You have the keys to a stone house outside Bergerac, a removal van booked from Kent, and one problem that threatens the whole move: no French bank will open an account for you. The first branch asks for a French tax notice you do not yet have. The second wants a utility bill in your name. The third takes your file, smiles, and never calls back. Without a French current account, the compte courant, meaning the everyday bank account used for income, bills and card payments, you cannot easily pay the electricity supplier, set up the direct debits for the taxe foncière, meaning the annual property tax billed to the owner, receive a French salary or pension, or hand the letting agent the bank details, the relevé d’identité bancaire, meaning the printed slip showing your account numbers for transfers and direct debits, that every landlord demands. For British residents arriving after Brexit, this refusal often feels like discrimination against foreigners. Usually it is something more technical: the branch applies its standard checklist, your file looks unfamiliar, and the adviser shelves it rather than deciding. French law gives you an answer that English law does not. A person with no deposit account in France who is refused by the bank of their choice can call on the Banque de France, the French central bank, to order a bank to open one. That procedure is called the droit au compte, meaning the statutory right to an account, and it works for British nationals who are genuinely settled in France. It does not work for everyone, it demands precise papers, and the deadlines are short. This guide explains who qualifies after Brexit, which documents unlock the file, how the Banque de France designation forces a bank to act, and what to do when a bank closes an account you already hold.
I. Can a French Bank Refuse to Open an Account for a British Resident After Brexit?
A. Who Qualifies for the Right to an Account After Brexit and Why a Holiday Home Is Not Enough
Brexit changed the legal starting point, and honesty about that change saves months of wasted applications. Before 2021, a British citizen could rely on European Union movement rules alongside French domestic law. Since the end of the transition period, a British national is a third-country national in France, which means the European limb of the right to an account no longer helps someone living in Britain. The French statute itself draws the boundary. Article L. 312-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code opens with the promise: “A droit à l’ouverture d’un compte de dépôt dans l’établissement de crédit de son choix, sous réserve d’être dépourvu d’un tel compte en France : 1° Toute personne physique ou morale domiciliée en France ; 2° Toute personne physique résidant légalement sur le territoire d’un autre Etat membre de l’Union européenne n’agissant pas pour des besoins professionnels ainsi que toute personne physique de nationalité française résidant hors de France.” Three doors exist, and only the first is open to most British readers. The second door covers people legally resident in another European Union Member State, and the United Kingdom is no longer one. The third covers French nationals living abroad. A British citizen living in Manchester who owns a holiday cottage near Sarlat passes through none of these doors, while a British citizen whose real home is in France passes through the first, whatever their passport says.
The decisive word is domiciliée, meaning settled with your principal establishment in France, which is narrower than merely owning French property and wider than holding a particular residence permit. French civil law treats domicile, meaning the place of your principal establishment where your life is centred, as a question of fact: where you actually and stably live, where your family lives, where you pay your household bills, where your children go to school. A British retiree who lives eleven months a year in the Dordogne, is registered with the local doctor, and files a French tax return is domiciled in France even if the neighbours still call the house the English cottage. A British owner who spends three weeks each summer in the Luberon villa and lives the rest of the year in Surrey is not, even though the villa is worth far more. The Banque de France says this expressly in its published refusal grounds: a designated bank may lawfully decline where the French domiciliation criteria are not met, giving as its example an applicant who is not French and whose only French property is a holiday home. That example deserves slow reading. A résidence secondaire, meaning a second or holiday home as opposed to the main dwelling, the résidence principale, does not create the link the statute requires. If your only French footprint is a holiday home, the right-to-an-account procedure will fail, and you must know that before you file, because a failed designation costs weeks while the electricity bills and the French tax deadlines keep running.
Readers in that second-home position still have practical routes, but they are commercial rather than statutory, so expectations must be adjusted. Some French banks open non-resident accounts, the compte non-résident, meaning an account held by a person whose tax residence and domicile are outside France, as a matter of business policy, particularly where the client already holds a mortgage, the prêt immobilier, meaning a loan secured on French property, with the same group. Online banks and payment institutions licensed in the European Union can also serve non-residents, though their acceptance policies vary and their customer service is rarely built for cross-border files. What helps in every case is arriving with a file that answers the bank’s two silent questions, which are who you are and where you really live, rather than arguing about discrimination at the counter. Keep the refusal letter whenever one is issued, because even outside the statutory procedure it proves the steps you took and starts limitation periods running for any complaint. For the settled resident, by contrast, the statute is a genuine weapon, and the rest of this guide shows how to load it. The promise of the first paragraph of article L. 312-1 is addressed to you by name if you live in France, and the bank that tells you otherwise is either mistaken or testing whether you know the text.
One further condition applies to everyone and causes quiet failures: you must hold no deposit account in France already. The statute grants the right only on condition of holding no deposit account in France, so a dormant Livret A forgotten from a student exchange year, a joint account still open with a former partner, or an account you thought closed but never formally terminated can sink the application. Before filing, list every account you have ever held in France, write to close the ones you no longer use, and keep the closure confirmations. The sworn statement the Banque de France requires, the attestation sur l’honneur, meaning a signed declaration on your honour that a stated fact is true, will ask you to confirm that you hold none, and a false declaration exposes you to the closure of the designated account later. Joint accounts need care: holding a joint account does not always block an individual application, but the position depends on the exact wording of the statute in force, so declare the joint account openly in your file rather than hiding it. Banks check the national account files, and a surprise discovered by the bank reads as dishonesty even when it was forgetfulness.
B. The Papers to Show the Bank and the Written Refusal You Must Demand
Banks refuse unfamiliar files far more often than they refuse ineligible people, and the difference between the two is usually a folder of papers. French banks labour under anti-money-laundering duties that carry criminal penalties for the staff who sign off, so the adviser facing a British passport, a Kent address history and a French utility bill in a different surname is not being awkward when they ask for more proof. They are protecting themselves. Article L. 561-5 of the Monetary and Financial Code states the duty without ambiguity: “Avant d’entrer en relation d’affaires avec leur client ou de l’assister dans la préparation ou la réalisation d’une transaction, les personnes mentionnées à l’article L. 561-2 : 1° Identifient leur client et, le cas échéant, le bénéficiaire effectif au sens de l’article L. 561-2-2 ; 2° Vérifient ces éléments d’identification sur présentation de tout document écrit à caractère probant.” Identification plus verification on the basis of any written document of probative value: that is the whole rule, and your file should satisfy it before the adviser has to ask. Where the bank cannot satisfy these duties, the statute orders it to walk away. Article L. 561-8 of the same code provides: “Lorsqu’une personne mentionnée à l’article L. 561-2 n’est pas en mesure de satisfaire aux obligations prévues à l’article L. 561-5 ou à l’article L. 561-5-1 , elle n’exécute aucune opération, quelles qu’en soient les modalités, n’établit ni ne poursuit aucune relation d’affaires”. A refusal grounded in missing or unverifiable identity documents is therefore lawful, and challenging it is pointless. The winning strategy is to leave the bank no such ground.
Build the file around three blocks: identity, address, and right to live in France. For identity, a valid British passport is expressly accepted: the service-public.fr guidance lists a valid French or foreign identity document among the required papers, and a current United Kingdom passport with the machine-readable zone satisfies any reasonable reading of that line. Add the French residence permit where you hold one, whether the Withdrawal Agreement card, the carte de séjour accord de retrait, meaning the residence card issued to British beneficiaries of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, or a multi-year general card. The permit is not strictly demanded by the account-opening rules, but in practice it dissolves half the suspicion, because it proves the préfecture, meaning the State authority in the département that issues residence papers, has already verified who you are and that your presence is lawful. For address, the same official guidance requires proof of residence, giving as examples a recent water or telephone bill, a recent rent receipt, or the title deed to the main home. Note the three-month freshness rule and the emphasis on the principal residence. A British newcomer who has just completed a purchase should bring the signed authentic deed, the acte authentique, meaning the conveyancing deed drawn up by the notaire, meaning the public officer who handles French property transfers, together with the first utility bill, even an interim one, and the home insurance certificate, the attestation d’assurance logement, meaning the certificate proving the dwelling is insured, which French buyers receive within days. A tenant should bring the lease, the last three rent receipts and the inventory of fixtures. A person housed by family or friends should bring the host’s signed statement confirming residence, the attestation d’hébergement, meaning the written statement by which the occupier certifies that you live at their address, with a copy of the host’s identity document and a recent bill in the host’s name. Present originals plus one full set of photocopies, numbered and listed on a cover page, and the file stops looking foreign and starts looking serious.
The third block proves the negative: that you hold no other deposit account in France. Prepare a short sworn statement in French declaring that you hold no personal or professional deposit account in France, or identifying the account under notice of closure with a copy of the closure letter. The Banque de France procedure requires this declaration, and producing it at the first appointment signals that you know the procedure exists, which changes the adviser’s behaviour. Bring also your most recent French tax notice if you have one, or the file number of your first return, plus evidence of the income the account will receive: the employment contract, the pension award letters, the rental management mandate. None of these is demanded by statute, but each answers the unspoken question behind every refusal, which is whether this account will actually be used normally. File the whole set by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, the lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception, meaning the tracked postal service that proves delivery and starts time running, addressed to the branch manager, and keep the receipt stapled to your copy. A personal visit followed by a registered letter is the combination that works: the visit creates goodwill, the letter creates proof.
When the answer is no, your first victory is to get that no in writing. A bank may lawfully refuse to open an account; what it may not do is refuse without trace. The statute obliges the refusing bank to hand you a refusal statement, the attestation de refus d’ouverture de compte, meaning the standard-form certificate by which the bank records that it declined your application, and to tell you that you can ask the Banque de France to designate a bank for you. It may also transmit your designation request itself if you ask it to. Demand the statement politely at the counter, and if the adviser claims no such document exists, follow up the same day by registered letter requesting it. Silence also counts: where the bank gives no answer within fifteen days of receiving your complete application, the silence is treated as a refusal, and the acknowledgement slip for your registered letter, once older than fifteen days, serves as the refusal proof in your Banque de France file. The official guidance confirms the file may rest on the refusal letter or, failing that, on the registered-letter receipt or hand-delivery proof once more than fifteen days old. Never accept a purely oral refusal and walk away with nothing. Without a written refusal or a dated proof of deposit, the designation machinery cannot start, and the weeks you spend arguing at counters are weeks the procedure could have been running.
II. Refused an Account in France? How to Force a Bank to Open One and How to Challenge a Closure
A. The Banque de France Designation: One Working Day, Six Months and Three Days
The designation procedure is the sharp end of the right to an account, and its timetable is its power. Once you hold a written refusal or a fifteen-day-old proof of deposit, you can seize the Banque de France, the saisine de la Banque de France, meaning the formal referral asking the central bank to appoint a bank that must take you on. Article L. 312-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code states the mechanism in the third paragraph of the article: “En cas de refus de la part de l’établissement choisi d’ouvrir un tel compte à l’une des personnes mentionnées au I, celle-ci peut saisir la Banque de France afin qu’elle lui désigne un établissement de crédit situé à proximité de son domicile ou d’un autre lieu de son choix, en prenant en considération les parts de marché de chaque établissement concerné, dans un délai d’un jour ouvré à compter de la réception des pièces requises définies par arrêté.” Three features matter enormously. First, you may ask for a bank near your home or near any other place you choose, which helps the British commuter working in Paris but living in the Yvelines, or the parent who wants the branch beside the school. Second, the Banque de France spreads designations across banks according to market share, so no single network bears the whole burden and no bank can claim saturation as an excuse. Third, the decision comes within one working day of receipt of the complete file, which makes this one of the fastest administrative procedures in French law. The bank thus designated must then open the account quickly: the same article continues, “Ils procèdent à l’ouverture du compte de dépôt dans les trois jours ouvrés à compter de la réception de l’ensemble des pièces qui lui sont nécessaires à cet effet.” Three working days from the complete papers to an open account is the statutory promise, and branches that miss it know the central bank is watching.
Filing is deliberately simple, and three channels exist. The online channel runs through the Banque de France reception portal with a FranceConnect login, where you complete the account-right form, upload identity, address proof, the refusal evidence and the sworn statement of no account, and track the file in a personal space. The assisted channel asks the bank that refused you to transmit the request itself, which costs you nothing extra and obliges the refusing branch to do the paperwork, a duty many advisers will not mention unless asked. The supported channel lets a social-action body, a family association or an approved consumer association file on your behalf, which helps elderly applicants and those uneasy in French. Whichever channel you use, the file the Banque de France publishes as required contains the application form, valid identity, proof of address, the refusal letter or the fifteen-day-old deposit proof, and the sworn statement. Send complete papers once rather than drips of documents twice, because the one-day clock runs only from receipt of the complete file, and every missing page restarts the waiting. When the designation arrives, read its date immediately: the designation letter is valid for six months, and if you approach the designated bank after expiry it may lawfully turn you away for lapse of the letter, the caducité, meaning the loss of legal effect through expiry of the time limit. Diary the deadline, contact the named branch within days, and bring the full paper file again, because the designated bank still performs its identity checks before opening.
The account you receive is not a favour but a defined product: basic banking services, the services bancaires de base, meaning the statutory minimum package every designated account must include. Article D. 312-5 of the Monetary and Financial Code lists the contents: “Les prestations de base mentionnées au II de l’article L. 312-1 comprennent : 1° L’ouverture, la tenue et la clôture du compte ; 2° Un changement d’adresse par an ; 3° La délivrance à la demande de relevés d’identité bancaire ; 4° La domiciliation de virements bancaires ; 5° La fourniture mensuelle d’un relevé des opérations effectuées sur le compte ; 6° L’encaissement de chèques et de virements bancaires ; 7° Les paiements par prélèvements SEPA, titre interbancaire de paiement SEPA ou par virement bancaire SEPA, ce dernier pouvant être réalisé aux guichets ou à distance ; 8° Des moyens de consultation à distance du solde du compte ; 9° Les dépôts et les retraits d’espèces au guichet ou aux distributeurs automatiques de l’organisme teneur de compte ; 10° Une carte de paiement permettant notamment le paiement d’opérations sur internet et le retrait d’espèces dans l’Union européenne.” In plain terms, you get account opening, running and closure, bank-identity slips on demand, incoming transfers and cheques, SEPA direct debits and transfers, remote balance access, cash in and out, and a systematically authorised payment card that works online and for cash across the European Union. What you do not automatically get is an overdraft, a chequebook or a premium card, and asking insistently for those at the opening appointment poisons a relationship that starts under constraint. The tariff side is capped for fragile customers: Article L. 312-1-3 of the Monetary and Financial Code provides that “Les commissions perçues par un établissement de crédit à raison du traitement des irrégularités de fonctionnement d’un compte bancaire sont plafonnées, par mois et par opération, pour les personnes physiques n’agissant pas pour des besoins professionnels”, and Article R. 312-4-1 of the same code fixes the ceiling: “Les commissions perçues par les établissements de crédit, mentionnées à la première phrase de l’article L. 312-1-3 du code monétaire et financier ne peuvent dépasser par compte bancaire un montant de 8 euros par opération et de 80 euros par mois.” Keep those figures in the file: a designated account that suddenly bleeds charges deserves a written challenge, not resignation. Finally, the relationship must be set down in writing. Article L. 312-1-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code requires that “Les établissements de crédit sont tenus de mettre à la disposition, sur support papier ou sur un autre support durable, de leur clientèle et du public les conditions générales et tarifaires applicables aux opérations relatives à la gestion d’un compte de dépôt, selon des modalités fixées par un arrêté du ministre chargé de l’économie.” Read the account agreement, the convention de compte, meaning the written contract governing the running of the account, before signing, and check in particular the notice clause, the tariff pages and the mediation clause, because those three paragraphs decide every future dispute.
B. When the Bank Closes Your Account: Notice Periods, Lawful Reasons and the Banking Mediator
Refusal at opening is only half the battlefield. The other half is closure of an account you already use, which arrives by letter, usually at the worst moment, and often in language that explains nothing. Two different regimes govern, and confusing them loses cases. For an ordinary account opened by mutual agreement, the contract is normally open-ended, and open-ended contracts can be ended by either side subject to notice. Article 1211 of the Civil Code states the background rule: “Lorsque le contrat est conclu pour une durée indéterminée, chaque partie peut y mettre fin à tout moment, sous réserve de respecter le délai de préavis contractuellement prévu ou, à défaut, un délai raisonnable.” The account agreement therefore decides first: read the notice clause, typically thirty or sixty days, and count whether the bank honoured it. Where the agreement is silent, the bank must still give reasonable notice, the délai raisonnable, meaning the period a fair bank allows the client to move direct debits, salary payments and standing orders elsewhere, assessed against the client’s situation. A closure without any notice, or with a notice so short that transfers bounce and the electricity supplier suspends the contract, can constitute a fault engaging the bank’s liability, and the client’s loss, meaning proved financial harm such as rejected-payment fees, emergency borrowing costs or a lost transaction, can be claimed before the civil courts. Keep the closure letter, the envelope with its postmark, and the statements showing the bounced operations, because the whole claim turns on dates. A British client who has just moved, whose French is hesitant and whose salary lands on the fifth of the month, is exactly the profile for whom a brutal closure causes the greatest harm, and judges assess reasonableness against the real situation of the account holder, not an abstract model customer.
Designated accounts enjoy stronger armour. Because the bank was ordered to take the client on, it cannot discard the client at will afterwards. Article L. 312-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code locks the exits: “L’établissement de crédit ne peut résilier unilatéralement la convention de compte de dépôt assorti des services bancaires de base, ouvert en application du III, que si l’une au moins des conditions suivantes est remplie”. The listed conditions cover deliberate use of the account for operations the bank has reason to suspect serve unlawful ends, false information given by the client, loss of the domicile or residence condition, the later opening of a second account providing basic services, repeated rudeness towards staff, and the anti-money-laundering situations of article L. 561-8. Outside those cases, closure is simply forbidden, and even inside them the bank must write a reasoned letter, inform the Banque de France, and, crucially, respect time: “Un délai minimum de deux mois de préavis est octroyé au titulaire du compte, sauf dans les cas mentionnés au 1° et au 2°.” Two months minimum, except where the client used the account for suspected unlawful operations or supplied false information. A designated-account holder who receives a closure letter should therefore test it against three questions: does the stated reason appear in the statutory list, is the letter reasoned in writing, and does it grant the two months. A letter that invokes vague commercial grounds, that gives no reason, or that closes within days, fails the test, and the challenge writes itself.
The courts have already drawn the line on pretext closures of designated accounts. In a ruling that every practitioner cites, the Commercial Chamber of the Court of Cassation examined a bank that had closed a designated account on suspicion of unlawful use. Judgment of the Commercial, Financial and Economic Chamber of the Court of Cassation of 30 June 2021, appeal No. 19-14.313 holds: “Il résulte de ce texte que l’établissement de crédit peut résilier unilatéralement la convention de compte assorti des services bancaires de base, ouvert en application du droit au compte, lorsque le client a délibérément utilisé son compte pour des opérations que l’organisme a des raisons de soupçonner comme poursuivant des fins illégales, auquel cas il est dispensé de lui accorder un préavis.” The court then quashed the appeal judgment for accepting the bank’s reasoning too easily, ruling that the lower court had given no legal basis for its decision where it had failed to verify, in light of the circumstances the bank itself invoked, whether deliberate use for suspect operations was truly established. The lesson for British account holders is direct: suspicion is not a magic word. The bank must point to concrete operations, explain why they look unlawful, and connect them to your deliberate conduct. A transfer from a British pension provider, a deposit of sale proceeds from a Kent conveyance, or payments to a building contractor in France are ordinary cross-border movements, not indicia of wrongdoing, and a closure letter that treats them as suspect without explanation is vulnerable. Answer any suspicion letter in writing within days, attach the source documents for the funds, and keep copies, because the paper you create at that stage becomes the evidence the mediator and then the judge will read.
The challenge ladder starts softly and climbs firmly. First, write to the branch by registered letter: recall the account agreement’s notice clause or the two-month statutory period, attach the missing documents if identity or address was the pretext, and set a short deadline for reinstatement or a reasoned explanation. Second, seize the banking mediator, the médiateur bancaire, meaning the independent ombudsman each bank must appoint for consumer disputes, whose details appear in the account agreement and on the bank’s website. Article L. 316-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code gives every consumer the right to refer consumer disputes with a bank to a mediator under the Consumer Code procedure, and mediation suspends nothing but often unlocks files that letters alone cannot move. Third, report serious misconduct to the banking supervisor, the Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution, meaning the authority attached to the Banque de France that supervises banks and can sanction breaches of the account-access charter. Fourth, bring the claim before the tribunal judiciaire, meaning the ordinary civil court with jurisdiction over banking disputes, seeking a declaration that the closure was irregular and damages for the loss suffered. For a designated account closed outside the statutory cases, ask the court to draw the consequences of the prohibition itself. Throughout, never empty the account in anger before the dispute is resolved, never cancel the direct debits that prove normal use, and never ignore a suspicion letter: silence in the face of an anti-money-laundering query is the one behaviour that turns a weak bank file into a strong one.
Conclusion
A French bank can say no to a British applicant, but after that no, French law organises everything that follows, and the organised path favours the prepared. Check first that you are genuinely domiciled in France, because the holiday-home file will fail and the energy is better spent on a commercial non-resident solution. Build the three-block file of identity, address and no-account declaration, send it by registered letter, and extract either an opening or a written refusal, remembering that fifteen days of silence counts as refusal. Refer the refusal to the Banque de France without delay, watch the one-day designation, the six-month validity and the three-day opening, and read the basic-services list and the charge ceilings before signing the agreement. If the bank later moves to close the account, test the letter against the notice clause or the two-month statutory shield, demand concrete reasons rather than suspicion in the abstract, invoke the mediator, and litigate where the loss justifies it. The British move to France survives on papers kept in order and deadlines counted in days, and the account file is the first of them.
Need a quick opinion on your case
If a French bank has refused to open an account for you, or has closed the account you use for your house, your bills or your pension, our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm to review your refusal letter, your designation file or your closure notice. First telephone consultation: 80 EUR including VAT. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22, or write via our contact page with your refusal or closure letter and the date you received it.