already be challenged. The file that wins is the one that shows, in French and with figures, what the company does on Monday morning.

Need a quick opinion on your case.

Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with an avocat of the cabinet, to review the Kbis, the Sirene notice, the statutes and the INSEE or Guichet unique route that actually fits the file.

The discussion is built on your documents: current and future APE labels, the activity table, recent invoices and, where the purpose clause must move, draft minutes that a greffe can accept.

Call Maître Reda Kohen on +33 6 46 60 58 22 (06 46 60 58 22 in France) or use the firm’s contact form.

The firm advises companies in Paris and Île-de-France, including before the Tribunal de commerce de Paris and the greffes of the inner suburban courts.