You run your company from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, and your French customer has stopped answering. The goods were delivered to Lyon, the service was performed in Paris, the invoice states thirty days, and ninety days later the bank account shows nothing. Distance makes everything harder: you cannot knock on the debtor’s door, you do not know the French court vocabulary, and you wonder whether pursuing a five-figure invoice from abroad is worth the cost. It very often is. French law gives the unpaid seller a set of fast, largely paper-based procedures that work well at a distance, and it adds automatic late penalties that increase the amount owed every day. This guide explains, for a foreign founder or foreign company doing business in France, how to turn an unpaid French invoice into cash without moving to France: first by making the invoice legally enforceable, with the correct payment terms, penalties and limitation dates, then by choosing the right fast-track procedure, and finally by seizing the debtor’s bank account through a French enforcement officer. Every acronym is explained, every decisive rule is cited to its official text, and the Paris specifics are included where they matter in practice.

I. Make the invoice enforceable before going to court: payment deadlines, late penalties and the five-year clock

A. What a French business-to-business invoice earns while it waits: European Central Bank plus ten points interest and the 40-euro recovery fee

French commercial law does not treat payment time as a purely contractual matter. Article L. 441-10 of the Commercial Code (Code de commerce) sets default and maximum payment periods between professionals. Unless the sales conditions or the parties agree otherwise, the invoice must be paid within thirty days of receipt of the goods or performance of the service. Where the parties agree on a period, it may not exceed sixty days from the invoice date, with a narrow alternative of forty-five days end of month if expressly agreed and not abusive toward the creditor. These ceilings matter for a foreign supplier because many debtors invoke their own purchasing conditions to impose ninety-day terms. Beyond sixty days, such a clause is unlawful in a French business-to-business relationship, and you can rely on the statutory period instead. The official text is available on Légifrance at Article L. 441-10 of the Commercial Code.

Your general conditions of sale (conditions générales de vente, the standard terms attached to quotes and orders) must state the payment conditions, and any professional buyer can demand to receive them. That rule comes from Article L. 441-1 of the Commercial Code. For a foreign company, the practical lesson is simple: put your payment period, your penalty rate and the recovery fee in writing before the dispute. A judge reads those documents first, and a complete file settles faster.

Once the due date passes, penalties accrue automatically. The statute says, word for word: « Les pénalités de retard sont exigibles sans qu’un rappel soit nécessaire. » (Late penalties are due without any reminder being required.) And it continues: « Tout professionnel en situation de retard de paiement est de plein droit débiteur, à l’égard du créancier, d’une indemnité forfaitaire pour frais de recouvrement, dont le montant est fixé par décret. » (Any professional in late payment owes the creditor, as of right, a fixed recovery fee whose amount is set by decree.) Unless the parties agree otherwise, the penalty rate under Article L. 441-10 of the Commercial Code equals the rate applied by the European Central Bank to its most recent refinancing operation plus ten percentage points, with the rate of 1 January applying for the first half of the year and the rate of 1 July for the second half. It can never be set below three times the French legal interest rate (taux d’intérêt légal). The fixed recovery fee is set by Article D. 441-5 of the Commercial Code, which states: « Le montant de l’indemnité forfaitaire pour frais de recouvrement prévue au II de l’article L. 441-10 est fixé à 40 euros. » (The fixed recovery fee is set at 40 euros.) Where your actual collection costs exceed 40 euros, the statute lets you claim the documented excess on top.

Take a concrete example. A 25,000-euro invoice due on 15 March, still unpaid in October, carries penalties at the European Central Bank rate plus ten points running from 16 March with no reminder needed, plus 40 euros immediately, plus any proven extra collection costs. Over several months at current rates, the penalties alone add several hundred euros. Presenting this calculation in the first formal demand letter, with the statutory references, changes the negotiation: the debtor sees that waiting costs money every day, and the file later arrives before the judge with interest already quantified.

Send that demand as a formal notice (mise en demeure) even though penalties do not require one. Article 1344 of the Civil Code provides: « Le débiteur est mis en demeure de payer soit par une sommation ou un acte portant interpellation suffisante, soit, si le contrat le prévoit, par la seule exigibilité de l’obligation. » (The debtor is put on notice by a summons or any act carrying sufficient demand, or, where the contract so provides, by the mere due date of the obligation.) The full text is at Article 1344 of the Civil Code. In practice, a registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt (lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception) or a demand served by a commissaire de justice, the enforcement officer formerly called huissier de justice, fixes the starting point of certain interest, interrupts the limitation period, and proves to the court that you acted seriously. From abroad, instruct your French counsel or the officer directly by email with the invoice, the contract, the delivery slips (bons de livraison) and the statement of account (relevé de compte).

Finally, late payment is policed by the administration, not only by the creditor. The fraud-control authority (Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes, abbreviated DGCCRF) can impose administrative fines for missing payment deadlines and missing invoice mentions, up to 75,000 euros for an individual and 2,000,000 euros for a company, under Article L. 441-16 of the Commercial Code. You do not collect that fine, but mentioning a report to the DGCCRF in a persistent non-payment case adds genuine pressure, because the debtor risks an inspection of all its supplier payment periods.

B. The five-year clock: when the limitation period starts and why dating the invoice late changes nothing

Between merchants, the limitation period (prescription) is five years. Article L. 110-4 of the Commercial Code states: « Les obligations nées à l’occasion de leur commerce entre commerçants ou entre commerçants et non-commerçants se prescrivent par cinq ans si elles ne sont pas soumises à des prescriptions spéciales plus courtes. » (Commercial obligations between merchants, or between merchants and non-merchants, are time-barred after five years unless subject to shorter special periods.) See Article L. 110-4 of the Commercial Code. The general starting point is given by Article 2224 of the Civil Code: « Les actions personnelles ou mobilières se prescrivent par cinq ans à compter du jour où le titulaire d’un droit a connu ou aurait dû connaître les faits lui permettant de l’exercer. » (Personal or movable actions are time-barred after five years from the day the holder of the right knew or should have known the facts enabling it to act.) For an unpaid invoice, the courts fix that starting point at the date the payment became due, not at some later date chosen by the creditor.

Two judgments of the commercial chamber of the Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation, the highest French civil court) settle the two most frequent mistakes. In the first, a service provider performed geological studies in March 2008 and October 2009 but only issued its three invoices on 4 June 2010, then sued on 2 February 2015. The debtor raised the five-year bar, and the Court of Cassation rejected the provider’s appeal. The Court recalled that the seller must invoice as soon as the service is performed, then held, word for word, that « l’obligation au paiement du client prend naissance au moment où la prestation commandée a été exécutée » (the customer’s payment obligation arises when the ordered service has been performed), and that the action brought on 2 February 2015 was time-barred, « peu important la date à laquelle elle avait décidé d’établir sa facture » (regardless of the date on which it had decided to draw up its invoice). That is Court of Cassation, commercial chamber, 26 February 2020, appeal no. 18-25.036, available at Cass. com., 26 Feb. 2020, no. 18-25.036. The lesson for a foreign supplier is blunt: issuing the invoice months after delivery does not push the five-year deadline back. Invoice immediately after performance, and diary the limitation date from performance plus five years at the latest.

In the second judgment, the seller had itself fixed the due date on its invoice, and the Court held it to that date. After noting that the parties agreed the starting point was the enforceability of the buyer’s obligation, the Court stated: « Ayant ainsi retenu que le vendeur avait lui-même fixé l’exigibilité de sa facture au 19 avril 2013 » (Having thus held that the seller had itself fixed the due date of its invoice at 19 April 2013), the court of appeal had lawfully fixed the start of the limitation period at that date. That is Court of Cassation, commercial chamber, 14 June 2023, appeal no. 21-14.841, available at Cass. com., 14 June 2023, no. 21-14.841. So the due date printed on your own invoice can start the clock against you. Never extend the contractual due date casually to please the customer, and never re-invoice the same debt with a fresh date to pretend the clock restarted. If you grant extra time, do it in a separate written acknowledgment in which the debtor recognizes the debt, because an acknowledgment of the debt (reconnaissance de dette) interrupts the period and starts a fresh five years, whereas a unilateral new invoice does not.

Three practical consequences follow. First, calendar every invoice at issue plus five years from the due date, and act in year three at the latest, because procedures and enforcement take months. Second, anything that interrupts prescription must come from the debtor or from a formal step: a written acknowledgment, a payment on account, a formal demand served by a commissaire de justice, or the filing of the claim. A polite email exchange alone is fragile evidence. Third, for small claims not exceeding 5,000 euros, a lawsuit must generally be preceded by an attempt at conciliation by a justice conciliator (conciliateur de justice), mediation or a participatory procedure, failing which the claim can be declared inadmissible. Article 750-1 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that « la demande en justice est précédée, au choix des parties, d’une tentative de conciliation menée par un conciliateur de justice, d’une tentative de médiation ou d’une tentative de procédure participative, lorsqu’elle tend au paiement d’une somme n’excédant pas 5 000 euros » (legal proceedings are preceded, at the parties’ choice, by an attempt at conciliation, mediation or participatory procedure where the claim seeks payment of a sum not exceeding 5,000 euros). See Article 750-1 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Budget that step for small invoices: the conciliator is a volunteer, the process is largely done in writing, and your French counsel can handle it while you remain abroad.

II. Turn the paper into money from abroad: fast procedures, seizure and the debtor’s last defences

A. Which fast track fits your file: the payment-order procedure, the summary provision or the European payment order

French law offers three quick routes, and the choice depends on whether the debtor is in France or in another European Union country and on whether the debt is disputed. All three can be run from abroad through a French lawyer (avocat), and none requires your personal attendance at the hearing when you are represented. Founders who are structuring their French presence for the first time will find the broader setup steps, from the bank account to the Kbis certificate of incorporation (the Kbis extract issued by the commercial court registry, called greffe, which proves the company exists), in our guide on setting up a company in France as a foreign founder.

The first route is the injonction de payer, the French order-for-payment procedure before the local court. Article 1405 of the Code of Civil Procedure opens it where « La créance a une cause contractuelle ou résulte d’une obligation de caractère statutaire et s’élève à un montant déterminé » (the claim has a contractual cause or results from a statutory obligation and amounts to a fixed sum), with contractual quantification assessed under the contract including any penalty clause. See Article 1405 of the Code of Civil Procedure. You file a petition (requête) with the contract, the invoice, the delivery proofs and the demand letter. The judge rules without hearing the debtor and issues an order to pay. The debtor is served with the order and has one month to file an opposition (contested objection). Article 1416 of the Code of Civil Procedure states: « L’opposition est formée dans le mois qui suit la signification de l’ordonnance. » (Opposition is filed within one month of service of the order.) See Article 1416 of the Code of Civil Procedure. If no opposition is filed, you ask for enforcement wording (formule exécutoire) and the order becomes an enforceable title equivalent to a judgment. If opposition is filed, the court hears the whole case: Article 1417 provides that « Le tribunal statue sur la demande en recouvrement. Il connaît, dans les limites de sa compétence d’attribution, de la demande initiale et de toutes les demandes incidentes et défenses au fond. » (The court rules on the recovery claim. It hears, within its subject-matter jurisdiction, the initial claim and all incidental claims and substantive defences.) See Article 1417 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The injonction de payer is therefore ideal for a clear file: signed contract, delivered goods, undisputed invoice. It is cheap, fast, and entirely paper-based until opposition.

The second route is the référé-provision, the emergency summary procedure in which the president of the court orders an advance payment where the obligation is not seriously disputable. Article 835 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides: « Dans les cas où l’existence de l’obligation n’est pas sérieusement contestable, ils peuvent accorder une provision au créancier » (Where the existence of the obligation is not seriously disputable, they may grant the creditor an advance). See Article 835 of the Code of Civil Procedure. A recent Paris example shows exactly how judges apply it to unpaid invoices. A service provider billed 4,243.58 euros including tax for a performed service, sent a formal demand by registered letter, and sued in summary proceedings after the first judge had refused. The Paris Court of Appeal held: « L’obligation de paiement de la société Les éditions du net n’est donc pas sérieusement contestable à hauteur de la somme réclamée de 4.243,58 euros. » (The payment obligation is therefore not seriously disputable up to the claimed sum of 4,243.58 euros.) It ordered that « Cette somme produira intérêts de retard au taux appliqué par la Banque centrale européenne majoré de dix points conformément aux dispositions de l’article L.441-10 du code de commerce » (this sum shall bear late interest at the European Central Bank rate plus ten points in accordance with Article L. 441-10 of the Commercial Code), plus the fixed recovery fee: « La société Les éditions du net sera en outre condamnée au paiement de l’indemnité forfaitaire pour frais de recouvrement de 40 euros prévue aux articles L.441-10 II et D.441-5 du code de commerce. » That is Paris Court of Appeal, 13 February 2025, no. 24/09489, available at CA Paris, 13 Feb. 2025, no. 24/09489. Two details in that ruling deserve attention. First, the debtor’s excuse, a pest invasion allegedly coming from neighbouring premises, was rejected because it was unrelated to the invoiced service performed elsewhere: excuses that do not concern the contract itself do not create a serious dispute. Second, the court refused to award the lawyer’s fees twice: the 1,000 euros of counsel fees already reimbursed went under court costs (Article 700) and not as an additional recovery indemnity. Claim your real collection costs with invoices, but present counsel fees under Article 700, not as damages.

The third route is the European payment order (injonction de payer européenne) under Regulation (EC) No. 1896/2006, for cross-border claims where the creditor and the debtor are in different European Union countries. A French-based creditor pursuing an Italian, German or Dutch customer, or a foreign European company pursuing a French customer, can apply on a standard form, and the order, once declared enforceable in the country of origin, circulates without any intermediate validation. The Court of Cassation has drawn the full consequence: « une injonction de payer européenne, devenue exécutoire dans l’État membre d’origine, est reconnue et exécutée dans les autres États membres sans qu’il soit possible de contester sa reconnaissance » (a European payment order that has become enforceable in the Member State of origin is recognised and enforced in the other Member States without its recognition being contestable). That is Court of Cassation, second civil chamber, 27 June 2019, appeal no. 18-14.198, available at Cass. civ. 2, 27 June 2019, no. 18-14.198. In that case, a Dutch company’s European order declared enforceable by the Hague court supported a bank-account seizure and a seizure order in France, and the French enforcement judge was held to have no power to annul the service of the European order behind the enforceable title. The strategic message is symmetrical. As a creditor, the European order gives you a title that the debtor cannot attack collaterally in the enforcement country. As a debtor served with a foreign European order, you must file the standard opposition form in the country of origin within the thirty-day period, because waiting and challenging the later seizure in France will fail. Service disputes still arise: in a 2020 Italian order enforced in France, the French debtor contested the registered-letter notification and the enforcement judge declared himself incompetent, a position confirmed on appeal, while the Court of Cassation referred the underlying notification questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union on 21 May 2026 (appeal no. 22-19.530, see Cass. civ. 2, 21 May 2026, no. 22-19.530). The referral shows that service by post remains the sensitive point of the procedure: always keep the acknowledgment of receipt and verify the address against the trade and companies register (registre du commerce et des sociétés, abbreviated RCS) before serving.

How to choose? For a French debtor and a documented invoice, start with the domestic injonction de payer: it is the cheapest and the least confrontational, and most solid debtors pay upon service of the order. Where you need money quickly, for example because the debtor is dissipating assets or a limitation deadline is near, add or prefer the référé-provision, which yields an enforceable advance within weeks. Where the debtor is in another European Union country, use the European payment order rather than suing in France and enforcing abroad. Where the debtor is outside the European Union, sue in France at the debtor’s French domicile or place of performance and enforce against its French assets, typically its bank account or its receivables from French customers. For a Paris debtor, the competent courts sit in Paris: the judicial court (tribunal judiciaire de Paris) for civil claims and the economic-activities court (tribunal des activités économiques de Paris, the renamed commercial court) for commercial claims. Filing is done by your avocat with scanned exhibits; your presence in Paris is not required, but a power of attorney and certified translations of any foreign-language contract should be ready.

B. Seizing and getting paid: the enforcement officer, the bank-account seizure and what the debtor can still raise

A payment order or judgment that nobody enforces is only paper. In France, forced enforcement (exécution forcée) requires an enforceable title (titre exécutoire): a judgment with enforcement wording, an unopposed payment order made enforceable, or a European order declared enforceable. With that title, a commissaire de justice serves the debtor and seizes. The flagship measure for an unpaid invoice is the saisie-attribution, the seizure of a sum of money in the hands of a third party, usually the debtor’s bank. Article R. 211-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures states: « Le créancier procède à la saisie par acte d’huissier de justice signifié au tiers. » (The creditor seizes by officer’s writ served on the third party.) See Article R. 211-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures. The writ must state the enforceable title and give a separate breakdown of principal, costs and accrued interest plus a provision for interest falling due. Its effect is immediate: the seized sum is attributed to the creditor at once, up to the amount owed, subject to later challenge. The debtor is then notified (dénonciation) and has one month to contest before the enforcement judge (juge de l’exécution): « A peine d’irrecevabilité, les contestations relatives à la saisie sont formées dans le délai d’un mois à compter de la dénonciation de la saisie au débiteur. » (Contests are filed within one month of notification of the seizure to the debtor, failing which they are inadmissible.) See Article R. 211-11 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures. The contest must also be reported to the seizing officer by registered letter on the same day or the next business day. Miss one of these formalities and the challenge fails on procedure, which is why debtors instruct counsel and why you should have your own counsel monitor the one-month window.

Two debtor defences deserve anticipation. First, the request for time. Article 1343-5 of the Civil Code allows the judge, « compte tenu de la situation du débiteur et en considération des besoins du créancier » (taking into account the debtor’s situation and the creditor’s needs), to defer or spread payment « dans la limite de deux années » (up to two years), suspending enforcement and freezing contractual penalty increases during the granted period. See Article 1343-5 of the Civil Code. Judges grant such grace periods (délais de grâce) to debtors who show good faith, a temporary difficulty and realistic repayment capacity, not to companies that simply refuse to pay. Counter it with evidence of bad faith: ignored demand letters, absence from hearings, parallel asset transfers. Second, insolvency. If the debtor enters safeguard, reorganisation or liquidation proceedings (sauvegarde, redressement judiciaire, liquidation judiciaire), individual enforcement stops and your claim must be declared to the liabilities (déclaration de créance) within the statutory period. Before suing, check the debtor’s status on the official company register and the insolvency notices bulletin (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, abbreviated BODACC): suing an insolvent company through the ordinary payment order wastes months, whereas a prompt declaration preserves your rank.

Running all of this from abroad is routine for French counsel and officers, provided the file is complete. Prepare a single bundle: the signed contract or accepted quote, the general conditions, the delivery or performance proofs signed by the customer, the invoice with its due date, the account statement, the formal demand and its acknowledgment of receipt, and any acknowledgment by the debtor, even partial. Number the exhibits, translate foreign-language documents into French with a certified translation, and give your avocat a written authority to act. The officer can then serve, seize and report by email, and funds recovered by bank seizure are transferred to your counsel’s escrow account (compte CARPA, the secure pooled account of the French bar) before being wired to you. Keep the originals: French courts accept scans at the petition stage, but the debtor’s opposition or the enforcement judge may require production of the original delivery slips.

Conclusion

An unpaid French invoice is not a loss to write off simply because you live abroad. The statute gives you penalties that run without a reminder, a fixed 40-euro recovery fee plus proven excess costs, and administrative fines that pressure systematic late payers. The five-year limitation starts when payment falls due, with late invoicing buying no extra time and your own due date binding you, so invoice at once and diary the deadline. Then pick the fast track that fits: the domestic payment order for a clear French file, the summary provision where the debt is not seriously disputable, the European order for a debtor in another European Union country, and the bank-account seizure to convert the title into cash. Each step can be handled through French counsel and a commissaire de justice while you stay abroad, provided your documentary bundle is complete from the first letter. Act early, quantify interest from day one, and the distance stops protecting the debtor.