You live abroad and your French company needs premises in Paris: a shop, an office, a workshop. The agent slides a nine-year lease across the table and calls it a standard 3/6/9. The rent looks fair, the deposit equals six months, and everyone tells you signing is a formality. It is not. A French commercial lease (bail commercial) gives your company powerful protections, including a right to renewal or a damages payment if the landlord refuses, but every one of those protections runs on strict forms and deadlines that do not forgive an owner who is in another time zone. This guide explains the rules as they stand, with the exact statutory wording, so you can sign, pay, revise the rent and leave without losing the business you built in the premises. If you have not yet chosen the company that will sign, read our companion on how a foreign founder chooses between SAS, SARL, branch and subsidiary and the practical walkthrough on setting up a company in France, from bank account to Kbis and VAT.
A few terms first. The preneur is the tenant, the bailleur the landlord. The fonds de commerce is the going business operated in the premises: clientele, lease right, equipment, stock. The Kbis is the company registration certificate issued by the commercial court registry (greffe), and the Registre national des entreprises is the single national business register fed through the online Guichet unique. The congé is the formal notice to end or refuse renewal of the lease, and the commandement is a bailiff’s formal demand to pay. Keep these words in mind: the whole regime turns on them.
I. Signing a French commercial lease from abroad: nine years, short leases and the rent you really agree to
Commercial leases in France are governed by a protective statute in the Commercial Code, Articles L145-1 and following. Article L145-1 of the Commercial Code states: “Les dispositions du présent chapitre s’appliquent aux baux des immeubles ou locaux dans lesquels un fonds est exploité”. Your company only enjoys this protection if it actually operates a business in the premises and is duly registered. Registration is not paperwork for later. In a Paris ruling of 29 March 2023 (Paris Court of Appeal, Pole 5, Chamber 3, RG 17/12114, full decision), the landlord had served notice refusing renewal with no damages precisely because, in its view, the occupants could not claim commercial-lease status. The court examined registration, operation of the business and the lease history before fixing an eviction indemnity. The message for a founder abroad is blunt: incorporate, register and operate first, then claim the statute, never the reverse.
A. Why founders abroad ask first whether the 3/6/9 can be shortened or avoided
The default duration is nine years minimum. Article L145-4 of the Commercial Code provides: “La durée du contrat de location ne peut être inférieure à neuf ans.” The 3/6/9 label comes from the tenant’s exit right: “le preneur a la faculté de donner congé à l’expiration d’une période triennale, au moins six mois à l’avance, par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception ou par acte extrajudiciaire.” Your company can therefore leave after three years and after six years, with six months notice served by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt or by bailiff’s writ. The landlord has the same three-year exit only in narrow statutory cases, listed by reference in the same article, and otherwise must wait for expiry and follow the renewal rules. Read any clause that claims to remove your three-year exit with suspicion: the statute lists the only leases that may contract out, such as leases longer than nine years, single-use premises, offices-only use and certain storage premises.
Ending the lease requires notice in the right form and the right hands. Article L145-9 of the Commercial Code provides: “les baux de locaux soumis au présent chapitre ne cessent que par l’effet d’un congé donné six mois à l’avance ou d’une demande de renouvellement.” Without notice or renewal demand, “le bail fait par écrit se prolonge tacitement au-delà du terme fixé par le contrat”, and during that tacit extension notice must be given at least six months ahead for the last day of the calendar quarter. From abroad, this means calendaring two dates the day you sign: the three-year windows and the final six-month deadline. A late congé does not shorten anything. It pushes your liability forward, and a landlord who knows you are abroad will simply wait.
For a test phase, the short lease (bail dérogatoire) is the honest tool. Article L145-5 of the Commercial Code allows the parties, when the tenant takes possession, to set aside the protective chapter “à la condition que la durée totale du bail ou des baux successifs ne soit pas supérieure à trois ans.” Past three years of continuous occupation of the same premises for the same business, a new protective lease arises by operation of law, and a second short lease for the same business in the same premises is barred. Use the short lease to test a neighbourhood with limited commitment, and diary the three-year cliff: staying even one month too long converts the arrangement into a full commercial lease, which may be exactly what you want, but it must be a decision, not an accident.
Practical signing from abroad follows a fixed order. First, verify who signs for the landlord and who signs for your company: the president of an SAS or the manager of a SARL, within powers third parties can rely on, or a holder of a written power of attorney whose authority the landlord and the bank accept. Second, check the premises designation, the authorised activity and any exclusive-use clauses: operating an activity the lease forbids exposes you to termination rather than protection. Third, photograph and schedule the condition of the premises at entry, because exit dilapidations are priced against that record. Fourth, align the lease with your company documents: identical corporate name letter for letter, correct registered office, matching signatory. French registries, banks and bailiffs reject files over a single inconsistent letter, and a founder in another country pays for each round trip in weeks.
Fit-out works deserve a written regime before the first drill hole. Paris leases typically require the landlord’s prior written consent for any alteration, impose reinstatement at exit at the tenant’s cost unless the landlord waives it in writing, and allocate structural works to the owner. Agree in an appendix what stays and what goes at exit, who pays for compliance upgrades such as accessibility or energy performance, and how landlord inspections are scheduled with notice to a tenant whose decision-maker is abroad. Photograph every stage of the works and keep contractor invoices with the lease file. At exit, the landlord prices reinstatement from your paper trail, and a complete file routinely saves several months of rent in disputed deductions.
B. Why founders abroad ask next how the rent, the deposit and the charges really move
The headline rent is only the starting point. On renewal or revision, the statute ties rent to letting value. Article L145-33 of the Commercial Code provides: “Le montant des loyers des baux renouvelés ou révisés doit correspondre à la valeur locative.” Failing agreement, that value is set from the characteristics of the premises, their permitted use, the parties’ respective obligations, local commerciality factors and rents commonly charged nearby, with a Council of State decree detailing each factor. For a founder abroad, the lesson is to negotiate the initial rent against documented neighbourhood evidence and to record in the lease who bears which works, because the allocation of works weighs directly in the future letting value.
Revision during the lease runs on a three-year clock. Article L145-38 of the Commercial Code states: “La demande en révision ne peut être formée que trois ans au moins après la date d’entrée en jouissance du locataire ou après le point de départ du bail renouvelé.” New demands can then be made every three years, and unless a material change in local commerciality factors moving letting value by more than 10 percent is proved, increases and decreases are capped by the same article. Either party can trigger revision, landlord or tenant. Diary the three-year dates alongside the exit windows: a tenant who never asks for revision when the neighbourhood declines simply overpays, and a landlord’s demand served while you are travelling still runs its deadlines.
The security deposit (dépôt de garantie) and service charges are contractual in commercial leases, unlike the capped regimes of residential lettings. Paris practice commonly demands three to six months rent as deposit, sometimes a first-demand bank guarantee on top, plus a detailed charges schedule with annual reconciliation. None of this is set by the articles cited above, so read the lease instead of assuming a legal cap. Negotiate four points before signing: the deposit amount and the deadline for its return after exit against handover of the keys; the exact list of recoverable charges and taxes, with the property tax (taxe foncière) allocation stated in euros rather than adjectives; the works allocation between structural landlord works and fit-out tenant works, with written landlord consent for alterations; and the bank-guarantee wording, which your foreign bank must be able to issue in a form French landlords accept. A deposit dispute at exit costs more from abroad than any of these sentences costs today.
Indexation deserves its own line in your memo. Most Paris commercial leases index annual rent to the ILC (commercial rents index) or ILAT (tertiary activities index) published quarterly. Indexation is automatic only if the clause says so and states the reference index, the base quarter and the adjustment date. Check whether the clause has a floor (a minimum increase even if the index falls) or a cap, because floors compound over nine years into real money. A founder who approves from abroad should require the property manager to send each indexed rent notice with the index publication attached, and should reconcile once a year. Small yearly overcharges become large nine-year totals, and limitation periods reward the party with the better file.
II. Leaving the premises or being forced out: renewal, eviction money and termination for unpaid rent
Two exits exist: yours, through the three-year congé or end-of-lease notice, and the landlord’s, through refusal of renewal with damages or termination for breach. Both are formalist. Both punish distance. The rules below decide who pays whom when the relationship ends.
A. Why founders abroad ask what the landlord owes if renewal is refused
The tenant has a right to renewal, and refusal costs the landlord money. Article L145-14 of the Commercial Code states that “le bailleur doit, sauf exceptions prévues aux articles L. 145-17 et suivants , payer au locataire évincé une indemnité dite d’éviction égale au préjudice causé par le défaut de renouvellement.” That indemnity covers the market value of the business determined by professional usage, plus normal removal and reinstallation costs and transfer duties for an equivalent business, unless the owner proves the loss is smaller. The exceptions, such as demolition and rebuilding or legitimate grounds against the tenant, are narrowly read and priced: even a landlord with a valid reason often pays.
The Paris decision of 29 March 2023 shows how courts build the figure. After holding the tenants eligible for the statute, the court ordered the landlord company to pay the two tenants a total of 23,560 euros as eviction indemnity, expressly breaking that sum down in the ruling into principal indemnity, reinvestment costs, commercial disruption, moving costs and commercial and administrative costs, with statutory interest from the date of the ruling. For your company, the eviction indemnity is therefore not a symbolic payment. It is the priced value of losing the premises: business value, reinstallation, commercial disruption, moving and administrative costs. Keep from day one the records that will price it: audited turnover at the premises, footfall and clientele evidence, fit-out invoices, and any valuation of the right to the lease. A company run from abroad whose records sit in another country will be valued on the landlord’s evidence instead of its own.
Renewal itself follows notice discipline. Serve the renewal demand or answer the landlord’s notice within the statutory time, by the statutory means, and state what the statute requires. A defective demand is treated as no demand, and the lease then continues tacitly with rent disputes decided later at greater cost. Give your Paris contact a standing instruction: every landlord letter, bailiff’s writ or registered notice is scanned to you the same day, and no deadline is answered without counsel checking form, time and content. The six-month periods in Articles L145-4 and L145-9 run from proper service, not from when you happen to read the email.
B. Why founders abroad ask how a lease is terminated for unpaid rent and how to stop it
Termination for breach runs through the termination clause (clause résolutoire) and a mandatory bailiff’s demand. Article L145-41 of the Commercial Code provides: “Toute clause insérée dans le bail prévoyant la résiliation de plein droit ne produit effet qu’un mois après un commandement demeuré infructueux.” The same article adds: “Le commandement doit, à peine de nullité, mentionner ce délai.” A demand that omits the one-month warning is void, and the clock never starts. Once a valid demand expires unpaid, the landlord sues to have termination declared, but the tenant can still ask the court for payment delays under Article 1343-5 of the Civil Code, and the court may suspend the clause where termination has not become final: “La clause résolutoire ne joue pas, si le locataire se libère dans les conditions fixées par le juge.”
From abroad, a rent difficulty becomes a legal emergency in exactly one month, so organise accordingly. First, make sure every commandement reaches decision-makers the day it is served: instruct the premises staff, the property manager and the company secretary that a bailiff’s visit is reported within hours, with the writ scanned in full. Second, never let the one-month period expire in silence. Pay, negotiate a written schedule, or file for court-ordered delays before expiry, because paying after the clause has fully played out leaves you arguing from outside the premises. Third, check the demand line by line: exact sums, exact lease reference, exact one-month warning. A void demand buys the time a real defence needs, but only if the defect is raised properly before the court. Fourth, keep paying the undisputed part of the rent during any dispute over charges or indexation. Courts grant delays to tenants who behave like debtors in difficulty, not to tenants who behave like they have moved on.
Your own exit follows the mirror formalities. Serve the three-year or end-of-lease congé by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt or bailiff’s writ, at least six months ahead, from a person with authority to bind the company, to the correct landlord at the correct address stated in the lease for notifications. Then manage handover as carefully as entry: organise the exit inventory (état des lieux de sortie) against the entry schedule, return all keys and access devices against receipt, remove signage within the contractual deadline, and demand the deposit reconciliation in writing with invoices for any deduction. Companies run from abroad lose most deposit litigation on evidence, not on law: no entry schedule, no photographs, no key receipt, no written protest within days. The landlord’s file wins by default.
A final Paris note, without changing any of the above. Commercial rents, deposits and bank guarantees in Paris and the inner suburbs run higher than national averages, tourist and high-footfall streets carry premium letting values that flow straight into Article L145-33 valuations, and Paris courts process these disputes at a pace that rewards complete files. Budget accordingly: a Paris commercial dispute over renewal or termination typically costs a multiple of the deposit in counsel and expert fees before any indemnity is fixed. That arithmetic is not an argument against Paris premises. It is an argument for signing the right lease, calendaring every deadline on day one, and keeping the records that price your business if the landlord one day refuses renewal.
Transferring the lease with the business is often the real exit for a foreign founder. A commercial lease can be assigned with the going business to a buyer, and landlords commonly require notice of the assignment and sometimes consent procedures written into the lease. Prepare the assignment as early as the sale mandate: read the lease clauses on assignment and subletting, collect landlord contact details for notifications, and align the assignment timetable with the notice periods above so the buyer does not inherit a termination dispute. A clean assignment file, with rent paid up, charges reconciled and works documented, sells faster and for more than a disputed one. Buyers discount uncertainty, and a lease dispute visible in a bailiff’s writ is uncertainty priced in euros.
Conclusion
A French commercial lease signed from abroad stands on four pillars: a nine-year term with three-year tenant exits on six months notice, short leases capped at three years for test phases, rents tied to letting value with revision every three years, and exits priced by statute, from the eviction indemnity for refused renewal to the one-month demand before any termination clause can play. The company that registers, operates, calendars every notice period and keeps its evidence gets the full protection of the statute. The company that signs from a distance and files nothing gets nine years of obligations with none of the leverage. Distance never excuses a missed formality, ever. Start the file today, review it every single year, and never let a deadline pass unanswered. Put the four dates in your calendar the day you sign, appoint one person in France authorised to receive and forward every formal notice the same day, and reconcile rent, charges and deposit yearly. The lease will then do what it is designed to do: hold your premises while you run the business from wherever you live.