You run your French company from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, and the Paris office or shop suddenly becomes a problem: the landlord sends a renewal offer with a rent increase of forty percent, serves a formal notice to pay, or refuses to renew the lease when the nine years end. From another country, every French deadline looks short and every letter from a commissaire de justice, the reformed title of the huissier or bailiff, reads like an emergency. This guide answers the exact questions foreign directors type into a search engine at that moment: can a company owned and managed from abroad sign a French commercial lease, what does the famous 3-6-9 really oblige you to, how much will the deposit, the guarantee, the charges and the three-year rent revision really cost, how do you keep the premises or contest the new rent at renewal, and how do you react to a termination notice or leave early without flying to Paris. Every decisive statement below is tied to the exact text of the Commercial Code on Légifrance, to three published decisions of the Cour de cassation, the highest French civil court, and to the official enterprise portal of the French administration. If you are starting from zero, read first our complete setting-up guide, Setting Up a Company in France as a Foreign Founder: Bank Account, Kbis, VAT and Your First Hire, which walks you through the corporate bank account, the Kbis company identity extract, VAT registration and the first hire step by step.

I. Can a Company Owned From Abroad Sign a French 3-6-9 Lease, and What Does It Really Cost While It Runs

A. Can a Foreign-Owned Company Sign a 3-6-9 Lease in France, and What Do the Nine Years, the Three-Year Break and the Short Lease Mean

Yes. A French company held by shareholders who live abroad signs a commercial lease exactly like a company held by residents, provided the company itself is registered in France. The lease statute applies to premises where a business, called a fonds de commerce, is operated by a trader or industrial company registered with the RCS, the registre du commerce et des sociétés or trade and companies register: “Les dispositions du présent chapitre s’appliquent aux baux des immeubles ou locaux dans lesquels un fonds est exploité, que ce fonds appartienne, soit à un commerçant ou à un industriel immatriculé au registre du commerce et des sociétés”. In practice the landlord will ask for one document before handing over the keys: the Kbis extract, the official identity card of the company issued by the greffe, the registry office of the commercial court, which proves the registration and states the registered office. Since 1 January 2023 every registration, transfer of registered office and amendment passes through the guichet unique, the single online formalities portal run by the INPI, the Institut national de la propriété industrielle. A company still waiting for its Kbis can sign a lease for premises that will become its registered office, but it only enjoys the full protection of the lease statute once the registration is effective, so align the signature date, the filing on the portal and the rent start date in writing. Our guide for founders blocked at the bank stage, The French Bank Said No to Your Company Account and You Live Abroad: Deposit the Capital, Get Your Kbis and Force the Account Open, explains how to unblock the capital deposit certificate that conditions that Kbis.

The standard French commercial lease lasts nine years minimum, which is why practitioners call it a 3-6-9 lease. The tenant, and only the tenant in the ordinary case, may walk away at the end of each three-year period with at least six months notice: “La durée du contrat de location ne peut être inférieure à neuf ans. Toutefois, le preneur a la faculté de donner congé à l’expiration d’une période triennale, au moins six mois à l’avance, par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception ou par acte extrajudiciaire.” The landlord cannot terminate at three or six years except to rebuild, redevelop or carry out ordered restoration works, and even then only in the forms and time limits of the statute. Three practical consequences follow for a director who lives abroad. First, the nine years bind the company, not you personally, unless you signed a personal guarantee, so read the guarantee clause before the rent clause. Second, each three-year exit requires a formal notice served on time: a late letter means three more years of rent, and French courts apply the six months strictly. Third, a lease of premises used exclusively as offices, or a lease longer than nine years, may lawfully contain contrary terms, which is why office leases in Paris business districts often look different from shop leases on a high street.

When you only need premises for a test phase, the parties may opt out of the whole statute at move-in, but only for a total duration of three years or less: “Les parties peuvent, lors de l’entrée dans les lieux du preneur, déroger aux dispositions du présent chapitre à la condition que la durée totale du bail ou des baux successifs ne soit pas supérieure à trois ans.” This short-term arrangement is called a bail dérogatoire. It offers flexibility and no automatic right to renewal, which suits a foreign group testing the French market. The trap is at the end: if the tenant stays on and the landlord lets it stay past the one-month window after expiry, or if the parties expressly renew or sign a new lease for the same premises, a brand-new lease governed by the full statute is created, with nine years and a right to renewal. Foreign founders who chain two short leases for the same shop therefore wake up one day holding a 3-6-9 lease they never negotiated. If the test succeeds, plan the conversion deliberately; if it fails, leave on time and document the handover with a joint inventory of condition, called état des lieux, with photographs.

Signing from abroad adds three formalities that domestic tenants never think about. The signatory must have authority: the president of a SAS, the gérant or manager of a SARL, or a holder of a written power of attorney whose signature the landlord can verify. Powers signed abroad sometimes need a certified translation and, depending on the country, an apostille, so ask the landlord or the notary early rather than the day before the handover. The lease file must annex the energy performance file, the DPE or diagnostic de performance énergétique, plus the technical surveys on asbestos, lead and natural risks where the building requires them; a missing annex does not cancel the lease but exposes the landlord and complicates any later dispute about works. Finally, distinguish the registered office from the operating premises: a domiciliation contract at a business centre gives the company an address on its Kbis cheaply, but it is not a commercial lease and gives no right to renewal, while the shop or office where staff actually work needs the real lease described here. Put the correct address on the Kbis from day one, because suppliers, the tax office and URSSAF, the French social security collection agency, all write to that address.

B. How Much Will the Deposit, the Parent Guarantee, the Charges and the Three-Year Rent Revision Really Cost a Foreign Company

The headline rent is only the first line of the bill. Paris landlords routinely demand a security deposit, called dépôt de garantie, equal to one quarter or even two quarters of annual rent, and unlike residential leases no statute caps it for commercial premises, so the amount is whatever the negotiation produces. Add the parent-company guarantee, the garantie de la maison mère, which French landlords almost always require from a newly created subsidiary whose shareholder sits in London, New York or Dubai: the foreign parent promises to pay if the French company defaults, sometimes as a simple guarantee, sometimes as an on-first-demand guarantee that the landlord can call without suing the tenant first. Have the wording reviewed before signature, because an on-first-demand text governed by French law can oblige the parent to pay within days while it argues about the merits later. A bank guarantee for the same amount is the usual alternative when the parent refuses to commit, but French banks issue it only against frozen cash or a counter-guarantee, which brings the foreign founder back to the corporate account problem described in our setting-up guide.

Running costs split into three layers that foreign directors constantly confuse. The service charges, or charges locatives, cover the maintenance of common areas, the lift, heating, cleaning and the property manager’s fees; the lease lists them, the landlord calls quarterly provisions and reconciles once a year, and the tenant has the right to check the supporting documents. The property tax, or taxe foncière, is legally owed by the owner, but nearly every commercial lease passes it to the tenant by an express clause, with the business premises tax, the CFE or cotisation foncière des entreprises, billed separately to the company by the tax office on the impots.gouv.fr portal. Major structural works governed by article 606 of the Civil Code stay in principle with the owner, while day-to-day upkeep and minor repairs fall to the tenant, yet most modern leases redistribute the burden by detailed clauses, so the works article deserves the same attention as the rent article. Ask for the last three years of charges and tax bills before signing; a rent that looks cheap with heavy charges costs more than a higher rent with light ones.

The rent moves during the lease through two different mechanisms, and confusing them costs money. The annual indexation clause follows a published index, the ILC or indice des loyers commerciaux for shops and commercial premises, or the ILAT or indice des loyers des activités tertiaires for offices and service activities; it applies automatically on the agreed anniversary and nobody needs to go to court. The three-year revision is different: either party may demand it at least three years after the tenant took possession or after the renewed lease started, and the new rent takes effect from the date of the demand: “La demande en révision ne peut être formée que trois ans au moins après la date d’entrée en jouissance du locataire ou après le point de départ du bail renouvelé. La révision du loyer prend effet à compter de la date de la demande en révision.” The increase or decrease from a three-year revision cannot exceed the movement of the ILC or ILAT index, unless the landlord or the tenant proves a material change in local commerciality factors that moved the rental value by more than ten percent by itself. In plain terms, the index protects both sides against inflation, while only a genuine transformation of the neighbourhood, new transport, a pedestrianised street, a competing shopping centre, can break the ceiling. Serve the revision demand by bailiff act from abroad through your lawyer, because the effective date of the new rent is the date of that demand, and each month of delay is a month of old rent lost or a month of inflated rent paid.

Two money traps deserve an early warning for absent directors. The penalty clause for late payment, often ten percent of the sums due plus monthly interest, runs automatically once the commandement to pay expires, and it accumulates while the director organises the transfer from abroad. And the joint-and-several clause between co-tenants or between the company and its manager means the landlord can pursue either debtor for the whole arrears, which matters when the French subsidiary shares premises with a sister company or when the founder signed the lease in his own name before the company was registered and never substituted the company properly. Keep one reflex: every euro the premises cost, rent, deposit, guarantee, charges, property tax, CFE and revision uplift, should appear in the annual budget approved with the accounts, because the yearly approval cycle described in Your French Company Has a Legal Calendar: Approve Accounts, Hold the Meeting and File From Abroad is where an absent director actually sees the French cost base once a year.

II. What Happens When the Rent Jumps at Renewal, the Landlord Refuses to Renew, or Serves a Termination Notice While You Live Abroad

A. How Do You Keep the Premises at Nine Years, Contest a Rent Increase, or Get Paid to Leave When the Landlord Refuses Renewal

At the end of the nine years the lease does not simply stop. It ends only through a notice to quit served six months in advance or through a renewal demand, and without either step a written lease continues silently on the same terms: “Par dérogation aux articles 1736 et 1737 du code civil, les baux de locaux soumis au présent chapitre ne cessent que par l’effet d’un congé donné six mois à l’avance ou d’une demande de renouvellement. A défaut de congé ou de demande de renouvellement, le bail fait par écrit se prolonge tacitement au-delà du terme fixé par le contrat.” During that silent extension, called tacite prolongation, either party may still serve notice at least six months ahead for the last day of a calendar quarter. The tenant’s right to renewal then depends on one condition that surprises foreign groups: only the owner of the business operated on the premises can claim it, and the business must have been effectively operated during the three years before expiry, legitimate reasons for closure apart: “Le droit au renouvellement du bail ne peut être invoqué que par le propriétaire du fonds qui est exploité dans les lieux”, with effective operation over the prior three years required. A subsidiary kept alive on paper with no real activity in the shop risks losing the renewal right entirely, and the landlord’s lawyers check activity, staff and tax filings before answering.

When renewal is accepted in principle, the fight moves to the price. Renewed or revised rents must match the rental value, determined by five statutory criteria: “Le montant des loyers des baux renouvelés ou révisés doit correspondre à la valeur locative. A défaut d’accord, cette valeur est déterminée d’après : 1 Les caractéristiques du local considéré ; 2 La destination des lieux ; 3 Les obligations respectives des parties ; 4 Les facteurs locaux de commercialité ; 5 Les prix couramment pratiqués dans le voisinage”. A government decree details each factor. The starting rule is the cap, called plafonnement: the renewed rent cannot exceed the old rent adjusted by the index movement since it was set, which protects the sitting tenant against a sudden doubling. The exception is uncapping, or déplafonnement, available when local commerciality factors changed notably during the expired lease with a favourable effect on the activity actually carried on in the premises. The Cour de cassation states the test this way: “la modification notable des facteurs locaux de commercialité constitue un motif de déplafonnement du prix du bail renouvelé si elle est de nature à avoir une incidence favorable sur l’activité commerciale effectivement exercée par le locataire, indépendamment de son incidence effective et réelle sur le commerce exploité dans les locaux.” (Third civil chamber, 18 September 2025, appeal no. 24-13.288). Note the last words: the landlord need not prove the tenant actually earned more, only that the change was capable of helping the business. A terrace extension granted by the municipality that develops the business can therefore uncap the rent, as the same chamber held for a restaurant-bar whose extended terrace on public land the expert valued at a ten to fifteen percent uplift: “la valeur locative est déterminée notamment au regard des facteurs locaux de commercialité dont l’évolution notable au cours du bail expiré permet, si elle a une incidence favorable sur l’activité exercée dans les locaux loués, d’écarter la règle du plafonnement du loyer du bail renouvelé et de le fixer selon la valeur locative.” (Third civil chamber, 13 October 2021, appeal no. 20-12.901). When the parties disagree, a specialised judge, the juge des loyers commerciaux at the tribunal judiciaire, the ordinary civil court, fixes the rent after an expert valuation, and the official enterprise portal summarises the renewal and silent-extension mechanics on its renewal and tacit extension fact sheet and its commercial lease overview.

When the landlord refuses renewal outright, the tenant is not left empty-handed: the owner must pay an eviction indemnity equal to the loss caused by the refusal, which includes the market value of the business computed by professional usage, plus normal moving and reinstallation costs and the transfer taxes for an equivalent business: “le bailleur doit, sauf exceptions prévues aux articles L. 145-17 et suivants , payer au locataire évincé une indemnité dite d’éviction égale au préjudice causé par le défaut de renouvellement. Cette indemnité comprend notamment la valeur marchande du fonds de commerce, déterminée suivant les usages de la profession, augmentée éventuellement des frais normaux de déménagement et de réinstallation, ainsi que des frais et droits de mutation à payer pour un fonds de même valeur”. For a thriving shop the indemnity often exceeds several years of rent, which is why landlords negotiate rather than refuse. The exceptions exist but are narrow: serious and legitimate grounds against the tenant, such as persistent breaches, dilapidated premises the tenant refuses to repair, or demolition and reconstruction where the owner offers compliant rehousing. From abroad, the renewal battle is won on paper: keep three years of activity proofs, photographs of the fittings, staff contracts, supplier invoices, tax returns and the expert report on local rents, because the judge fixes the rent or the indemnity on documents, not on promises. Never ignore a landlord’s refusal or offer; the six-month and two-year limitation periods in this field extinguish rights silently while the director is travelling.

B. Unpaid Rent, Termination Notices and Early Exit: How Does an Absent Director React Without Flying to Paris

The most frightening letter is the commandement de payer aiming at the termination clause: a bailiff act ordering payment of the arrears within one month, failing which the lease ends automatically. The clause, called clause résolutoire, produces effects only one month after a fruitless order, and the order is void unless it states that one-month period: “Toute clause insérée dans le bail prévoyant la résiliation de plein droit ne produit effet qu’un mois après un commandement demeuré infructueux. Le commandement doit, à peine de nullité, mentionner ce délai.” The same article lets the judges seized in the proper forms grant payment delays and suspend the clause while the termination has not been confirmed by a final judgment, and the tenant who pays within the judge-set conditions keeps the lease: the clause does not operate if the tenant clears the debt as the judge ordered. Foreign directors should read the next holding twice, because bailiffs often claim the opposite: “Il résulte de ce texte que la suspension des effets d’une clause résolutoire peut être décidée par le juge, quel que soit le manquement à ses obligations reproché au locataire.” (Third civil chamber, 6 February 2025, appeal no. 23-18.360). In that case the landlord sought termination because the tenant had closed the restaurant in breach of a keep-open clause, not for unpaid rent, and the court of appeal had refused any grace period on the ground that grace was reserved for rent arrears; the Cour de cassation quashed that reasoning. Whether the breach is arrears, closure, unauthorised works or missing insurance, the judge may suspend the termination and spread the debt, provided the company can pay the arrears and resume the current rent.

The crisis playbook from abroad therefore runs in this order. First, calendar the one-month deadline on the day the bailiff act arrives and pay everything claimed within it if the claim is correct, because payment within the month kills the termination automatically and leaves only the principal, interest and costs. Second, if the full amount cannot be paid at once, instruct a French lawyer immediately to summon the landlord before the interim judge, the juge des référés, to request payment delays of up to two years and suspension of the clause; attach bank statements, the recovery plan of the subsidiary and proof that current rent is being paid again, since judges condition grace on the capacity to clear the debt and resume full current rent. Third, check the order itself: no mention of the one-month period, service at the wrong address, or a clause that the lease does not actually contain can void the procedure, but that argument must be raised in court, not by letter. Fourth, keep operating or secure the premises: a closed, uninsured shop invites a second termination ground for breach of the keep-open and insurance clauses, and the case above shows landlords use it. Companies already facing a social security audit at the same time find the combined playbook in Your French Company Is Audited by URSSAF and You Live Abroad: Control, Assessment, Penalties and How to Challenge From Abroad, because arrears of rent and arrears of contributions often arrive together.

Leaving early is possible at each three-year mark and sometimes between them. The ordinary exit is the tenant’s notice at the end of a three-year period, served at least six months ahead by registered letter with acknowledgment or by bailiff act; from abroad, the bailiff route through your lawyer is safer than international registered mail, and keep the service slip forever. Between two break dates, the company can sell the business with the lease: the buyer takes over the premises, and most leases require the landlord to be called to the assignment deed, failing which the sale cannot be enforced against him. Landlords often add an approval clause or a joint-liability clause keeping the seller answerable for the buyer’s defaults for a time; negotiate its duration before signing the original lease, not when selling. Subletting is forbidden without the landlord’s invitation to the deed, and a total sublease at a profit can even justify a rent increase. At the very end, perform the exit inventory jointly, return the keys against a receipt, claim the deposit back with the final charges reconciliation, and transfer the Kbis address on the guichet unique if the company moves or closes, because mail sent to the old address, tax bills, court summons, renewal offers, is deemed received. Handled this way, the French lease becomes what it should be for a foreign group: a nine-year asset with three-year airlocks, a capped rent with documented exceptions, and a termination procedure that always gives a diligent tenant one month plus one judge before anything is lost.

Conclusion

A French commercial lease rewards the tenant who reads it before signing and punishes the director who discovers it when the dispute starts. Sign only a structure your group understands: nine years with a tenant-only exit every three years, or a short three-year test lease that converts automatically if you stay, with the deposit, the parent guarantee, the charges, the property tax clause and the index identified in euros before the keys change hands. During the lease, diary the three-year revision dates, since the demand sets the effective date of the new rent, and keep the activity proofs that protect the renewal right. At renewal, expect the capped rent, challenge any uncapping with your own expert valuation of local commerciality factors, and price the landlord’s refusal against the eviction indemnity measured by the market value of the business. In a payment crisis, treat the bailiff’s order as a one-month countdown, pay or seek court-supervised delays at once, and remember that the judge may suspend the termination whatever the breach, provided the company pays and resumes the current rent. Run these five reflexes from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore with a French lawyer holding the powers and the calendar, and the distance stops deciding the outcome.