You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore. You have set up a French company, most often a SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company foreign founders prefer), or you are about to do so. The share capital has been wired from abroad. And then the machine jams: the French bank refuses to open the company account, or it accepts the funds and freezes them without issuing the deposit certificate, or, months later, it closes the operating account with a short letter. Without that certificate, the greffe (the registry office of the commercial court, which keeps the RCS, the Registre du commerce et des sociétés, France’s company register) will not register the company, and without registration there is no Kbis (the official extract that proves a French company exists and identifies its officers). No Kbis means no VAT number, no payroll, no contracts in the company’s name.

This is the most common banking crisis foreign founders face in France, and it has a legal solution for each stage. French law separates two problems that founders often confuse. The first is the deposit of the initial capital for a company still being formed: three specific depositories are allowed, strict time limits apply, and the funds can only be released after registration. The second is the everyday operating account: a bank may refuse to open it, but it must explain why in writing, and a procedure before the Banque de France (France’s central bank) can force the designation of a bank that will open an account. A closure, once the account exists, must respect a notice period, and an abusive closure can lead to liability.

This guide walks through both stages in order, with the exact statutes, what the courts actually say, and the practical steps to take from abroad without boarding a plane. Every French acronym is explained when it first appears. For the general incorporation roadmap, our companion guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, from bank account to Kbis, VAT and first hire covers the full journey; this article focuses on the banking blockage itself.

I. Your Capital Is Stuck Abroad: How to Secure the Certificate That Unlocks Registration

The capital deposit is the founders’ money, paid to a depository while the company does not yet legally exist. Because the company has no legal personality before its immatriculation (registration) in the RCS, the funds are held for a “société en formation” (company being formed) and the law locks them: nobody can touch them until the Kbis is issued, and if registration never happens, only a judge can release them. Understanding this lock explains both why banks are cautious and how to get unstuck.

A. Where and How to Deposit From Abroad: Bank, Notary or Caisse des Dépôts Within Eight Days

French company law leaves the founders free to set the amount of the capital in the statuts (the articles of association): “La forme, la durée qui ne peut excéder quatre-vingt-dix-neuf ans, la dénomination sociale, le siège social, l’objet social et le montant du capital social sont déterminés par les statuts de la société.” (C. com., art. L210-2) In a SAS, which “peut être instituée par une ou plusieurs personnes qui ne supportent les pertes qu’à concurrence de leur apport”, (C. com., art. L227-1) one euro of capital is legally enough. In a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the limited liability company with stricter statutory rules), cash contributions must be paid up “d’au moins un cinquième de leur montant”, (C. com., art. L223-7) at least one fifth immediately, the balance within five years. The statute adds: “Les fonds provenant de la libération des parts sociales sont déposés dans les conditions et délais déterminés par décret en Conseil d’Etat.” (C. com., art. L223-7) In practice, however, depositing one euro signals to every bank compliance officer that the file will be thin, and most refusals start there: experienced founders deposit between 5,000 and 37,000 euros, an amount that pays the first bills and looks serious on a bank’s risk grid.

The decisive rule for a founder abroad is that the money does not have to go to a bank. For a SARL, “Dans les huit jours de leur réception, les fonds provenant de la libération des parts sociales sont déposés pour le compte de la société en formation et par les personnes qui les ont reçus à la Caisse des dépôts et consignations, chez un notaire ou dans un établissement de crédit.” (C. com., art. R223-3) The Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC, the state-owned public financial institution) is the depository of last resort that never refuses a lawful deposit; a notaire (notary, a public officer who authenticates deeds in France) is the second route, and a bank, an établissement de crédit (licensed credit institution), is only the third. The same three-way choice applies to a SAS through the provisions governing public limited companies, and the principle is identical: the deposit must be made within eight days of receipt of the funds, and “Mention de la libération des parts et du dépôt des fonds est portée dans les statuts.” (C. com., art. R223-3)
What the depository issues in return is the key to everything. For companies issuing shares, “Les versements sont constatés par un certificat du dépositaire établi, au moment du dépôt des fonds, sur présentation de la liste des actionnaires mentionnant les sommes versées par chacun d’eux.” (C. com., art. L225-13) That certificat du dépositaire (deposit certificate naming each subscriber and the amount paid) is the document the INPI guichet unique (the single online company-formation portal run by the Institut national de la propriété industrielle, at formalites.entreprises.gouv.fr) requires before the greffe registers the company. No certificate, no Kbis. This is why a bank that “keeps the file under review” for six weeks without issuing the certificate is, in practice, blocking the entire incorporation: the founders should treat the bank as only one of three doors and, after a short deadline, walk through one of the other two.

Depositing from abroad adds three practical layers. First, the wire itself: send the funds from an account in the founder’s name with a clear reference with a clear reference identifying the subscription to the capital of [company name] in formation, keep the SWIFT confirmation, and be ready to document the origin of the funds, because the depository must identify the client and verify the identity “sur présentation de tout document écrit à caractère probant”, (C. mon. fin., art. L561-5) on presentation of any written probative document. Banks apply the anti-money-laundering rules before entering into the relationship: “Avant d’entrer en relation d’affaires avec leur client ou de l’assister dans la préparation ou la réalisation d’une transaction”, (C. mon. fin., art. L561-5) they must identify the client and, where relevant, the beneficial owner, the natural person who ultimately owns or controls the company. A foreign founder who hides behind layers of offshore entities with no explanation should expect a refusal; a founder who sends a passport, proof of address, the draft statuts, and a simple group chart explaining who owns what usually passes. Second, the signature: the deposit is normally made by the founders or by a mandataire (an agent acting under a written power of attorney). A power of attorney signed abroad, apostilled where required, and translated into French allows a Paris-based counsel or the notaire’s office to deposit on the founder’s behalf. Third, the exchange risk: capital declared in euros must arrive in euros; a shortfall on the day of the deposit means a second wire and a second certificate, so agree the exact euro amount with the depository before wiring.

Two warnings from real court files deserve attention. The first is that unpaid capital follows the shareholder relentlessly. The Civil Code states that “Chaque associé est débiteur envers la société de tout ce qu’il a promis de lui apporter en nature, en numéraire ou en industrie.” (C. civ., art. 1843-3) A shareholder who promises cash and does not pay “devient de plein droit et sans demande, débiteur des intérêts de cette somme à compter du jour où elle devait être payée et ce sans préjudice de plus amples dommages-intérêts, s’il y a lieu.” (C. civ., art. 1843-3) Interest runs automatically, without any demand letter. And if no capital call is made within the legal time, “tout intéressé peut demander au président du tribunal statuant en référé soit d’enjoindre sous astreinte aux administrateurs, gérants et dirigeants de procéder à ces appels de fonds, soit de désigner un mandataire chargé de procéder à cette formalité”, (TC Castres, 4 May 2026) meaning any interested party can ask the emergency judge to order the managers, under penalty, to call the funds or to appoint an agent to do it. In one recent case, the commercial court of Castres ordered a shareholder of a SAS to pay her liquidator 12,000 euros of unreleased capital, recalling that “Le jugement d’ouverture rend immédiatement exigible le montant non libéré du capital social” (C. com., art. L624-20) the opening of insolvency proceedings makes the unreleased capital immediately due. The lesson for a foreign parent company or founder is symmetrical: never subscribe capital you cannot actually wire, and never leave the balance unpaid thinking distance protects you. The full decisions are published by the judiciary, respectively the judgment of the commercial court of Castres of 4 May 2026 and, on account closures, the ruling of the Paris Court of Appeal of 21 February 2024 discussed below.

The second warning concerns fashionable shortcuts. Some payment fintechs and neobanks offer to “receive your capital”, but the statute lists only three depositories: the CDC, a notaire, or an établissement de crédit. A payment institution or electronic-money institution that is not a licensed credit institution cannot issue the certificate the greffe expects, and founders have discovered this only at the registration stage, weeks lost. If a fintech confirms in writing that it is acting through a licensed partner bank that will issue the certificate in its own name, the route is safe; otherwise, use a notaire or the CDC for the blocked deposit and keep the fintech for day-to-day payments after the Kbis. The relevant provisions are the eight-day deposit rule, the deposit certificate rule, the one-fifth minimum release rule for SARL shares, the SAS legal framework, the statuts rule, the shareholder-debtor rule and the immediate-exigibility rule on insolvency.

B. The Deposit Certificate and the Release of Funds After the Kbis: Getting Your Money Back if Registration Fails

Once the company is registered and the Kbis issued, the lock opens: the company’s legal representative presents the Kbis to the depository, and the funds move to the company’s new operating account. From abroad, organise this in advance: give the depository written release instructions before the deposit, designating the operating account once known, and confirm that a scanned Kbis plus the original certificate suffice, so the release takes days rather than weeks.

If registration never happens, the statute provides a six-month safety valve, and it differs slightly between company forms. For a SARL, “Le retrait des fonds provenant de la libération des parts sociales ne peut être effectué par le mandataire de la société, avant l’immatriculation de celle-ci au registre du commerce et des sociétés.” (C. com., art. L223-8) Then: “Si la société n’est pas constituée dans le délai de six mois à compter du premier dépôt de fonds, ou si elle n’est pas immatriculée au registre du commerce et des sociétés dans le même délai, les apporteurs peuvent individuellement demander en justice l’autorisation de retirer le montant de leurs apports.” (C. com., art. L223-8) Each contributor can go to court individually. For companies issuing shares, including the SAS, “Le retrait des fonds provenant des souscriptions en numéraire ne peut être effectué par le mandataire de la société avant l’immatriculation de celle-ci au registre du commerce et des sociétés.” (C. com., art. L225-11) And “Si la société n’est pas constituée dans le délai de six mois à compter du premier dépôt de fonds ou si elle n’est pas immatriculée au registre du commerce et des sociétés dans le même délai, tout souscripteur peut demander en justice la nomination d’un mandataire chargé de retirer les fonds pour les restituer aux souscripteurs, sous déduction des frais de répartition.” (C. com., art. L225-11) Any single subscriber can ask the court to appoint an agent who withdraws and returns the money to everyone, minus sharing costs. If the founders later decide to go ahead after all, the deposit must be made again from scratch. The two withdrawal provisions are the SARL withdrawal rule and the share-subscription withdrawal rule.

In practice, from abroad, the sequence is: first send a formal demand (mise en demeure) to the depository by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt, giving fifteen days to return the funds; then instruct French counsel to petition the president of the judicial court for authorisation or for the appointment of the withdrawing agent. Do not wait beyond the six-month mark to act: interest and costs accumulate, and a depository that drags its feet after a court order exposes itself to enforcement measures. Keep every receipt, every SWIFT message, and the original certificate, because the court will ask who paid what, and the certificate answers that question.

II. The Bank Says No, or Closes the Account: Your Right to an Account and Your Remedies From Abroad

The capital deposit gets the company registered. The operating account lets it live: receiving customer payments, paying the URSSAF (the social-security collection agency that collects employer and employee contributions), paying VAT, and running SEPA transfers. Here the founder faces a different body of law, built around one strong principle: in France, a company with a French registered office that holds no account is entitled to one, and a refusal triggers a central-bank procedure with a one-day deadline.

A. Why Banks Refuse Foreign Files: Identity Checks, Beneficial Owners and the Written Refusal You Must Demand

Banks refuse foreign-owned company files for a small number of recurring reasons, and naming them helps the founder fix the file instead of collecting refusals. The dominant reason is compliance: the money-laundering rules require the bank, “Avant d’entrer en relation d’affaires avec leur client ou de l’assister dans la préparation ou la réalisation d’une transaction”, to identify the client and the beneficial owner and to verify those identities on probative documents, under the client-identification rule. A file with an undocumented beneficial owner, a shareholder resident in a high-risk jurisdiction with no explanation of the economic rationale, funds arriving from a third party’s account, or draft statuts that do not match the declared activity will be refused or frozen mid-review. The second reason is commercial policy dressed as risk: some branch networks quietly decline non-resident files because they generate paperwork for little revenue. The third is inconsistency: the Kbis says one thing, the lease another, the founder’s story a third. Each refusal should therefore be treated as a diagnostic: ask what is missing, supply it once, and if the answer is a policy refusal rather than a missing document, move on instead of resubmitting the same file to the same network.

French law turns the refusal into a usable document. A bank that refuses to open a deposit account must give the reasons: “Si l’établissement refuse l’ouverture du compte de dépôt, il fournit au demandeur gratuitement, sur support papier, et sur un autre support durable lorsque celui-ci en fait la demande expresse, les motifs de ce refus en mentionnant, le cas échéant, la procédure prévue au III.” (C. mon. fin., art. L312-1) The applicant receives the reasons at no cost, on paper, and the refusing bank must systematically and immediately deliver a written attestation de refus (refusal certificate) and explain the next step. From abroad, the founder should therefore always apply in a way that produces paper: written application with full KYC file, and, on refusal, an immediate written request for the reasons and the attestation. An oral “we cannot help you” at a branch counter is worth nothing; the attestation is the ticket to the Banque de France procedure. Keep the refusal letters from every bank approached, because they prove the founder is genuinely without an account in France, which is the condition for the right.

While the operating-account battle continues, the incorporation must not stall. Remember the three-deposit rule: the blocked capital can sit with a notaire or the CDC, the certificate issues, and the company gets registered. An operating account is not a condition for the Kbis. Founders who learn this order, deposit first through the notaire or CDC, register, then fight for the operating account with a Kbis in hand, win months. A newly registered SAS presenting a Kbis, a French siège social (registered office), and a clean beneficial-owner file is a fundamentally easier file than a company in formation whose founder lives 8,000 kilometres away.

B. The Banque de France Designation, Basic Services and Challenging a Closure Without Flying to Paris

The core of the remedy is one paragraph of the Monetary and Financial Code. The right belongs to anyone without an account in France, starting with “Toute personne physique ou morale domiciliée en France”: any natural or legal person domiciled in France is entitled “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” (C. mon. fin., art. L312-1). A company whose siège social is in France satisfies the domicile condition, so the foreign founder applies in the company’s name. The procedure then runs: “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.” (C. mon. fin., art. L312-1) One refusal attestation, one application with the required documents, and the central bank designates a bank within one working day. The designated bank must open an account with the services bancaires de base (basic banking services, a legally defined minimum package), at no cost to the applicant. The full mechanism is the right-to-an-account statute.

Three practical points decide success. First, file the application from abroad through a representative: the Banque de France accepts filings by the applicant or its agent, so French counsel or the company’s president files with the attestation, the draft or registered statuts, proof of the French siège, and the beneficial-owner identification. Second, choose the location strategically: the designation considers the place of the applicant’s choice, so a Paris siège means a Paris-area bank, which matters because the founder will manage the relationship remotely and Paris branches are more used to foreign files. Third, understand what the designated account is and is not: it is a deposit account with basic services, enough to receive revenue, pay tax and social charges, and operate, but overdrafts, chequebooks beyond the minimum, and complex products are not included. It keeps the company alive while counsel negotiates a full commercial relationship with another bank on the strength of trading history.

Paris and Île-de-France specifics help here. The RCS companies of the capital region register with the greffe du tribunal de commerce de Paris, the busiest registry in France, where files with foreign documents face the closest scrutiny: have every foreign-language document translated by a traducteur assermenté (sworn translator) before filing on the INPI portal. Paris notaires routinely receive capital deposits for foreign founders and issue certificates within days when the file is complete. The Banque de France’s Paris offices handle designation requests for companies seated in the region, and applications filed by Paris counsel with a complete file are processed within the statutory rhythm. Practical delays observed: notaire or CDC deposit and certificate in one to two weeks from a complete file; operating account by commercial negotiation in three to six weeks; designation procedure in days once the refusal attestation exists. Founders who reverse the order, chasing the operating account before securing the certificate, routinely lose two months.

A different shock can arrive later: the bank closes an existing account. The law distinguishes sharply between the decision itself and the procedure. The Paris Court of Appeal recalled that “la décision de clôturer le compte n’a pas à être motivée et est donc discrétionnaire” (CA Paris, 21 Feb. 2024, RG 21/14330): closing is discretionary and needs no reasons. But the notice period is mandatory, and for a non-professional deposit account “le délai de préavis préalable à sa clôture résulte de l’article L312-1-1 du code monétaire et financier et est fixé à au moins 2 mois.” (CA Paris, 21 Feb. 2024, RG 21/14330) For business accounts, the notice period comes from the account agreement, and the same court held that general conditions bind the client only if they were made opposable, accepted expressly or properly notified. A closure without the agreed notice, a closure notified but with services sabotaged during the notice period, or a closure that strands salaries, URSSAF payments or tax debits can therefore be challenged. The burden, however, is on the company: under the former article 1147 of the Civil Code, success requires proof of “une faute imputable à la banque et d’un préjudice qui soit en lien de causalité avec cette faute”, (CA Paris, 21 Feb. 2024, RG 21/14330) a fault attributable to the bank and damage causally linked to it. Concretely, from abroad: the day the closure letter arrives, counsel sends a mise en demeure demanding compliance with the notice period and continuity of payment services; every bounced salary, penalty and lost contract is documented with amounts; the médiateur bancaire (banking ombudsman) is seized in parallel; and if the bank persists, the commercial court hears the liability claim, with the president of the court available in urgent proceedings to order interim measures. The account-agreement rules are the account-agreement statute.

If your blockage started one step earlier, when the bank would not even take the initial deposit for the company being formed, our companion guide The French Bank Said No to Your Company Account and You Live Abroad: Deposit the Capital, Get Your Kbis and Force the Account Open walks through that first stage in detail. This article takes over where it stops: getting blocked funds released or refunded, and challenging the closure of an account your company already holds.

Conclusion

A bank that refuses an account or sits on capital is a procedural problem with procedural answers, not a verdict on the founder’s project. Deposit the capital where the law says it can go, bank, notaire or Caisse des dépôts, within eight days, and collect the certificate that the greffe requires. If the company is never registered, the six-month judicial route returns the money. If a bank refuses the operating account, demand the written reasons and the refusal attestation, then let the Banque de France designate a bank within one working day. If a bank closes an existing account, hold it to its notice period and document every euro of resulting damage. At each stage, the founder abroad acts through a written file and a French representative, never through repeated branch visits. Companies that follow this order, certificate first, registration second, operating account third, with clean beneficial-owner documentation throughout, turn a French banking refusal from a company-killing event into a delay measured in weeks.