You live in London, New York or Dubai, and you have just created your French simplified joint-stock company, the SAS (société par actions simplifiée). The Kbis (the official company identity certificate issued by the greffe, the registry of the commercial court) is in your inbox, the corporate bank account is open, and one practical question now dominates everything else: how do you actually take money out of the company while living abroad? Should you vote yourself a monthly salary as president, live on dividends once a year, or combine both? The answer matters far beyond cash flow. In France, the president of a SAS is automatically treated as an assimilé salarié, a person assimilated to an employee for social security purposes, and every euro paid without the right paperwork can be reassessed by URSSAF (the network of agencies that collects social contributions) with late-payment surcharges. This article explains, for a foreign founder running a French SAS from abroad, how the president’s pay is taxed and charged, why dividends alone rarely work, which documents prove that a payment is genuine salary, and what changes when the director lives outside France. If you are still at the creation stage, start with our step-by-step guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, from bank account to Kbis, VAT and first hire.

I. How Should a Non-Resident President of a French SAS Get Paid: Salary, Dividends or Both?

A. Why the SAS President Is an Assimilé Salarié and What It Costs in Social Charges

French company law gives the SAS almost total contractual freedom, but one point is not negotiable: the company must have a president who represents it toward third parties. Article L. 227-6 of the Commercial Code provides that “La société est représentée à l’égard des tiers par un président désigné dans les conditions prévues par les statuts.” The same article adds that “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.” Because article L. 227-5 states that “Les statuts fixent les conditions dans lesquelles la société est dirigée”, it is the articles of association, the statuts, that decide who appoints the president, how long the mandate lasts, and, critically, who fixes the president’s remuneration and how. Foreign founders often sign standard statuts that postpone the pay question with a clause postponing the pay decision to a later shareholder vote. That postponement is a trap, as shown below.

For social security, the president of a SAS belongs to the régime général, the general employee scheme, under the status of assimilé salarié. Article L. 311-3 of the Social Security Code lists, in its item 23°, “Les présidents et dirigeants des sociétés par actions simplifiées et des sociétés d’exercice libéral par actions simplifiées” among the persons subject to compulsory affiliation. The consequence is straightforward: any remuneration paid for the corporate mandate bears employee and employer social contributions, like an ordinary salary. Article L. 242-1 of the same Code confirms the base: “Les cotisations de sécurité sociale dues au titre de l’affiliation au régime général des personnes mentionnées aux articles L. 311-2 et L. 311-3 sont assises sur les revenus d’activité tels qu’ils sont pris en compte pour la détermination de l’assiette définie à l’article L. 136-1-1 .” In practice, the combined employer and employee charge on a president’s gross pay reaches roughly 65 to 80 percent of the net amount received, depending on the level of pay and the applicable ceilings, which shocks founders used to leaner payroll taxes. The URSSAF simulator for SAS and SASU directors confirms the mechanics: contributions are computed like those of a standard employee, split between employer and employee shares, with two notable differences, since the assimilated director pays no unemployment insurance contributions and does not benefit from the general reduction of employer charges or from overtime rules under the Labour Code, while remaining eligible for the ACRE startup relief (aide aux créateurs et repreneurs d’entreprise) at the beginning of the activity under conditions. That relief only softens the first year; it never removes the affiliation itself.

The contrast with the SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the French limited liability company with a more rigid statutory frame) is worth understanding, because many foreign founders hesitate between the two forms. The majority manager of a SARL, the gérant majoritaire, belongs to the self-employed scheme, not the general scheme. Article L. 131-6 of the Social Security Code provides that “Les cotisations de sécurité sociale dues par les travailleurs indépendants non agricoles ne relevant pas du dispositif prévu à l’article L. 613-7 sont assises sur l’assiette définie à l’article L. 136-3.” The contribution rate is lower than in the general scheme, but the protection is thinner, particularly for pensions and daily sickness benefits, and minimum flat contributions apply even in a year with no income. A vivid illustration was given by the social division of the Judicial Court of Tours on 13 January 2025 (RG 23/00408): after the judicial liquidation of his company, a self-employed manager with declared zero income still owed contributions: URSSAF had assessed contributions on the statutory minimum bases despite nil declared income, and the court upheld the enforcement order of 12 October 2023 for 2,193 euros covering the 2020 regularisation, the 2021 regularisation and the fourth quarter of 2022. The lesson for a foreign founder is symmetrical: the SAS president pays more but is covered by the general scheme from the first euro of declared pay, while paying nothing and declaring nothing does not mean owing nothing in the self-employed scheme. For tax, the president’s remuneration follows the salaries regime. Article 79 of the General Tax Code (CGI, Code général des impôts) states that “Les traitements, indemnités, émoluments, salaires, pensions et rentes viagères concourent à la formation du revenu global servant de base à l’impôt sur le revenu.” The pay is therefore deductible for the company when it corresponds to actual work, and taxable for the director under the wages category, with the 10 percent standard deduction or actual expenses. By comparison, article 62 of the same Code deals with majority SARL managers: “Les traitements, remboursements forfaitaires de frais et toutes autres rémunérations sont soumis à l’impôt sur le revenu au nom de leurs bénéficiaires s’ils sont admis en déduction des bénéfices soumis à l’impôt sur les sociétés par application de l’article 211 , même si les résultats de l’exercice social sont déficitaires”. For the SAS president living abroad, the salary route thus offers social protection and deductible cost, at the price of heavy contributions and, as section II explains, strict paperwork.

A recent Lille judgment shows what happens when that paperwork is missing. The Judicial Court of Lille, social division, ruled on 9 September 2025 (RG 23/01844) on a SAS whose sole shareholder and president had received thirty-two bank transfers over 2019 and 2020, eight of them labelled “salary,” for monthly amounts usually between 1,500 and 2,500 euros, while claiming that he exercised his mandate for free and that the transfers were mere advances on future profits. The court first recalled that item 23 of article L. 311-3 of the Social Security Code lists “Les présidents et dirigeants des sociétés par actions simplifiées et des sociétés d’exercice libéral par actions simplifiées” among the persons compulsorily affiliated to the general scheme. It then held that the relative regularity of the transfers, some of them labelled salary, combined with the complete absence of the formalities required for advances on profits, which under the articles had to be paid annually, showed that the sums were presidential remuneration rather than advances on profits to the sole shareholder. The court therefore upheld the first ground of reassessment in the letter of observations, confirmed in the operative part of the judgment, and ordered the company to pay URSSAF 32,890 euros. For a founder living abroad, the warning is direct: regular transfers from the company account, even labelled as advances or annotated in English, look like salary to an auditor, and only a prior remuneration decision plus pay slips and social returns turn them into lawful pay instead of reassessed salary plus surcharges.

B. Why Dividends Alone Rarely Work: Distributable Profits, Flat Tax and Non-Resident Withholding

Many foreign founders hope to skip salary entirely and live on dividends: no monthly payroll, no social contributions on the distribution, one payment a year. The strategy is lawful but narrow, and it fails as a sole income in the early years for three reasons. First, dividends can only be paid out of distributable profits, after the annual accounts are approved. Article L. 232-12 of the Commercial Code states that “Après approbation des comptes annuels et constatation de l’existence de sommes distribuables, l’assemblée générale détermine la part attribuée aux associés sous forme de dividendes.” Interim dividends before approval are possible only from certified interim profits, and the same article warns that “Tout dividende distribué en violation des règles ci-dessus énoncées est un dividende fictif.” A young company with no approved profits simply has nothing to distribute, and a distribution without profits exposes the director to an action for repayment and, in serious cases, criminal liability for fictitious dividends. Second, dividends paid to a French tax resident bear the flat tax: article 117 quater of the General Tax Code provides that “Les personnes physiques fiscalement domiciliées en France au sens de l’ article 4 B qui bénéficient de revenus distribués mentionnés aux articles 108 à 117 bis et 120 à 123 bis sont assujetties à un prélèvement au taux de 12,8 % .” That 12.8 percent is a withholding on account, credited against the final income tax, which is itself computed at the flat rate since article 200 A of the same Code states that “Le taux forfaitaire mentionné au premier alinéa du présent 1 est fixé à 12,8 %”, with social levies added on top. Residents with modest household income can request an exemption from the withholding, but the exemption must be claimed in time each year; otherwise the cash is taken first and credited later.

Third, and decisive for this readership, dividends paid to a shareholder who is not a French tax resident suffer a withholding tax at source, in French retenue à la source. Article 119 bis of the General Tax Code provides that “Les produits visés aux articles 108 à 117 bis donnent lieu à l’application d’une retenue à la source dont le taux est fixé par l’article 187 lorsque leurs bénéficiaires effectifs sont des personnes qui n’ont pas leur domicile fiscal ou leur siège en France”, Article 187 then fixes the rate: “12,8 % pour les bénéficiaires personnes physiques.” The French company must levy that 12.8 percent itself and pay it to the Treasury, so a 100,000 euro dividend voted to a shareholder living in Dubai or New York arrives as 87,200 euros before any tax due in the country of residence. Tax treaties signed by France frequently reduce or reallocate that levy, and any excess can be reclaimed from the French tax authorities with proof of foreign residence, a route described in detail in our guide to recovering French dividend withholding abroad through treaties and refund claims. But the reclaim takes months, requires the right certificates, and never helps a founder who needs monthly cash. Dividends also buy no social protection: no health coverage, no pension quarters, no maternity or sick-leave rights in France. The balanced practice for most foreign presidents is therefore a modest monthly salary that opens rights and absorbs deductible cost, topped up with dividends once profits are approved and the treaty position is mapped. One further trap must be flagged: a president who takes salary and dividends in the same year must keep the two streams strictly separate in the accounts, because URSSAF auditors routinely test whether labelled dividends were in fact regular remuneration, exactly as the Lille court did, and a dividend paid monthly in round amounts will not survive that test.

II. How Do You Run Payroll From Abroad Without an URSSAF Reassessment?

A. What Paperwork Proves Pay: Remuneration Decision, Pay Slips and Monthly DSN Returns

French social law does not tax intentions; it taxes documented flows. A president who wants a salary must build the file before the first transfer, because every missing piece becomes an auditor’s argument. The first document is the remuneration decision itself. Since the statuts govern management, the shareholders, or the sole shareholder in a SASU (the one-person SAS), must adopt a written decision fixing the amount or the formula of the president’s pay, its effective date, and whether benefits in kind such as housing or a car are included. The Cour de cassation enforces this requirement strictly, albeit in SARL cases whose logic extends to any company where pay must be authorised: in a judgment of 12 February 2025 (no. 23-18.415, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2025:CO00086), the commercial chamber recalled that “Il résulte de ce texte que la rémunération du gérant d’une société à responsabilité limitée est déterminée, soit par les statuts, soit par une décision de la collectivité des associés”, and it quashed the appeal ruling that had refused reimbursement of pay whose fixing resolutions “n’avaient pas été approuvées,” holding that the lower court “n’a pas tiré les conséquences légales de ses propres constatations”, The mirror risk in a SAS is an associate or a co-founder who later challenges the president’s pay as unauthorised; a recent Cour de cassation ruling of 11 March 2026 (no. 24-15.111, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2026:CO00114, published in the Bulletin) confirms the remedy, recalling that “le président du tribunal de commerce peut, même en présence d’une contestation sérieuse, prescrire en référé les mesures conservatoires ou de remise en état qui s’imposent, soit pour prévenir un dommage imminent, soit pour faire cesser un trouble manifestement illicite.” In plain terms, a minority shareholder who discovers self-voted, unauthorised pay can go to the emergency judge and freeze it. Drafting the remuneration decision at incorporation, filing it with the company’s records, and updating it by written minutes each time the amount changes costs nothing and closes this entire line of attack.

The second layer is payroll mechanics. Once pay is voted, the company must issue monthly pay slips (bulletins de paie) showing gross pay, employee and employer contributions, and net pay, and must file the DSN, the déclaration sociale nominative, the monthly electronic return that reports every assimilated employee. Article L. 133-5-3 of the Social Security Code defines the duty: “Tout employeur de personnel salarié ou assimilé adresse” to the competent collection body “une déclaration sociale nominative établissant pour chacun des salariés ou assimilés le lieu d’activité et les caractéristiques de l’emploi et du contrat de travail”, covering activity location, job characteristics, pay amounts and working time for each month. The DSN carries the contributions to URSSAF, the pension funds, and the withholding of personal income tax at source (prélèvement à la source), so a president living abroad must also confirm with the payroll provider which withholding rate applies to a non-resident. When the company hires its first employee, a separate formality applies: article R. 1221-1 of the Labour Code states that “La déclaration préalable à l’embauche comporte les mentions suivantes” and lists the employer’s identity, the employee’s civil status, and the date, time and nature of the hiring. The declaration must be filed before any work starts, and Paris-area founders file it with the URSSAF of Île-de-France, whose processing times lengthen each September. Practical discipline follows: vote the pay in writing, run identical monthly amounts through numbered pay slips, file the DSN every month even for small amounts, keep the bank transfers aligned to the cent with the slips, and never label a transfer “salary” unless a slip exists. Founders who pay themselves irregular amounts from abroad, mixing personal expenses, shareholder advances and salary in one current account, recreate exactly the pattern the Lille court reclassified, and URSSAF has four years, in practice, to come and read those bank statements.

B. What Changes When You Live Abroad: Tax Residence, Treaty Relief and the Social Security Tiebreaker

Living outside France changes the analysis on two separate planes, tax and social security, which obey different connecting factors and must never be confused. On the tax plane, everything starts with residence. A president who keeps a home, family or centre of economic interests in France may remain a French tax resident and be taxed on worldwide salary and dividends with the 12.8 percent levy described above, while a president genuinely settled abroad is taxed in France only on French-source income, with the 12.8 percent dividend withholding applied at source and salary taxed where the work is done under the applicable treaty. Because each treaty allocates taxing rights differently and most provide a foreign tax credit or exemption with progression, the founder should map the treaty before choosing between salary and dividends: in some residence states, French dividends arrive with a creditable withholding and a moderate local top-up, while French salary may be fully taxable locally with only social charges due in France. When the withholding exceeds the treaty rate, the excess is reclaimed from France with residence certificates, a slow but routine procedure. The second question is social affiliation, which follows the place of actual work rather than the company’s seat or the director’s passport. A president who directs the French SAS day to day from Paris, even while officially residing abroad, is working in France and stays affiliated to the French general scheme on the presidential pay. Conversely, a president who genuinely manages from another European Union state may fall under the coordination rules that designate a single applicable legislation, proven by the portable A1 certificate, while work performed outside the Union depends on bilateral social agreements, which France has signed with some forty states, or, absent any agreement, on a double exposure that must be priced into the pay decision. These questions are fact-heavy: flight records, calendar entries, the location of effective management, and the wording of board minutes all count. A founder who spends three days a week in the Paris office while claiming full-time foreign management will not survive either administration’s review.

Three operational reflexes protect the non-resident president. First, keep a single coherent story across all filings: the remuneration decision, the pay slips, the DSN, the corporate tax return and the personal tax return in the country of residence must describe the same amounts for the same periods. Contradictory figures are the fastest route to a double audit. Second, formalise the shareholder current account (compte courant d’associé), the ledger on which a shareholder records money lent to or owed by the company, with a written agreement, an interest rate and repayment terms, and never use it as a disguised payroll channel; the Lille judges explicitly rejected undocumented current-account explanations. Third, calendarise the dividend track separately: approve the accounts within six months of year-end, vote the dividend by formal minutes recording the distributable sum, levy the withholding when the beneficiary is non-resident, and file the reclaim file the same month rather than two years later. Foreign founders who follow this split-track discipline, salary documented monthly and dividends voted annually, can run a French SAS entirely from abroad with predictable cost. Those who improvise transfers between personal and company accounts discover, usually through an URSSAF letter of observations, that French social law treats every regular company-to-director payment as salary until proven otherwise, and the proof must predate the payment, not follow the audit.

Conclusion

A non-resident president of a French SAS is not a freelancer billing from abroad and not an invisible owner above the rules: the law sees an assimilated employee whose pay carries full social contributions, and only written decisions, monthly pay slips and DSN returns prove that the money taken was lawful salary rather than disguised remuneration. Dividends complement the salary once approved profits exist, at the price of the 12.8 percent levy for residents or the 12.8 percent withholding for non-residents, with treaty relief to organise rather than assume. The SASU founder who votes pay on day one, runs clean monthly payroll, and votes dividends once a year buys legal certainty at a known price; the founder who moves money first and documents later buys the same protection retroactively, with surcharges, as the 32,890 euro Lille reassessment demonstrates. Before your first transfer, fix the remuneration in writing, register the payroll circuit, and map the treaty of your country of residence, so that living abroad remains a personal choice and never becomes a corporate liability.