You delivered the goods to a Lyon customer, the software has been live for three months, and your invoice for 18,000 euros sits unpaid while reminders go unanswered. For a foreign founder running a French SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company most foreign investors choose) or a SARL (société a responsabilité limitée, the limited-liability company with stricter statutory rules), or for a foreign company selling into France without any French entity at all, this is the most common commercial dispute in French business life. It is also one of the fastest to solve when you use the right tool. That tool is the injonction de payer, a paper-based fast track that lets a judge order your debtor to pay on the strength of your documents alone, with no hearing and no need for you to travel to France.

This guide walks the full path from the first formal demand to money in your account. It explains what your demand letter must contain, how commercial penalties and the fixed recovery fee apply and how civil interest runs from the formal demand, which court receives your request and what the file must prove, what happens when the debtor objects within the one-month deadline, and how you turn the order into an enforceable title, including the European track for cross-border claims. Every French acronym is explained along the way: the Kbis (the official extract proving a company is registered), the greffe (the court registry that receives your request), the RCS (registre du commerce et des sociétés, the trade and companies register), and the commissaire de justice (the enforcement officer, formerly called huissier de justice, who serves court papers). Every decisive rule is tied to the exact statute or ruling that states it. If you are still setting up the vehicle itself, read first our guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder; if your own company is the one that cannot pay, the mirror situation is covered in our guide on what happens when a French company cannot pay its debts.

I. How can a foreign company recover an unpaid French invoice without a full trial?

French law pushes business creditors toward paper procedures before courtroom battles. A dispute over an unpaid invoice between professionals follows a fixed ladder: an invoice with a lawful payment term, a formal demand that triggers penalties, then a one-sided request to the judge that produces a payment order within weeks. Each rung has traps for foreigners, and each trap is avoidable once you know the texts. This first part climbs the first two rungs: the demand that makes many debtors pay voluntarily, and the filing that forces payment without a trial.

A. What does your formal demand need to say before you go to court?

Start with the payment deadline itself, because many foreign founders discover too late that French law caps what the contract may stipulate. Unless your sales conditions say otherwise, Article L441-10 of the Commercial Code sets a default rule: “le délai de règlement des sommes dues ne peut dépasser trente jours après la date de réception des marchandises ou d’exécution de la prestation demandée”. In plain English, the payment period cannot exceed thirty days after the goods arrive or the service is performed. Where the parties agree a term, the same article caps it: “Le délai convenu entre les parties pour régler les sommes dues ne peut dépasser soixante jours après la date d’émission de la facture”, meaning the agreed term cannot exceed sixty days after the invoice date. A longer alternative of forty-five days end-of-month is possible only when it is expressly written into the contract and does not amount to a manifest abuse toward the creditor. Before sending anything, compare your invoice date and your contract clause against these ceilings. A clause giving the customer ninety or one hundred twenty days is unenforceable, and your demand should rely on the statutory ceiling instead. Note that the Legifrance record for this article flags a deferred repeal taking effect on 1 January 2027 as part of a recodification, so always check the version in force on your filing date.

Once the deadline has passed, the money does not sit idle: it produces penalties automatically, and your demand letter is what documents them. The same Article L441-10, II of the Commercial Code states: “Les pénalités de retard sont exigibles sans qu’un rappel soit nécessaire.” Late penalties apply with no reminder needed. The rate defaults to the European Central Bank refinancing rate plus ten points unless your conditions set a different rate, which cannot be lower than three times the French legal interest rate. On top of that, every professional in late payment generally owes by operation of law a fixed indemnity for recovery costs, with one statutory exception: “Toutefois, le créancier ne peut invoquer le bénéfice de ces indemnités lorsque l’ouverture d’une procédure de sauvegarde, de redressement ou de liquidation judiciaire interdit le paiement à son échéance de la créance qui lui est due.” Check the BODACC before counting on penalties where the debtor may already be in insolvency proceedings. Article D441-5 of the Commercial Code states: “Le montant de l’indemnité forfaitaire pour frais de recouvrement prévue au II de l’article L. 441-10 est fixé à 40 euros.” Where your proven recovery costs exceed that sum, the same Commercial Code scheme allows additional compensation on proof, so keep every collection invoice. Your demand letter should therefore state the principal, the penalty rate you apply, the 40-euro fixed fee, and a final deadline, typically eight to fifteen days. Send it by a traceable channel, ideally registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt or a commissaire de justice, because the judge will later want proof that the debtor was warned.

The demand also matters for ordinary late interest under civil law. Article 1231-6 of the Civil Code provides: “Les dommages et intérêts dus à raison du retard dans le paiement d’une obligation de somme d’argent consistent dans l’intérêt au taux légal, à compter de la mise en demeure.” Damages for late payment of a sum of money consist of interest at the legal rate, running from the formal demand. The same article adds: “Ces dommages et intérêts sont dus sans que le créancier soit tenu de justifier d’aucune perte.” They are owed with no need for the creditor to prove any loss. In practice, founders compare the two regimes on their file: the commercial penalties of the Commercial Code where their conditions allow them, and the civil legal interest running from the formal demand. Either way, the clock starts with the mise en demeure, the formal demand, which is why a vague email asking “could you please pay soon” is worth far less than a letter headed “mise en demeure de payer” that cites the invoice numbers, the sums, and the penalties.

What counts as a valid demand is itself defined by statute. Article 1344 of the Civil Code states: “Le débiteur est mis en demeure de payer soit par une sommation ou un acte portant interpellation suffisante, soit, si le contrat le prévoit, par la seule exigibilité de l’obligation.” The debtor is put on notice either by a formal summons or any act amounting to a sufficient demand, or, where the contract so provides, by the mere fact that the obligation has fallen due. For a foreign creditor, the lesson is concrete: check whether your contract contains a clause making the sum due automatically on a date, and if not, send an explicit demand that leaves no doubt. Keep the invoice, the delivery slips or acceptance reports, the contract or purchase order, the exchange of emails, and the proof of sending of the demand. That bundle is exactly what the judge will examine at the next stage.

One more deadline frames everything: limitation. Article L110-4, I of the Commercial Code provides: “Les obligations nées à l’occasion de leur commerce entre commerçants ou entre commerçants et non-commerçants se prescrivent par cinq ans si elles ne sont pas soumises à des prescriptions spéciales plus courtes.” Commercial obligations are time-barred after five years unless a shorter special period applies. Five years sounds generous, but foreign files often lose two of them to polite waiting and internal escalation. A court filing stops the clock. Article 2241 of the Civil Code states: “La demande en justice, même en référé, interrompt le délai de prescription ainsi que le délai de forclusion.” Alongside that five-year deadline, the Code provides a way to stop the clock: the article just cited is completed by the general interruption rule for court actions. Diary the date early: the demand letter should go out within weeks of the missed deadline, not quarters, and court action should follow within months while evidence is fresh. The demand letter should therefore go out within weeks of the missed deadline, not quarters.

B. Where and how do you file the injonction de payer request from abroad?

The injonction de payer is available only for certain claims, and an invoice for goods delivered or services performed fits squarely inside. Article 1405 of the Code of Civil Procedure states: “Le recouvrement d’une créance peut être demandé suivant la procédure d’injonction de payer lorsque : 1° La créance a une cause contractuelle ou résulte d’une obligation de caractère statutaire et s’élève à un montant déterminé ; en matière contractuelle, la détermination est faite en vertu des stipulations du contrat y compris, le cas échéant, la clause pénale”. Recovery through this fast track is open when the claim has a contractual cause and amounts to a determined sum, with the amount fixed by the terms of the contract, penalty clause included. An ordinary supply contract, a distribution agreement, a services agreement, or an unpaid SaaS subscription all qualify. What does not qualify is equally important, and the Court of Cassation polices the boundary strictly. In a 27 March 2025 ruling, appeal no. 23-21.501, published in the Bulletin, the third civil chamber held: “Il résulte de ce texte que le recouvrement d’une créance contractuelle ne peut être demandé suivant la procédure d’injonction de payer que si son montant est déterminé en vertu des stipulations du contrat.” A contractual claim can go through this track only where its amount is fixed by the contract terms. In that case, a claim for compensation of rental damage, whose amount appeared only in a later letter and a subrogation receipt rather than in the lease itself, could not use the procedure, and the Court quashed the lower judgment. Apply that test to your own file before filing: if your invoice amount flows directly from a unit price, a daily rate, or a subscription fee written in the contract, you qualify; if the sum is really an estimate of damage that only an expert or a judge could fix, file an ordinary claim instead.

Venue follows the debtor, not the creditor, which is good news for predictability. Article 1406 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides: “La demande est portée, selon le cas, devant le juge des contentieux de la protection ou devant le président du tribunal judiciaire ou du tribunal de commerce, dans la limite de la compétence d’attribution de ces juridictions.” Depending on the matter, the request goes to the protection-litigation judge, the president of the judicial court, or the president of the commercial court. That commercial-court route matches subject-matter jurisdiction between traders: Article L721-3 of the Commercial Code states: “Les tribunaux de commerce connaissent : 1° Des contestations relatives aux engagements entre commerçants, entre artisans, entre établissements de crédit, entre sociétés de financement ou entre eux”. For most invoice disputes between professionals, the request therefore goes to the president of the tribunal de commerce, within the limits of each court’s subject-matter jurisdiction as Article 1406 defines them. Article 1406 continues: “Le juge territorialement compétent est celui du lieu où demeure le ou l’un des débiteurs poursuivis.” The court with territorial jurisdiction is where the debtor, or one of the debtors, resides. For a company, use its registered address. Article 1406 closes with a warning: “Les règles prescrites aux alinéas précédents sont d’ordre public.” These venue rules are a matter of public policy, and any contrary clause is deemed unwritten. A clause in your own general conditions sending all disputes to London or New York does not move an injonction de payer away from the French debtor court. Identify the debtor Kbis extract, confirm the registered office, and file there.

Filing from abroad is deliberately simple. Article 1407 of the Code of Civil Procedure states: “La demande est formée par requête remise ou adressée, selon le cas, au greffe par le créancier ou par tout mandataire.” The request is filed by petition handed to or sent to the greffe, the court registry, by the creditor or any representative. Filing from abroad is built into the text: the request is filed by the creditor or any representative, who hands the petition to the registry or sends it, which lets a foreign founder file through counsel acting as mandataire. The same article sets the content: “la requête contient l’indication précise du montant de la somme réclamée avec le décompte des différents éléments de la créance, le fondement de celle-ci ainsi que le bordereau des documents justificatifs produits à l’appui de la requête.” The petition must carry the particulars required by Article 57 together with the exact amount claimed, its breakdown, its basis, and the document list: the article requires, “Outre les mentions prescrites par l’article 57”, that “la requête contient l’indication précise du montant de la somme réclamée avec le décompte des différents éléments de la créance, le fondement de celle-ci ainsi que le bordereau des documents justificatifs produits à l’appui de la requête.” And the documents themselves travel with it: “Elle est accompagnée de ces documents.” Build the file as the judge will read it: principal per invoice, penalty interest with the rate and start date, the 40-euro fee, and any penalty clause, each tied to a document. Attach the contract, the order forms, the delivery or acceptance proofs, the invoices, the reminder history, and the formal demand with its proof of sending. Judges reject thin files, and a rejection at this stage costs weeks, so the petition drafted by counsel usually runs several pages plus exhibits.

The judge rules without hearing either side. If the file proves the claim, he signs an ordonnance portant injonction de payer, an order directing the debtor to pay the stated sum plus costs. The judge rules on the papers. Article 1409 of the Code of Civil Procedure states: “Si, au vu des documents produits, la demande lui paraît fondée en tout ou partie, le juge rend une ordonnance portant injonction de payer pour la somme qu’il retient.” If instead the request fails, “Si le juge rejette la requête, sa décision est sans recours pour le créancier, sauf à celui-ci à procéder selon les voies de droit commun.” A refusal therefore offers no appeal but leaves the ordinary lawsuit open; and where the judge grants only part of the claim, his decision is likewise without appeal for the creditor, “sauf à celui-ci à ne pas signifier l’ordonnance et à procéder selon les voies de droit commun.” There is no hearing to attend and no travel to book. For a founder in London, New York, or Dubai, the practical chain is therefore: French counsel drafts the petition, files it with the greffe of the debtor court, receives the signed order, and hands it to a commissaire de justice for service. The whole first phase commonly takes a few weeks from filing to signature, depending on the registry backlog.

II. What happens after the judge signs the payment order?

The signature is the midpoint, not the finish. The order has no effect until it is served, the debtor then has a full month to object, and only an unchallenged order becomes enforceable. Foreign creditors lose more files to sloppy service than to bad law, because the deadlines are short and strictly applied. This second part follows the order from service to cash: the service that starts the clock, the objection that sends everyone to a real trial, and the enforcement that seizes the money.

A. What if the French customer files an opposition within one month?

Service is your responsibility and your risk. Article 1411 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides: “Une copie certifiée conforme de la requête accompagnée du bordereau des documents justificatifs et de l’ordonnance revêtue de la formule exécutoire est signifiée, à l’initiative du créancier, à chacun des débiteurs.” Service runs through a commissaire de justice: a certified copy of the petition with its document list and the order must be served by the creditor on each debtor, and the officer then makes the supporting documents available to the debtors electronically under the procedure set by ministerial order, joining the documents to the papers served only where electronic provision proves impossible for a cause beyond the officer. Article 1411 states: “Le commissaire de justice met à disposition de ces derniers les documents justificatifs par voie électronique selon des modalités définies par arrêté du garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice.” And: “Si les documents justificatifs ne peuvent être mis à disposition par voie électronique pour une cause étrangère au commissaire de justice, celui-ci les joint à la copie de la requête signifiée.” The same article sets a guillotine: “L’ordonnance portant injonction de payer est non avenue si elle n’a pas été signifiée dans les trois mois de sa date.” The payment order is void if it has not been served within three months of its date. Instruct the enforcement officer the day you receive the order, confirm the debtor address against a fresh Kbis or RCS extract, and diary the three-month date. The Court of Cassation treats this service deadline as fatal. In a 17 October 2019 ruling, appeal no. 18-18.759, the second civil chamber recalled the rule then in force: “une copie certifiée conforme de la requête et de l’ordonnance est signifiée, à l’initiative du créancier, à chacun des débiteurs ; que l’ordonnance portant injonction de payer est non avenue si elle n’a pas été signifiée dans les six mois de sa date”. At that time the period was six months; it has since been shortened to three months in the current text, but the reasoning stands: a creditor that never served the order, even one whose debtor had made voluntary payments to the bailiff, could not rely on it years later for seizures, and the Court quashed the appeal judgment that had allowed enforcement. Serve fast, serve at the right address, and keep the proof of service.

Once served, the debtor has one month to react. Article 1416 of the Code of Civil Procedure states: “L’opposition est formée dans le mois qui suit la signification de l’ordonnance.” Opposition, the objection, must be filed within the month following service of the order. The same article extends the window where service missed the debtor personally: “si la signification n’a pas été faite à personne, l’opposition est recevable jusqu’à l’expiration du délai d’un mois suivant le premier acte signifié à personne ou, à défaut, suivant la première mesure d’exécution ayant pour effet de rendre indisponibles en tout ou partie les biens du débiteur.” Where service was not made to the person, the objection remains admissible until one month after the first act served personally or, failing that, after the first enforcement measure freezing all or part of the debtor assets. Opposition is a simple procedural act. Article 1415 of the Code of Civil Procedure states: “Elle est formée au greffe, par le débiteur ou tout mandataire, soit par déclaration contre récépissé, soit par lettre recommandée.” A representative who is not a lawyer “doit justifier d’un pouvoir spécial”, and “A peine de nullité, l’opposition mentionne l’adresse du débiteur.” Many debtors file on the last day purely to gain time.

Do not mistake an opposition for a defeat. The objection ends the paper-only phase and sends the case to a hearing: Article 1418 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that “le greffier convoque les parties à l’audience par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception”, and the summons warns the defendant that “faute de comparaître, il s’expose à ce qu’un jugement soit rendu contre lui sur les seuls éléments fournis par son adversaire.” Both sides then argue fully. Your petition and exhibits become the opening brief, and counsel completes them with reply submissions. This is where the work done at the demand and filing stages pays off: the breakdown of sums, the delivery proofs, and the penalty computation are already on file, while the debtor must now explain why identified goods or acknowledged services should go unpaid. Courts often press the parties toward settlement at this point, and a creditor with a documented file settles from strength. If the debtor raises a genuine dispute, over defective delivery or disputed acceptance, the judge decides it like any commercial case, with expert evidence where needed. Budget for this branch from the start: the fast track costs a fraction of a full trial, but roughly a third of orders draw opposition in busy commercial courts, so authorize counsel to continue through the merits hearing rather than pausing for instructions from abroad while deadlines run.

Debtors sometimes pair opposition with delay tactics outside the case: requests for payment delays, claims of set-off against alleged counter-claims, or sudden silence. French courts may grant payment delays of up to two years: Article 1343-5 of the Civil Code states: “Le juge peut, compte tenu de la situation du débiteur et en considération des besoins du créancier, reporter ou échelonner, dans la limite de deux années, le paiement des sommes dues.” The judge weighs the debtor’s situation against your needs as creditor, so a commercial debtor that simply preferred other suppliers rarely obtains them. Article 1347-1 of the Civil Code states: “Sous réserve des dispositions prévues à la sous-section suivante, la compensation n’a lieu qu’entre deux obligations fongibles, certaines, liquides et exigibles.” Set-off therefore requires such a certain, liquid, and due counter-claim, not a vague complaint about quality raised for the first time after service. Keep performing no new work on credit once opposition is filed unless fresh orders are prepaid or guaranteed, and consider protective measures, described below, as soon as the file shows the debtor is organizing insolvency rather than disputing the invoice.

B. How do you turn the order into money and late interest?

If no opposition arrives, timing does the work. Article 1422 of the Code of Civil Procedure states: “Quelles que soient les modalités de la signification, le délai d’opposition prévu au premier alinéa de l’article 1416 est suspensif d’exécution.” The order then “ne constitue un titre exécutoire et ne produit les effets d’un tel titre ou d’une décision de justice qu’à l’expiration des causes suspensives d’exécution prévues au premier alinéa et à l’expiration d’un délai de deux mois suivant la signification de l’ordonnance d’injonction de payer”, and “Elle produit alors tous les effets d’un jugement contradictoire.” With that title, enforcement runs: Article L211-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Proceedings states: “Tout créancier muni d’un titre exécutoire constatant une créance liquide et exigible peut, pour en obtenir le paiement, saisir entre les mains d’un tiers les créances de son débiteur portant sur une somme d’argent, sous réserve des dispositions particulières à la saisie des rémunérations prévue par le code du travail et par le présent code”, which is the bank-account seizure (saisie-attribution) in practice. The officer then carries out the seizure under the applicable enforcement framework. The recoverable sum comprises the principal plus the interest and fixed fee established in the earlier stages. Diary the opposition deadline from service: one month, extended where service was not made personally as Article 1416 provides, and the consolidation point thereafter, remembering that under Article 1422 the order becomes an enforceable title only once both the suspensive causes have expired and the two months following service have run. Files stall most often here, not for legal reasons but because nobody diaries the return date while the founder is busy with the next funding round.

Where the debtor sits in another European Union Member State, or where your company is established elsewhere in the Union and the claim is cross-border, a parallel European track exists. Article 1424-1 of the Code of Civil Procedure states: “La présente section est relative à la procédure européenne d’injonction de payer prévue par le règlement (CE) n° 1896/2006 du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 12 décembre 2006 instituant une procédure européenne d’injonction de payer.” The section governs the European payment order created by Regulation 1896/2006. Where the debtor or the assets sit in another EU Member State, that European track is the alternative to the French one. Because it follows its own EU rules rather than the French articles described above, ask counsel at the filing stage which track fits your file. Discuss with counsel at the filing stage which track fits: the French domestic order is usually faster against a French-domiciled debtor, while the European order avoids relitigating abroad when the assets are outside France. Either way, the BODACC (bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, the official gazette publishing insolvency openings) should be checked before spending on enforcement, so you know whether the debtor is subject to published insolvency proceedings before you act.

Interest and costs deserve a final word because they decide whether recovery is whole. Commercial penalty interest under the Commercial Code runs from the day after the contractual or statutory payment date with no reminder needed, while civil late interest under Article 1231-6 of the Civil Code runs from the formal demand: “à compter de la mise en demeure”. Claim the commercial rate first where your conditions allow it, since the ECB-plus-ten-points rate usually exceeds the civil legal rate by a wide margin, and add the 40-euro fixed fee plus documented excess recovery costs. The order states the exact sums, so verify the breakdown before service: a one-digit error in the rate or the start date gives the debtor an easy opposition argument and forces a correction that costs a month. Once the title is final, the commissaire de justice recovers principal, interest, the fixed fee, and enforcement costs in a single seizure, which is why a well-drafted initial demand, sent months earlier by registered letter, still earns its keep at the very end.

A short Paris note, since most foreign founders bill Paris-region debtors. Commercial claims between traders against a Paris debtor go to the Paris commercial court, whose greffe processes electronic filings daily, while enforcement across Ile-de-France runs through Paris-based commissaires de justice who typically serve within days. Jurisdiction follows the debtor registered office, so a debtor in La Defense answers in Nanterre and a debtor in central Paris answers in Paris; filing in the wrong registry only buys delay. Local counsel also knows which Paris debtors systematically file last-day oppositions to gain time and which pay at the demand stage, and that intelligence shapes the strategy from day one. Nothing here changes the national procedure; it simply places your file where the debtor assets usually are.

Conclusion

A French customer who stops paying is not the end of your French venture; it is a procedure with a timetable, and the creditor who respects it usually collects. Check your payment term against the thirty-day default and the sixty-day agreed ceiling, send a mise en demeure that states the principal, the penalty rate, the 40-euro fee, and a final deadline, and keep every proof of sending. File the injonction de payer with the court of the debtor domicile through the greffe, with a precise breakdown and the full paper chain behind it, then have the commissaire de justice serve within three months. If opposition comes within the month, argue the merits with the file you already built; if nothing comes, take the enforcement formula and seize. Where the claim is cross-border, ask counsel whether the European payment order track suits your file. The statutes and rulings cited above draw the boundaries; your documents supply the facts inside them. Start the formal demand this week, because penalties run from the payment date but leverage fades with every silent month, and a claim filed today interrupts limitation while a claim pondered until December may arrive after the assets have gone.

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