You formed your French company from London, New York or Dubai, the Kbis (the official company identity certificate issued by the greffe, the registry of the commercial court) arrived, the bank account works, and business has started. Then the first tax demands land in the online professional account, written in dense administrative French, with amounts you did not budget and deadlines you do not understand. This is the moment when many foreign founders discover that French corporate taxation has almost nothing in common with the system back home: the tax is computed on French-source profits only, it is paid in quarterly instalments before the final figure is even known, the return must be filed electronically within three months of the year-end, and on top of the national corporate tax there is a local business tax, the CFE (cotisation foncière des entreprises), that is due even in a loss-making year. This guide explains, for a business reader with no French tax background, how much your French subsidiary or SAS really owes, when each payment leaves the account, what the CFE costs in practice, and how you challenge a wrong assessment while living abroad. Every rate and every procedure below is anchored in the statute in force and in recent court decisions, with the exact legal wording quoted so you can check it yourself.

I. How much French corporate tax (IS) does your company owe and when must you pay it?

A. Which profits France taxes and at what rate: territoriality, the 25% IS and SME relief

French corporate income tax is called IS (impôt sur les sociétés). The statute defines it in one sentence: “Il est établi un impôt sur l’ensemble des bénéfices ou revenus réalisés par les sociétés et autres personnes morales désignées à l’article 206 . Cet impôt est désigné sous le nom d’impôt sur les sociétés.” In plain English, it is a tax on all profits made by the companies listed in article 206 of the French Tax Code, which provides that “sont passibles de l’impôt sur les sociétés, quel que soit leur objet, les sociétés anonymes, les sociétés en commandite par actions, les sociétés à responsabilité limitée”. If you incorporated a SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company most foreign founders choose), a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the limited liability company) or an SA, your company is inside the IS system by default. This is worth stating explicitly because founders from the United States or the United Kingdom sometimes assume that a small owner-managed company is taxed like a partnership or a disregarded entity. In France it is not: the SAS and the SARL are opaque for tax purposes, the company pays IS on its own profit, and you are taxed separately if you take salary or dividends. Our founders’ setup guide walks through the choice of vehicle before this tax stage begins.

The second shock for foreign groups is territoriality. France does not tax your worldwide profit. Article 209 of the French Tax Code provides that taxable profits are determined “en tenant compte uniquement des bénéfices réalisés dans les entreprises exploitées en France” — taking into account only the profits earned by businesses operated in France. Profits earned by your parent company or your foreign branches outside France are outside French IS, and conversely the French administration will look closely at whether activity performed on French soil is properly booked in France. A Luxembourg company learned this the hard way: in a judgment of 15 February 2023 (pourvoi no. 21-13.288), the Commercial Chamber of the Court of Cassation upheld coercive tax investigation measures against a Luxembourg SARL suspected of operating in France without recording the corresponding entries, recalling that “le code général des impôts prévoyant seulement qu’elles passent certaines écritures comptables permettant de justifier des opérations imposables qu’elles réalisent en France” — the Tax Code merely requires foreign companies with a French stable establishment to record the accounting entries justifying the taxable operations they carry out in France — and the Court closed with “REJETTE le pourvoi” (Cass. com., 15 Feb. 2023, no. 21-13.288). The practical message for a foreign founder is symmetrical: keep clean French books for the French activity, because the administration can come and check them, and do not volunteer French tax on profits that belong to another country. The bookkeeping duty itself is general: article L.123-12 of the Commercial Code states that “Elle doit établir des comptes annuels à la clôture de l’exercice au vu des enregistrements comptables et de l’inventaire.” Annual accounts are not optional paperwork; they are the base document from which the taxable profit starts.

The headline rate is simple. Article 219 of the French Tax Code states: “Le taux normal de l’impôt est fixé à 25 %.” The standard IS rate is 25% of taxable profit, and the English-language pages of the French tax administration confirm that this 25% rate applies to financial years opened on or after 1 January 2022 (impots.gouv.fr, Taxation of businesses). Three refinements matter for a foreign-owned SME. First, small and medium companies whose turnover does not exceed 10 million euros, with at least 75% of paid-up capital held directly or indirectly by individuals, benefit from a reduced 15% rate on the first 42,500 euros of profit. Concretely, a profitable small SAS owned by you as an individual pays 15% on the first slice and 25% above it. Second, companies with turnover above 7.63 million euros pay an additional social contribution of 3.3% computed on the IS itself, after an allowance of up to 763,000 euros. Third, special rates exist for specific profits: net profits from the licensing or sale of certain intellectual property rights can benefit from a 10% rate, and capital gains on qualifying shareholdings held at least two years can benefit from a near-exemption regime subject to adding back 12% of the gain. These are planning tools, not DIY topics: the conditions are technical, and a wrong classification is exactly what triggers the reassessments described in part II.

To make the arithmetic tangible, take a Paris SAS owned from abroad with 200,000 euros of taxable profit and no special regime. The IS is 25% of 200,000, which is 50,000 euros. If the same company is eligible for the SME relief and held by individuals, the first 42,500 euros bear 15% (6,375 euros) and the remaining 157,500 euros bear 25% (39,375 euros), for a total of 45,750 euros. If it made no profit, the IS is zero — but the CFE local tax examined below is still due, which is the trap most foreign founders walk into. Losses are not wasted: they can generally be carried forward against future profits of the same company, which softens the first difficult years, though change of activity or ownership can restrict that right. And remember the calendar interaction: approving the annual accounts is a separate corporate duty with its own six-month deadline, explained in our annual legal calendar guide, and the approved accounts feed directly into the tax return.

B. When and how you pay from abroad: quarterly instalments, the balance and the tax return

France collects IS before it knows the final profit. Article 1668 of the French Tax Code provides: “L’impôt sur les sociétés donne lieu au versement, au comptable public compétent, d’acomptes trimestriels déterminés à partir des résultats du dernier exercice clos.” In practice your company pays four quarterly instalments (acomptes), computed from the last closed year’s result, and the balance (solde) is paid when the final profit is known. The standard due dates for a company closing on 31 December are 15 March, 15 June, 15 September and 15 December, with the balance due around 15 May of the following year together with the return. Each instalment is 25% of the reference IS. A newly created company with no prior year pays no instalments in its first year and settles everything with the first balance — a welcome cash-flow break that many accountants forget to mention to foreign clients. From the second year on, the machine starts, and founders are regularly surprised to pay instalments based on a good year N-1 while year N is already turning worse. Modulation is possible when the expected final tax will be lower, but stopping payments unilaterally without the formalities draws late-payment interest and penalties, so any modulation goes through your accountant, never by simply not paying.

The return itself (liasse fiscale, the bundle of the tax return and financial statements) is filed electronically. Article 223 of the French Tax Code states that “la déclaration du bénéfice ou du déficit est faite dans les trois mois de la clôture de l’exercice. Si l’exercice est clos le 31 décembre ou si aucun exercice n’est clos au cours d’une année, la déclaration est à déposer au plus tard le deuxième jour ouvré suivant le 1er mai.” For a 31 December year-end, that means filing by early May. Everything passes through the company’s professional account on impots.gouv.fr (espace professionnel): returns, payments, correspondence and assessment notices (avis d’imposition). From abroad, this creates two very concrete chores. First, make sure you personally can log in or that your accountant’s mandate (mandat) is active and monitored — notices served only in that inbox are legally served on the company even if you never opened them from your home country. Second, pay from a SEPA-compatible account in time for French direct-debit or telepayment cut-offs; cross-border transfers initiated the day before the deadline regularly arrive late, and lateness costs interest from the first day. These sound like details until the first 10% penalty arrives on an instalment you thought your accountant had handled.

For a Paris-based company, the competent office is the SIE (service des impôts des entreprises, the business tax office) of the arrondissement where the registered office sits, and correspondence, audits and reassessment proposals all come from there. Keep a simple discipline from day one: every avis d’imposition saved with its date of issue, every payment receipt matched to an instalment, and your accountant copied on all inbox notifications. If the administration later questions a deduction — management fees charged by your foreign parent, transfer prices, a doubtful provision — the file that answers in 30 days is the file that avoids escalation, as part II shows. And if your company also employs staff in France, the payroll audits run on a parallel track with their own logic, described in our guide to URSSAF audits from abroad; an IS dispute and a payroll dispute in the same year is common and each must be answered separately.

II. What does the CFE local business tax cost and how do you fight a wrong tax bill from abroad?

A. CFE in practice: who pays, on what base, and the first-year rules that trap newcomers

The CFE is the local business tax every foreign founder underestimates. It is one half of the CET (contribution économique territoriale, the local economic contribution), alongside the CVAE (cotisation sur la valeur ajoutée des entreprises, the value-added contribution now being phased out). The base of the CFE has nothing to do with profit. Article 1467 of the French Tax Code provides: “La cotisation foncière des entreprises a pour base la valeur locative des biens passibles d’une taxe foncière situés en France” of which the taxpayer had the use for its professional activity during the reference period. In plain terms, the CFE taxes the rental value of the premises your company uses in France — office, shop, warehouse, even a small coworking space billed as an establishment. Equipment and movable assets are not in the base, only the premises. The rates are voted each year by the local authorities (commune or intercommunal body), so the same 50 square metres cost different amounts in Paris, Lyon or a small town, and the bill cannot fall below a minimum contribution that depends on turnover, ranging from a few hundred euros to over 7,000 euros for large turnovers. A company that loses money still pays the CFE. That single sentence, repeated to every foreign client, prevents most bad surprises: zero IS does not mean zero French tax.

Timing creates the second trap. Article 1478 of the French Tax Code states: “La cotisation foncière des entreprises est due pour l’année entière par le redevable qui exerce l’activité le 1er janvier.” Whoever operates on 1 January owes the whole year. But there is a welcome for newcomers, in the same article: “En cas de création d’un établissement (…), la cotisation foncière des entreprises n’est pas due pour l’année de la création.” No CFE for the year of creation, then a halved base for the first taxable year. Concretely, a SAS created in March 2026 with a Paris office pays no CFE for 2026, pays on a reduced base for 2027, and pays in full from 2028. Founders who move premises must think in 1 January snapshots: closing one site in December and opening another nearby does not automatically create a “new establishment” with a fresh exemption, and the administration taxes the situation as it stands on 1 January. The Conseil d’Etat confirmed how strictly these rules combine in a decision of 15 December 2025 (no. 490769): a logistics company that closed its Corbas site in September 2018 and opened a Saint-Priest site the same year, both inside the Lyon metropolitan area, claimed both a closure rebate and the new-establishment relief; the Court held that moving within the same metropolitan territory without a genuine change of activity is neither a cessation without transfer nor a creation, so “la société Le Seyec n’est pas fondée à demander l’annulation de l’arrêt qu’elle attaque. Son pourvoi doit être rejeté”, decided as “Article 1er : Le pourvoi de la société Le Seyec est rejeté.” (CE, 15 Dec. 2025, no. 490769). The same judgment restates the base rule in full: “La cotisation foncière des entreprises est due pour l’année entière par le redevable qui exerce l’activité le 1er janvier.” Before signing a new lease or closing a site, model the CFE effect as of the next 1 January; the rent negotiation and the tax snapshot should be decided together.

For Paris and Ile-de-France specifically, three local points deserve attention. First, Paris votes some of the highest CFE rates in France, so a prestigious address has a measurable annual tax cost on top of the rent — budget it before signing, especially for activities that could operate from a cheaper commune nearby. Second, domiciliation companies (sociétés de domiciliation) that host your registered office can create CFE exposure of their own mechanics; clarify in the domiciliation contract who declares what and where the company’s real establishment is deemed to sit. Third, the second half of the CET, the CVAE, is being phased out with degressive maximum rates (0.28% for 2024, 0.19% for 2025, 0.09% for 2026 according to the administration’s English pages), due only above 500,000 euros of turnover with a declaration duty above 152,500 euros — check the finance law in force for the year concerned before assuming the phase-out calendar, because timetables have already shifted once. None of this requires a Paris trip: the CFE notice arrives in the professional account each autumn, payable by mid-December, and everything below on challenges can be run from abroad.

B. How to challenge an IS or CFE assessment while you live abroad: the L.57 letter, the reply deadline and the courts

French tax disputes follow a written, deadline-driven ritual, and distance is no excuse. It usually starts with a proposition de rectification, the formal letter in which the auditor states what is reassessed and why. Article L.57 of the Tax Procedures Book (livre des procédures fiscales) provides: “L’administration adresse au contribuable une proposition de rectification qui doit être motivée de manière à lui permettre de formuler ses observations ou de faire connaître son acceptation.” The letter must be reasoned enough to let you reply or accept, and the same article adds that on the taxpayer’s request made before expiry, “ce délai est prorogé de trente jours” — the reply period is extended by thirty days. This is the single most valuable sentence for a founder living abroad: the standard 30-day reply period is short when documents sit in two countries, so instruct your accountant, the day the letter arrives, to request the 30-day extension systematically and to confirm it in writing. Your observations must answer each adjustment point by point, with exhibits: contracts, invoices, transfer-pricing documentation for management fees from the parent, proof of the rental values for CFE. A vague protest letter achieves nothing; a documented, point-by-point reply regularly halves or kills reassessments at this stage, because the auditor must answer it in turn.

If the administration maintains the reassessment, the next step is the formal claim (réclamation contentieuse) against the assessment notice, filed with the tax office, and its content requirements are strict. Article R*197-3 of the Tax Procedures Book warns: “Toute réclamation doit à peine d’irrecevabilité : a) Mentionner l’imposition contestée ; b) Contenir l’exposé sommaire des moyens et les conclusions de la partie ; c) Porter la signature manuscrite de son auteur”, with the notice attached. Miss one element and the claim is inadmissible without ever being examined on the merits — and from abroad, the classic failure is the missing signature or the missing notice copy. File within the statutory deadline shown on the notice, keep proof of sending, and continue paying or formally request a payment deferral with guarantees (sursis de paiement), because a challenge does not automatically suspend collection. If the claim is rejected expressly or by silence, the dispute moves to the administrative courts: the administrative tribunal (tribunal administratif) of the place of taxation — for Paris, the Tribunal administratif de Paris — then the administrative court of appeal, then the Conseil d’Etat on points of law. The Le Seyec case above shows the full ladder in real life: claim to the Lyon tribunal in the first place, appeal to the Lyon court of appeal, then a pourvoi before the Conseil d’Etat. Each level has its own deadline counted from notification, so calendar every date the day each decision arrives, with a correspondent in France instructed to open and forward everything immediately.

Three practical defences work best from abroad. First, never let a deadline pass while “waiting for headquarters”: the extension request under L.57 and the claim formalities under R*197-3 exist precisely to buy time legally. Second, centralise evidence early — the French file, not the parent’s ERP, wins the case: French-language contracts, French invoices, French bank statements, the premises lease for CFE, and the transfer-pricing file for intra-group flows. The Orefa judgment is a reminder that operating in France without proper French records invites the heaviest procedures. Third, separate the tracks: an IS reassessment, a CFE notice and a payroll audit each have their own procedure, office and deadline, and winning one does not pause the others. Distance magnifies every delay, so the winning setup is boring: a French accountant with a written mandate, a French address or representative who opens mail daily, and you, the founder, reviewing a one-page tax calendar every month. Companies that run this discipline pay the right amount of French tax — 25% on real French profits, the CFE on real French premises — and nothing more.

Conclusion

Your French company’s tax life holds in four numbers and two reflexes. The numbers: 25% IS on profits earned in France, paid in four quarterly instalments with the balance on the electronic return filed within three months of year-end; a reduced 15% slice for qualifying small companies; and a CFE local tax on the rental value of your French premises, due for the full year by whoever operates on 1 January, with no bill only in the creation year. The reflexes: answer every auditor letter in writing within the extended deadline, and challenge every wrong notice through the formal claim and, if needed, the administrative courts, without ever missing a signature, an exhibit or a date. Run from abroad, this system rewards founders who keep French books, watch the professional inbox and model each premises move as of the next 1 January. Do that, and French corporate tax becomes what it should be for a foreign investor: a calculable cost, not a repeating surprise.