You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore and you are setting up a company in France. The bank asks for a French address, the online filing portal asks for a lease or a domiciliation contract, and nothing moves until that address is accepted. This is the single most common reason foreign founders see their French incorporation file rejected or delayed: the registered office is missing, unclear, or not supported by the right document. This guide explains, entirely from the founder-abroad point of view, how to give your French company a valid address, when a simple domiciliation contract is enough, when you need a real commercial lease, and how to avoid signing a nine-year commitment by mistake on day one.
French law starts from a blunt rule. As.Context: the greffe, the registry office of the local commercial court that checks incorporation files, will not register your company without proof that it enjoys its premises. The company ID certificate that proves your company exists, the Kbis extract issued by the greffe, is only delivered once the file, including that proof of address, is complete. Announcements about the company are then published in the BODACC, the official gazette for commercial and company announcements. The Guichet unique, the single online filing portal operated through the INPI (the French intellectual property and companies office), routes your file to the RNE, the National Companies Register, and to the tax and social security bodies, including URSSAF, the agency that collects employer social security contributions. If the address document is wrong, the whole chain stops. The good news is that the system offers two clean paths for a founder who lives abroad: approved domiciliation and commercial lease, including a short precarious lease for testing the market. The companion overview for foreign founders on setting up a company in France, opening the bank account, obtaining the Kbis and handling VAT and the first hire remains the starting point for the full incorporation sequence; this article focuses only on the address and premises question and takes it to the practical detail you need before you sign anything.
I. Secure a registered office from abroad that the greffe will accept
A. What address options does a foreign founder really have for French company registration?
Every legal person asking for registration must prove that it enjoys the premises where it installs its registered office. Article L.123-11 of the Commercial Code states that “Toute personne morale demandant son immatriculation au registre du commerce et des sociétés doit justifier de la jouissance du ou des locaux où elle installe, seule ou avec d’autres, le siège de l’entreprise”. The same logic applies when the head office stays abroad and you open an agency, branch or representative office in France: you must justify the enjoyment of the French premises. Individuals face a parallel rule under Article L.123-10 of the Commercial Code, which requires any individual asking for registration to declare the address of the business and to prove enjoyment of it.
In practice, a founder living abroad has four options, and only one document per option is expected by the greffe. First, a commercial lease or a professional lease for premises you really occupy. Second, a domiciliation contract with an approved domiciliation company, which gives you a prestigious Paris address plus mail handling and meeting rooms without renting an office. Third, for the first years only and under conditions, the home address of the legal representative in France. Fourth, if the French structure is only an agency, branch or representation of a foreign head office, the address of that French establishment, supported by the foreign company’s documents plus the French occupation title. What never works is a borrowed address with no contract, a friend’s apartment mentioned without any supporting title, a post office box alone, or a foreign address presented as if it were the French registered office. The filing portal will ask for the occupation title, the greffe will check it, and the file will be rejected until a proper title is uploaded.
Domiciliation in shared premises occupied by several companies is expressly allowed. Article L.123-11 of the Commercial Code adds that domiciliation of a legal person in premises occupied jointly by several companies is authorised under conditions set by decree in Council of State, and that the decree specifies the equipment or services required to establish the reality of the registered office. That decree-level detail is where many cheap online offers fail: a valid domiciliation company must provide a room that guarantees confidentiality and allows regular meetings of the management bodies, plus keeping and consulting the books and registers required by law. If the offer is only a mail-forwarding address with no meeting capacity and no proper file on your company, it does not meet the regulatory standard and your registration can be challenged later.
You can also, as a starting solution, use the home of the legal representative. Article L.123-11-1 of the Commercial Code provides that “Toute personne morale est autorisée à installer son siège au domicile de son représentant légal et y exercer une activité, sauf dispositions législatives ou stipulations contractuelles contraires.” This is useful when your French president or manager already lives in France and the lease or the co-ownership rules allow it. But the same article sets a strict five-year limit when a statute or a contract opposes business use of the home: the representative may still install the registered office at home, but only for a period that can neither exceed five years from the creation of the company nor go beyond the legal, contractual or judicial term of occupation of the premises. Before filing, you must notify the landlord, the co-ownership syndicate or the building representative in writing of your intention to use this option, and before the period expires you must, on pain of automatic striking off, send the greffe evidence of your change of situation. The article adds that this neither changes the use of the building nor brings the commercial lease regime into play. For a founder who lives entirely abroad with no French home, this path is simply unavailable, and domiciliation or a lease remains the only route.
Whatever you choose, the address determines your tax and social security routing from day one. The SIREN number, the unique nine-digit identifier of your company, the SIRET number that identifies each establishment, the competent tax office, the competent URSSAF office and the commercial court of your registered office all flow from that address. A Paris address puts you under the Paris commercial court and Paris tax offices, with Paris procedural timeframes and Paris bailiff and court costs. An address in the inner suburbs puts you under Nanterre, Bobigny or Créteil, with different court backlogs and different practical delays for hearings and enforcement. Choose the address for legal coherence, not only for prestige, because moving the registered office later means a transfer procedure, a new filing, a BODACC announcement and updated bank and tax records.
B. How do you sign a valid domiciliation contract from abroad and keep it alive?
A domiciliation contract is a regulated contract, not a simple invoice for an address. Article R.123-168 of the Commercial Code states that “Le contrat de domiciliation est rédigé par écrit.” It adds that “Il est conclu pour une durée d’au moins trois mois renouvelable par tacite reconduction, sauf préavis de résiliation.” From abroad, insist on a signed written contract, in French, showing the exact corporate name, the exact address, the duration, the renewal and notice terms, and the approval reference of the domiciliation provider. Keep a scanned copy with a qualified electronic signature and keep the original available for the bank, which will ask for it before releasing the blocked capital and before opening the current account.
The provider itself must be approved. Article L.123-11-3 of the Commercial Code provides that no one may carry on domiciliation business without prior approval by the administrative authority, before registration with the commercial court registry. Approval is only given to providers who make available premises with a room ensuring confidentiality and regular meetings of the management bodies, who own the premises or hold a commercial lease over them, and who meet integrity conditions. Ask for the prefectural approval number and check that it appears in the contract. Article R.123-168 of the Commercial Code requires the contract to mention that approval reference. A provider who cannot produce it is operating outside the regime, and your domiciliation can be treated as ineffective.
The provider has continuing duties that directly affect you. It must keep, for each domiciled company, a file with supporting documents about the home address and telephone details of the legal representative, the places of business and the place where accounting records are kept when they are not kept by the provider. It must inform the greffe clerk when the contract ends or is terminated early. Critically, when the domiciled person has not collected its mail for three months, the provider must also inform the commercial court greffe. It must pass enforcement officers the information needed to reach you, and it must send the tax office and the social security collection bodies quarterly lists of newly domiciled and departed companies, plus an annual list every year before 15 January of companies domiciled on 1 January. In plain terms: if you ignore your domiciled mail for three months while living abroad, the court registry is informed, and the path toward automatic striking off opens. Organise mail forwarding, scanned mail, and a named person who reads everything weekly.
Your own duties mirror this. You undertake to use the premises effectively and exclusively as the registered office, or as agency, branch or representation when the head office is abroad. You must inform the provider of any change in your activity, and for a legal person of any change in legal form, corporate purpose, or the name and home address of the persons who can bind the company. You give the provider a mandate, which it accepts, to receive any notification in your name. From abroad, this means: update the provider before you update anyone else when the president changes, when the corporate purpose widens, or when your own home address changes, because the provider’s file is what the greffe, the tax office and URSSAF rely on.
Paris and Ile-de-France practice adds a layer founders abroad underestimate. Paris banks check the reality of the seat more strictly than many provincial banks: they ask for the domiciliation contract, the provider’s approval number, proof of identity and home address of the ultimate beneficial owners, and sometimes proof of effective management in France for tax residence questions. The Paris commercial court greffe rejects files where the address line, the postcode and the contract address differ by a single character, where the corporate name on the contract does not exactly match the draft articles, or where the contract is signed by someone with no authority shown in the file. Before uploading, align the draft articles, the list of managers, the beneficial owner declaration, the domiciliation contract and the portal form character by character. Prepare a French-language pack: passport, proof of home address abroad with certified translation when needed, foreign parent company extract with apostille and sworn translation when a foreign shareholder is involved, and a clear diagram showing who owns and controls the French company. This is the file that gets you the Kbis in days rather than weeks.
II. Take business premises without signing a nine-year trap
A. Which lease should a foreign company choose: commercial lease, short precarious lease or office services?
Once you need real premises — a shop, a restaurant, a workshop, a warehouse or an office that receives clients — French law pushes you toward the protective regime of commercial leases, known as the 3-6-9 lease. That regime applies to leases of buildings or premises in which a business is operated. Article L.145-1 of the Commercial Code sets this scope for traders and industrialists registered with the commercial court registry and for craft business heads, and extends it to accessory premises whose loss would jeopardise the operation and to bare land on which commercial, industrial or craft buildings were erected with the express consent of the owner. If you operate a real customer-facing business in the premises and you are registered, you are normally inside this protective regime whether the contract calls it a commercial lease or not. Clauses that try to opt out while keeping you in the premises for years are ineffective.
The core economics of the 3-6-9 lease surprise many foreign founders. Article L.145-4 of the Commercial Code provides that “La durée du contrat de location ne peut être inférieure à neuf ans.” The tenant, however, may terminate at the end of each three-year period, with at least six months’ notice by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt or by bailiff’s writ. Longer leases, single-use buildings, exclusive office premises and certain storage premises may contain contrary terms. The landlord may also terminate at three-year intervals but only to build, rebuild, raise the building, reallocate accessory housing, convert to housing, carry out ordered restoration works or demolish for urban renewal, in the forms and time limits of the termination article. A retiring tenant and, on death, the heirs, enjoy the same three-year exit, extended to the sole member of a single-member limited liability company and to a majority manager of at least two years in a limited liability company holding the lease. For a founder abroad, the message is direct: a nine-year lease is not a nine-year prison for the tenant, because you can leave every three years, but it is a long landlord commitment that gives you renewal rights and an eviction indemnity, which is why landlords negotiate rent, deposit, guarantee and works clauses hard at the start.
If you only want to test the French market for one or two years, do not sign a nine-year lease and hope to renegotiate later. Use the short precarious lease, the bail dérogatoire. Article L.145-5 of the Commercial Code states that “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.” At the end of that period, the parties can no longer sign a new lease departing from the protective chapter to operate the same business in the same premises. If, at expiry and at the latest within one month after expiry, the tenant remains and is left in possession, a new lease arises governed by the protective chapter. The same happens on express renewal or on a new lease between the same parties for the same premises. Seasonal lettings are excluded from these last two rules. A mandatory inventory of the premises, agreed between the parties or drawn up by a bailiff with costs shared equally when agreement is impossible, must be attached. In practice: one entry, maximum three years in total including successive short leases, then either you leave or you automatically fall into the protective 3-6-9 regime if you stay even one month too long with the landlord’s tolerance. Diary this deadline from abroad with two alerts, because staying put by inertia converts a flexible test into a protected lease with renewal and eviction economics.
Coworking and serviced offices sit outside this choice when they are genuine service contracts: flexible desks, meeting rooms by the hour and domiciliation-style services without exclusive possession of defined premises under a lease. They are excellent for a founder abroad who needs a Paris address, mail handling and occasional presence without lease liability. But the moment you get exclusive, stable possession of identified premises for operating your business, with rent, duration and control that look like a lease, a court can reclassify the contract as a commercial lease whatever its title. Do not use a service agreement to hide a shop or a workshop: the protective regime will catch up with you on renewal, rent and eviction, and the landlord will have lost the ability to price that risk.
From the bank and tax point of view, the lease or service contract is not only a private deal. The bank asks for it to verify the reality of the business before opening the account and releasing capital. The tax office uses the premises to attach you to a local tax department and to check value added tax and corporate tax establishment questions. URSSAF uses it to locate the employer for hiring declarations. A mismatch between the address on the lease, the address filed with the portal and the address given to the bank delays all three. Sign first, file second, open the account with the same documents, using identical spelling of the street, postcode and municipality everywhere, including the cedex or building suffix when there is one.
B. How do you survive renewal, rent review and eviction when you manage from abroad?
Renewal is a right, not a favour, when you qualify. Article L.145-8 of the Commercial Code provides that “Le droit au renouvellement du bail ne peut être invoqué que par le propriétaire du fonds qui est exploité dans les lieux.” The business, transformed where allowed, must, absent legitimate reasons, have been effectively operated during the three years before expiry or before the extended date set for termination or renewal. Concretely, a foreign-owned French company that really operates its shop, restaurant or workshop for three years earns the right to renewal or, if the landlord refuses renewal, to an eviction indemnity. A company that keeps the lease but stops operating, leaves the shutters down, or sublets everything without operating anything itself loses the core justification for renewal. If you plan a long absence, keep documented operation: staff schedules, supplier invoices, point-of-sale records, maintenance logs and proof of registration and tax filings showing continuous activity.
Procedure is strict and managed on paper and bailiff’s writs, which is dangerous from abroad if nobody watches the mailbox. Article L.145-9 of the Commercial Code provides that “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.” Without termination or renewal request, a written lease continues tacitly beyond its term, and during tacit extension termination must be given at least six months ahead for the last day of the calendar quarter. Termination must be by bailiff’s writ and must, on pain of nullity, state its grounds and warn the tenant that to contest the termination or claim an eviction indemnity the tenant must go to court within two years from the effective date. From abroad, give your French counsel or your domiciliation agent a standing instruction: scan every bailiff’s writ the day it arrives, calendar the two-year action limit immediately, and never let a termination with an eviction offer sit unanswered. Missing the renewal request window or the court action window turns a compensable eviction into an accepted departure.
Eviction economics are the real negotiation behind every non-renewal. Article L.145-14 of the Commercial Code states that “Le bailleur peut refuser le renouvellement du bail.” It adds that the landlord must, except as provided for serious reasons and statutory buy-back rights, pay the evicted tenant an eviction indemnity equal to the loss caused by the failure to renew, including in particular the market value of the business assessed by professional practice, plus normal removal and reinstallation costs and transfer taxes for a business of the same value, unless the owner proves the loss is smaller. The Court of Cassation polices this measure of loss closely. In a judgment of 10 October 2019, Third Civil Chamber, appeal No. 18-19.662 (Cour de cassation, 3e civ., 10 October 2019, No. 18-19.662), the Court held that “l’indemnité d’éviction du preneur sortant ne doit réparer que le préjudice qu’il a subi”, and censured an appeal court that had compensated the outgoing tenant for removal, communication and double-rent costs partly borne by a subtenant. In plain English: you are compensated for your own loss, with evidence, not for someone else’s costs routed through you. Keep separate accounts for head-lease costs and sublease recoveries if you sublet part of the premises.
The same court protects the tenant’s right even when the business is in difficulty. In a judgment of 16 March 2017, Third Civil Chamber, appeal No. 16-10.143 (Cour de cassation, 3e civ., 16 March 2017, No. 16-10.143), where a landlord had refused renewal and the tenant later went into court-ordered liquidation and returned the keys, the Court quashed a ruling that had denied any eviction indemnity merely because operation had stopped for four months after liquidation. The Court reproached the appeal judges for ruling “sans rechercher, comme il le lui était demandé, si, à la date de restitution des clés, la société Palomastar n’avait pas été privée d’un droit susceptible de donner lieu à réparation, en raison du refus du renouvellement du bail”. For a foreign shareholder, the lesson is that insolvency or closure does not automatically erase the eviction claim: the right is assessed at the key dates, and the liquidator can pursue it. Do not abandon the claim by returning keys without a written reservation when a refusal of renewal preceded the difficulties.
Rent on renewal or revision must track market rental value. Article L.145-33 of the Commercial Code provides that “Le montant des loyers des baux renouvelés ou révisés doit correspondre à la valeur locative.” Failing agreement, that value is set by the characteristics of the premises, the destination of the place, the respective obligations of the parties, local commercial factors and prices commonly charged nearby, with a decree detailing these items. From abroad, do not accept a proposed renewal rent without a local rental-value check: Paris high streets, suburban retail parks and provincial town centres move differently, and works, fixtures, destination restrictions and opening hours all affect the figure. Commission an independent rental valuation, compare neighbouring lettings of similar size and use, and negotiate caps, step rents or works contributions against the landlord’s wish to reset to full market value.
Paris and Ile-de-France add practical urgency to all of this. The competent court for most Paris leases sits in Paris with heavy caseloads and strict procedural calendars; suburban courts in Nanterre, Bobigny and Créteil have their own backlogs and local commercial expertise. Bailiff service in Paris buildings with access codes and concierge desks fails more often than founders expect, which makes a reliable French address for service and a counsel who accepts service critical. Budget in Paris for higher guarantees: twelve months’ deposit or a first-demand bank guarantee from a French bank is common for foreign tenants with no French balance sheet, plus joint and several guarantee of the foreign parent when the landlord insists. For proof, keep everything that shows continuous operation and payment: signed lease and inventory, rent receipts, business registration and Kbis history, tax and URSSAF filings, insurance, and dated photos of the fitted premises. If you operate in Paris while living abroad, designate in writing one person in Ile-de-France authorised to grant access to bailiffs, experts and repair contractors, because a missed access appointment can cost you months in an eviction or works dispute.
Conclusion
A foreign founder does not need a French home or a nine-year gamble to start properly in France. A written domiciliation contract with an approved provider, showing its approval reference and real meeting and confidentiality capacity, gives you a registrable office that satisfies Article L.123-11 of the Commercial Code and Article R.123-168 of the Commercial Code, provided you read your mail and update the provider about every corporate change. When you need real premises, a short precarious lease within the three-year ceiling of Article L.145-5 of the Commercial Code lets you test the market, while the protective nine-year lease of Article L.145-4 of the Commercial Code rewards genuine three-year operation with renewal rights under Article L.145-8 of the Commercial Code, strict termination forms under Article L.145-9 of the Commercial Code, market rent under Article L.145-33 of the Commercial Code, and a compensatory eviction indemnity under Article L.145-14 of the Commercial Code measured only by your own proven loss. File the same exact address everywhere, calendar every three-year, six-month and one-month deadline twice, and keep operation and payment records that a Paris court can read without explanation. That discipline turns the French address from a filing obstacle into the legal anchor of your business in France.