You created a French SAS or SARL from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, it now has clients, staff and a bank balance, and the moment has come to sell it: a competitor offers to buy your shares, your co-founder wants out, or your group is reorganising and the French subsidiary must go. Selling looks simple from abroad until French company law slows every step. Your articles of association may force the buyer through an approval procedure, your minority co-shareholder may exercise pre-emption, the price you agreed by email may be challenged by the tax office, and the buyer who discovers a hidden liability will sue you under the asset-and-liability warranty long after the money arrived. This guide explains, for a foreign seller with no French legal training, what your SAS or SARL articles already decide about who can buy your shares, how a sale of SAS shares differs from a sale of SARL parts, how to set a price that survives expert review and tax registration, and how to defeat post-closing warranty claims and actually get paid while living abroad.

French vocabulary first. The seller is the cédant and the buyer the cessionnaire. SAS shares are actions; SARL units are parts sociales. Prior approval of the buyer is agrément. Registration duties on the sale are droits d’enregistrement, collected by the land-publicity and registration office, the SPFE. The asset-and-liability warranty is the garantie d’actif et de passif, universally called GAP. Where this guide cites a statute or a court decision, the exact official text is quoted and linked so you can check it yourself.

I. Can you freely sell the shares of your French company when you live abroad?

No sale starts with the buyer. It starts with your own articles, because French law lets SAS founders lock share transfers with tailor-made clauses and locks SARL transfers by statute even when the articles say nothing. A foreign seller who signed standard template articles at incorporation discovers the locks at the worst moment: the buyer threatens to walk away while the co-shareholder blocks the approval vote. Read the articles before you mandate a broker, identify every clause that governs transfers, and map the consents, notifications and deadlines each clause imposes. The two vehicles then diverge sharply, and the paragraphs below follow that divide.

A. Why do your SAS articles decide who can buy your shares and at what price?

The SAS is a company whose owners “ne supportent les pertes qu’à concurrence de leur apport”, risking only what they contributed, and whose internal organisation is left to its founders, since “Les statuts fixent les conditions dans lesquelles la société est dirigée.” That same freedom governs exits. The statute allows the articles to lock every sale: “Les statuts peuvent soumettre toute cession d’actions à l’agrément préalable de la société.” In practice foreign-held SAS articles combine four mechanisms. The approval clause (clause d’agrément) forces you to notify the company of your buyer and project, after which the designated organ, often the shareholders collectively, accepts or refuses within the contractual deadline. The pre-emption clause (préemption) lets existing shareholders match the buyer’s price and take the shares instead. The tag-along and drag-along clauses (sortie conjointe) let a minority join your sale or force it to follow you, which is how a foreign parent selling one hundred percent avoids keeping a stranded minority. The exclusion and forced-sale clauses set the price formula for a shareholder pushed out. Draft or review these clauses now, from abroad, with three questions: who decides, within how many days, and at what price if consent is refused or pre-emption exercised.

Breach of these clauses is punished with the harshest civil sanction. The statute states bluntly that “Toute cession effectuée en violation des clauses statutaires est nulle.” A sale completed behind the back of an approval or pre-emption clause can be annulled, unwinding the buyer’s title years later. The Court of Cassation enforces this scheme strictly and draws a fine line that foreign sellers must understand. In a 2023 dispute between a shareholder and a financial holding company organised as a SAS over a forced transfer of hundreds of thousands of shares, the Commercial Chamber recalled that “Aux termes de ce texte, toute cession effectuée en violation des clauses statutaires est nulle.” It then narrowed the sanction: “Ce texte ne régissant pas l’exclusion d’un associé et la cession forcée de ses actions qui en résulte, la nullité qu’il prévoit vise uniquement à sanctionner la violation de toute clause statutaire ayant pour objet la cession d’actions librement consentie par leur titulaire.” The case ended in partial cassation, the Court ordering “CASSE ET ANNULE, mais seulement en ce que, infirmant le jugement, il rejette les demandes de la société Financière Wagram tendant à voir ordonner l’exécution forcée du pacte du 4 juin 2015” (Court of Cassation, Commercial Chamber, 21 June 2023, appeals nos. 21-25.952 and 22-12.045). Three lessons for your sale. First, notify properly and obtain the approvals your articles require before signing anything definitive, or the sale can be unwound. Second, keep the articles and the side shareholders’ agreement (pacte) consistent on exclusion and forced-sale mechanics, because contradiction between them is what destroyed one party’s case here. Third, fix the price mechanism in advance: expert valuation, formula from the accounts, or matching right, so a dispute over price does not become a dispute over validity.

Representation matters as much as consent. Toward third parties the SAS acts through its president, since “La société est représentée à l’égard des tiers par un président désigné dans les conditions prévues par les statuts.” When the seller is your foreign parent company holding the shares, the parent signs through its own organs, but every company-side document, approval minutes, waiver of pre-emption, updated shareholder register (registre des mouvements de titres), must be signed by the president in office. If you changed presidents without publishing the change, cure the publication first from abroad through the one-stop shop, because a buyer will discount the price for any defect in the chain of signatures. And remember the fundraising boundary if your exit takes the form of a buyout vehicle issuing securities: “La société par actions simplifiée ne peut procéder à une offre au public de titres financiers ou à l’admission aux négociations sur un marché réglementé de ses actions.” Private sales between identified parties are unaffected, but any public-facing offer document would breach this prohibition.

B. Why is selling SARL parts slower: approval, deed, service and registration?

The SARL protects incumbents by statute, not by contract. Like the SAS it shields owners, since “La société à responsabilité limitée est instituée par une ou plusieurs personnes qui ne supportent les pertes qu’à concurrence de leurs apports.” But its management is rigid, “La société à responsabilité limitée est gérée par une ou plusieurs personnes physiques.” Only a human being can be manager, and transfers of parts to outsiders are locked whether or not the articles add anything: “Les parts sociales ne peuvent être cédées à des tiers étrangers à la société qu’avec le consentement de la majorité des associés représentant au moins la moitié des parts sociales”, unless the articles demand an even stronger majority. The procedure is formal. When the company has more than one shareholder, the sale project must be notified to the company and to each shareholder, and “Si la société n’a pas fait connaître sa décision dans le délai de trois mois à compter de la dernière des notifications prévues au présent alinéa, le consentement à la cession est réputé acquis.” Silence for three months means yes. Refusal means the other shareholders must buy or procure a buyer, or the company must reduce its capital, under tight deadlines the statute organises. A foreign seller should therefore notify early, in the exact statutory form, and diary the three-month expiry in Paris time, because a defective notification restarts the clock and a buyer will not wait.

Form follows consent. A sale of SARL parts must be in writing, and it becomes enforceable against the company only through proper service: delivery of the deed to the company, acceptance by the manager in a notarial deed, or service by a judicial officer (commissaire de justice). Against third parties it takes effect only after filing at the greffe with updated articles. From abroad, the sequence that works is: signed share purchase agreement, approval notifications, written deed of transfer (acte de cession), service on the company by counsel in France, registration of the deed for tax within one month, filing at the registry, and publication. The public service portal describes the tax step for SARL sales in plain terms: once the transfer deed is signed, the parties must register it and pay the duties, since “Une fois l’acte de cession de parts sociales signé, il doit ensuite être enregistré auprès du service de la publicité foncière et de l’enregistrement (SPFE)”, and “L’enregistrement doit intervenir dans un délai d’un mois à compter de la date de l’acte.” By default “les droits d’enregistrement sont à la charge du cessionnaire”, the buyer pays, although the deed may shift the burden to the seller or split it. Miss the one-month registration and penalties accrue from day one, which is why the funds-flow calendar should place the tax registration immediately after closing, handled by your French counsel under power of attorney while you stay abroad.

SAS sales are lighter in form but not form-free. No statutory approval applies unless your articles create one, transfers are recorded by book entry (virement de compte à compte) plus entry in the shareholder movement register, and no service by judicial officer is required. But the tax registration step is identical in rhythm: the portal states that “Une fois la cession réalisée, les parties doivent procéder à son enregistrement auprès du service de la publicité foncière et de l’enregistrement (SPFE) compétent, et acquitter les droits d’enregistrement.” Where the deed records the sale, “cet acte doit être présenté à l’enregistrement dans le délai d’un mois suivant sa signature”, and here too “les droits d’enregistrement sont à la charge du cessionnaire” in principle, subject to contrary agreement. The economic difference is the rate, developed in Part II, and the practical difference is speed: a clean SAS sale with cooperative shareholders can close in weeks, while a SARL sale with a hostile co-shareholder can take a season. If your French company is still a SARL and a sale is on the horizon, consider converting it into a SAS first, when the articles and the tax cost allow, to sell shares under your own contractual rules rather than under the statutory lock.

II. How do you secure the price and survive the buyer’s claims after closing?

Agreeing a number with the buyer is the middle of the story, not the end. The price must survive three tests: the buyer’s expert who re-reads the accounts between signing and closing, the tax office that registers the deed and may reassess an undervalued price, and the buyer who returns months later invoking the warranty for liabilities born before the sale. Foreign sellers lose money on all three fronts for the same reason: documents signed quickly from abroad with price language copied from another country’s template. The clauses below translate a home-country deal into a French-proof closing.

A. How do you set a price that holds: expert valuation, earn-out and registration duties?

French sale agreements fix the price with one of three techniques, and each must be drafted to survive without you in the room. The firm price (prix ferme) suits clean companies with audited accounts: one number, paid at closing, adjusted only for a defined working-capital or net-debt mechanism verified on closing accounts. The earn-out (complément de prix) suits companies whose value depends on the next two financial years: part paid at closing, the balance indexed on turnover, EBITDA or client retention, with accounting definitions annexed and audit rights for the seller. The expert clause suits parties who agree on method but not on number: an independent expert sets or reviews the price under a mandate both sides sign. French civil law expressly allows this delegation: “Il peut cependant être laissé à l’estimation d’un tiers ; si le tiers ne veut ou ne peut faire l’estimation, il n’y a point de vente, sauf estimation par un autre tiers.” Name the expert or the appointing body in the agreement, define the valuation standard and date, state whether the expert acts as arbitrator or mere valuer, and provide a replacement, or the whole sale collapses if the expert withdraws.

Then comes the tax nobody budgets from abroad. Registration duties are computed on the transfer price at rates that differ brutally between vehicles. The public portal states that for SAS and SASU share sales “le droit d’enregistrement est fixé à 0,1 %, calculé sur le prix de cession”, one tenth of one percent, while “Pour les cessions de parts sociales de SARL, le droit d’enregistrement est fixé à 3 %. Il est calculé sur le prix de cession, diminué d’un abattement égal à 23 000 €, ramené au pourcentage du nombre de parts sociales cédées dans le capital social.” On a one-million-euro sale of all shares, the duty is roughly one thousand euros for a SAS and tens of thousands for a SARL, and the portal confirms there is a floor, since “Le montant des droits d’enregistrement ne peut pas être inférieur à 25 €.” Allocate the burden in the deed, because the default puts it on the buyer but many foreign sellers concede it in negotiation without realising. Beyond duties, the seller’s capital gain is taxed in its home state or in France depending on residence, treaty and the nature of the seller, and an artificially low price invites reassessment of both duties and gain. Keep the valuation report, the negotiation emails and the board approvals that justify the number; a price the file explains is a price the administration rarely reopens.

Money movement deserves the same care as price language. If the buyer pays from outside France, route the funds through the French company’s counsel escrow (séquestre) or a bank escrow with release conditions tied to registration of the transfer, not to informal promises. If part of the price is a seller loan (crédit vendeur), secure it: pledge of the sold shares (nantissement), bank guarantee for the balance, default interest, and acceleration on breach of the buyer’s covenants. Never accept full payment deferred without security from a buyer you met six weeks ago, however warm the relationship. And calendar the post-closing filings from abroad: registration of the deed within the month, update of the shareholder register and beneficial-owner file, and the company’s own declarations, so no stale record lets a third party challenge who owns the company.

B. How do you defeat warranty claims and actually get paid from abroad?

The asset-and-liability warranty is the clause buyers use to rewrite the price after closing. In French practice the seller warrants the accuracy of the accounts and the absence of undisclosed liabilities as of an agreed date, and undertakes to compensate the buyer, euro for euro, for any pre-closing liability that surfaces later: tax reassessments, social audits, litigation, environmental exposure. Negotiate this clause as if you will be sued on it, because statistics say you might be. Cap the amount, set a floor below which claims are ignored (seuil de déclenchement) and a basket, limit the duration to twelve to twenty-four months except for tax and social matters tied to limitation periods, exclude what the buyer knew from due diligence, and require prompt notice with full file access so you can defend the underlying dispute. A warranty without caps, duration and knowledge qualifier is not a clause but a blank cheque signed from abroad.

When the buyer’s claim letter arrives, run a fixed protocol before answering on substance. First, check the notice: date, contractual deadline, description of the liability, amount, supporting documents. Most French warranties make timely, documented notice a condition of cover, and late or vague notices fail at this first gate. Second, verify coverage: does the alleged liability predate the reference date, is it excluded as known to the buyer, does it fall under the cap, floor and time limit. Third, demand control of the defence: the seller who pays for the underlying tax audit or lawsuit must be entitled to appoint counsel, approve settlements and receive every procedural document, or the buyer will settle generously with your money. Fourth, quantify independently: buyers inflate, netting forgotten tax savings and recoveries against the alleged loss, so require proof of actual, net, unrecovered loss. Fifth, pay or settle only against a full release drafted under French law, and never let a partial payment be construed as acceptance of the principle. Run the whole sequence through French counsel under a written power of attorney, with you deciding each step by email, and the distance becomes an administrative detail rather than a handicap.

Getting paid is a separate battle from defeating claims. If the buyer withholds the balance alleging a warranty event, separate the two issues in writing: the price is due under the sale, the warranty is a claim to be proven under the GAP, and set-off (compensation) applies only where the agreement allows it and the claim is certain, liquid and due. If the buyer defaults, French enforcement runs from the deed and the agreement: formal demand (mise en demeure), then summary proceedings before the commercial court for an undisputed balance, or full proceedings with provisional measures where assets may flee. Secure early: share pledge registered before closing, escrowed balance, parent guarantee from the buyer’s group. Sellers who closed with cash at signing, a capped and time-limited warranty, a pledged balance and Paris-time deadlines in every clause rarely litigate; sellers who trusted a handshake litigate for years. Sell the company the way you built it, with paperwork that works while you sleep in another time zone.

Conclusion

Selling your French subsidiary from abroad succeeds when the sale is prepared in the articles long before the buyer appears. In a SAS, write approval, pre-emption and price clauses you can live with, keep the side agreement consistent with them, and remember that breach means nullity. In a SARL, notify early in statutory form and use the three-month silence rule instead of fighting it. Set the price with a mechanism an expert and the tax office can both follow, budget the registration duties that differ tenfold between SAS shares and SARL parts, and secure payment with escrow, pledge or guarantee rather than trust. Cap the warranty in amount and time, exclude what the buyer knew, and control the defence of every underlying dispute. Handled in that order, from the articles to the price to the warranty, the sale closes while you stay abroad, the money arrives, and the file stays closed.