You incorporated in France while living abroad, the business runs from another country, and now the company needs a new address: the domiciliation contract ends, the Paris office closes, the team moves to Lyon, or you simply want real premises instead of a domiciliation address. In France, that move is not an administrative detail. The registered office, called the siège social, is written into the articles of association, known as the statuts. It appears on every invoice and on the Kbis, the official identity certificate issued by the registry office of the commercial court, called the greffe. Courts, tax offices and process servers rely on that address. As long as the Kbis shows the old address, writs served there can still bind the company, tax letters go to the wrong mailbox, and banks freeze routine updates until they see a fresh Kbis. The good news is that the whole transfer can be handled from abroad through the Guichet unique, the single national online filing portal operated with the INPI, the National Institute of Industrial Property, without flying to France, provided the decision, the paperwork and the proof of the new premises are prepared in the right order. This guide explains, for a foreign-based founder or parent company running a SAS, the simplified joint-stock company and the most common vehicle for subsidiaries, or a SARL, the private limited company, how to vote and document the move, how to file it and obtain the updated Kbis, and what to update the day the new Kbis arrives, with a focus on departures from Paris and the Ile-de-France region, where most foreign-owned companies start. Readers choosing their vehicle first can start with our guide to choosing between a SAS, a SARL, a branch and a subsidiary from abroad, which this article completes for companies that already exist and now move.

I. How do you legally move the registered office of a French SAS or SARL while you live abroad

Moving the registered office is a modification of the articles, not a mere change of contact details. French law lists the registered office among the mandatory contents of the articles, the filing must be made within one month of the decision, and the company must prove it genuinely occupies or holds the new premises. Each of these three points can be handled remotely, but each has its own trap for a founder who lives abroad.

A. Can you vote the transfer, rewrite the articles and prove the new address without travelling to France

The starting point is a simple rule of company law: “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.” In plain English, Article L210-2 of the Commercial Code provides that the form, the duration, the corporate name, the registered office, the corporate purpose and the share capital are set by the articles. Because the address sits inside the articles, moving it means amending the articles, and amending the articles means a formal decision of the competent corporate body. That body depends on the vehicle. In a SAS, the statutes themselves designate who decides, and Article L227-1 of the Commercial Code confirms that the organisation of powers in a SAS is primarily a matter for the articles, within the framework of the chapter dedicated to the SAS. In practice, most SAS articles reserve amendments of the articles to a collective decision of the shareholders, which can be taken by written consultation or videoconference when the articles allow it, so a sole shareholder or a foreign parent company can sign off from abroad. In a SARL, amendments of the articles normally require a shareholders meeting with reinforced majorities, and the manager, called the gérant, prepares the report and convenes the meeting. Foreign founders sometimes discover at this stage that their articles impose physical presence or registered letters with acknowledgment of receipt; read that clause before scheduling anything, and amend the convening rules first if a future move needs to be voted quickly.

The decision itself must say three things explicitly: the transfer of the registered office, the exact new address, and the effective date, followed by the corresponding amendment of the articles clause. A vague minute that merely notes “the company moves to Lyon” without the full address and without updating the clause invites a rejection by the registry. When the company has a single shareholder, a short written resolution suffices. When several shareholders or a foreign parent are involved, keep full proof of the vote: convening notices, attendance sheet or written consultation forms, the text of the resolutions, and the result. The registry does not always ask for these documents, but the tax office or a minority shareholder may challenge the move later, and at that point the signed file is the only proof that the transfer was regularly decided. One more check before signing: verify who represents the company toward third parties on the day of the filing. In a SAS, Article L227-6 of the Commercial Code states that “La société est représentée à l’égard des tiers par un président désigné dans les conditions prévues par les statuts. Le président est investi des pouvoirs les plus étendus pour agir en toute circonstance au nom de la société dans la limite de l’objet social.” In plain English, the company is represented toward third parties by a president appointed as the articles provide, and the president holds the broadest powers to act in all circumstances in the name of the company within the limit of the corporate purpose. If the presidency changed at the same time as the move, file both changes together and make sure the signatory of the transfer file is the president shown on the current Kbis or duly appointed in the same set of decisions.

The second building block is the proof of the new premises, and this is where foreign founders face the most refusals. Article L123-11 of the Commercial Code requires every legal entity applying for registration with the Trade and Companies Register, the Registre du commerce et des sociétés universally shortened to RCS, to prove that it enjoys the use of the premises where it installs its seat. A transfer is treated the same way: the company must show a lease, a sublease with the landlord’s consent, a domiciliation contract with an approved domiciliation company, a title deed, or a provision agreement for the manager’s home where the law allows it. From abroad, founders typically use one of three routes. The first is a commercial lease or professional premises lease signed electronically; an electronic signature is valid, but the registry may ask for a complete copy, so keep the full lease including its conditions precedent and the landlord’s identity. The second is a domiciliation contract with a company approved by the prefecture; check that the approval number appears on the contract and that the contract covers the date of the transfer decision, because an expired domiciliation certificate is the most common ground for rejection. The third is installing the seat at the French home of the president or manager, which the law tolerates under conditions but which creates tax and landlord-consent questions; non-resident founders who have no French home should simply discard this option rather than borrow a friend’s address, since a borrowed address with no legal title collapses at the first verification and can taint later proof of good faith. Whatever the route, the name on the proof must match the company name or the authorised occupant, the address must match the resolution letter for letter, and the document must be dated before or on the filing date. A frequent and costly mistake is signing the new lease in the name of the foreign parent instead of the French company; the registry then sees no title in the name of the French entity and rejects the file, while the rent clock already runs.

Two related documents complete the decision pack. First, the updated articles, signed and certified as true copies by the legal representative, with the new address in the seat clause and a coherent date. Second, where the move crosses the boundary of a court district, the legal announcement of the modification, published in a legal announcements journal, called a journal d’annonces légales, of the relevant districts. The publication is not a formality for the press; it feeds the BODACC, the Official Bulletin of Civil and Commercial Announcements, Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, where third parties are deemed informed. Keep the publication certificate, because the filing portal asks for its reference and the registry checks it. Founders sometimes ask whether they can backdate the effective date to match the lease. Do not. The effective date in the resolution, the lease start date and the filing date must tell a consistent story in chronological order, since any inconsistency between the three is read by the registry as an irregularity and by a future litigant as a doubt about which address was the real seat on a given day.

B. How do you file the move on the Guichet unique and obtain the updated Kbis from abroad

Since the reform of business formalities, there is only one door: the Guichet unique, the single online portal that receives the single file for creation, modification and closure of businesses. Article R123-1 of the Commercial Code describes that single body through which companies complete all the formalities and procedures needed to access and carry on their activity, receiving the single file for that purpose. In practice, the founder or their representative logs in, selects the modification of the seat, uploads the decision, the updated articles, the proof of occupation and the legal announcement certificate, and signs electronically. No paper is sent to the old or the new registry, and no parallel filing with the tax office is made at this stage; the portal routes the file to the competent registry and the connected administrations. The account can be opened and operated from abroad, and a lawyer, accountant or formalist holding a power of attorney can file on the company’s behalf, which is the standard solution when the founder has no French electronic signature means accepted by the portal. If a representative files, attach a signed power of attorney dated no earlier than the transfer decision, because a power signed before the decision it refers to raises an obvious question the registry will ask.

The deadline is strict and often underestimated. Article R123-105 of the Commercial Code provides that deeds, deliberations or decisions amending the documents filed at incorporation are deposited within one month of their date, after, where applicable, publication of the required notice, together with an updated copy of the articles certified by the legal representative. In plain terms, the clock runs from the date of the decision, not from the lease signature and not from the publication. A founder who votes the transfer in early October, waits for the lease to be countersigned, publishes the notice in November and files in December is already late, and the delay appears on the record. Late filing does not cancel the transfer between shareholders, but it extends the period during which third parties can rely on the old Kbis, and it exposes the company to registry reminders, additional fees and awkward questions from the bank the next time it asks for a Kbis less than three months old. The discipline is therefore simple: vote only when the proof of premises and the publication channel are ready, then file within days, not weeks.

What happens inside the registry depends on one geographical question: does the new seat stay within the district of the same commercial court, or does it cross into another district. Within the same district, the same registry, the same greffe, records the modification and issues an updated Kbis with the same RCS number. Across districts, the operation has two legs: registration with the new registry and radiation of the old entry. Article R123-75 of the Commercial Code requires radiation of secondary registrations and, for legal entities ceasing activity in a court district, radiation of the main registration within one month of cessation in that district. The portal handles the routing, but the founder must understand the consequence: between the decision and the radiation, the company briefly appears in two districts, and suppliers checking the old registry still find it there. That is normal and temporary, not a duplication to panic about, but it explains why filings should be tracked until both legs show complete. The updated Kbis then carries the new address, the new registry if any, and the same SIREN, the nine-digit company identifier, while the SIRET, the fourteen-digit establishment identifier that includes the SIREN plus a five-digit establishment suffix, changes to reflect the new establishment. Keep the filing receipt, called the récépissé, the registry’s requests for additional documents, and the final Kbis in one file: from abroad, that file is the only evidence of the exact date on which the public record changed, and everything else, from tax to litigation, keys off that date.

Fees and timing deserve a sober note. Article L123-54 of the Commercial Code sets the principle that inscriptions, modifications and filings with the National Register of Companies, the Registre national des entreprises, give rise to duties within a scale capped by decree, currently a modest amount per modification for the register itself, to which registry disbursements, publication costs and any representative fees are added. Treat any fixed-fee promise found online with caution: the register duty is only one line of the real cost, and the total varies with the announcement, the district change and the assistance used. As for timing, the portal acknowledges receipt immediately, registry review typically takes days to a few weeks depending on backlog and whether documents are requested, and cross-district files take longer than same-district ones because two registries are involved. Plan the operational move around that range rather than around the lease date: give the new address to customers only when the filing is acknowledged, and switch invoices and the website footer on the day the updated Kbis arrives, not on the day the boxes move. Founders who announce the new address too early end up with invoices bearing an address the Kbis does not yet show, which is precisely the mismatch auditors and opposing counsel love to exhibit.

II. What changes the day the Kbis shows the new address, and what breaks if you skip the update

The Kbis is the company’s public identity. Registration itself is what makes the company visible to third parties: Article L210-7 of the Commercial Code provides that the company is registered after the registry office verifies the regularity of its formation under the legislative and regulatory provisions on the Trade and Companies Register. The same logic governs modifications: until the registry records the new seat, the old seat remains the address third parties are entitled to use. That single principle drives the entire post-transfer checklist.

A. Which contracts, invoices, tax files and court papers must you update first when the seat moves

Start with the documents the company issues every day. Invoices must show the new registered office from the date of the updated Kbis, and the SIRET must be updated on invoices, quotes, general terms and the website legal notice. The SIREN does not change, so open contracts are not novated by the move alone, but every template that prints the old address or the old SIRET becomes a false statement the day after the Kbis changes. The same applies to pay slips and hiring documents prepared by the payroll provider: the establishment code follows the new SIRET, and the social security contribution office, the URSSAF, the body collecting employer social charges, tracks the company through it. Notify the payroll provider the day the Kbis arrives, confirm the new SIRET is active in the DSN, the monthly electronic social declaration, and check the first pay run after the move line by line. A founder living abroad who leaves payroll to run on autopilot during a move is the standard fact pattern behind contribution notices sent to the old address and discovered months later with surcharges.

Continue with the counterparties that hold security or compliance files: the bank, the insurer, the landlord of any secondary establishment, the accountant, and key customers and suppliers. Banks are the most sensitive. A French bank that holds the company’s account opened with the old Kbis will ask for the updated Kbis, the updated articles and the new proof of address before recording the change, and until then it may hold new services, from chequebooks to guarantees, in pending status. That is not hostility toward foreign owners; it is the bank’s own documentary duty. Send the pack in one email, ask for written confirmation of the change, and keep it. Insurers follow the same logic: professional liability and premises policies are priced and conditioned on the declared address, and a claim arising at an undeclared address gives the insurer its first argument. Landlords of secondary offices should receive formal notice with the updated Kbis attached, because rent receipts and deposit guarantees reference the tenant’s seat. For customers and suppliers, a short notice with the new Kbis attached, stating the effective date and confirming that the SIREN, the VAT number and the bank details are unchanged, prevents the classic disruption where a customer suspends payment because its supplier file no longer matches the invoice header.

Tax deserves its own paragraph because the consequences of silence are mechanical. The company’s file follows the seat: the corporate tax file moves to the business tax office, called the service des impôts des entreprises, of the new district, the VAT number technically stays the same intra-Community format but the establishment data changes, and local business tax, called the cotisation foncière des entreprises, is assessed where establishments sit on January 1. File the Guichet unique modification carefully and check that the tax office of departure and arrival both reflect the move on the professional portal, impots.gouv.fr, within the following weeks; from abroad, the portal is the only early warning if something did not route. A company that moves in October but whose tax file still sits at the old office in January may receive its assessments, its VAT control letters and its payment notices at an address it no longer monitors, and French tax procedure treats properly sent mail as received. The fix is unglamorous: designate one monitored French correspondence channel, whether the new premises, the accountant or the lawyer, update it everywhere the same week, and calendar the first filing deadlines after the move, starting with VAT returns and any corporate tax instalments, to confirm each administration writes to the right place.

Litigation risk is the sharpest edge. As long as the RCS still shows the old seat, a claimant may validly serve a writ there, and the company that no longer reads that mailbox learns about the case at the enforcement stage. After the Kbis changes, the risk reverses: a writ served at the old address may be challenged, but the company must prove the publication and registration dates, which is exactly what the file of receipts and certificates is for. Two precautions close the gap. First, keep mail forwarding or a monitoring arrangement at the old address for several months after the move, even when the old lease has ended, through the former domiciliation company or a postal redirection, so nothing served during the transition goes unread. Second, brief French counsel or the accountant the week of the filing, with the decision date, the publication reference and the expected Kbis date, so that any writ arriving in the interval is analysed against the correct timeline instead of being filed away. Founders sometimes ask whether pending cases move courts automatically. They do not: the competent court for a case already filed is fixed by the rules applicable when it was filed, while new cases follow the new seat. Tell counsel about the move the day it is voted, not the day the Kbis arrives, so jurisdiction and service analyses are updated in live files.

One final corporate point is often missed in cross-border groups: the move can ripple into group documentation. Intra-group agreements that state the French subsidiary’s seat, cash-pooling and cash-management agreements, transfer-pricing documentation describing the French establishment, and the parent’s own register of subsidiaries should all be aligned with the new Kbis. None of these is a validity condition for the transfer itself, and the transfer remains effective between shareholders even if a group schedule still shows the old address, but inconsistency across the file weakens the group’s evidentiary posture in the next audit. A short conformity memo, listing each document that names the seat and the date it was updated, costs an hour and pays for itself the day an auditor or a counterparty asks why three addresses circulate for the same company. The same discipline applies to the beneficial-owners register: the move does not change the beneficial owners, so no new declaration is due on that ground, but any declaration that repeats the seat must use the new address from the Kbis date.

B. How do you handle a Paris or Ile-de-France departure: which registry, which delays and which proof from abroad

Most foreign-owned French companies start in Paris or the inner suburbs, so the standard fact pattern is a departure: the seat leaves the district of the Paris commercial court for another department, inside or outside Ile-de-France. The legal framework does not change, but three practical points sharpen. First, the competent registry after the move is the registry of the new seat, and the Paris registry records the departure through radiation in its district under the one-month rule recalled above in Article R123-75 of the Commercial Code. File once on the Guichet unique; do not send parallel paper to Paris and to the new city, which creates conflicting entries. Track both legs on the portal until each shows complete, and download each receipt. Where the destination is another Ile-de-France department, for example Paris to Nanterre, Bobigny or Creteil, founders sometimes assume the file stays inside one system and skip the tracking. It does not: each registry is distinct, and the radiation leg can lag the registration leg by days, during which suppliers consulting the Paris record still see the company there. That is expected, but it must be monitored to its end.

Second, proof of the new premises is scrutinised more closely on Paris departures than founders expect, precisely because domiciliation-to-lease and lease-to-domiciliation patterns are common and sometimes artificial. A Paris company that declares a new seat at a coworking desk in another city while keeping its whole team in Paris invites the registry to ask for the full title and, in some cases, the domiciliation approval. The answer is documentary, not argumentative: a complete lease or domiciliation contract in the name of the French company, matching the resolution address exactly, with an approval number where required, and dates consistent with the decision. Where the new seat is the French home of the manager, add the landlord’s written consent when the lease requires it and check the local planning constraints before filing; a filing that succeeds on paper but breaches the residential lease creates a dispute that costs far more than a few weeks of domiciliation. And where the destination premises are still being fitted out on the decision date, align the three dates honestly: decide the transfer when the company actually holds the premises, not when the works begin, because a proof of future occupation is not proof of occupation.

Third, organise correspondence for the Paris tail. Administrations that knew the Paris address continue writing there until every file migrates: the former business tax office, the former URSSAF collection file, the former bank branch file, and any court where a case is pending. Keep the Paris mailbox monitored for at least one quarter after the Kbis changes, confirm on impots.gouv.fr that the new business tax office appears as the competent office, confirm with the payroll provider that contribution mail arrives at the new channel, and close the loop with the former domiciliation company by written termination only after the radiation is confirmed, keeping proof of the end date. This Paris tail is also the moment to clean the public footprint: update the legal notice on the website, the directories and marketplaces where the company listed its Paris address, and the signature blocks the team actually uses. Nothing in company law sanctions a stale directory listing, but customers, candidates and opposing parties read the address as a statement of where the company can be reached, and after a move the only statement that counts is the Kbis. For founders who entered France through the vehicle-choice stage, the companion guide to choosing between a SAS, a SARL, a branch and a subsidiary from abroad remains the reference for the structure itself; this article governs what happens when that structure changes address.

Two traps specific to remote founders deserve emphasis because they recur every year. The first is the signature gap: the Guichet unique file is signed electronically by someone, and that someone must have authority on the signing date. A president appointed the same day the seat moves should sign after the appointment is effective, with the appointment decision in the same upload set, not before. The second is the calendar gap around year end. A transfer voted in December but registered in January changes the SIRET year, the local tax snapshot and the address on the annual accounts for the year just closed. That is manageable, but it must be anticipated with the accountant: close the year with the correct address per period, file the accounts of the company identified by its current registration data, and let the next year’s documents carry the new SIRET from the start. Neither trap is a ground for refusing the transfer, and both are invisible when the file is prepared in the order this guide follows: decision, proof, publication, filing, then operational switch on Kbis day.

Conclusion

Moving the registered office of a French company from abroad follows a fixed sequence: a precise decision amending the articles, genuine proof of the new premises in the name of the French company, a legal announcement feeding the BODACC, and a single filing on the Guichet unique within one month of the decision, tracked until the updated Kbis arrives. The distinction that matters most is geographical: within the same court district the same registry updates the file, while across districts the file travels from the old registry to the new one with radiation at the point of departure. From the Kbis date, the new address and the new SIRET must appear on invoices, pay documents, the website legal notice and every compliance file, while the SIREN continues unchanged and existing contracts continue. The administrations follow the seat on their own timetables, so the founder’s job during the transition is monitoring: tax portal, payroll returns, bank confirmation and mail at the former address until every sender has migrated. Paris departures add no separate legal regime, only stricter attention to proof and to the correspondence tail, because that is where most foreign-owned companies begin and where most of their files sit. Prepared in that order and evidenced at each step, a seat transfer is an ordinary corporate operation that a non-resident founder can complete without travelling, and the file of decisions, proofs, publications and receipts assembled along the way is the asset that protects the company the next time a counterparty, an auditor or a court asks where the company really sits.