You open your banking app from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore and the balance of your French company is unavailable. Then the email from the bank arrives: a commissaire de justice — the French court bailiff, formerly called huissier de justice — has served a saisie-attribution on the account. Your SAS or SARL has not been warned in advance, because French law does not require any warning: the bailiff serves the bank first and tells you afterwards. If you do nothing, the frozen money goes to the creditor. If you move fast, you have real weapons: strict formalities the creditor must respect within eight days, a one-month deadline to challenge the seizure before the enforcement judge, and several grounds that lead to a full release of the funds. This guide explains, for a foreign owner or director managing from abroad, what was seized, what the bailiff cannot take, how to contest from your country of residence, and how to get the money back.
The rule that matters most fits in one sentence: the seizure must be notified to your company within eight days, and any challenge must be filed within one month of that notification, before the juge de l’exécution — the JEX, the specialised enforcement judge sitting at the judicial court. Miss the month and the challenge is inadmissible, even if the creditor was wrong. This article walks you through the two stages every foreign business owner must understand. First, what the bailiff actually did to your account and which sums stay available. Second, how to fight back from abroad within the deadline and obtain the mainlevée, the formal lifting of the seizure.
I. Your French Company Account Has Just Been Frozen: What the Bailiff Seized and What Stays Available
A. How a saisie-attribution freezes your company account from the day of service
A saisie-attribution is the standard French tool for seizing money owed to your company by a third party — most often the balance of its bank account. Any creditor holding an enforceable title against your company can use it. Article L211-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Proceedings states: “Tout créancier muni d’un titre exécutoire constatant une créance liquide et exigible peut, pour en obtenir le paiement, saisir entre les mains d’un tiers les créances de son débiteur portant sur une somme d’argent, sous réserve des dispositions particulières à la saisie des rémunérations prévue par le code du travail et par le présent code.” Read the full text on Légifrance: article L211-1. Three conditions sit inside that sentence and each one is a possible line of defence: the creditor must hold a titre exécutoire, an enforceable title; the claim must be liquide, fixed in amount; and it must be exigible, due for payment. A simple unpaid invoice with no court decision is not enough on its own — which is why, when your company is the creditor rather than the debtor, the route runs through payment orders and court claims, as explained in our guide on how a foreign company recovers an unpaid French invoice.
What counts as an enforceable title is a closed list. Article L111-3 of the same code provides: “Seuls constituent des titres exécutoires : 1° Les décisions des juridictions de l’ordre judiciaire ou de l’ordre administratif lorsqu’elles ont force exécutoire, ainsi que les accords auxquels ces juridictions ont conféré force exécutoire”, followed by foreign judgments declared enforceable, notarial deeds with the enforcement formula, settlement agreements countersigned by lawyers, and court-registry titles, among others. See Légifrance: article L111-3. In practice, the titles you will meet as a foreign-owned company are a French commercial court judgment, an injonction de payer payment order that has become final, or a foreign judgment recognised in France. If the bailiff cannot show one of these titles, the seizure has no legal basis and must fall.
The procedure is deliberately sudden. The commissaire de justice serves the saisie-attribution on the bank first, without telling your company beforehand, and the bank must immediately freeze the sums and declare what it holds. Article L211-3 states: “Le tiers saisi est tenu de déclarer au créancier l’étendue de ses obligations à l’égard du débiteur ainsi que les modalités qui pourraient les affecter et, s’il y a lieu, les cessions de créances, délégations, nantissements ou saisies antérieures.” Full text: Légifrance: article L211-3. A bank that refuses to answer without a valid reason can be ordered to pay the creditor itself, so expect your bank to cooperate with the bailiff rather than with you at this stage. That is normal and not a reason to change banks in a panic — a separate guide covers what to do when your French bank closes your company account while you live abroad, which is a different situation from a court-ordered freeze.
The most brutal feature of the saisie-attribution is its immediate effect. Article L211-2 provides: “L’acte de saisie emporte, à concurrence des sommes pour lesquelles elle est pratiquée, attribution immédiate au profit du saisissant de la créance saisie, disponible entre les mains du tiers ainsi que de tous ses accessoires.” Full text: Légifrance: article L211-2. From the day the bank is served, the seized sum legally belongs to the creditor up to the amount claimed, even though the money physically moves later. Later seizures by other creditors, even priority creditors, and even the opening of safeguard, receivership or liquidation proceedings after the seizure, do not undo that immediate attribution. Only seizures served on the same day on the same bank share the pot proportionally. For a foreign shareholder, the consequence is direct: once the bank has been served, paying the creditor yourself a second time or moving funds around will not fix anything — the claim now follows a strict legal track with deadlines.
The Cour de cassation confirmed in 2026 just how far that immediate attribution reaches. In a case where two creditors had served saisies-attribution on the same company account in February 2016 and safeguard proceedings opened days later, the Second Civil Chamber quashed the appeal decision and held: “Il en résulte qu’une saisie-attribution peut être pratiquée sur une créance rendue indisponible par l’effet d’une saisie conservatoire antérieure sous réserve du droit de préférence conféré au premier saisissant.” That is Cass. 2e civ., 15 January 2026, no. 23-13.416, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2026:C200045, published in the Bulletin — see Légifrance: pourvoi no. 23-13.416. The lesson for your company is practical: if several creditors are circling, the order of seizures decides who gets paid, and a seizure served before insolvency proceedings keeps its effect. Speed matters on both sides.
B. The money the bailiff cannot take: protected balances and keeping the business alive
The freeze is not necessarily total, and understanding exactly what is blocked is your first task from abroad. The seizure operates up to the sums claimed — principal, interest and enforcement costs — and any surplus above that amount stays at your company’s disposal. Ask the bank in writing for three documents the day you learn of the seizure: the procès-verbal de saisie served on the bank, the exact amount frozen with the breakdown of principal, interest and costs, and the list of accounts concerned. French banks handle these requests routinely; a short email to your account manager citing the saisie-attribution, with your company name, SIREN number and account number, is enough to start. The SIREN is the nine-digit company identifier issued at registration, shown on the Kbis — the Kbis being the official company identity certificate delivered by the greffe, the registry of the commercial court. Keep copies of everything the bank sends: your lawyer will need the precise figures to check whether the bailiff seized more than the enforceable title allows.
French law also keeps a minimum subsistence sum available to individual debtors automatically. Article R162-2 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Proceedings provides: “Aucune demande du débiteur n’est nécessaire lorsqu’il est fait application des dispositions de l’article L. 162-2” Full text: Légifrance: article R162-2. The bank sets aside that food-allowance sum on its own, warns the debtor immediately, and reports the amount left available to the bailiff. Be clear-eyed about one point: this automatic protection is built for individuals facing a seizure on a personal account. A company account of a SAS or SARL does not benefit from the same personal safety net, and you should not count on an automatic release of operating cash. What you can do instead is segregate the damage: check whether wages, social contributions and tax payments due in the coming days sit in the frozen account, warn your accountant at once, and arrange payment of salaries and URSSAF contributions — URSSAF being the agency that collects employer social charges — from an unfrozen account or by emergency transfer from the foreign parent or shareholder current account. Unpaid wages and undeclared social contributions create separate criminal and financial exposure for the director, so protecting payroll takes priority over the commercial dispute itself.
Two frequent questions from foreign directors deserve straight answers. First, can the bailiff seize all the company’s accounts in every bank? Yes, the creditor may serve several banks, and each served bank freezes up to the claimed amount; the debtor is then told on which account or accounts the protected sum is left available where such protection applies. If your company holds accounts in two banks and both are served, both freeze, and you must actively sort out the double freeze with the bailiff rather than waiting. Second, do incoming customer payments after the seizure date get caught too? The attribution attaches to the claim as it stands when served, with its accessories; later credits are a technical discussion for your lawyer depending on the account type and the seizure wording. Never instruct customers to pay elsewhere to dodge the seizure: organising insolvency against a known creditor can backfire seriously, including director liability proceedings of the kind described in our guide on setting up and running a French company as a foreign founder, which remains the pillar reference for the legal calendar, bank account and first hires of your French subsidiary. The right reflex is always the same: freeze the situation, count the sums, calendar the deadline, and challenge through the judge rather than around him.
II. Contesting the Seizure From Abroad: the One-Month Deadline, the Enforcement Judge and Getting a Release
A. Challenge within one month of the notification or lose the right to contest
The seizure only becomes final against your company once it is formally notified to it. The bailiff must serve a dénonciation — a second bailiff’s writ addressed to the debtor — within eight days of serving the bank, failing which the seizure lapses entirely. Article R211-3 provides: “A peine de caducité, la saisie est dénoncée au débiteur par acte de commissaire de justice dans un délai de huit jours.” Full text: Légifrance: article R211-3. The same article lists, on pain of nullity, what that writ must contain: a copy of the seizure report, a highly visible warning that challenges must be raised within one month with the exact expiry date, the court competent to hear the challenge, and, for a seized account, the amount of the subsistence sum left available and on which account. Every missing or wrong mention is a potential ground for nullity. When you receive the dénonciation at the company’s registered office — or forwarded by your domiciliation agent, accountant or French lawyer — read it the same day and note the expiry date printed in it, then have your lawyer recompute it independently: the one-month period runs from service of the dénonciation, and a mistake of even one day is fatal.
The challenge itself follows a strict choreography. Article R211-11 states: “A peine d’irrecevabilité, les contestations relatives à la saisie sont formées dans le délai d’un mois à compter de la dénonciation de la saisie au débiteur.” Full text: Légifrance: article R211-11. Under the same penalty, the challenge writ must be reported the same day, or the next business day at the latest, by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt to the bailiff who carried out the seizure; the challenger informs the bank by ordinary letter; and a copy of the writ must be filed at the enforcement judge’s registry no later than the hearing day, failing which the writ lapses. Three mailboxes, three clocks, one month. From abroad, this is entirely manageable provided you instruct a French avocat immediately: the lawyer drafts the assignation, serves it, sends the registered letter to the bailiff, writes to the bank, and files at the registry. You do not need to fly to France for the challenge to be valid. What you must do yourself is send your lawyer, within days, the complete file by email: the dénonciation, the seizure report, the underlying judgment or payment order with its proof of service, your account statements, and proof of any payment already made.
The competent judge is the JEX, the juge de l’exécution of the judicial court of the place where the debtor lives — for a company, the court of its registered office. Article L121-1 states: “Le juge de l’exécution connaît de l’application des dispositions du présent code dans les conditions prévues par l’article L. 213-6 du code de l’organisation judiciaire” Full text: Légifrance: article L121-1. If your SAS is registered in Paris, the Paris JEX hears the case; if it is registered in Lyon or Marseille, the local JEX does. This geographic point surprises many foreign owners: the case is heard where the French company sits, not where you live, and the company’s registered address on the Kbis decides. Representation by a lawyer is the norm before the JEX for companies, and hearings run in French, so a bilingual litigation lawyer who reports to you in English is the practical choice. The JEX can annul the seizure, order the mainlevée with release of the funds, reduce the sums, order repayment of seized amounts with interest, and award costs — but only if seized of the case within the month. After that month, the article’s wording is merciless: inadmissibility. A late challenge is not examined on the merits, however strong the underlying arguments. That is why the first email to your lawyer should go out the day the bank warns you, before the dénonciation even arrives: the file is then ready and the month is used for strategy, not for searching for counsel.
B. Win the release: no enforceable title, wrong sums, settlement, and lifting the seizure
The strongest ground is the absence of a valid enforceable title or the absence of its prior service on your company. A judgment can only be enforced after it has been notified to the losing party. Article 503 of the Code of Civil Procedure states: “Les jugements ne peuvent être exécutés contre ceux auxquels ils sont opposés qu’après leur avoir été notifiés, à moins que l’exécution n’en soit volontaire.” Full text: Légifrance: article 503 du code de procédure civile. If your company never received the judgment, the payment order or the appeal decision the creditor relies on — a frequent situation when the director lives abroad and mail to the registered office went unread — the seizure built on it can be annulled and lifted, with the creditor bearing the costs. Raise the plea of nullity of the seizure for lack of prior service of the title, and ask the enforcement judge for the mainlevée with release of the funds and the costs against the creditor. Treat the service history as the decisive evidence: Read the case as a double lesson. First, missing signification of the title is a nullity ground that wipes out the seizure and its interest clock. Second, the exact dates of service decide everything, so your lawyer must reconstruct the full service history — judgment, appeal decision, seizure report, dénonciation — before choosing this ground. If the creditor did serve everything properly, do not waste the month on this argument; pivot to the next ones.
The second family of grounds attacks the claim itself: the debt is not liquid or not due, the amount seized is wrong, the debt was already paid, or the same debt is being collected twice. Recompute the principal against the judgment, verify the interest rate and start date applied by the bailiff, deduct every payment and set-off, and challenge enforcement costs that exceed the authorised tariff. The JEX reduces seizures to the amount actually owed and orders the bank to release the excess. The third family attacks the form: dénonciation served after the eight-day period, missing copy of the seizure report, missing expiry date or competent court, challenge formalities that the creditor itself breached. Formal nullities sound technical, but they are the daily bread of enforcement litigation because bailiffs work under heavy volume and mistakes happen. Your lawyer checks each mention of article R211-3 against the writ line by line. If you were sued before this seizure without ever being able to defend yourself — for instance an assignation sent to an old address while you lived abroad — read our companion guide on what to do when your French company is served with an assignation: reopening the underlying case and contesting the seizure can run in parallel, and winning the first starves the second of its title.
In parallel with the court track, always open a negotiation track. A creditor who has frozen your account wants money, not procedure, and a seizure often unlocks the settlement that months of letters did not. From abroad you can credibly offer a payment schedule secured by partial immediate payment, in exchange for a written mainlevée — the creditor’s formal hand-lift authorising the bank to release the funds. Get the mainlevée in writing, addressed to the bank, for a defined amount, before paying the balance; an oral promise to lift after payment is worth little once the money has moved. If the dispute sits within a wider conflict with a distributor, agent or partner, link the payment to mutual releases. And if the underlying debt is genuinely due and undisputed, the cheapest outcome is usually a fast negotiated release rather than a full JEX battle: you pay the costs of the seizure plus the debt, the creditor lifts, the bank unfreezes within days, and your operating account breathes again. Keep the JEX challenge alive until the written mainlevée arrives — withdrawing the challenge before the release is signed surrenders your only leverage and, past the one-month mark, it cannot be filed again.
Your roadmap from abroad therefore runs in five steps. One, the day the bank warns you: download statements, identify the bailiff and the claimed amount, and email a French litigation lawyer with the bank’s message. Two, when the dénonciation arrives: forward it the same day, calendar the exact one-month expiry with your lawyer, and confirm who sends the registered letter to the bailiff. Three, within the first two weeks: have the lawyer audit the title, its service history, the sums and the formal mentions, and file the JEX challenge. Four, in parallel: open settlement talks against the written mainlevée. Five, after the outcome: verify the bank actually released the sums, reconcile the accounts with your accountant, update the registered-office mail monitoring so no court paper ever goes unread again, and record the dispute in the company’s legal file. Companies that follow this sequence usually convert a shock into a managed incident; companies that wait for the freeze to “resolve itself” discover the attribution was immediate and the month runs without them.
Conclusion
A saisie-attribution on your French company’s bank account is sudden by design, but it is not arbitrary: it requires an enforceable title for a fixed and due claim, an immediate attribution capped at the sums claimed, a notification to your company within eight days, and a one-month window to bring the dispute before the enforcement judge. From abroad, you cannot stop the initial freeze, but you can control everything that follows — provided you treat the dénonciation as a starting gun rather than a piece of mail. Verify the title and its prior service, recompute every euro, challenge every formal mention, negotiate the written release while the court case runs, and never let the month expire unchallenged. Managed this way, most seizures end in a reduced payment, a negotiated release, or a full annulment — and your French business keeps operating.