You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, you have just signed the articles of your French SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company most foreign founders choose) or your SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the limited liability company with stricter statutory rules), and then the first French bank answers: no. No appointment, no explanation beyond a generic letter, sometimes no answer at all. Your company formation stalls because the share capital has nowhere to be deposited, the certificate of deposit of funds never arrives, and without it the Guichet unique (the single online company registration portal run by the INPI, the French intellectual property and business formalities institute) refuses to forward your file to the greffe (the registry office of the commercial court that registers companies). This article explains, step by step, how to deposit your capital from abroad even when banks are reluctant, how to unlock those blocked funds with your Kbis extract (the official certificate proving your company is registered with the RCS, the Registre du commerce et des sociétés), and how to turn a refusal into an opened account through the right-to-an-account procedure before the Banque de France (the French central bank). Each statement below rests on the statutes in force on 3 October 2026 and on the official guidance of the service-public.fr and Banque de France websites, with exact quotations you can verify yourself.

I. Deposit your French company’s share capital from abroad and prove it

A. How to deposit your cash contributions when no French bank wants you as a client?

French law does not require you to deposit the entire nominal capital on day one, and understanding the minimum immediately changes the conversation with a reluctant bank. For a SARL, Article L223-7 of the Commercial Code, in force, provides: « Les parts sociales doivent être souscrites en totalité par les associés. » Every share must be subscribed, but payment can be staggered: « Les parts représentant des apports en numéraire doivent être libérées d’au moins un cinquième de leur montant. » One fifth of the cash contributions is enough at incorporation, and « La libération du surplus intervient en une ou plusieurs fois sur décision du gérant, dans un délai qui ne peut excéder cinq ans à compter de l’immatriculation de la société au registre du commerce et des sociétés. » The balance must be paid within five years of registration. For a joint-stock vehicle such as the SAS, the applicable threshold is higher because the SAS borrows the rules of the société anonyme unless its own chapter provides otherwise: Article L227-1 of the Commercial Code states that « Une société par actions simplifiée peut être instituée par une ou plusieurs personnes qui ne supportent les pertes qu’à concurrence de leur apport. » and Article L225-3 of the same Code adds: « Le capital doit être intégralement souscrit. » and « Les actions de numéraire sont libérées, lors de la souscription, de la moitié au moins de leur valeur nominale. » Half of the nominal value of cash shares must be paid immediately, with the surplus payable within five years of registration. A SAS with a stated capital of 10,000 euros therefore needs only 5,000 euros deposited to be formed, and a SARL with 5,000 euros of capital needs only 1,000 euros. Telling the bank the exact minimum amount, supported by these articles, often unblocks discussions that stall when founders announce the full statutory figure.

The deposit itself must follow a strict channel, and foreign founders should prepare it before flying to France or wiring money. Article L225-5 of the Commercial Code, in force, provides: « Les fonds provenant des souscriptions en numéraire et la liste des souscripteurs avec l’indication des sommes versées par chacun d’eux font l’objet d’un dépôt dans les conditions déterminées par décret en Conseil d’Etat » and warns that « nul ne peut détenir plus de huit jours les sommes recueillies pour le compte d’une société en formation. » Nobody, founder or intermediary, may hold money collected for a company in formation for more than eight days. In practice, according to the official service-public.fr page on constituting and depositing share capital, the capital of a commercial company is deposited either with a bank (établissement de crédit) or with a notary (notaire), by bank cheque from a bank domiciled in France, by bank transfer, or in cash, and it cannot be deposited with a mere payment institution. The person depositing the funds, usually the legal representative designated in the draft articles, hands over the draft articles dated less than one year, the list of subscribers with the amount paid by each, and the identity document of every shareholder. Once the deposit is made, the depositary issues the attestation de dépôt des fonds (certificate of deposit of funds) stating the company name, the registered office address, the total capital paid, the amount paid by each shareholder with names, and the place and date of deposit, with stamp and signature. That certificate is a mandatory exhibit of the registration file, so no certificate means no Kbis extract, and no Kbis extract means no operating company.

When every bank approached from abroad refuses even the deposit, the notary route is the lifeline most foreign founders overlook. A French notary can receive the capital deposit on the same legal basis as a bank and issues an equivalent certificate, and notaries are accustomed to identifying non-resident clients by passport, foreign proof of address and, where needed, sworn translations. The practical file for a founder living abroad therefore looks like this: passport in force, proof of address abroad less than three months old, draft articles signed or at least finalised and dated, list of subscribers with exact amounts, and a transfer ordered early enough that the funds arrive before the appointment. If you mandate a third party in France to handle the deposit, give a written power of attorney limited to that act and keep proof of the origin of the funds, because the depositary will ask for it under anti-money-laundering duties described in Part II below. Never leave the money sleeping on a personal account or with an intermediary beyond the eight-day limit of Article L225-5: a deposit made late, or documented by a simple receipt instead of the formal certificate, will be rejected by the greffe and cost you weeks. Readers who are still hesitating between vehicles before depositing anything should first read our general guide on setting up a company in France as a foreign founder: bank account, Kbis, VAT and first hire, which maps the whole formation path that this article now completes for the hard case of a banking refusal.

B. How to unlock your blocked capital with your Kbis extract after registration?

Money deposited for a company in formation is frozen by operation of law, and only registration releases it. Article L223-8 of the Commercial Code, in force, provides: « 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. » Withdrawal by the company’s representative is impossible before registration with the RCS. The same mechanism applies to joint-stock companies through the deposit regime of Article L225-5. Concretely, once the greffe has registered the company, the representative presents the Kbis extract to the depositary bank or notary and the blocked funds are transferred to the company’s operating account. The Kbis extract is therefore not a decorative document: it is the key that opens the safe. Since 1 January 2023, all creation files pass through the Guichet unique des formalités des entreprises operated by the INPI, which forwards the file to the competent greffe; the TA (tribunal des activités économiques) reform does not change this logic for commercial companies. Founders should file a complete dossier at once — articles, certificate of deposit, proof of the registered office, identity of the director, declaration of non-conviction — because each rejection restarts the clock while the money stays frozen.

If the project collapses before registration, the law organises the way out so that contributors recover their money. Article L223-8 of the Commercial Code continues: « 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. » After six months from the first deposit without incorporation or registration, each contributor may ask a court for permission to withdraw the amount contributed. The article adds that where all contributors agree, a common representative may claim the funds directly from the depositary without going to court, and that if the founders later decide to form the company after all, the deposit must be made again from scratch. For a founder living abroad, the lesson is calendar discipline: diary the six-month deadline from the very first deposit, keep every deposit slip and certificate, and if the bank chosen as depositary drags its feet on the attestation, send a formal demand by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt before the deadline expires. Courts grant these withdrawal authorisations routinely when the six months are proven, but they require the exact date of the first deposit, which is why the certificate matters twice: to register, and to exit.

Paris and the Ile-de-France region deserve a special note because most foreign founders domicile their first French company there. The greffe of the Paris commercial court processes a very high volume of foreign files, and in practice it scrutinises three points with particular care: consistency between the registered office address stated in the articles, the deposit certificate and the lease or domiciliation contract; the exact spelling of foreign names across the passport, the articles and the subscriber list; and the validity of the signature on electronic filings. Since filings are electronic, Article R123-5 of the Commercial Code provides that « Toutefois, pour la transmission des dossiers de création d’entreprise, des déclarations prévues à l’article L. 526-7 ou des demandes d’autorisation, est autorisé, y compris pour les demandes d’immatriculation au registre du commerce et des sociétés, le recours à une signature électronique simple répondant aux exigences du même règlement. » A simple electronic signature meeting the European eIDAS standard is accepted for creation files, which spares a founder living abroad from obtaining a qualified certificate before travelling. Once registered, the creation is published in the BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, the official gazette of company registrations and insolvencies), and the company appears in the RNE (Registre national des entreprises, the national business register). With the Kbis extract in hand, return to the depositary without delay, have the funds wired to the operating account, and keep the release slip: the tax authorities and the URSSAF (Union de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales, the agency collecting employer social contributions) will later ask for the company’s bank details for corporate tax instalments, VAT and payroll declarations filed through the professional account on impots.gouv.fr.

II. Turn a French bank’s refusal into an opened company account

A. What to do in the days after a French bank refuses your company account?

A French bank is entitled to refuse you as a client, but it is not entitled to leave you without proof or without guidance. The official service-public.fr page on refusal to open a business account states the rule plainly: a bank may refuse to open a business account, yet within fifteen days of the stamped receipt of the request or of its hand delivery at the counter, it must deliver a written attestation de refus (refusal certificate) stating the reason for the refusal and informing the applicant of the right to contact the Banque de France. Silence for fifteen days counts as refusal. The Banque de France confirms the same procedure on its right-to-an-account page: send the request by registered letter or hand it over at the counter against a receipt, wait for the certificate, and after fifteen days without an answer treat the silence as a refusal. For a founder living abroad, this transforms a vague « no » into a dated legal fact. Always apply in writing, keep the registered-letter slip or the counter receipt, calendar day fifteen, and if the certificate arrives, check that it states the reason and mentions the Banque de France procedure; if anything is missing, ask for a corrected certificate before moving on, because the completeness of this paper determines the speed of everything that follows.

Most refusals served on foreign founders have one of three documented causes, and each calls for a different response. The first is an incomplete file: missing passport, expired proof of address, draft articles without a registered office, no subscriber list. Cure it by reapplying with the full file rather than starting a dispute. The second is a negative banking history: the service-public.fr guidance notes that being subject to a banking ban does not bar access to an account, and a company may consult incident files with the Banque de France to check what is recorded. The third, and the most common for non-residents, is the bank’s anti-money-laundering duty. Article L561-5 of the Monetary and Financial Code, in force, requires banks, before entering into a business relationship, to identify the client and where relevant the beneficial owner: « Identifient leur client et, le cas échéant, le bénéficiaire effectif au sens de l’article L. 561-2-2 » and to « Vérifient ces éléments d’identification sur présentation de tout document écrit à caractère probant. » A bank that cannot complete these checks must walk away: Article L561-8 of the same Code provides that where the required identification cannot be obtained, the institution « elle n’exécute aucune opération, quelles qu’en soient les modalités, n’établit ni ne poursuit aucune relation d’affaires ». This is why wiring funds from an unexplained source, presenting inconsistent identity documents, or hiding a beneficial owner guarantees refusal. Arrive instead with a coherent, documented story: passport, proof of address, source of funds with bank statements, group chart if a foreign parent subscribes, and draft articles naming the true decision-makers. A refusal grounded in Article L561-8 cannot be overturned by insistence; it can only be cured by better evidence.

One warning should be stated clearly because it surprises many foreign directors: even a bank designated by the Banque de France may still refuse if identification fails. Paragraph II of Article L561-8 of the same Code provides: « Le I s’applique également lorsqu’un établissement de crédit a été désigné par la Banque de France sur le fondement de l’article L. 312-1 et que l’établissement n’a pas pu satisfaire à l’une des obligations prévues à l’article L. 561-5 ou à l’article L. 561-5-1. » Designation does not override anti-money-laundering duties. Practically, this means the designation procedure described in the next section succeeds only with an identification file as complete as the one a demanding compliance department would accept. Prepare two identical dossiers now: one for the refusing bank’s reconsideration attempt, one for the Banque de France. Each contains the representative’s photo identity document in force, the Kbis extract of less than three months once the company is registered (or, before registration, every proof that the company is being formed, since the designated account will in any event be opened in the company’s name), the refusal certificate or the fifteen-day-old proof of the unanswered request, and a sworn statement that the company holds no deposit account. Where the founder cannot travel, the file can be carried by a mandated person in France, but the identification documents must be those of the legal representative, and video-identification accepted by the bank should be anticipated rather than improvised.

B. How does the Banque de France designate a bank and which basic services do you obtain?

The right to an account is a statutory right, not a favour, and the company qualifies for it. Article L312-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code, in force, opens with the principle: « 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 », and specifies the beneficiaries: « Toute personne physique ou morale domiciliée en France ». A company being formed or already registered with a French registered office is domiciled in France for this purpose, provided it holds no other deposit account in France and proves the refusal. The procedure then runs quickly: « 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 », with designation within one business day of receipt of the required documents. The refusing bank must cooperate: it provides the applicant systematically with a refusal certificate and informs the applicant of the right to ask the Banque de France for a designation, and it may, at the applicant’s request, forward the designation request itself with the necessary information. In practice, file directly with the Banque de France branch of your choice, or accept the refusing bank’s offer to transmit, but never leave without either the certificate or dated proof of filing.

The file the Banque de France expects for a company is standardised and should be assembled exactly as the official guidance lists it. For a legal entity it comprises: photo identity document in force of the legal representative (French or foreign identity card, French or foreign passport, French or foreign driving licence, and similar listed documents); the company’s registration proof, meaning a Kbis extract from the RCS or an extract from the RNE of less than three months; the refusal letter from the bank or, failing that, the acknowledgment of the registered letter or proof of hand delivery dated more than fifteen days earlier; a sworn statement by the legal representative that the company holds no deposit account in its name; and the completed right-to-an-account application form. File this dossier at a Banque de France counter, by post, or through the offered transmission channel, and keep a complete copy: the designated bank will ask for the same documents again during its own compliance review. Once designated, the bank must move fast: Article L312-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code provides that « Ils procèdent à l’ouverture du compte de dépôt dans les trois jours ouvrés à compter de la réception de l’ensemble des pièces qui lui sont nécessaires à cet effet. » Three business days from receipt of the complete file. The account is governed by a written agreement, and the statute protects the holder against arbitrary closure: unilateral termination by the bank is allowed only on listed grounds such as deliberate illegal use of the account, inaccurate information provided, loss of the domicile condition, opening of a second account, repeated incivility, or an anti-money-laundering situation under Article L561-8, with at least two months’ notice except in the two most serious cases and a written, reasoned letter with information on mediation.

The account obtained through designation is a real operating account with the basic services defined by decree, and those services cover everything a young company needs to start trading and paying its taxes. Article D312-5 of the Monetary and Financial Code, in force, lists them: « Les prestations de base mentionnées au II de l’article L. 312-1 comprennent : 1° L’ouverture, la tenue et la clôture du compte », followed by one change of address per year, bank identity statements on request, direct debit domiciliation, a monthly statement, collection of cheques and transfers, SEPA payments, remote balance viewing, cash deposits and withdrawals at the counter or machines of the account-holding institution, and a payment card allowing online payments and cash withdrawals in the European Union. With these tools the company can receive client payments, pay suppliers, domicile SEPA direct debits for URSSAF contributions, and pay corporate tax instalments and VAT through the professional tax account on impots.gouv.fr, which requires French SEPA details. Companies that later outgrow the basic-services perimeter — multi-currency flows, trade finance, group cash pooling — can apply to any bank of their choice once trading history exists, because a company with a Kbis extract, filed accounts and clean banking history is a far easier client to accept than a company still in formation. Our companion analysis of how a foreign company recovers an unpaid French invoice from abroad shows why securing a French account early matters: every recovery route, from the injunction-to-pay order to enforcement, ends with money that must land somewhere seizable and usable in France.

Conclusion

A banking refusal is a procedural incident, not the end of your French project. Deposit at least the statutory minimum — one fifth for a SARL, one half for an SAS — with a bank or a notary within eight days of collecting the money, secure the formal certificate of deposit, register through the Guichet unique so the greffe issues the Kbis extract that releases your blocked funds, and if an operating account is refused, convert the refusal certificate or fifteen days of silence into a Banque de France designation that opens a basic-services account within three business days. At each stage the same discipline applies: written requests, dated receipts, complete identification files, and exact consistency of names and addresses across every document. Companies that follow this chain from abroad typically move from refusal to registration to an operating account in a matter of weeks, while those that argue without papers lose months. Keep every certificate, calendar every deadline, and let the statutes do the work they were written to do.