You run a company in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore and you need someone on the ground in France. A salesperson to open doors, an engineer to support clients, a country manager to test the market before you commit to a full subsidiary. Setting up a French company feels premature, yet French law does not let you simply wire a monthly salary from abroad and call the person a contractor. The moment someone works for you on French soil, France treats you as an employer with French duties: registration, declarations, a compliant contract, payslips and social contributions. The good news is that you can do all of this without creating a French subsidiary, and you can manage most of it remotely. The bad news is that shortcuts are punished hard, through URSSAF reassessments, undeclared-work findings and labour court claims that follow you across borders. This guide explains the compliant route step by step, then shows what goes wrong when the hire is mishandled and how to fight back from abroad.

Three French acronyms will follow you through this article, so let us define them at once. URSSAF (the network of unions for the collection of social security and family allowance contributions) is the body that collects employer and employee social contributions. The DPAE (déclaration préalable à l’embauche, the pre-hire declaration) is the mandatory filing you make before any new employee starts work. The TFE (titre firmes étrangères, the foreign-firms scheme) is the free URSSAF service that lets a company with no establishment in France register, declare hires and pay contributions. Its back office is the CNFE (Centre national des firmes étrangères, the national centre for foreign firms). With these four terms understood, the whole procedure becomes readable.

I. How to hire in France without a French company when you live abroad

A. Register as a foreign employer and file the hiring declaration correctly

French social security is built on a simple principle: anyone who works in France for an employer is covered, whatever their nationality and whatever the employer’s address. Article L. 311-2 of the Social Security Code states: “Sont affiliées obligatoirement aux assurances sociales du régime général, quel que soit leur âge et même si elles sont titulaires d’une pension, toutes les personnes quelle que soit leur nationalité, de l’un ou de l’autre sexe, salariées ou travaillant à quelque titre ou en quelque lieu que ce soit, pour un ou plusieurs employeurs et quels que soient le montant et la nature de leur rémunération, la forme, la nature ou la validité de leur contrat ou la nature de leur statut.” In plain English, your employee in Lyon or Bordeaux joins the French general social security scheme by force of law, and you owe the corresponding contributions. Article L. 242-1 of the same Code adds: “Les cotisations de sécurité sociale dues au titre de l’affiliation au régime général des personnes mentionnées aux articles L. 311-2 et L. 311-3 sont assises sur les revenus d’activité”. Contributions are therefore levied on the employee’s actual earnings, not on a lump sum you might prefer to agree privately.

Because you have no French company, no French SIRET number (the establishment identifier issued to entities registered in France) and no Kbis (the official company identity extract issued by the commercial court registry), you cannot use the standard employer channels. France created a dedicated route for exactly your situation. The official service-public.fr portal describes it in these words: The official service-public.fr portal explains that the scheme lets companies with no establishment in France register with URSSAF for the employment of all or some of their staff in France, complete hiring formalities such as the DPAE and the employment contract, and file the social declarations used to pay contributions. Read more on the TFE scheme on service-public.fr. In practice, you open an employer account with the foreign-firms service, receive the identifiers you need, and run all subsequent filings through it. URSSAF itself addresses you directly: URSSAF speaks directly to companies established abroad with no French establishment that wish to hire an employee Its answer is to join the TFE scheme, because, as URSSAF puts it, the free scheme simplifies declaring and paying contributions. Registration is therefore step one, before any promise is made to the candidate, and it costs nothing.

Step two is the DPAE, and it is strictly prior to the start of work. Article L. 1221-10 of the Labour Code provides: “L’embauche d’un salarié ne peut intervenir qu’après déclaration nominative accomplie par l’employeur auprès des organismes de protection sociale désignés à cet effet.” No hire can legally begin before this named declaration has been completed. The declaration is not a vague notification. Article R. 1221-1 of the Labour Code states: “La déclaration préalable à l’embauche comporte les mentions suivantes”, then lists the employer’s name and address, the sentence “Nom, prénoms, sexe, date et lieu de naissance du salarié ainsi que son numéro national d’identification s’il est déjà immatriculé à la sécurité sociale”, the sentence “Date et heure d’embauche”, and the sentence “Nature, durée du contrat ainsi que durée de la période d’essai éventuelle”. Through the TFE portal, these details are filed electronically, and a copy of the filing or its acknowledgement must be given to the employee. The official hiring formalities page warns that an employer who files no DPAE faces sanctions. Read the full procedure on the official hiring formalities page. An unintentional omission is a fifth-class petty offence punished by a fine, while a deliberate omission is the criminal offence of concealed employment (travail dissimulé), which we examine in Part II. From abroad, the practical lesson is mechanical: collect the employee’s identity details early, file the DPAE through your TFE account before day one, keep the acknowledgement, and hand a copy to the employee. Founders who promise a start date on Monday and file on Tuesday are already in breach.

Two related points deserve attention at this stage. First, if your candidate is not an EU, EEA or Swiss national, they need a work authorisation, and you must check it before hiring; employing a foreign worker without authorisation triggers specific fines and bans that sit on top of everything described here. Second, hiring without a subsidiary is not the same as posting (détachement) an existing employee of yours to France for a temporary assignment. Posting follows its own declaration system (the SIPSI declaration) and its own pay rules. If the person will live in France and work for you there on a permanent basis, direct hiring through the TFE route is the honest structure, and it avoids the reclassification disputes that plague fake postings and fake freelance arrangements.

B. Give your employee a valid French contract, payslip and social cover

Once registered and declared, you must put the employment relationship in a French-law frame. The default rule surprises many common-law founders: Article L. 1221-2 of the Labour Code states: “Le contrat de travail à durée indéterminée est la forme normale et générale de la relation de travail.” The permanent contract (CDI, contrat à durée indéterminée) is the normal and general form of employment. A fixed-term contract (CDD, contrat à durée déterminée) is the exception, allowed only for a precise temporary task. Article L. 1242-2 of the Labour Code provides that “un contrat de travail à durée déterminée ne peut être conclu que pour l’exécution d’une tâche précise et temporaire, et seulement dans les cas suivants”, such as replacing an absent employee or handling a temporary increase in activity. Hiring your first French salesperson on a rolling series of short contracts “to see how it goes” is therefore not a valid plan. Either the temporary ground genuinely exists and is written into the contract, or the relationship is a CDI from the start.

Form matters as much as substance. Article L. 1242-12 of the Labour Code requires: “Le contrat de travail à durée déterminée est établi par écrit et comporte la définition précise de son motif. A défaut, il est réputé conclu pour une durée indéterminée.” A fixed-term contract must be in writing and state its precise reason; otherwise it is deemed permanent. The courts apply this strictly. In Cass. Soc., 14 November 2018, No. 16-19.038, the Court of Cassation held that “faute de comporter la signature de l’une des parties, les contrats à durée déterminée ne pouvaient être considérés comme ayant été établis par écrit et qu’ils étaient, par suite, réputés conclus pour une durée indéterminée”. Unsigned fixed-term contracts, even if both sides performed them without complaint, were reclassified as permanent contracts. For a foreign employer managing paperwork by email across time zones, the message is blunt: send the written contract before the start date, define the exact reason for any fixed term, and get both signatures. An offer letter in English, a late signature, or a missing renewal clause can each convert what you thought was a flexible arrangement into a permanent hire with full dismissal protection.

Pay must follow French payslip rules from the first month. Article L. 3243-2 of the Labour Code states: “Lors du paiement du salaire, l’employeur remet aux personnes mentionnées à l’article L. 3243-1 une pièce justificative dite bulletin de paie.” With every payment of wages, the employer hands over the payslip (bulletin de paie), the itemised document that proves the amounts paid and the contributions deducted. The TFE service generates payslips that meet these requirements, which is one more reason to run payroll through it rather than through a foreign payroll with a side spreadsheet. Respect the national minimum wage (SMIC, salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance), the statutory 35-hour reference working week and its overtime premiums, and the paid-leave accrual of two and a half working days per month. Check whether a sector-wide collective agreement (convention collective) applies to your employee’s activity, because it can impose higher minimum salaries, bonuses and notice periods than the statute. Many foreign founders discover the collective agreement only when the employee’s lawyer cites it; the time to identify it is before the contract is signed.

Social cover completes the package. Your TFE declarations trigger the contributions that fund health insurance, pensions, family benefits, workplace-accident cover and unemployment insurance, and they open the employee’s rights with each body. You must also provide the mandatory complementary health cover (mutuelle d’entreprise, the employer-sponsored top-up health insurance) and register the employee with the supplementary pension scheme. Keep every record: DPAE acknowledgement, signed contract, monthly payslips, contribution receipts and working-time records. If URSSAF or the labour inspectorate ever knocks, and in a first-hire file they often do within the first two years, this paper trail is what separates a routine check from a reassessment. Our broader guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder explains how this first hire fits into the wider sequence of bank account, Kbis registration, VAT and payroll once you later decide to create a subsidiary.

II. What goes wrong when the hire is mishandled, and how to fight back from abroad

A. URSSAF reassessment, undeclared-work findings and how to challenge them

The most expensive mistake is also the most common: starting work before the paperwork exists. French law calls this concealed employment (travail dissimulé, work hidden from the authorities), and it is defined with precision. Article L. 8221-5 of the Labour Code provides: “Est réputé travail dissimulé par dissimulation d’emploi salarié le fait pour tout employeur”, then lists three intentional failures, beginning with “Soit de se soustraire intentionnellement à l’accomplissement de la formalité prévue à l’article L. 1221-10”. Deliberately skipping the DPAE, deliberately issuing no payslip or an understated one, or deliberately skipping social declarations each qualify. The general prohibition sits in Article L. 8221-1 of the Labour Code, which condemns “Le travail totalement ou partiellement dissimulé”. Two features make this regime dangerous for foreign employers. First, the word “intentionnellement” (intentionally) protects the merely careless, but controllers infer intent from facts: no DPAE at all, no payslips for months, cash top-ups, or a “freelancer” working full-time under your orders all point toward intent. Second, the finding arrives with two bills at once: URSSAF recovers the missing contributions with surcharges, and the employee can claim a lump-sum indemnity at the end of the relationship. Article L. 8223-1 of the Labour Code states: “En cas de rupture de la relation de travail, le salarié auquel un employeur a eu recours dans les conditions de l’article L. 8221-3 ou en commettant les faits prévus à l’article L. 8221-5 a droit à une indemnité forfaitaire égale à six mois de salaire.” Six months’ wages as a flat-rate indemnity, on top of the recovered contributions and on top of any severance and damages. A single undeclared first hire can therefore cost a full year of that person’s pay.

Recent case law shows both the force and the limits of this regime. In Cass. Soc., 5 March 2025, No. 23-19.579, a consultant’s service contract was reclassified as an employment contract, and the appeal court had awarded an undeclared-work indemnity. The liquidator objected that intent cannot be inferred from the mere use of an unsuitable contract, citing Articles L. 8221-5 and L. 8223-1 of the Labour Code. The Court of Cassation quashed that part of the ruling, namely where it had “fixe au passif de la liquidation judiciaire de la société My Desseilles la créance de M. [U] au titre de l’indemnité pour travail dissimulé à la somme de 58 441 euros”. The lesson for your file is two-sided. A reclassification alone does not automatically prove deliberate concealment, and each head of the claim must be justified separately. But where the employer simply never filed a DPAE, never issued payslips and never declared wages, courts have no difficulty finding the intentional element, and the six-month indemnity follows. If you engaged your first French worker as a “contractor” while directing their schedule, providing their tools and paying them monthly, assume a court would reclassify the relationship and then ask the concealment question. Regularising now, with backdated declarations and advice, almost always costs less than defending later.

When URSSAF does challenge you, procedure matters as much as substance, and distance is no excuse for missing deadlines. A control typically ends with an observations letter, then a formal demand (mise en demeure, the registered letter demanding payment) and, if unpaid, an enforceable order (contrainte, the order URSSAF issues to recover contributions without going to court first). Each of these acts has its own time limit for challenge, counted in weeks, and the challenge goes first to URSSAF’s own amicable appeals commission, then to the judicial court. From abroad, organise three things immediately: a French address for service or a representative who forwards registered mail the same day, a complete payroll file to answer the observations letter point by point, and counsel who can file the challenge in time. Controllers sometimes apply the wrong contribution base, double-count benefits in kind, or treat genuine expense reimbursements as wages. Those are winnable points, but only if the challenge is filed within the limit and supported by the payslips, contracts and bank transfers that prove what was really paid. Silence, or a late reply sent from head office two months later, turns a debatable reassessment into a final one.

B. Ending the contract or facing the labour court from abroad

Every hire ends one day, and French dismissal law applies to your employee even though you sit abroad. Dismissal for personal reasons or economic reasons requires a prior meeting, a notified decision and stated grounds. Article L. 1232-6 of the Labour Code provides: “Lorsque l’employeur décide de licencier un salarié, il lui notifie sa décision par lettre recommandée avec avis de réception. Cette lettre comporte l’énoncé du ou des motifs invoqués par l’employeur.” The dismissal must be notified by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, and that letter must state the grounds. The letter freezes the employer’s case: grounds added later before the court count for nothing. For a foreign manager, the practical traps are obvious. A phone call telling the employee that things are not working out and Friday is the last day is not a dismissal in French law. An email in English with no stated ground is not a dismissal either. Hold the preliminary meeting (the employee may bring a staff representative or an outside adviser), send the registered letter in French with precise, documented grounds, respect the minimum waiting periods, and pay the final settlement with an itemised receipt. Consider using a local counsel or HR provider for these steps; dismissal procedure is one area where doing it yourself from another country fails most often.

Money follows procedure. Article L. 1234-9 of the Labour Code provides: “Le salarié titulaire d’un contrat de travail à durée indéterminée, licencié alors qu’il compte 8 mois d’ancienneté ininterrompus au service du même employeur, a droit, sauf en cas de faute grave, à une indemnité de licenciement.” From eight months of continuous service, a dismissed permanent employee is owed severance, except for serious misconduct, with the amount set by regulation from past gross pay. On top of severance, an unfair dismissal (licenciement sans cause réelle et sérieuse, a dismissal without a real and serious ground) opens damages within a statutory scale, plus repayment of unemployment benefits to the public body in some cases. Fixed-term endings have their own end-of-contract indemnity, generally ten percent of gross pay unless the sector agreement says otherwise. Before ending any contract, compute the full exit cost, including notice, accrued leave, severance and the applicable indemnities, and compare it with a negotiated separation (rupture conventionnelle, the agreed termination signed by both sides and approved by the administration), which gives the employee severance plus unemployment rights in exchange for a waiver of claims. For a first hire that did not work out, the negotiated route is often cheaper and faster than a disputed dismissal litigated from another continent.

If agreement proves impossible, the dispute goes to the labour court (conseil de prud’hommes, the elected court that hears employment disputes), usually the one where the employee works. Distance does not shield you: the court can hear the case, order back pay, reclassification, indemnities and interest, and enforce the judgment against your French receivables or through European enforcement tools. Two defences deserve early thought. First, jurisdiction and applicable law: work performed in France is normally governed by French employment protections, and clauses sending disputes to a foreign court or choosing foreign law rarely displace the employee’s core French rights for work done in France. Second, evidence: French courts weigh the paper you produced at the time, not the explanations written after the claim arrived. Signed contracts, DPAE filings, payslips, working-time records and written objectives weigh heavily; reconstructed narratives do not. Appoint counsel as soon as a formal demand or court summons arrives, never ignore a hearing date, and preserve every document from the hiring stage onward. Employers who engage early settle most files; employers who discover the summons months later pay the full tariff.

Conclusion

Hiring in France without a subsidiary is a mature, well-marked path, not a grey zone. Register with the foreign-firms service before anything else, file the DPAE before day one, sign a written French contract that respects the permanent-contract default, run monthly payslips through the TFE channel, and keep the records that prove each step. The statutes are demanding but predictable: affiliation is automatic, declarations are prior, fixed terms need writing and a precise reason, payslips are mandatory, and concealment is punished with a six-month indemnity plus recovered contributions. The case law confirms both edges, reclassifying unsigned or sham arrangements while requiring each penalty to be properly justified. Handle the procedure from the start and a first French hire becomes what it should be, a commercial test with controlled legal cost. Mishandle it and the same hire becomes a file that follows you home. If you already employ someone in France without these steps, regularise now: the price of catching up is nearly always lower than the price of being caught.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer from the firm. We can review your hiring plan, your TFE registration, your contracts and payslips, or any URSSAF letter you have received. Call Maître Reda Kohen at +33 6 46 60 58 22. Contact the firm.