Your French company has done the work, issued a clean invoice, and the French customer has not paid. You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, you do not have a French legal team on site, and the unpaid amount sits in your receivables while salaries, VAT and suppliers press on the other side. This guide explains, for a foreign founder or foreign group managing a French vehicle from abroad, how to turn a French unpaid invoice into cash: what French law adds automatically to your claim the morning after the due date, how to send a demand that a French judge will respect, how to obtain a French payment order without moving to France, and how to enforce it or protect yourself when the debtor collapses. Every French term is explained, every decisive rule is tied to its official text, and every step can be run remotely with a French lawyer, a commissaire de justice and the court clerk.

A French invoice is not only a commercial document. It carries a statutory late-payment engine, a fixed recovery fee, a formal demand regime, a fast paper procedure before the French courts and a full enforcement chain. Foreign owners often lose money because they wait too long, write polite reminders that create no legal effect, forget the mandatory wording on their contracts and invoices, or discover too late that the debtor has entered a collective insolvency case. The method below follows the order a Paris business court expects: contract and invoice wording first, quantified penalties second, formal demand third, court order fourth, enforcement fifth. It applies whether your French vehicle is a SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company most foreign founders choose), a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the closed limited-liability company) or a French subsidiary of your foreign parent, and whether your customer is another business or, less often for this procedure, a professional debtor.

The amounts matter. France punishes late payment between professionals with interest at the European Central Bank refinancing rate plus ten points, a flat forty-euro recovery fee per invoice, provable extra recovery costs on top, and administrative fines for debtors that breach payment deadlines. The fast recovery route, the injonction de payer (order-to-pay procedure), lets you obtain an enforceable court order on documents alone, served and enforced by a commissaire de justice (the enforcement officer who replaced the huissier de justice for service and enforcement), filed at the greffe (the clerk’s office of the court) and proved by your Kbis (the official identity extract of your French company issued by the greffe of the commercial court). When the debtor sits in another European Union country, the European Payment Order offers a parallel cross-border track. When the debtor is insolvent in France, retention of title and declaration of the claim decide whether you recover goods or join the queue of unsecured creditors. This article walks through each lever with the exact texts and court decisions that make them work.

I. What French law gives you the day the invoice becomes overdue while you manage from abroad?

A. How do French late-payment penalties, the 40-euro recovery fee and the ECB rate work on your unpaid invoice?

Start with your contract and your invoice, because French commercial law reads them before it reads your emails. Article L. 441-1 of the Commercial Code requires businesses to set general terms of sale that include payment conditions, and professional buyers can demand them. Your general terms, your signed quote or framework agreement, and each invoice should state the payment deadline, the late-penalty rate and the fixed recovery fee. If you manage from abroad, ask your French accountant or lawyer today for a one-page check: do your current terms state a deadline compatible with French law, a penalty rate at least equal to three times the legal interest rate, and the forty-euro fee? If not, fix the template before you chase this invoice, because the judge will apply the statute anyway but a clean file pays faster and resists challenges.

French deadlines are strict. Article L. 441-10, I, of the Commercial Code provides that, unless otherwise agreed, payment is due thirty days after receipt of goods or performance of the service, and that an agreed deadline cannot exceed sixty days from the invoice date, with a narrow forty-five-days-end-of-month alternative that must be expressly agreed and must not be manifestly abusive toward the creditor. Periodic invoices within the meaning of the tax code face a forty-five-day cap. Any clause or practice that abusively delays the starting point of payment periods is prohibited and punished. In practice, for a foreign-owned French company, this means you do not need to accept ninety-day terms imposed by a larger French customer: beyond the statutory ceiling the clause exposes the debtor to an administrative fine and will not survive judicial review.

The morning after the deadline shown on the invoice, penalties run by operation of law. Article L. 441-10, II, of the Commercial Code states that payment conditions must specify the applicable late-penalty rate and the flat recovery fee, and then adds the sentence foreign creditors should print above their desk: “Les pénalités de retard sont exigibles sans qu’un rappel soit nécessaire.” No reminder is needed. The same paragraph sets the default rate: “ce taux est égal au taux d’intérêt appliqué par la Banque centrale européenne à son opération de refinancement la plus récente majoré de 10 points de pourcentage.” The European Central Bank refinancing rate plus ten points, with the rate frozen per half-year by reference to 1 January and 1 July. Parties may agree another rate, but it cannot fall below three times the French legal interest rate. The Cour de cassation recalled this architecture on 24 April 2024 in case 22-24.275, holding that “les conditions de règlement doivent obligatoirement préciser les conditions d’application et le taux d’intérêt des pénalités de retard exigibles le jour suivant la date de règlement figurant sur la facture” and repeating that “Les pénalités de retard sont exigibles sans qu’un rappel soit nécessaire.” Read the full decision at Cass. com., 24 April 2024, No. 22-24.275. For a 20,000-euro invoice sixty days overdue when the ECB rate stands at 4 percent, the statutory penalty rate reaches 14 percent per year, which already exceeds 450 euros for two months before any fee or costs, and it keeps running until full payment.

On top of interest, every late-paying professional owes a flat fee. Article L. 441-10, II, of the Commercial Code continues: “Tout professionnel en situation de retard de paiement est de plein droit débiteur, à l’égard du créancier, d’une indemnité forfaitaire pour frais de recouvrement, dont le montant est fixé par décret.” The decree sets this indemnité forfaitaire at forty euros per unpaid invoice, due automatically, even to a creditor based abroad, even without a prior formal demand. When your proved recovery costs exceed forty euros, the same paragraph lets you claim “une indemnisation complémentaire, sur justification”: lawyer time, commissaire de justice fees, translation and bank charges, documented invoice by invoice. The only statutory block is insolvency: you cannot invoke these penalties and fees against a debtor protected by an open sauvegarde, redressement or liquidation that blocks payment of pre-filing claims at maturity. That exception is why speed matters: bill penalties early, before a fragile debtor files.

Debtors that systematically pay late face a second layer of risk that helps you negotiate. Article L. 441-16 of the Commercial Code punishes breach of the payment deadlines, missing mandatory wording on penalties, and non-compliant penalty rates with an administrative fine of up to 75,000 euros for an individual and two million euros for a company, doubled on repeat offending within two years. The fine is imposed by the administration, not paid to you, but mentioning it in a firm demand letter, with the exact reference, changes the tone of settlement talks with a French finance department. It signals that your file is not a polite reminder but a documented breach of a public-order regime, and public-order late-penalty rules cannot be waived by a weaker contract clause.

Translate this into a remote routine. From your office abroad, build a one-page penalty sheet per invoice: contract date, invoice date and number, contractual deadline, sums due excluding tax and including tax, ECB rate in force on 1 January or 1 July of the year, penalty rate applied, daily accrual, forty-euro fee, and proved extra costs. Attach the signed contract or accepted quote, the delivery slips or time sheets proving performance, the invoice showing the deadline and penalty wording, and your Kbis downloaded from the INPI company register portal. This pack becomes the exhibit bundle for the demand letter, the court application and the enforcement officer. Foreign founders who present a quantified, statute-based total recover faster than those who claim a round figure by email, because every later actor, from the debtor’s counsel to the judge, can verify the maths against the official text.

B. How do you send a demand that counts in France and stop the five-year clock when you live abroad?

A polite email from abroad does not create a mise en demeure (formal demand to pay). French civil law gives effect to a demand that clearly interpellates the debtor. Article 1344 of the Civil Code provides: “Le débiteur est mis en demeure de payer soit par une sommation ou un acte portant interpellation suffisante, soit, si le contrat le prévoit, par la seule exigibilité de l’obligation.” In plain English: the debtor is put on notice either by a formal summons or any act containing a sufficient demand, or, when the contract says so, by the mere arrival of the due date. For a foreign manager, the lesson is practical. Keep a contract clause that makes the due date itself the formal notice, but still send a written demand that states you require payment of a precise sum within a short deadline, lists each invoice, adds penalties and the forty-euro fee, and warns of court action and enforcement costs. Send it by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt or by a commissaire de justice, keep proof of sending and receipt, and write in French or bilingually so no debtor can claim misunderstanding.

Once a court orders payment, legal interest follows the judgment automatically. Article 1231-7 of the Civil Code states that a damages award bears interest at the legal rate even without a claim or a special provision in the judgment, running from pronouncement unless the judge decides otherwise, with detailed rules on appeal. Commercial late penalties under the Commercial Code and civil moratory interest do not always stack in the same way, and the 24 April 2024 decision above shows judges examine cumulation closely, but you should always claim both tracks in the alternative: contractual or statutory commercial penalties up to the judgment, then legal interest after, plus the flat fee and documented costs. Let the judge sort the articulation; your job from abroad is to put every head of loss on the table with its legal basis and maths.

Time limits reward early action. Article L. 110-4 of the Commercial Code provides: “Les obligations nées à l’occasion de leur commerce entre commerçants ou entre commerçants et non-commerçants se prescrivent par cinq ans si elles ne sont pas soumises à des prescriptions spéciales plus courtes.” Commercial payment claims between traders, or between a trader and a non-trader, expire after five years. Five years looks long, but foreign groups often discover old French receivables during an audit when evidence has faded and the debtor relies on prescription. Each formal recognition of the debt, each payment on account, and each court filing interrupts the period, but a simple unanswered reminder may not. Diarise every French invoice at ninety days overdue for a formal demand, at six months for a court filing decision, and never let a file sleep beyond a year without a documented act. Your French lawyer can interrupt prescription from abroad by filing, serving or obtaining acknowledgment without your presence in France.

Practical evidence is what wins French payment cases, which are won on paper. The service-public.fr guidance for businesses on invoice disputes and the impots.gouv.fr documentation on invoicing substance both stress the same trio: contract, performance, invoice. Keep the signed offer or framework agreement with payment terms, delivery notes countersigned by the customer, acceptance minutes, time sheets, email confirmations that the work was approved, the invoice with mandatory particulars, and the full correspondence showing the debtor never disputed quality or quantity. French judges distinguish sharply between a debtor who says the work was defective and one who simply does not pay. If your customer never complained in writing before you sued, say so and prove it by producing the complete thread. If the customer did complain, address the complaint now with a supplementary performance or a credit note rather than letting the court turn your payment order into a full trial on defective performance.

Two remote traps deserve attention. First, language and service: a demand sent only in English to a French small business, from a foreign email address, with no French address for reply, is easy to ignore and harder to enforce. Use your French company’s letterhead with its SIREN number (the nine-digit company identifier), the greffe of registration, and a French contact channel through your lawyer or accountant. Second, set-off: French debtors often answer that they owe nothing because they hold a counterclaim for alleged delay or defects. Your demand should require them to particularise any set-off within your deadline, with documents, failing which you will proceed on the full invoiced sum. This does not remove their rights, but it frames the later court application as a determined, undisputed claim rather than a confused account to be debated for a year.

II. How do you get a French enforceable order and the money without flying to France?

A. How do you obtain a French payment order (injonction de payer) from abroad with the tribunal and the greffe?

The injonction de payer is the workhorse for undisputed French invoices. Article 1405 of the Code of Civil Procedure opens the route in these terms: “Le recouvrement d’une créance peut être demandé suivant la procédure d’injonction de payer lorsque : 1° La créance a une cause contractuelle ou résulte d’une obligation de caractère statutaire et s’élève à un montant déterminé”. Your unpaid invoice qualifies when it arises from a contract, including through a penalty clause, or from bills of exchange, promissory notes and assigned receivables. The claim must be for a fixed amount, which is why your penalty sheet matters: principal, contractual or statutory penalties calculated to a date, forty-euro fee per invoice, and documented extra costs, totalled precisely. Interest accruing after filing can be claimed as a rate so the total stays determined.

Filing is a paper application, ideal for a remote owner. Article 1407 of the Code of Civil Procedure requires that “la requête contient l’indication précise du montant de la somme réclamée avec le décompte des différents éléments de la créance, le fondement de celle-ci ainsi que le bordereau des documents justificatifs produits à l’appui de la requête.” The petition states the exact sum with a breakdown of each element, the legal basis, and a list of supporting exhibits, and it is accompanied by those documents. Your French lawyer or authorised representative files the requête at the greffe of the competent court, the tribunal judiciaire (the general civil court) or, between businesses, the tribunal de commerce (the commercial court), by handing it over or sending it to the clerk. You sign a power of attorney abroad, you never attend. The judge examines the file without a hearing and either issues an ordonnance portant injonction de payer (payment order) or rejects it, in which case you can still sue on the merits through ordinary proceedings.

Service and opposition rules decide the real timeline. The order must be served by a commissaire de justice, who also advises on the address and on whether service was made à personne (personally to the debtor or its authorised representative) or not. Article 1416 of the Code of Civil Procedure sets the opposition window: “L’opposition est formée dans le mois qui suit la signification de l’ordonnance. Toutefois, si la signification n’a pas été faite à personne, l’opposition est recevable jusqu’à l’expiration du délai d’un mois suivant le premier acte signifié à personne ou, à défaut, suivant la première mesure d’exécution ayant pour effet de rendre indisponibles en tout ou partie les biens du débiteur.” The Cour de cassation applied this text on 6 March 2025 in case 22-18.166, a published Bulletin decision of the Second Civil Chamber, holding: “Selon l’article 1416 du code de procédure civile, l’opposition est formée dans le mois qui suit la signification de l’ordonnance. Toutefois, si la signification n’a pas été faite à personne, l’opposition est recevable jusqu’à l’expiration du délai d’un mois suivant le premier acte signifié à personne ou, à défaut, suivant la première mesure d’exécution ayant pour effet de rendre indisponibles en tout ou partie les biens du débiteur.” Read it at Cass. 2nd civ., 6 March 2025, No. 22-18.166. In that case a garnishment of a bank account counted as a seizure-based enforcement measure that started the extended opposition period, even though only a small credit balance was affected.

For a foreign owner this means you should budget for two scenarios. If the debtor does nothing within one month of personal service, your lawyer asks the greffe to affix the formule exécutoire (the enforcement formula) and the order becomes an enforceable title you can execute like a judgment. If the debtor files opposition in time, the case automatically continues as an ordinary lawsuit before the same court, with a hearing, exchanges of briefs and a full judgment. Opposition is not a defeat; it simply moves your well-documented file into adversarial proceedings where your penalty sheet and complete exhibits still lead. Many debtors file opposition only to gain time and then settle once they see counsel fees and the risk of an enforceable judgment with costs. Instruct your lawyer in advance: authority to negotiate within a range, instruction to seek provisional enforcement where available, and instruction to claim costs and the flat fee through to judgment.

Costs and jurisdiction stay proportionate. Court fees for the requête are modest, lawyer fees depend on the amount and on whether opposition follows, and commissaire de justice service and enforcement fees follow regulated tariffs plus documented disbursements you can claim back in part as costs. Jurisdiction between businesses usually lies with the tribunal de commerce of the debtor or of the contractually agreed place, subject to valid jurisdiction clauses that must be negotiated, not buried. Check your general terms now: a clear clause designating the tribunal de commerce of Paris or of your French company’s seat, accepted in writing by the customer, avoids a preliminary fight that a distant owner cannot afford. Without a valid clause, sue where the debtor is established or where delivery or performance occurred, and let your lawyer verify competence before filing so the greffe does not return the file.

B. How do you enforce, protect yourself if the debtor is insolvent, and use the European order when the debtor is in the EU?

An enforceable French order is only paper until a commissaire de justice converts it into money. Article L. 111-3 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures lists what counts as a titre exécutoire (enforceable title): “Seuls constituent des titres exécutoires : 1° Les décisions des juridictions de l’ordre judiciaire ou de l’ordre administratif lorsqu’elles ont force exécutoire”. A payment order with the enforcement formula, like a judgment, belongs to this list. With it, the commissaire de justice can serve a commandement de payer (order to pay under threat of enforcement), then seize: saisie-attribution (garnishment of bank accounts), saisie-vente (seizure and sale of tangible goods), or saisie des rémunérations through the employer in suitable cases. From abroad you do not organise this yourself: you give the commissaire the enforceable title, the debtor’s exact identity and address, bank details if you have them from prior transfers, and authority to investigate the debtor’s attachable assets within the legal framework. Ask for a written enforcement plan with costs, likely recovery rate and timing before the first seizure, and require immediate notice of any opposition, payment proposal or insolvency publication.

Speed matters because insolvency changes everything. If the debtor enters sauvegarde, redressement judiciaire or liquidation judiciaire, published at the BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, the official gazette where French insolvency openings are published), individual enforcement stops and you must declare your claim to the appointed mandataire within the statutory deadline. Miss the declaration and your powerful penalty sheet becomes an unfiled hope. Your lawyer should monitor the BODACC for each debtor above a threshold as soon as the demand is sent, and file a déclaration de créance (proof of claim) that includes principal, penalties to the opening date, the forty-euro fee and costs, with the contract and invoices attached. Penalties stop accruing after opening for most unsecured claims, which is another reason to file for a payment order early rather than waiting for a friendly promise that never comes.

When you sell goods, retention of title can save you where a mere claim would fail. Article L. 624-16 of the Commercial Code allows owners to reclaim goods found in kind when the debtor enters insolvency: “les biens vendus avec une clause de réserve de propriété” may be reclaimed where they still exist at the opening of the case, provided “Cette clause doit avoir été convenue entre les parties dans un écrit au plus tard au moment de la livraison.” The clause must have been agreed in writing no later than delivery, and it can sit in a framework document governing a run of sales. Foreign suppliers often rely on their home-country retention clause buried in English terms never accepted in writing before delivery in France. That fails. Put a French-language réserve de propriété clause in your signed French terms, repeat it on each delivery note and invoice, and keep written acceptance dated before or at delivery. Then, if the customer collapses, you can revendicate (reclaim) identifiable stock instead of queuing as an unsecured creditor, and even on fungible goods the statute allows recovery of goods of the same kind and quality found in the debtor’s hands.

When the debtor is established in another European Union country, add the European track to your thinking. Regulation 1896/2006 creating a European order for payment procedure lets a creditor seek an order that circulates across Member States on standard forms, alongside or instead of the French domestic injonction de payer. The French cross-border B2B article already on the firm’s .com site covers jurisdiction clauses and exhibit packs for that route, and you should link your strategy to it: valid choice-of-court terms, proof of the cross-border obligation, and translation of key exhibits. In practice, for a French company owned from abroad with a French debtor, the French domestic order remains faster and cheaper; for a French company with a German, Spanish, Italian or Dutch business debtor, the European order avoids a full foreign lawsuit. Your lawyer will choose the track by asking three questions: where is the debtor domiciled, what does the jurisdiction clause validly say, and in which country are attachable assets located. File where enforcement will bite, not where your holding company happens to sit.

Settlement from a distance works when it is structured like enforcement. Offer a short, dated payment plan only against security: first instalment within days by wire, acknowledgement of the full balance including penalties and fee, acceleration clause making the whole sum due on any missed instalment, and, for larger sums, a garantie such as a parent-company guarantee, a bank guarantee, or a notarised acknowledgement that can support faster enforcement. Never suspend a pending court deadline without a signed agreement and a formal stay. Record every call in a confirming email, keep time-zone-proof written traces, and authorise your French counsel to sign only within a mandate you define in advance. Debtors respect distant creditors who behave like local ones: precise sums, short deadlines, documented consequences, and a commissaire de justice already instructed.

Conclusion

A French unpaid invoice managed from abroad is recovered by method, not by presence. Put compliant payment terms on every contract and invoice, quantify ECB-plus-ten penalties with the forty-euro fee per invoice from the day after maturity, send a French-language formal demand that satisfies civil-law notice, file a complete injonction de payer petition at the right greffe through a mandated lawyer, serve through a commissaire de justice, and enforce with a funded plan while monitoring the BODACC for insolvency. Each step draws on a verifiable official source, from the Commercial Code deadlines and penalties to the Civil Code demand rule, the five-year prescription, the payment-order and opposition articles, the enforceable-title list and the retention-of-title safeguard, as interpreted by the Cour de cassation in 2024 on penalties and in 2025 on opposition after non-personal service. Owners who run this chain early collect interest, fees and costs on top of principal; owners who wait, negotiate informally and let limitation or insolvency overtake them pay twice. If one French customer has just missed a deadline, open the penalty sheet this week, send the formal demand next week, and put your lawyer in a position to file within the quarter. Your French company will look, to every debtor and every judge, like what it is: a local creditor that happens to have a foreign owner.

Need a quick opinion on your case

If a French customer has stopped paying your French company while you run it from abroad, do not wait for the debt to age. Our firm offers a phone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm: phone consultation billed at 80 EUR including tax, first case analysis billed at 80 EUR including tax, precise amounts, deadlines and next filing explained in English. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write via our contact page with your invoice, contract and reminder history. We file payment orders, handle oppositions, instruct the commissaire de justice for enforcement, declare claims in insolvency and secure settlement plans for foreign owners of French companies.