Your French company closed its financial year on 31 December, the 30 June deadline has passed, and the accounts were never approved. The bank now asks for the latest filed accounts before renewing an overdraft, the accountant warns about a letter from the court registry, and you are abroad with a board meeting that never happened. This guide explains how a foreign owner repairs a missed French annual meeting, files late without making the situation worse, and still takes dividends lawfully. It covers the three company forms you will meet in practice: the SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the closed limited company run by a gérant), the SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company run by a président), and the SA (société anonyme, the larger public-facing company with a board). You will learn the exact six-month rule, the court extension that saves late files, the one-month filing clock with the greffe (the registry office of the commercial court that keeps the RCS, the Registre du commerce et des sociétés, the official company register), and the dividend trap that turns a rushed payment into a criminal offence. Every key rule below is tied to the official text on Légifrance and to recent decisions of the Cour de cassation, so you can act from abroad with documents your French counterparts will recognise.
I. How a Foreign Owner Repairs the Late Annual Meeting After 30 June
A. What the six-month approval rule imposes on your French SARL, SAS or SA subsidiary
When your French company closes its year on 31 December, the ordinary meeting that approves the annual accounts must take place before 30 June. That six-month clock runs from the closing date of the financial year, not from the date your accountant finishes the balance sheet, and it applies whether you live in Paris, London, New York or Dubai. Missing it does not cancel the company or erase the accounts, but it opens three parallel risks: a court order forcing you to convene under a daily fine, a criminal or contravention fine for the manager, and a commercial freeze because banks, auditors and buyers treat unapproved accounts as unreliable. Understanding which text governs your company is the first repair step, because the SARL, the SAS and the SA do not use the same article, even though the deadline looks identical.
If you own a SARL, the rule sits in Article L223-26 of the Commercial Code. The statute states: “Le rapport de gestion, l’inventaire et les comptes annuels établis par les gérants, sont soumis à l’approbation des associés réunis en assemblée, dans le délai de six mois à compter de la clôture de l’exercice sous réserve de prolongation de ce délai par décision de justice.” In plain English, the gérant (the appointed manager of the SARL) prepares the management report, the inventory and the annual accounts, and the shareholders meeting in general meeting must approve them within six months of year-end, unless a court extends the period. The same article adds a weapon for anyone waiting: “Si l’assemblée des associés n’a pas été réunie dans ce délai, le ministère public ou toute personne intéressée peut saisir le président du tribunal compétent statuant en référé afin d’enjoindre, le cas échéant sous astreinte, aux gérants de convoquer cette assemblée ou de désigner un mandataire pour y procéder.” A minority shareholder, a creditor, an employee or the public prosecutor can therefore ask the presiding judge, ruling urgently, to order the gérant to convene, if needed under a daily penalty payment known as an astreinte, or to appoint an agent who will convene instead. For a foreign majority owner, the practical lesson is direct: a local minority partner or an unpaid supplier can force the meeting while you are abroad, so repairing voluntarily is always cheaper than waiting for that order.
If you own a SAS, the flexible company most foreign founders choose, the mechanism is different but the six-month horizon is the same. Article L227-9 of the Commercial Code leaves the articles of association free to define which decisions the shareholders take collectively, but it reserves a protected core, including the annual accounts and profits, to collective shareholder decision. Its second paragraph provides: “L’associé unique approuve les comptes, après rapport du commissaire aux comptes s’il en existe un, dans le délai de six mois à compter de la clôture de l’exercice.” A sole shareholder therefore approves the accounts within six months of closing, after the auditor report where one exists, and the same paragraph adds that the sole shareholder cannot delegate this power and must record decisions in a register. Where the sole shareholder is a physical person who also chairs the company, filing the signed inventory and accounts with the RCS (the Registre du commerce et des sociétés, the national company register held locally by the greffe) within that period counts as approval. Foreign parents that own the SAS through a holding company do not benefit from that shortcut: the French subsidiary needs a real collective decision, signed minutes, and a register entry, even if the only economic owner sits in another country.
If your French vehicle is an SA, or a SAS that borrowed SA-style governance, Article L225-100 of the Commercial Code governs. It states: “L’assemblée générale ordinaire est réunie au moins une fois par an, dans les six mois de la clôture de l’exercice, sous réserve de prolongation de ce délai par décision de justice.” The ordinary general meeting must therefore be held at least once a year within six months, subject to a court-ordered extension. The article continues: “le ministère public ou tout actionnaire peut saisir le président du tribunal compétent statuant en référé afin d’enjoindre, le cas échéant sous astreinte, aux dirigeants de convoquer cette assemblée ou de désigner un mandataire pour y procéder.” Any shareholder can trigger the same emergency order. A companion criminal provision raises the stakes for the SA: Article L242-8 of the Commercial Code states: “Est puni d’une amende de 9000 euros le fait, pour le président, les administrateurs ou les directeurs généraux d’une société anonyme, de ne pas, pour chaque exercice, dresser l’inventaire et établir des comptes annuels et un rapport de gestion.” Failing to draw up the inventory, the accounts and the management report for each year exposes the chairman, directors and chief executives to a 9,000 euro fine. That fine punishes the absence of documents, not merely the late meeting, which is why a foreign chairman who assumed the Paris accountant handled everything should immediately check that the inventory and the management report actually exist and are dated.
Three acronyms will appear on every letter you receive, so fix their meaning now. The Kbis is the official identity certificate of the company, issued by the greffe, showing directors, capital, registered office and active status; banks ask for one less than three months old. The greffe is the clerk office of the commercial court, in Paris now part of the Tribunal des activités économiques, which receives filings and issues the Kbis. The RCS is the register itself, now fed through the INPI (the Institut national de la propriété industrielle, the national office that runs the Guichet unique, the single online filing portal for companies). The BODACC (the Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, the official gazette of company notices) publishes certain corporate events, and while routine account filings are not announced there with the same fanfare as a capital change, the absence of filed accounts is visible to anyone who orders the company record. When your banker says the file is incomplete, this is what they mean: the Kbis is clean, but the accounts behind it are missing.
B. How to extend the deadline, convene from abroad and vote accounts that a French judge will accept
The most useful repair tool is the court extension, called prorogation du délai. All three statutes above end with the same reservation: within six months, unless a judge extends the period. In practice the legal representative files a requête, a written petition, with the presiding judge of the commercial court of the registered office, explaining why the meeting cannot be held on time: late foreign parent instructions, auditor rotation, group consolidation delayed in another country, change of accountant, or illness. The petition must be filed before the six-month deadline where possible, because judges grant extensions far more easily when asked in advance, and the order typically adds two to six months. The Greffe of the Paris economic court publishes the exact prorogation procedure, and the Bpifrance Création guide confirms that a manager unable to convene shareholders in time may petition the president of the commercial court for a six-month extension If the deadline has already passed, file anyway without delay and attach proof that the accounts are ready and the meeting is convened; judges regularly grant retrospective cover when the delay is short and explained, and the stamped order stops a later claim that management simply ignored the calendar. Keep the order with the meeting file forever, because the greffe, the auditor and a future buyer will each ask why the approval date falls in September or October.
Convening from abroad is the second repair step, and the formalities decide whether your late meeting actually cures anything. In a SARL, Article R223-18 of the Commercial Code requires that the annual accounts, the management report, the text of the proposed resolutions and, where they exist, the consolidated accounts and auditor reports “sont adressés aux associés quinze jours au moins avant la date de l’assemblée prévue par l’article L. 223-26”. The full file must therefore reach every shareholder at least fifteen days before the meeting, and during those fifteen days the inventory stays available at the registered office for consultation without a right to copy it. In an SA, Article R225-89 of the Commercial Code grants every shareholder, from convening and for at least fifteen days before the annual meeting, the right to inspect at the head office the documents listed for the meeting, with a right to take copies. In a SAS, the articles of association set the notice method, but the same fifteen-day discipline is the safest standard a foreign owner can adopt, because it defeats almost every later annulment claim. Send the convening notice and the full file by a traceable channel, in French with an English courtesy translation, state the meeting place or the video link where your statutes allow remote attendance, and record delivery receipts. A shareholder who receives the accounts the night before can ask a judge to annul the approval, and Article L238-1 of the Commercial Code lets any interested person who cannot obtain corporate documents petition the urgent judge to order disclosure under astreinte or appoint an agent to deliver them. Send the file early and that entire line of attack disappears.
Voting from abroad works when the paper trail is complete. Check the statutes first: many SAS articles now allow video conference and written consultation, while older SARL statutes still require physical presence unless updated. If physical presence is required and you cannot fly to Paris, use a written procuration, a signed proxy, giving a named representative precise voting instructions for each resolution, or update the statutes to allow remote decisions before convening. Hold the meeting with an attendance sheet, read the management report and the auditor report where one exists, answer written questions shareholders sent in advance, and vote separately on three resolutions: approval of the annual accounts, allocation of the result, and, where relevant, discharge of management. For a sole-shareholder company, sign the registre des décisions, the bound decision register, the same day; for multi-shareholder companies, sign minutes that state the date, place, attendees, documents reviewed, questions asked, voting figures and the exact allocation wording. Allow shareholders to ask questions in writing before and during the meeting, because the SARL statute expressly provides that right and judges treat a refusal to answer as a ground for annulment. A foreign owner who runs the meeting by email exchange alone, without convening, without a file sent fifteen days ahead, and without signed minutes, has not repaired anything: they have created a second defective decision on top of a late one.
Two traps specific to foreign owners deserve emphasis. First, the bank will often ask for a certified English translation of the approved accounts and the allocation resolution; prepare it, but never file the translation with the greffe instead of the French original, and never alter figures between versions. Second, the corporate income tax return, the IS return (IS stands for impôt sur les sociétés, the French corporate income tax), follows its own calendar with the tax office, described on impots.gouv.fr, and filing the tax return does not replace the shareholder approval or the greffe filing. Companies that confuse the three calendars regularly discover in October that the tax return was filed, the meeting was never held, and the accounts were never deposited. Repair in the right order: convene properly, approve with dated minutes, then file with the registry within the next clock, which is the subject of the second part of this guide. Readers building their first French company should also review the full formation sequence, bank account, Kbis, VAT and first hire in our pillar guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, because a missed first-year approval usually reveals an earlier gap in that chain.
II. How a Foreign Owner Files Late and Takes Profits Without Creating a Second Offence
A. How to file late with the greffe, stop the daily penalty and answer the injunction
Approval cures the meeting; only filing cures the publicity. Once shareholders have approved the accounts, the company must deposit them with the greffe so they are appended to the RCS record. For a SARL, Article L232-22 of the Commercial Code provides: “Toute société à responsabilité limitée est tenue de déposer au greffe du tribunal, pour être annexés au registre du commerce et des sociétés, dans le mois suivant l’approbation des comptes annuels par l’assemblée ordinaire des associés ou par l’associé unique ou dans les deux mois suivant cette approbation lorsque ce dépôt est effectué par voie électronique”. The file includes the annual and where relevant consolidated accounts, the group management report, the auditor reports with any comments on changes the meeting made, and the proposed plus voted allocation of the result. The management report itself is not always filed but must remain available to anyone who requests it under conditions set by decree. For companies limited by shares, including the SAS most foreign founders use, Article L232-23 of the Commercial Code imposes the mirror rule: “Toute société par actions est tenue de déposer au greffe du tribunal, pour être annexés au registre du commerce et des sociétés, dans le mois suivant l’approbation des comptes annuels par l’assemblée générale des actionnaires ou dans les deux mois suivant cette approbation lorsque ce dépôt est effectué par voie électronique”. In current practice the filing travels electronically through the INPI Guichet unique, which forwards it to the competent greffe, so the two-month electronic period is the one foreign owners actually use. Count the period from the date of the approval meeting, not from the end of the financial year, and keep the INPI receipt, because that timestamp is your proof of filing if the greffe later claims the file never arrived.
Late filing carries its own sanctions, separate from the late meeting. Article R247-3 of the Commercial Code states: “Le fait de ne pas satisfaire aux obligations de dépôt prévues aux articles L. 232-21 à L. 232-23 est puni de l’amende prévue par le 5e de l’article 131-13 du code pénal pour les contraventions de la cinquième classe.” Failure to file is therefore a fifth-class contravention, with the higher repeat-offender fine on a second occurrence. Alongside the fine, the presiding judge can issue an injunction to file within one month, on request from any interested person or the public prosecutor, frequently backed by an astreinte running per day of delay. The official service-public guide to filing company accounts describes exactly this sequence: faced with delay, the court president can order the manager to file within one month, often sets a daily penalty, and then liquidates, meaning fixes and orders payment of, the accumulated amount if the company still does not file. Foreign directors sometimes assume that order targets only the company and can be ignored from abroad. The Cour de cassation says the opposite. In a decision on the liquidation of such a penalty, the commercial chamber held: “lorsque le président d’un tribunal de commerce, ayant enjoint sous astreinte au représentant légal d’une personne morale de déposer les comptes annuels, constate le défaut d’exécution et liquide l’astreinte, le représentant légal est condamné à titre personnel” (Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, 7 May 2019, appeal No. 17-21.047). The daily fine, once liquidated, falls on the legal representative personally, which for a foreign gérant or SAS président means personal exposure in France even after returning home.
If you receive the injunction letter, act within days, not weeks. First, verify the perimeter: which financial year is missing, whether the meeting was ever held, and whether an INPI filing receipt already exists under a slightly different company name spelling. Second, hold or re-hold the approval meeting if needed, then file the complete set through the Guichet unique immediately, before the one-month injunction period expires, and serve the filing proof on the court and the requesting party. Third, if the file was already lodged and the injunction rests on a registry error, produce the INPI receipt, the greffe certificate of filing, and the bank transfer proof, and ask the judge to withdraw the astreinte for the period after actual filing. Fourth, if liquidation of the astreinte is already requested, contest the amount with evidence of partial compliance, technical impossibility, and prompt cure: judges can reduce a penalty that has become manifestly disproportionate, but they rarely cancel it entirely when management ignored reminders for months. Never respond to the injunction by backdating minutes or fabricating an INPI receipt, because a forged filing converts a manageable contravention into forgery and fraud exposure, and auditors are obliged to report suspected offences they discover.
In Paris and across Île-de-France, three local points change the practical handling. First, the competent court for a Paris-registered company is the Tribunal des activités économiques de Paris, and its greffe applies the published prorogation and filing checklists strictly, including sworn French translations of foreign parent documents where the representative relies on a foreign power of attorney. Second, service of court letters to a foreign director address takes longer, but deadlines run from the stated notification date, so ask the greffe and the court registry to copy your Paris accountant or lawyer on all correspondence and check the RCS email address registered for the company. Third, Paris banks run annual Know Your Customer reviews in autumn and systematically order fresh company records; a missing 2024 filing flagged in October is the most common trigger for a frozen disbursement in November. Filing in September with a short explanatory letter to the relationship manager, attaching the approval minutes and the INPI receipt, unblocks more files than any legal argument. Companies outside Paris follow the same Commercial Code, but address the requête for extension to the president of the court of their own registered office, and file through the same national Guichet unique.
B. How to distribute profits after a late approval without paying a fictitious dividend
The late meeting tempts every foreign owner with the same shortcut: approve quickly and pay yourself immediately. French law allows that sequence, but only in the right order and only from genuine distributable sums. Article L232-11 of the Commercial Code defines the pot: “Le bénéfice distribuable est constitué par le bénéfice de l’exercice, diminué des pertes antérieures, ainsi que des sommes à porter en réserve en application de la loi ou des statuts, et augmenté du report bénéficiaire.” Distributable profit is the year profit minus prior losses and mandatory reserve allocations, plus retained earnings carried forward, known as report à nouveau. The meeting may also distribute available reserves it controls, provided the decision names the exact reserve lines used, but dividends come first from the distributable profit of the year, and no distribution is allowed where equity would fall below capital plus undistributable reserves. Article L232-12 of the Commercial Code then sets the procedure: “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.” Only after approving the accounts and recording that distributable sums exist does the meeting set the dividend. The same article closes with the warning every foreign shareholder should memorise: “Tout dividende distribué en violation des règles ci-dessus énoncées est un dividende fictif.” Any dividend paid in breach of these rules is a fictitious dividend. Interim dividends before year-end approval are possible only from a certified interim balance sheet showing a real profit after depreciation, provisions, prior losses and mandatory reserves, within the certified amount, and under decree-set procedures. Advances voted on the basis of a draft spreadsheet, or dividends voted before the accounts themselves are approved, fall squarely into the fictitious category.
A recent commercial chamber decision shows the lawful path when the calendar spans two meetings. On 30 April 2017, the general meeting of a SAS approved the accounts for the year ended 31 December 2016 and allocated the profit to retained earnings: “Le 30 avril 2017, l’assemblée générale de la société Midi plage a approuvé les comptes de l’exercice clos le 31 décembre 2016 et a décidé d’affecter les bénéfices de l’exercice au compte « report à nouveau ».” Weeks later, after a share sale process began, a second meeting on 3 July 2017 voted a dividend drawn from that retained balance, and the sellers later sued for payment after the buyer took control (Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, 12 February 2025, appeal No. 23-11.410). The structure matters more than who won that post-sale dispute: profit first parked in report à nouveau by a proper approval decision, then distributed by a later dividend decision that identifies the source. A foreign owner repairing a late year can use the same two-step logic in a single late meeting by voting two distinct resolutions, one approving the accounts and allocating profit to retained earnings, the other distributing a defined dividend from the distributable sums just recorded. Keep both resolutions, the equity computation proving capital plus reserves remain covered, and the auditor statement where one exists, because a dividend paid from a company whose equity already sits below half the capital, without the legally required recapitalisation procedure, invites both civil repayment claims and closer scrutiny.
The criminal side is where a rushed repair turns dangerous. In a 2025 case, the Bordeaux criminal court of appeal convicted one manager for distribution of fictitious dividends, forgery and use, and an accountant for forgery and complicity in distributing fictitious dividends, and the Cour de cassation reviewed the appeals on 12 June 2025: “MM. [B] [W] et [M] [U] ont formé des pourvois contre l’arrêt de la cour d’appel de Bordeaux, chambre correctionnelle, en date du 13 novembre 2023, qui a condamné le premier, pour faux et complicité de répartition de dividendes fictifs, à 15 000 euros d’amende, le second, pour répartition de dividendes fictifs, faux et usage, à six mois d’emprisonnement avec sursis et une confiscation, et a prononcé sur les intérêts civils” (Cour de cassation, criminal chamber, 12 June 2025, appeal No. 24-81.263). A 15,000 euro fine for the accountant accomplice and a six-month suspended prison term plus confiscation for the manager show that fictitious dividends are not a technical footnote. The file behind that case involved an interim accounting position prepared ahead of a share sale, a pattern foreign owners replicate whenever they push cash out between signing and closing on the strength of management accounts. If the group treasurer needs cash before the French approval is repaired, use a documented intra-group loan with market interest, repayment terms and board authorisation, or wait for the certified interim balance sheet procedure, rather than labelling the transfer a dividend the accounts cannot support.
Withholding and paperwork complete the dividend repair. Dividends paid by the French company to a foreign parent or individual shareholder may suffer French withholding tax, reduced or eliminated by the applicable double tax treaty and, inside the European Union, by the parent-subsidiary regime, with the foreign recipient claiming treaty relief through the proper forms and tax residence certificate. Deduct the withholding at payment, remit it to the French tax office on time, issue the recipient the payment voucher, and record the net distribution in the French accounts consistently with the voted resolution. The URSSAF (the Union de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales, the agency collecting French social charges) does not levy social charges on genuine dividends of a SAS président or a minority SARL gérant, but recharacterised fictitious dividends and excessive current-account movements can trigger reassessment debates, so keep the dividend trail analytically separate from salary, management fees and shareholder current-account repayments. File the dividend decision with the same seriousness as the accounts: attach it to the RCS filing set where required, send it to the bank to justify the outbound transfer under anti-money-laundering checks, and hand it to the tax adviser in both countries so the treaty claim matches the corporate paperwork to the euro.
Conclusion
A missed 30 June deadline feels alarming from abroad, but it is repaired with method, not panic. Identify whether your company answers to the SARL, SAS or SA approval article, seek a court extension that covers the delay, convene with the full file sent fifteen days ahead, vote with dated minutes and a proper decision register, then file through the INPI Guichet unique within one month on paper or two months electronically. Treat any injunction or daily penalty letter as a personal matter from day one, because the liquidated fine follows the representative, and treat every dividend as a second procedure that starts only after the accounts are approved and the distributable sums recorded. Done in that order, the late year becomes a closed incident: the RCS record is complete again, the bank releases the file, and the parent receives a dividend that auditors, tax offices and future buyers all accept. Left unrepaired, the same delay compounds into court orders, personal fines and fictitious-dividend exposure that cost far more than one properly convened meeting.
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Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm to review your missed deadline, draft the extension petition, convene the late meeting from abroad and secure the filing and dividend. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write via our contact page. We assist foreign companies in Paris and across Île-de-France before the Tribunal des activités économiques de Paris and the Paris greffe.