You run a company abroad and you are ready to hire your first person in France. The candidate is found, the salary is agreed, and you want them to start on Monday. In France, Monday is too late if you have not filed anything yet. The first hire of a foreign company is the moment when three French administrations meet you at once: URSSAF, the labour inspectorate, and later the employment tribunal if the trial period was handled loosely. Each of them reads paper, not intentions. This guide walks you through the exact sequence that keeps a first hire clean: the hiring declaration filed before day one, a written open-ended contract with a trial clause judges will enforce, a renewal or termination done in writing and on time, and a first payslip plus monthly payroll return that match the money paid. It is written for a foreign founder or group HR manager who has never hired under the French Labour Code, and every acronym is explained along the way.

The stakes are concrete. An employment inspector who finds an undeclared worker on your premises can trigger a reassessment for concealed work, with back contributions, surcharges, and the loss of contribution reductions. A trial period renewed with a mere signature for receipt, instead of a clear written agreement, can be reclassified as an unfair dismissal. A missing or wrong payslip can support the same concealed-work finding. The good news is that each of these risks is prevented by a short document filed at the right time. The order below follows the life of the hire: declare, sign, manage the trial, pay and report.

I. Declare the hire and sign a written contract before work starts

A. File the DPAE hiring declaration before day one or face a concealed-work reassessment

The DPAE, short for declaration prealable a l’embauche, is the prior hiring declaration every employer files with the social protection bodies before a new employee starts. URSSAF is the body that collects social contributions in France, and it receives the DPAE for private-sector hires. The rule sits in article L. 1221-10 of the French Labour Code, which states: L’embauche d’un salarié ne peut intervenir qu’après déclaration nominative accomplie par l’employeur auprès des organismes de protection sociale désignés à cet effet. In plain English, no one starts work before the nominative declaration has been completed with the designated social protection body. The same article adds that the employer completes this declaration at every workplace where employees are employed, which matters for a foreign company opening its first French site.

The declaration is not a one-line email. Article R. 1221-1 of the Labour Code lists what it must contain: La déclaration préalable à l’embauche comporte les mentions suivantes, starting with the company name, the APE activity code, the employer address, the SIRET registration number of the establishment, and the occupational health service, then the employee civil status details, the date and hour of hiring, and the nature and duration of the contract including any trial period for open-ended and long fixed-term contracts. Two acronyms need explaining. SIRET is the fourteen-digit identifier of your French establishment issued when the company is registered, and APE is the activity code assigned from your declared business activity. A foreign company hiring before its SIRET arrives uses the provisional file number issued while registration is pending, but it still files before the start date and updates the record once the SIRET is known.

Filing can be done online through the URSSAF portal or the net-entreprises gateway, and the official undertakings portal explains that the DPAE simultaneously registers the employer with the general social security scheme, registers the employee, requests the medical examination, and opens the file used for payroll reporting. Keep the filing receipt with its timestamp, because the timestamp is the evidence inspectors read first. Also enter the newcomer immediately in the single personnel register, the registre unique du personnel, which lists every employee in hiring order with employment details. Inspectors routinely cross-check the register against DPAE filings during site visits.

The cost of skipping or delaying the DPAE is shown by a recent appeal decision. On 10 October 2025, the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, case number RG 23/08418, confirmed a reassessment against a seasonal restaurant operator. Recovery inspectors visited the altitude restaurant on 19 February 2020 holding the list of filed DPAEs and found a dishwasher at work who had neither a DPAE nor an entry in the personnel register, a fact the manager admitted. The decision records that the DPAE for that worker was registered on 24 May 2020 for a hiring dated 17 February 2020, that two other workers were likewise declared days after their real start dates, and that the manager told investigators he put future employees to work before declaring them, saying that when he hires someone they do a trial and the contract comes if it suits. The court confirmed the formal notice of 17 February 2021 for 7,399 euros, covering 5,746 euros of social contributions, 1,240 euros of reassessment surcharges and 413 euros of late-payment surcharges, and added 2,000 euros in legal costs on appeal.

The legal mechanism behind that bill is article L. 8221-5 of the Labour Code, which defines concealed work by concealment of salaried employment: Est réputé travail dissimulé par dissimulation d’emploi salarié le fait pour tout employeur who intentionally avoids the DPAE formality, avoids issuing a payslip or understates hours on it, or avoids salary and contribution returns. Intentional evasion is the trigger word, and a pattern of systematic late filings, admitted by the manager in the Aix case, established it. A concealed-work finding does more than add surcharges. It cancels the general reductions and exemptions of social contributions for the period, which is why the Aix court approved the second head of reassessment cancelling those reductions, citing the rule that partial cancellation applies only below a small share of declared pay for small employers. For a foreign company, the lesson is blunt: never let a newcomer do a test day, a training shift, or a trial run before the DPAE is filed. Any work before the declaration is undeclared work.

If the declaration is already late, fix it the same day. File the DPAE immediately with the real start date, register the worker in the personnel register, issue back payslips for every month worked, and file the missing payroll returns with payment. If URSSAF notifies observations and then a formal notice, contest first before the friendly-appeals commission, the commission de recours amiable, within the stated deadline, and then before the social division of the judicial court, keeping every receipt, contract, and bank transfer as proof of good faith. The Aix employer followed that path, commission rejection on 29 September 2021 then court action on 14 December 2021, but lost on the facts because the late pattern was documented. A foreign founder who corrects a one-off delay within days, with documents, stands on far stronger ground.

B. Put the first hire on a written open-ended contract with the clauses French judges actually read

France hires on open-ended contracts by default. The CDI, contrat a duree indeterminee, is the standard permanent contract. The fixed-term contract, the CDD, is the exception, allowed only for a precise and temporary task in listed cases such as replacing an absent employee. Article L. 1242-2 of the Labour Code states: un contrat de travail à durée déterminée ne peut être conclu que pour l’exécution d’une tâche précise et temporaire, et seulement dans les cas suivants. A foreign company that uses a fixed-term contract as a cheap way to test a first hire, outside those cases, risks reclassification of the contract as open-ended with back pay consequences. For a first hire meant to stay, sign a CDI.

A CDI can be verbal in theory, but a foreign employer should always sign a written contract, in French or with a French version prevailing, before the start date. The written document carries the clauses that decide later disputes: job title and duties, workplace and any mobility, working time, gross salary and variable pay formula, starting date and seniority, the applicable sector-wide collective agreement, what the French call the convention collective, and the trial period clause. The collective agreement is the branch-level rulebook for your industry, retail, hospitality, IT services, construction, and it often improves statutory minimums on notice, severance, and trial renewal. Identify yours from the APE code at registration and name it in the contract, because the wrong agreement is a classic reassessment and back-pay trigger at the employment tribunal, the conseil de prud’hommes.

The trial period clause deserves special care. The trial period, the periode d’essai, lets the employer assess the employee skills and lets the employee decide whether the job suits them. It is optional and, crucially, it is never presumed. Article L. 1221-23 of the Labour Code provides: La période d’essai et la possibilité de la renouveler ne se présument pas. Elles sont expressément stipulées dans la lettre d’engagement ou le contrat de travail. No written clause means no trial period, and ending the relationship early then becomes a dismissal with full procedure. State the initial duration in the contract, and state expressly that it may be renewed once, because renewal also needs that written stipulation.

Keep the initial duration within the statutory ceilings of article L. 1221-19: Le contrat de travail à durée indéterminée peut comporter une période d’essai dont la durée maximale est two months for blue- and white-collar workers, three months for supervisors and technicians, and four months for executives. A contract or collective agreement can only shorten these ceilings, never extend them at the hiring stage. For a first hire, resist copying a foreign template with a six-month probation clause. A French judge will cut it back to the statutory maximum, and everything after the lawful end of the trial becomes ordinary employment, terminable only through resignation, dismissal with cause and procedure, or negotiated exit.

Two checks complete the signing stage. First, if the candidate is a non-European foreign national, verify before the start that they hold a work authorisation valid for employee activity, and keep a copy, because hiring a foreigner without the right permit is a separate criminal and contribution offence. Second, affiliate the company with an occupational health service, the service de sante au travail named in the DPAE, so the newcomer gets the information and prevention visit within the regulatory timeframe. These two steps cost little and remove two favourite inspection findings.

II. Run the trial period and the first payroll without creating a dispute

A. Renew or end the trial period in writing, on time, and with the notice period

Renewal is where foreign employers most often lose. Article L. 1221-21 of the Labour Code allows renewal only once and only if an extended branch agreement provides for it: La période d’essai peut être renouvelée une fois si un accord de branche étendu le prévoit. Cet accord fixe les conditions et les durées de renouvellement, with total ceilings of four months for workers and employees, six months for supervisors and technicians, and eight months for executives. Three cumulative conditions therefore apply: the branch agreement allows renewal, the contract expressly mentions the possibility, and the employee agrees in writing during the initial period. Miss one, and the renewal fails.

The Court of Cassation policed the written-agreement condition strictly on 11 June 2025, decision number 23-21.128, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2025:SO00651, available at the official record of the 11 June 2025 ruling. A property-development executive had a four-month trial, renewable once up to seven months, and the employer sent a renewal letter for three more months. The employee returned it signed after writing that he had received it, and added in his return email the words quoted by the court, followed by his signature. The Pau Court of Appeal treated the email and signature as an unequivocal agreement to renew. The social chamber quashed that reading. It recalled that under articles L. 1221-21 and L. 1221-23 and the branch text, renewal requires a written agreement before the end of the initial period, and held that the appeal judges, by reasoning that the terms and signature could be understood as agreement, had not established the unequivocal written agreement of the employee to the renewal, depriving their decision of legal basis. The termination during the irregular renewal was therefore not a valid trial break-up, and the claims for notice compensation, paid leave on notice and damages returned to the retrial court in Agen. For your first hire, the practice point is direct: send the renewal proposal in time, and get back a separate signed writing that says the employee agrees to renew, for a stated duration, before the initial period expires. A signature acknowledging receipt is not agreement.

An older decision adds a second trap on the substance of renewal. On 27 June 2018, decision number 16-25.756, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2018:SO01043, available at the official record of the 27 June 2018 ruling, the Court of Cassation reviewed a renewal under the cleaning-industry agreement, whose article 4.1.2 allowed renewal once, for an equal or shorter duration, in case of technical necessity and after express written agreement. The employer had written that the renewal was needed to assess all of the sales employee professional qualities, and the court approved the renewal because the appeal judges had verified that motive, characterising the condition set by the collective agreement. Check your own branch text before renewing. Some agreements demand a stated technical necessity, a written form, or a maximum renewal shorter than the initial period. Copy the exact wording of the clause into the renewal letter.

Ending the trial also follows mandatory notice, the delai de prevenance. When the employer ends the contract during or at the end of the trial, article L. 1221-25 requires warning of at least: le salarié est prévenu dans un délai qui ne peut être inférieur à twenty-four hours below eight days of service, forty-eight hours between eight days and one month, two weeks after one month, and one month after three months. When the employee leaves during the trial, article L. 1221-26 requires forty-eight hours, reduced to twenty-four below eight days of service, at the employee notice rule for trial termination. The notice period does not extend the trial, including renewal. The 2018 decision quoted the agreement rule that the trial, renewal included, cannot be prolonged by the notice period, and the statute says the same. So calendar the last lawful day of the trial, count backwards for the notice, and notify in writing with proof of delivery. A trial ended one day late, or a renewal notified after expiry, becomes a dismissal, with notice pay, severance where due, and damages.

For a foreign founder, the operational routine is simple. Diarise three dates on signing day: the end of the initial trial, the deadline for proposing renewal, and the last day for giving trial notice. Use registered letter with acknowledgement or hand delivery against signed receipt, plus email, and keep both. If the newcomer clearly fails, end the trial early with the correct notice rather than waiting and missing the window. If they show promise but need more time, renew once, in the branch conditions, with a clear countersigned agreement. Never renew twice, never renew beyond the ceiling, and never treat silence as consent.

B. Issue a compliant first payslip and file the monthly payroll return on the 5th or the 15th

The payslip, the bulletin de paie, is the monthly proof of everything: gross pay, hours, bonuses, social contributions with employee and employer shares, income-tax withholding, and net pay. Article L. 3243-2 of the Labour Code requires: Lors du paiement du salaire, l’employeur remet aux personnes mentionnées à l’article L. 3243-1 une pièce justificative dite bulletin de paie, deliverable electronically unless the employee objects, under conditions guaranteeing integrity, availability and confidentiality. Article R. 3243-1 lists the mandatory mentions: Le bulletin de paie prévu à l’article L. 3243-2 comporte the employer name and address, the APE activity number, the employer registration number, the branch collective agreement title, the employee name and job, the period and hours worked with overtime shown separately, the gross, the contribution bases and rates, the net social amount, the net taxable and net paid, and income-tax withholding details. A first payslip from a foreign template that omits the agreement title, the hours, or the net social amount is an invitation to a dispute at the employment tribunal, where judges compute overtime and bonuses from the payslip lines.

The payslip is also a contribution document. Intentionally failing to issue it, or understating hours on it, is the second branch of concealed work under article L. 8221-5, the same text that punishes a missing DPAE. Pay the exact net shown, by bank transfer to a documented account, and never ask the employee to sign anything other than acknowledgement that the sum received matches the net on the slip. Keep time records for the first months, especially for executives on day-based packages and for part-time hires, because hours on the slip must match hours actually worked.

Alongside the payslip runs the DSN, the declaration sociale nominative, the single monthly electronic payroll return every employer with salaried staff sends. Article L. 133-5-3 of the Social Security Code defines it: Tout employeur de personnel salarié ou assimilé adresse à celui des organismes mentionnés aux articles L. 213-1 et L. 752-1 du présent code a nominative return establishing, for each employee, the workplace, the characteristics of the job and contract, pay amounts, contribution bases, working time, and contract start, suspension and end dates for the month. The DSN carries the contributions to URSSAF, the complementary pension, and the withholding signals. File it through net-entreprises or your payroll software each month, and watch the payment deadline: the 5th of the following month when wages are paid in month M for employers with fifty or more staff, the 15th for smaller employers, with a quarterly option below eleven employees. Missing the DSN means missing the payment, and late payment draws surcharges on top of the contributions.

A practical first-payroll routine for a foreign company therefore looks like this. Choose a French payroll provider or software before the hire starts, because DSN formats and contribution tables are unforgiving to spreadsheets. Validate the gross-to-net simulation with the provider, including the branch minimum wage, the overtime premium, and any sector bonus such as the thirteenth month your agreement may impose. Run the first payslip in the hiring month even for a mid-month start, pro rata, so the DSN chain starts immediately. Pay contributions by the 5th or 15th as applicable, and reconcile the DSN acknowledgement, the CRM receipt, the next business day. If a payslip error is found, issue a corrective slip and a corrective DSN rather than quiet cash compensation, which inspectors treat as undeclared pay.

Companies based in Paris and the Ile-de-France region follow the same national rules, with two local notes. Employment disputes go to the Paris employment tribunal for Paris-based staff, where English-language employment documents are routinely challenged, so keep the French version authoritative. URSSAF Ile-de-France runs frequent first-year controls on newly registered establishments, often triggered by a DPAE without a matching DSN or a DSN without matching payment, so close that triangle every month: DPAE, DSN, payment. Our main guide for foreign founders, Setting Up a Company in France as a Foreign Founder: Bank Account, Kbis, VAT and Your First Hire, covers registration, banking and the Kbis extract; this article takes over from the signature of the first contract. Readers managing an exit should also see Ending Your First Hire in France as a Foreign Company, and those hesitating between contractor and employee should read the contractor reclassification guide before choosing.

Conclusion

A first hire in France rewards method and punishes improvisation. File the DPAE before the newcomer touches any work, because the statute says hiring can only come after the declaration and the Aix-en-Provence appeal court priced a late pattern at 7,399 euros plus costs. Sign a written CDI that names the collective agreement and states the trial and its possible renewal expressly, because trial terms are never presumed and the ceilings are two, three or four months by category. Renew only once, only where the branch agreement allows it, and only with a clear countersigned agreement before expiry, because the Court of Cassation quashed a renewal built on a receipt signature plus an email. End the trial with the correct notice, twenty-four hours to one month depending on service, without extending the trial by the notice. Then pay exactly what the compliant payslip shows and file the DSN by the 5th or the 15th with payment, because missing slips and missing returns are the same concealed-work offence as a missing DPAE. Follow that chain, keep every timestamp, and your French adventure starts with an employee who is properly hired, properly paid, and properly reported.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Hiring your first employee in France, or facing questions after a DPAE delay, a trial renewal, or a first URSSAF letter? Get a phone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer from our firm. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write through our contact page. We assist foreign companies in Paris and across Ile-de-France, in English, from the offer letter to the first payslip.