You live in London, New York or Dubai. Your French company, a SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company foreigners usually choose) or a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the limited liability company with stricter statutory rules), has finally turned a profit. The money sits in a French bank account, and you want it in yours. Two questions then decide everything: is your company legally allowed to pay you dividends right now, and how much French tax disappears between the vote and your foreign account? This guide answers both, step by step, with the exact statutes, the official tax doctrine and three recent rulings of the Cour de cassation (France’s supreme court for civil and criminal matters). If you are still setting up the structure, start with our complete setting-up guide for foreign founders: bank account, Kbis, VAT and first hire, then come back here when the profits arrive.
The trap most foreign owners fall into is treating dividends like a salary top-up: a quick transfer decided over email, taxed later, somewhere, somehow. French law works the other way round. Dividends can only come from precisely defined distributable profits, voted by the right meeting, at the right time. And when the shareholder lives abroad, France taxes the dividend at the source, before it leaves the country, through a withholding mechanism (retenue à la source) whose rate depends on who you are, where you live and which tax treaty protects you. Get the order wrong and you face void resolutions, a 75% levy in the worst offshore cases, or money stuck in Paris while the paperwork catches up. Get it right and the path is clean: valid vote, correct levy, treaty relief, refund where available, transfer home.
I. Can your French company legally pay you dividends while you manage it from abroad?
Before any euro moves, French company law asks one hard question: do distributable sums exist, and has the competent body voted them? Living abroad changes nothing about this test. Distance is not an excuse, and a foreign shareholder cannot simply order the president or the gérant (the manager of a SARL) to wire the profits. The decision belongs to the shareholders’ meeting, under rules the supreme court enforces strictly.
A. How do you check that distributable profits exist and vote them correctly from abroad?
Start with the definition. Article L.232-11 of the Commercial Code states the rule in one sentence: Le bénéfice distribuable est constitué par le bénéfice de l’exercice, diminué des pertes antérieures, ainsi que des sommes à porter en réserve en application de la loi ou des statuts, et augmenté du report bénéficiaire. In plain English: distributable profit means the profit for the financial year, minus prior losses, minus the sums that must go to reserves under the law or your articles (statuts), plus retained earnings carried forward (report à nouveau). The same article adds that the meeting may also distribute sums taken from reserves at its disposal, provided the resolution states expressly from which reserve items the amounts are taken, and that dividends are taken first from the distributable profit of the year.
Then comes the vote. Article L.232-12 of the Commercial Code provides: 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. Only after the annual accounts are approved, and the existence of distributable sums is recorded, does the general meeting (assemblée générale, the shareholders’ meeting, hereafter AGM) set the share paid out as dividends. The sequence is mandatory: approve the accounts first, record the distributable amount, then vote the dividend. A standalone decision to pay yourself, taken outside the meeting that approves the accounts, has no legal basis.
The Cour de cassation confirmed this strictly in a ruling every foreign owner should know. On 12 February 2025, in case no. 23-11.410, the Commercial Chamber held: seule l’assemblée approuvant les comptes de cet exercice pourra décider son affectation et, le cas échéant, sa distribution. Il s’ensuit qu’encourt la nullité la délibération d’une assemblée générale autre que celle approuvant les comptes de l’exercice et décidant la distribution d’un dividende prélevé sur le report à nouveau bénéficiaire d’un exercice précédent. Only the meeting approving the accounts for the year may decide how the retained earnings are allocated and distributed; any other meeting voting a dividend drawn on prior retained earnings is void. In that case, one meeting had parked the profits in retained earnings, and a later meeting, with different shareholders after a share sale, voted the dividend. The court quashed the appeal ruling and declared the second vote void, combining Articles 1103 of the Civil Code and L.235-1 of the Commercial Code to recall that company resolutions bind shareholders until annulled, and combining Articles L.232-11 and L.232-12, described as mandatory, to impose the single-competent-meeting rule.
For you, living abroad, the lesson is concrete. Hold one proper AGM per year that approves the accounts and votes the dividend in the same session, and keep the minutes (procès-verbal) with both decisions. If you bought the company during the year, check what the previous meeting did with the profits before assuming you can vote them out. If you need cash before year-end, interim dividends (acomptes sur dividendes) are possible, but only under tight conditions set by the same Article L.232-12: lorsqu’un bilan établi au cours ou à la fin de l’exercice et certifié par un commissaire aux comptes fait apparaître que la société […] a réalisé un bénéfice, il peut être distribué des acomptes sur dividendes avant l’approbation des comptes de l’exercice. An interim balance sheet, certified by a statutory auditor (commissaire aux comptes, the independent auditor appointed in larger companies), must show a real profit, and le montant de ces acomptes ne peut excéder le montant du bénéfice défini au présent alinéa. No certified interim profit, no interim dividend.
Voting from abroad is a practical matter, not a legal privilege. Check your articles: most SAS articles allow video conference or written consultation, which lets you attend and vote from London or New York. If your articles are silent or impose physical presence, amend them before the meeting rather than improvising. Sign the attendance sheet and the minutes according to the agreed remote procedure, keep proof of convocation (notice) sent to every shareholder, and file the approved accounts with the court clerk’s office (greffe, the registry of the commercial court) through the INPI one-stop shop (guichet unique, the single online filing portal) within the statutory deadline after the meeting. Our guide on approving your French company’s accounts and dividends from abroad walks through that filing chain in detail.
B. Why can a rushed dividend voted on false figures become a criminal case?
Foreign owners under cash pressure sometimes vote dividends on accounts they have not really read: revenue booked too early, liabilities hidden, an interim situation dressed up for a buyer or a bank. French criminal law treats this as forgery territory, not as an accounting shortcut. In a ruling of 12 June 2025, case no. 24-81.263, the Criminal Chamber of the Cour de cassation upheld convictions for forgery (faux) where managers had omitted material deferred income and distorted an interim balance sheet. The judges noted that l’existence de produits constatés d’avance n’était pas contestable au jour même de l’établissement des comptes annuels puis de la situation intermédiaire, and that aucun n’a été comptabilisé dans les comptes de la société, ni au 31 décembre 2014 ni au 23 juillet 2015, ce qui contredit les déclarations d’ignorance of the manager. Deferred income (produits constatés d’avance, revenue received but not yet earned) that nobody could seriously dispute had simply never been booked, and the court treated the plea of ignorance as contradicted by the files.
Translate this into your position as a non-resident shareholder. If you vote or receive dividends based on accounts you know, or should have known, to be inaccurate, you expose the managers, and potentially yourself as the instructing shareholder, to prosecution for presenting inaccurate accounts and forgery, on top of the civil nullity of the distribution. Dividends paid without genuine distributable profits are fictitious dividends (dividendes fictifs): shareholders who knew, or could not have ignored, the absence of profits can be forced to return them, and managers face fines and imprisonment. The practical shield is simple and cheap compared with a criminal file: have your French accountant (expert-comptable, the licensed accounting professional) close the year properly, reconcile deferred income and provisions, and, as soon as the figures look aggressive, ask the statutory auditor or an independent review before any distribution vote. Never sign minutes recording distributable sums you cannot trace to a real, reviewed balance sheet.
A final warning for group structures: if your French company is the subsidiary of your foreign holding, do not confuse a management decision at group level with a French corporate decision. The French subsidiary’s AGM alone can vote the dividend, under French quorum and majority rules, with French minutes. A board resolution signed in Delaware or Dubai does not replace it. Keep both paper trails consistent, because the French tax administration will ask for the French minutes when it examines the withholding below.
II. How much French tax is taken before the money reaches your foreign account?
Once the dividend is validly voted, France taxes it at the source. The mechanism is a withholding tax (retenue à la source): the French company withholds a slice when paying you and remits it to the French Treasury. The amount depends on your status, your country of residence and the applicable treaty. Three layers stack: the domestic rule, the rate, and the reliefs that bring the money home.
A. How does the French withholding on dividends paid to non-residents work?
The starting point is Article 119 bis of the General Tax Code (Code général des impôts, France’s main tax statute, hereafter CGI). Its second paragraph provides: Les produits visés aux articles 108 à 117 bis donnent lieu à l’application d’une retenue à la source dont le taux est fixé par l’article 187 lorsque leurs bénéficiaires effectifs sont des personnes qui n’ont pas leur domicile fiscal ou leur siège en France. Income covered by Articles 108 to 117 bis, which includes dividends and other distributed income, triggers a withholding, at the rate set by Article 187, when the beneficial owners are persons with neither their tax domicile nor their registered seat in France. If you live abroad and your company sits abroad, you fall squarely in this net: your French SAS or SARL must withhold on every dividend it pays you.
The rates come from Article 187 of the CGI. For corporate and similar beneficiaries, whatever their form, the levy on dividends, apart from specific EU cases, equals celui prévu au deuxième alinéa du I de l’article 219 pour tous les autres revenus, meaning the standard corporate income tax rate (impôt sur les sociétés, the French corporate income tax, hereafter IS), which the official enterprise portal confirms at 25% for other companies. For individual beneficiaries, the rate is flat and simple: 12,8 % pour les bénéficiaires personnes physiques. So a French company paying 100,000 euros of dividends to its individual shareholder in London withholds 12,800 euros and transfers 87,200 euros, before any treaty reduction. By contrast, a shareholder who is an individual resident in France faces a different deposit, the 12.8% non-final flat levy (prélèvement forfaitaire non libératoire): Article 117 quater of the CGI states that les personnes physiques fiscalement domiciliées en France […] qui bénéficient de revenus distribués […] sont assujetties à un prélèvement au taux de 12,8 %, a mere advance credited against the final income tax. Do not confuse the two: for you as a non-resident, the withholding is generally the final French tax, not an advance.
The extreme case deserves a red flag. Where dividends are paid outside France into a non-cooperative state or territory (Etat ou territoire non coopératif, the French blacklist of uncooperative tax jurisdictions, hereafter NCST), Article 187 raises the levy to a punitive level: Le taux de la retenue à la source prévue au 2 de l’article 119 bis est fixé à 75 % pour les produits mentionnés aux articles 108 à 117 bis […] et payés hors de France, dans un Etat ou territoire non coopératif au sens de l’article 238-0 A. Seventy-five percent, unless the payer proves the payment there has neither the purpose nor the effect of locating the income in that territory for tax fraud. If your personal holding sits in a jurisdiction that appears on the French NCST list, take advice before routing dividends through it: the list moves every year, and a structure that was clean last year can turn confiscatory this year.
Operationally, the French company does the work. It withholds at payment, declares and remits the levy to the Treasury, and documents the operation. The tax administration provides a dedicated form for this computation, the form no. 5001 for the computation (liquidation) of the withholding on dividends, available in French, English and several other languages. Keep the dividend minutes, the bank proof of the gross amount, the proof of the withheld amount and the filed form together: your home-country bank, your home tax authority and, later, the French administration in case of a refund claim will each ask for part of this file. If the company misses the withholding, the Treasury pursues the French company first, then the pieces fall back on you through assessments and late-payment interest, so calendar this payment with the same seriousness as payroll.
B. How do you lawfully reduce the levy and bring the money home?
Three relief channels exist, and they combine in a strict order: the European parent exemption, the bilateral tax treaty, and, at home, your own country’s treatment of the dividend received. Work through them before the payment date, because relief claimed upstream is always cheaper than a refund chased downstream.
First, the European parent-subsidiary exemption. A qualifying EU or EEA parent company can receive French dividends with no withholding at all. The official tax commentary (BOFiP, Bulletin officiel des finances publiques, the binding published doctrine of the French tax administration) sets the doorway this way: La société mère doit détenir une fraction minimale du capital de la société distributrice résidente de France, dont le taux est fixé à 10 % par la loi. The holding must be direct and uninterrupted: la détention des actions ou parts de la société filiale en pleine propriété ou en nue-propriété doit être directe et ininterrompue depuis deux ans au moins. Shares held through a third company do not count toward the threshold, and the holding period is assessed on the dividend payment date, although a formal two-year retention undertaking (engagement de conservation) can bridge the gap: prendre l’engagement de conserver sa participation […] pendant un délai de deux ans au moins. Break the undertaking and the exempted withholding becomes due, with the French company liable as the party responsible for payment. Notably, the doctrine adds a safety net for holdings between 5% and 10%: lorsqu’une société européenne bénéficie de dividendes de source française afférents à une participation au moins égale à 5 %, la restitution de la retenue à la source peut être demandée where the parent cannot credit the French levy at home. If your EU holding owns 7% of the French subsidiary, you pay the withholding first, then claim it back.
Second, the bilateral tax treaty signed between France and your country of residence. Treaties are the main tool for non-EU owners, Americans, Britons, Emiratis, Singaporeans, and they typically cut the French levy to 15% or less for qualifying beneficiaries. The mechanism matters more than any single figure, because each treaty has its own rate, its own ownership thresholds and its own limitation clauses. The Cour de cassation recalled in a 11 February 2026 ruling, case no. 23-14.305 on the France-Canada treaty, that conventions expressly cover French levies at source: the treaty lists, for France, corporate and income taxes et toute retenue à la source, tout précompte ou avance décomptés sur ces impôts. Read your treaty before the payment: check the dividends article, the residence article, the beneficial-owner condition and any anti-abuse clause. Then claim the treaty rate at payment with a certificate of tax residence. France’s standard vehicle is the form no. 5000, the certificate of residence for the foreign administration, which your home tax authority stamps to certify that you are its resident. Hand it to the French paying company before the dividend date so it can apply the reduced rate directly. Miss that window and you pay the full domestic rate first, then file a refund claim with the French administration, attaching the residence certificate, the dividend vouchers and proof of the levy: slower, but available.
Third, the mirror regime worth knowing even though it does not apply to you directly: when the shareholder is itself a French company, the French parent-subsidiary regime (régime des sociétés mères) largely exempts the dividend at the parent level. Article 145 of the CGI opens the regime to companies subject to corporate tax holding qualifying participations, specifying that les titres de participation doivent être détenus en pleine propriété ou en nue-propriété et doivent représenter au moins 5 % du capital de la société émettrice. Article 216 then allows the parent to deduct the net dividends from its taxable profit, défalcation faite d’une quote-part de frais et charges. La quote-part de frais et charges prévue au premier alinéa du présent I est fixée à 5 % du produit total des participations, crédit d’impôt compris. In practice the French parent pays tax on only 5% of the dividend, and 1% inside a tax group or for EU participations. Why does this matter to a foreign owner? Because it shapes two decisions: whether to interpose a French holding between your foreign group and the operating company, and how your home country will treat the French dividend, since most residence states either exempt foreign dividends from qualifying holdings or grant a credit for the French withholding. Coordinate both sides before voting: the cheapest French levy is worthless if your home state taxes the gross dividend without credit.
Put the sequence on one page and follow it every year. First, close reliable accounts and confirm distributable profits with your accountant. Second, hold the AGM that approves the accounts and votes the dividend in the same session, with minutes that state the amounts and the reserve items used. Third, identify your relief before payment: EU exemption file, or treaty certificate of residence handed to the payer. Fourth, have the company withhold the correct amount, remit it and keep the form no. 5001 and bank proofs. Fifth, transfer the net dividend and declare it at home, claiming exemption or credit under your local rules. The official enterprise portal’s English guide to the taxation of dividends received by shareholders is a useful cross-check for the domestic French side of each step.
Conclusion
Paying yourself dividends from France while living abroad is neither forbidden nor automatic. It is a two-gate process. The company-law gate asks whether genuine distributable profits exist and whether the meeting approving the accounts voted them, with nullity striking any shortcut and criminal law punishing false figures. The tax gate withholds at the source, 12.8% for individuals and the standard corporate rate for companies, rising to 75% toward blacklisted jurisdictions, then opens three relief doors: the EU parent exemption at 10% held directly for two years, the bilateral treaty with its residence certificate, and your home country’s exemption or credit. Run the checklist in order, keep every paper, and the dividend reaches your foreign account with its tax story clean on both sides of the border. Skip a gate and the money either cannot legally move or moves over-taxed, with a refund file that takes months to repair.
Need a quick opinion on your case
Talk through your dividend project with a lawyer before you vote or transfer anything. Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a cabinet attorney, to check your distributable profits, your withholding rate and your treaty relief. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 (Maître Reda Kohen) or write via our contact page with your company name, your country of residence and the dividend amount you are considering.