You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore and you are forming a French company. The statutes are ready, the shareholders have signed, and then everything stops at the same place: the bank. One bank takes three weeks to answer your email about depositing the starting capital. Another one refuses to open a current account because you have no French address and no French tax number. You start wondering whether you must fly to Paris with a suitcase of documents, or whether the whole project is blocked before it even exists. It is not, but the banking sequence has rules of its own, and foreign founders who ignore them lose weeks.

This guide explains the two banking locks of a French formation, in order, for a founder who stays abroad. The first lock is the deposit of the formation capital and the blocked-funds certificate, called attestation de dépôt des fonds, without which the company cannot be registered. The second lock is the operating current account, called compte courant professionnel, without which the registered company cannot trade normally. For each lock you get the exact paperwork, the statutory references behind it, the mistakes foreign files typically contain, and the remedy when a bank refuses. The vehicle question itself, SAS versus SARL versus branch, is covered in our companion guide on how to choose between an SAS, an SARL and a branch when you live abroad; this article assumes the vehicle is chosen and focuses on the money circuit. Throughout, French acronyms are explained: the Kbis is the official extract that proves the company is registered, the greffe is the registry office of the commercial court that issues it, the Guichet unique is the single online portal where formations are filed, the BODACC is the official bulletin that publishes company notices, and URSSAF is the agency that collects social contributions.

I. Deposit the formation capital and get the blocked-funds certificate from abroad

Before any account can work for the business, a special deposit must be made and frozen. French law requires the cash contributions to be paid into a locked account held by an authorised depositary, which issues the certificate the filing portal demands. Only after registration are the funds released to the company. Founders abroad can complete this whole step remotely, provided the file names the right vehicle, the right amount and the right recipient. The paragraphs below follow the order of the operation: how much to release on day one, where the money must sit, and which paper the greffe expects to see.

A. How much to pay now, where to deposit it and which certificate the registry expects

The amount to deposit on day one depends on the vehicle. In a SARL, the French limited liability company with parts sociales, the statute states that “Les parts sociales doivent être souscrites en totalité par les associés” and that “Les parts représentant des apports en numéraire doivent être libérées d’au moins un cinquième de leur montant”, which means every share must be subscribed but only one-fifth of the cash must be paid immediately, the balance following within five years on the decision of the manager, and the full capital having to be paid up before any new cash subscription (Article L223-7 of the Commercial Code). In an SAS, the flexible joint-stock company most foreign founders choose, the applicable joint-stock rule provides that “Le capital doit être intégralement souscrit” and that “Les actions de numéraire sont libérées, lors de la souscription, de la moitié au moins de leur valeur nominale”, with the balance due within five years of registration (Article L225-3 of the Commercial Code, applicable to the SAS through the compatibility bridge of Article L227-1 of the Commercial Code). Contributions in kind, such as equipment or IP, follow a stricter logic and must be fully released at once with a valuation procedure, so founders who want speed usually form with cash only and contribute assets later. Whatever the vehicle, the statutes must state the capital, the registered office, the corporate purpose and the duration, since these elements are determined by the statutes themselves, and the filing will be checked against them.

The recipient of the money is not the company, which does not legally exist yet, but an authorised depositary: a bank established in France, the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, or a notary. The statute requires that “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 it adds that, apart from the authorised depositaries, no one may keep money collected for a company in formation for more than eight days (Article L225-5 of the Commercial Code). In practice the founder wires the funds from abroad to a dedicated blocked account, attaching the draft statutes and the subscriber list with the amount paid by each subscriber, and the depositary returns the attestation de dépôt des fonds naming the company in formation, each subscriber and each amount. That certificate is then uploaded to the Guichet unique with the statutes, the registered-office proof, the directors’ ID and the beneficial-owner declaration. Registration itself only follows once constitution formalities are complete, because “La demande d’immatriculation est présentée après accomplissement des formalités de constitution de la société” (Article R210-1 of the Commercial Code).

Three practical points decide whether a remote deposit succeeds at the first attempt. First, the wire description must match the draft statutes to the letter: same future company name, same subscriber names, same amounts. Banks reject transfers where the ordering customer differs from the subscriber without explanation, which happens often when one founder wires on behalf of all the others or when a foreign parent company pays for its future subsidiary. A one-page cover letter identifying each subscriber, each amount and the blocked-account reference, plus a power of attorney when one person pays for several subscribers, prevents most rejections. Second, the receiving bank applies foreign-customer checks even at this pre-formation stage, so the founder should send certified ID, proof of address abroad with translation where needed, the draft statutes and a short note describing the future activity and the origin of the funds. Third, founders should keep the depositary bank and the future operating bank as two separate decisions: the fastest depositary is sometimes a large retail network or an online business bank with a dedicated capital-deposit desk, while the best operating account may be elsewhere. Nothing in the statutes forces the company to keep its current account where the capital was frozen, and splitting the two searches doubles the chances of moving fast.

B. Releasing the frozen money, the six-month safety net and the cost of acting too early

The frozen money belongs to the future company, and only its appointed representative can touch it, and only after registration. The rule is blunt: “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” (Article L223-8 of the Commercial Code). Once the Kbis is issued, the representative presents it to the depositary with proof of authority, and the funds move to the operating account the company now opens or already holds. Founders abroad should therefore plan the sequence in this exact order: deposit, file on the Guichet unique, wait for the Kbis, then instruct the release. Any attempt to draw on the blocked account to pay a supplier or a lease deposit before the Kbis arrives fails, and repeated attempts flag the file inside the bank.

When registration stalls, the law provides a calibrated exit instead of leaving the money frozen forever. The same article continues that where the company is not formed within six months of the first deposit of funds, the contributors may individually ask a court for permission to withdraw their contributions, and a representative acting for all contributors may claim the funds directly from the depositary in the same situation. In real files this safety net matters in three scenarios foreign founders meet often: the Guichet unique rejects the filing twice over the registered-office proof and the project loses momentum; the co-founders fall out before signature and one of them wants his wire back; or the chosen bank takes so long issuing the certificate that the founders restart the deposit elsewhere and need to recall the first wire. In each case the six-month clock runs from the first deposit of funds, not from the last email exchange, so founders should diary that date and keep every deposit receipt. A negotiated recall is always faster than a court application, and depositaries usually release on joint written instructions of all subscribers, but the statutory withdrawal right is the leverage that makes the negotiation succeed.

The third point is the one founders underestimate: before registration, the company has no legal personality, so whoever acts in its name carries the risk personally. The statute provides that “Les sociétés commerciales jouissent de la personnalité morale à dater de leur immatriculation au registre du commerce et des sociétés”, and that persons who acted on behalf of the company in formation before that date are jointly and indefinitely liable for the acts performed, unless the company, once duly constituted and registered, takes over the commitments, which are then deemed to have been undertaken by the company from the start (Article L210-6 of the Commercial Code). A founder who signs a commercial lease, orders stock or hires a contractor weeks before the Kbis, reassured because the capital is already deposited, binds himself personally until the takeover, called reprise des actes, is formally recorded after registration. Remote founders are exposed here because emails feel less binding than signatures, yet an emailed purchase order in the name of the future company counts as acting. The safe method is to list every pre-registration commitment in an annexed statement of acts performed on behalf of the company in formation, have the shareholders approve it at constitution, and let the registered company take the acts over in its first minutes. Banks themselves sometimes invite the confusion by offering pre-registration spending facilities; those facilities are personal advances until the takeover, whatever the marketing name on the brochure.

II. Turn the deposit certificate into a working account when the bank resists

The Kbis changes the nature of the discussion with banks. Before registration the founder asked a depositary to freeze money for a project; after registration a legal person with a Kbis, a SIREN number and a registered office asks for a payment instrument in its own name. Most formations pass this second stage in one or two weeks, but foreign-owned files face longer compliance reviews, requests for extra documents and sometimes outright refusals. The refusals are rarely personal and almost never final: they follow from anti-money-laundering duties that bind every bank, applied to a file whose owner lives abroad, whose activity is described in two lines and whose supporting papers arrive as phone photos. The method below builds a file that answers the compliance questions before they are asked, then uses the statutory right to an account when persuasion is not enough.

A. The file that passes compliance from abroad: identity, substance and traceability

Banks must identify their customer before entering the relationship, and they must verify that identity on probative documents. The governing text states that “Avant d’entrer en relation d’affaires avec leur client ou de l’assister dans la préparation ou la réalisation d’une transaction, les personnes mentionnées à l’article L. 561-2”, namely banks among others, “Identifient leur client et, le cas échéant, le bénéficiaire effectif au sens de l’article L. 561-2-2” and “Vérifient ces éléments d’identification sur présentation de tout document écrit à caractère probant” (Article L561-5 of the Monetary and Financial Code). For a French company owned from abroad this means four layers of papers: the company layer, with the Kbis of less than three months, the registered statutes, the list of directors and the register of beneficial owners; the human layer, with certified passport copies and proof of address abroad for every shareholder above the reporting threshold and every director, plus a French translation by a sworn translator when the bank requires it; the substance layer, with the commercial lease or domiciliation contract, and where relevant the professional licences for regulated activities; and the narrative layer, which foreign files usually miss, a two-page memo describing what the company will actually sell, to whom, in which countries, with what expected volumes and through which suppliers, with supporting invoices or contracts when they exist. The Paris courts have shown why this last layer decides the outcome: a single-shareholder company making financial placements that could not explain its business model, its clients or its activity, and left the bank’s formal email asking for these documents unanswered, gave the bank a serious ground to hold the account closed, and the judges confirmed the first order on that basis, noting that “les obligations tenant à la lutte contre le blanchiment et au financement du terrorisme s’imposent y compris pour la procédure de droit au compte” and that the bank “peut valablement faire état, à tout le moins, d’une contestation sérieuse s’opposant à l’ouverture du compte, au sens de l’article 872 du code de procédure civile, eu égard aux obligations d’un établissement bancaire résultant des articles L. 561-5 et L. 561-5-1 du code monétaire et financier” (Paris Court of Appeal, Pôle 1 Chambre 2, 6 July 2023, RG 22/17393, SASU Locial v BNP Paribas, full decision on courdecassation.fr). The lesson for a founder abroad is direct: the file that explains the business in plain figures gets opened, the file that hides behind confidentiality stays shut, and no procedural shortcut fixes a silent file.

Remote execution is entirely possible once the file is complete. Most business banks now accept video identification for non-resident directors, qualified electronic signature of the account agreement, and uploads of certified copies instead of originals sent by post. Founders should nevertheless prepare three practical details that regularly delay foreign files. First, the specimen signatures and the list of authorised signatories must be consistent across the statutes, the beneficial-owner declaration and the bank forms; a middle name present on the passport but missing on the bank form generates a second review round. Second, the first incoming wire should come from the declared source of funds and carry a clear reference, because the bank’s monitoring software scores the first three months of flows, and an unexplained large transfer from an unrelated third country triggers a freeze for additional checks. Third, founders who need speed should apply to two banks in parallel rather than waiting for one answer: a traditional network for the branch-services relationship, and a licensed online business bank for the fast IBAN, cards and SEPA mandates. Parallel applications are lawful, and the founder simply closes or leaves dormant the account that proves less useful, keeping one clean primary account for tax and URSSAF payments.

B. When the bank says no: second door, written refusal and the Banque de France designation

A refusal is the start of a procedure, not the end of the project, provided the founder reacts in the right order. The first step is to ask the refusing bank for a written refusal letter, called attestation de refus d’ouverture de compte, which banks issue on request and which the rest of the procedure requires. While waiting for that letter, the founder files a second complete application with a different bank, correcting whatever the first bank criticised: clearer business memo, missing translation, updated Kbis, additional source-of-funds proof. Roughly half of the refusals foreign founders report end at this second door, because the second bank sees a file that has already absorbed the first bank’s objections. Founders should keep dated copies of both applications, the refusal letter and every document sent, since this paper trail becomes the backbone of the next step and of any later dispute about delays.

When two refusals are documented, or when the situation is urgent and one formal refusal already exists, French law grants a right to an account enforced through the Banque de France, the central bank. The statute opens with the words “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 : 1° Toute personne physique ou morale domiciliée en France”, which covers a French-registered company with its registered office in France even when its shareholders and directors live abroad (Article L312-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code). The company files a dossier with the Banque de France, which designates a bank, and the designated bank must open a deposit account with basic services within short statutory deadlines once it holds all the required documents. Judges enforce this timetable strictly: in a case where a bank designated by the Banque de France failed to open the account, the first judges held that the bank “avait commis une faute en n’y procédant pas dans les trois jours ouvrés à compter de la réception des justificatifs fournis par ce dernier alors qu’il disposait de l’ensemble des pièces nécessaires à l’ouverture d’un compte de dépôt en ses livres”, awarded 2,000 euros in damages and attached a penalty payment to the opening order, and the Versailles Court of Appeal confirmed the whole judgment (Versailles Court of Appeal, 16th Chamber, 21 December 2023, RG 22/05426, full decision on courdecassation.fr). The designation route therefore works, but it works for complete files: the same courts refuse to force an opening when the company leaves the bank’s compliance questions unanswered, as the Locial ruling above demonstrates, and they also reject damage claims when the impossibility of operating without the account is asserted but proved by no document. Founders in Paris and the Ile-de-France region follow the same national procedure, with two local notes: urgent applications against a refusing bank go before the Paris Commercial Court, whose interim judge hears right-to-account disputes, and the Banque de France counters in the Paris region process company files daily, so a file lodged in the morning with the refusal letter, the Kbis and the full KYC pack is usually designated within days. Once designated, the founder answers any further document request within 48 hours, because the three-business-day clock the Versailles judges applied runs from receipt of the complete supporting set, and a slow reply restarts it.

Conclusion

A French company formed from abroad stands on two banking operations performed in the right order. The founder releases the required fraction of the capital, one-fifth in an SARL and one-half in an SAS for cash shares, wires it to an authorised depositary with a matching subscriber list, collects the blocked-funds certificate and files for the Kbis, knowing the funds can only be released after registration and recovered through the six-month route if the project stalls. The registered company then opens its operating account with a four-layer file that proves identity, substance and traceability, applies to two banks in parallel, and, if refused, secures the written refusal and asks the Banque de France to designate a bank, whose duty to open within days of receiving complete documents the courts enforce with damages. Foreign founders who treat compliance as the core of the file rather than an accessory open their accounts without travelling; those who send two lines about the business and wait, wait longer. The capital certificate gets the company born, the working account lets it live, and both reward the founder who documents first and argues later.