You completed the online file, paid the fee and expected a Kbis (the official extract that proves a company is registered on the registre du commerce et des sociétés, or RCS, the French commercial and companies register). What arrived instead is a red status on the dashboard of the guichet unique, the one-stop shop for business formalities operated by the INPI (Institut national de la propriété industrielle, the French industrial-property office that now collects every creation, amendment and strike-off filing). The line may read “rejected”, “awaiting regularization” or simply stop at the greffe (the registry office attached to the commercial court) without ever producing a SIREN (the nine-digit identification number issued by INSEE, the French statistics institute) that a bank, a landlord or a client will accept. Until that extract exists, your SAS (société par actions simplifiée, a simplified joint-stock company) or SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, a private limited company) has no legal personality, and every lease, loan or supplier contract you signed “for the company” can rebound on you personally.

This article is for the foreign founder who already chose a French vehicle and cannot obtain the Kbis. It is not another tour of setting up a company in France, and it is not the apostille blockage mapped when the greffe rejects foreign documents. The usual freeze is occupancy of the registered office (siège social), a missing exhibit, or a foreign identity paper. French law then splits into two clocks: complete the INPI file, or challenge a greffier’s refusal within fifteen days before the president of the commercial court. Missing either clock leaves you as a company in formation, personally liable, until the RCS records the company.

I. Why the one-stop shop or the greffe can freeze your French company before it legally exists

A. How to read an INPI rejection, a request for complementary documents and a greffe refusal

Since 1 January 2023 every creation, amendment or cessation of a French business must travel through a single electronic file. Article L. 123-33 of the French Commercial Code states that “Ce dossier est déposé par voie électronique auprès d’un organisme unique désigné à cet effet. Ce dépôt vaut déclaration auprès du destinataire dès lors que le dossier est régulier et complet à l’égard de celui-ci.” The unique body is the INPI. Article R. 123-1 of the same code adds that this organism “permet aux entreprises de réaliser l’ensemble des formalités et procédures nécessaires à l’accès et à l’exercice de leur activité” and that it receives the unique file, including beneficial-owner information. Depositing the file is not the same as being registered. The INPI FAQ on examining a creation file is operational rather than statutory: once the formality is completed on the one-stop shop it is sent to INSEE for a pre-assigned SIREN, then transmitted to the competent body for examination on the merits; only when that authority validates the file is the company registered and a definitive SIREN entered in the RNE (registre national des entreprises, the national business register). If the file has irregularities, the dashboard moves to a regularization status. If it is rejected, the Institute’s published guidance is to open the rejected-formalities list, read the reason, start the formality again and cure the defect. When the reason is obscure, the user is told to contact the relevant authority directly — which, for a commercial company, is usually the greffe, not a chatbot.

That distinction matters. The INPI is a routing and completeness filter. The greffe of the commercial court remains the body that holds the RCS. Article L. 123-1 of the Commercial Code still provides that “Il est tenu un registre du commerce et des sociétés auquel sont immatriculés, sur leur déclaration” companies that have their seat in a French département and enjoy legal personality. Article L. 123-6 adds that “Le registre du commerce et des sociétés est tenu par le greffier de chaque tribunal de commerce, sous la surveillance du président ou d’un juge commis à cet effet, qui sont compétents pour toutes contestations entre l’assujetti et le greffier”. A dashboard rejection can therefore mean three different legal events, and they do not share the same remedy. First, a request for complementary documents: the file is alive, the clock is the one set in the notification, and the answer is to upload what was asked. Second, an INPI rejection for an incomplete or unreadable file: the practical path described by the Institute is to start again after curing the defect. Third, a decision of the greffier refusing immatriculation or the recording of a statutory amendment after examining the merits. Only the third decision triggers the fifteen-day judicial challenge in article R. 123-143 of the Commercial Code.

The greffier’s job is not to rewrite your business plan. It is a legality check. Article R. 123-94 says, in full, “Le greffier, sous sa responsabilité, s’assure de la régularité de la demande.” Article R. 123-95 then details what “regularity” means: “Il vérifie que les énonciations sont conformes aux dispositions législatives et réglementaires, correspondent aux pièces justificatives et actes déposés en annexe et sont compatibles, dans le cas d’une demande de modification ou de radiation, avec l’état du dossier. Il vérifie en outre que la constitution ou les modifications statutaires des sociétés commerciales sont conformes aux dispositions législatives et réglementaires qui les régissent.” He also checks that the legal representative is not listed in the national file of management bans in article L. 128-1. For a company, article L. 210-7 repeats the same idea at the level of the statute: “Il est procédé à l’immatriculation de la société après vérification par le greffier du tribunal compétent de la régularité de sa constitution dans les conditions prévues par les dispositions législatives et réglementaires relatives au registre du commerce et des sociétés.” Article L. 123-2, as in force since 15 June 2025, adds that the greffier may verify by any means the consistency and validity of the foreign identity documents produced. A passport scan that is cropped, expired, uncertified or inconsistent with the name in the articles is no longer a clerical nuisance. It is a statutory ground for the registrar to stop the file.

The Cour de cassation (French supreme court for private-law disputes) has drawn a hard line around what the registry judge may and may not do once a company is on the RCS, and that line also tells you what a greffe refusal is not. In its judgment of 1 June 2023, no. 21-22.446, published in the Bulletin, the commercial chamber held that “le pouvoir d’injonction conféré au juge commis à la surveillance du registre du commerce et des sociétés ne peut porter que sur les mentions inscrites sur ce registre et non sur les énonciations des actes et pièces justificatives au vu desquelles le greffier procède aux inscriptions requises” (Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, 1 June 2023, no. 21-22.446). The registry is a publicity machine. It is not a court of the merits of your articles, your shareholder dispute or your foreign parent’s internal authorisations. Conversely, when a document that the law actually requires is missing, the greffier is expected to refuse. On 12 March 2025 the same chamber, answering a request for an opinion, stated that “le greffier en charge du registre du commerce et des sociétés est fondé à rejeter une demande de radiation présentée par une société qui, soutenant être dans l’impossibilité d’obtenir l’attestation mentionnée à l’article L. 243-15 du code de la sécurité sociale en raison de l’absence de salariés, produit une « attestation de non-inscription »” (Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, opinion, 12 March 2025, no. 24-70.011). The case concerned a strike-off, not a creation, but the method is the same: if the code names a document, a homemade substitute does not bind the registrar.

Foreign founders lose weeks by treating every red flag as a “bug of the guichet unique”. Some files do fail because the portal is clumsy; that is a documented complaint on practitioner sites. The working assumption, until the notification says otherwise, should be the opposite: a competent authority asked for a missing legal element, and the file will not move until that element is produced in a form the greffe can store. Read the reason in French, not through an automatic translation of the dashboard. Identify whether you are in regularization (the file is still the same formality) or in rejection (you must start again). Identify whether the competent authority is INSEE, the tax office, a professional order or the greffe. Only then decide whether the next step is an upload, a new filing, or a letter to the president of the commercial court.

B. Occupancy proof, domiciliation contracts and foreign identity papers the file actually needs

The single most common legal reason a foreign-owned creation stalls is not the articles and not the capital. It is the siège social. Article L. 123-11 of the Commercial Code is mandatory: “Toute personne morale demandant son immatriculation au registre du commerce et des sociétés doit justifier de la jouissance du ou des locaux où elle installe, seule ou avec d’autres, le siège de l’entreprise, ou, lorsque celui-ci est situé à l’étranger, l’agence, la succursale ou la représentation établie sur le territoire français.” A French company must prove actual enjoyment of French premises for its seat. A mailbox in Delaware, a virtual office with no contract, a WeWork day-pass or a relative’s Paris studio without a written authorisation is not “jouissance des locaux”. The same article authorises domiciliation in premises occupied in common by several businesses, on conditions fixed by decree, and requires those premises to have the equipment or services that make the seat real. Official guidance on creating a company lists, among the supporting documents, “Justification de domiciliation du siège social” with a clearly identifiable address: a water, electricity or gas bill, a copy of a commercial lease, a domiciliation contract, and similar titles. If the address on the articles, the address on the proof and the address typed into the guichet unique are not the same string, the greffe is entitled to stop.

Four occupancy patterns generate almost all of the refusals seen in foreign-owned files. The first is the legal representative’s home. Article L. 123-11-1 opens with “Toute personne morale est autorisée à installer son siège au domicile de son représentant légal et y exercer une activité, sauf dispositions législatives ou stipulations contractuelles contraires.” When a statute or the lease forbids it, the representative may still install the seat at home “pour une durée ne pouvant ni excéder cinq ans à compter de la création de celle-ci, ni dépasser le terme légal, contractuel ou judiciaire de l’occupation des locaux”, after notifying the landlord or the co-ownership in writing before the filing. Service-public Entreprendre is more concrete still: only the legal representative, not an ordinary shareholder, may use a personal address; the housing must be the representative’s principal residence; the representative must be owner or tenant; and the prior notice is a registered letter. A president who lives in London cannot put the SAS at “his domicile” in France if he has no French residence. A president who lives in a Paris flat under a residential lease that forbids professional use must send the notice and must diary the five-year cap, because the same article orders the company, on pain of striking off, to prove a change of situation before that period expires. The article also states: “Il ne peut résulter des dispositions du présent article ni le changement de destination de l’immeuble, ni l’application du statut des baux commerciaux.” You do not turn the flat into commercial premises by filing a Kbis.

The second pattern is a domiciliation company. Article L. 123-11 allows a seat in premises occupied in common. Article L. 123-11-2 then shuts a door that foreign founders regularly try to open: “L’activité de domiciliation ne peut être exercée dans un local à usage d’habitation principale ou à usage mixte professionnel.” A friend who “domiciles” twenty start-ups in a two-room apartment is not a lawful domicile provider. Official guidance requires a written domiciliation contract of at least three months with a licensed cabinet. The greffe will look for the provider’s own Kbis, its prefectural approval if required, and a contract whose address matches the articles. A one-page “letter of hospitality” signed on a phone in Dubai does not satisfy article L. 123-11.

The third pattern is a commercial lease or a sublease that is not yet signed, or that is signed by “the company” before the company exists. That is not only an occupancy problem. It is a company-in-formation problem, treated below. The fourth pattern is a mismatch between the foreign identity documents and the articles. Article L. 123-2 now expressly allows the greffier to test foreign identity papers for consistency and validity. Article R. 123-166 refers to a joint ministerial order that lists the documents to produce in support of an application for registration and the supporting documents that establish a right to stay in France for the persons who must prove that right. Not every foreign director must hold a French residence permit in order for the company to be registered. The persons who must prove a right to stay are those whom the order names. Confusing those two categories is how files pick up an extra month of correspondence. Where a foreign document does need an apostille or a sworn translation, that is the neighbouring blockage already covered in the greffe-and-apostille article; do not resubmit the same uncertified scan into a new INPI formality and expect a different result.

Article R. 123-53 lists what the company itself must declare: name, legal form, capital, “L’adresse de son siège social”, whether it uses the home-seat option of article L. 123-11-1, its main activities, its duration, and the closing date of the financial year if accounts are to be filed. A refusal often quotes this list without quoting the underlying statute. The cure is to align four documents until they say the same thing in the same order: the articles, the occupancy proof, the beneficial-owner form, and the guichet unique fields. Official creation guidance describes the portal as the place to file complementary documents requested by the competent bodies and to track the file. That is the administrative half of the job. The legal half is to make sure the piece you upload is the piece the Commercial Code actually asked for.

II. How to unblock the filing from abroad and challenge a refusal

A. Completing the file, signing from abroad and acting while the company is still in formation

Until the greffe writes the company onto the RCS, there is no legal person. Article L. 210-6 of the Commercial Code is the sentence every foreign founder should be able to recite: “Les sociétés commerciales jouissent de la personnalité morale à dater de leur immatriculation au registre du commerce et des sociétés.” The next sentences are the cost of delay: “Les personnes qui ont agi au nom d’une société en formation avant qu’elle ait acquis la jouissance de la personnalité morale sont tenues solidairement et indéfiniment responsables des actes ainsi accomplis, à moins que la société, après avoir été régulièrement constituée et immatriculée, ne reprenne les engagements souscrits. Ces engagements sont alors réputés avoir été souscrits dès l’origine par la société.” A rejected file is not a neutral pause. It is an open-ended period during which the founders, the first president and anyone who signed “for the SAS” remain jointly and indefinitely liable.

The Cour de cassation restated that rule, and then relaxed a trap that used to destroy leases signed during formation. In its judgment of 29 November 2023, no. 22-12.865, published in the Bulletin and in the Court’s report, the commercial chamber held, after citing articles L. 210-6 and R. 210-6: “Il résulte de ces textes que les sociétés commerciales jouissent de la personnalité morale à dater de leur immatriculation au registre du commerce et des sociétés. Les personnes qui ont agi au nom ou pour le compte d’une société en formation avant qu’elle ait acquis la jouissance de la personnalité morale sont tenues solidairement et indéfiniment responsables des actes ainsi accomplis, à moins que la société, après avoir été régulièrement constituée et immatriculée, ne reprenne les engagements souscrits. Ces engagements sont alors réputés avoir été souscrits dès l’origine par la société.” It then reversed a line of case-law that used to annul any act not expressly labelled “au nom” or “pour le compte” of the company in formation. The Court now considers that “il apparaît possible et souhaitable de reconnaître désormais au juge le pouvoir d’apprécier souverainement, par un examen de l’ensemble des circonstances, tant intrinsèques à l’acte qu’extrinsèques, si la commune intention des parties n’était pas que l’acte fût conclu au nom ou pour le compte de la société en formation et que cette société puisse ensuite, après avoir acquis la personnalité juridique, décider de reprendre les engagements souscrits” (Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, 29 November 2023, no. 22-12.865). On 28 May 2025 the same chamber applied that method to a lease signed by “the company, represented by its president” while the company was still being created, and again required the appeal court to look at the parties’ common intention rather than at a formal label (Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, 28 May 2025, no. 24-13.370: “Il appartient au juge d’apprécier souverainement, par un examen de l’ensemble des circonstances, tant intrinsèques à l’acte qu’extrinsèques, si la commune intention des parties n’était pas que l’acte fût conclu au nom ou pour le compte de la société en formation.”).

That shift is good news for a founder who already signed a lease or a service contract in clumsy English-French. It is not a licence to keep trading without a Kbis. Two practical consequences follow. First, every material act signed while the file is stuck should still say, in so many words, that it is concluded for the account of the named company in formation, and the articles or a later general meeting should list those acts for takeover after registration, as article R. 210-6 organises for companies limited by shares: the statement of acts “est annexé aux statuts, dont la signature emporte reprise des engagements par la société, lorsque celle-ci a été immatriculée au registre du commerce.” Second, personal liability remains the default until takeover. A bank that refuses to open the account without a Kbis is not being difficult. It is reading article L. 210-6. So is a landlord who wants a personal guarantee from the foreign parent for the first months. The way out is not a better guarantee. It is a complete file.

Completing the file from abroad is a document problem, not a travel problem. The president can sign electronically on the INPI portal if the account is the president’s, or can grant a written mandate to a lawyer or a chartered accountant in France to file and to answer complementary requests. The occupancy proof should be dated, complete, and addressed to the same street number as the articles. If the seat is a domiciliation company, attach the contract, the provider’s Kbis and the approval. If the seat is the president’s Paris flat, attach the lease or title, the registered notice to the landlord, and a recent utility bill. If the greffe queried a foreign identity document, send a complete certified copy, and an apostille plus sworn translation where the neighbouring rules require them. Do not argue with the portal in the comment box. Upload the missing piece or start a clean formality, as the INPI FAQ itself instructs after a rejection. Keep the PDF of the rejection reason: it is the exhibit you will need if the next step is a court letter.

Publicity is the last reason not to live in the “in formation” grey zone. Article L. 123-9 provides that a person required to register “ne peut, dans l’exercice de son activité, opposer ni aux tiers ni aux administrations publiques, qui peuvent toutefois s’en prévaloir, les faits et actes sujets à mention que si ces derniers ont été publiés au registre.” Without a Kbis you cannot oppose the company’s existence, its president or its seat to third parties, but third parties and administrations can still use facts against you. Article R. 123-237 will later require the SIREN, the words “RCS” plus the city of the greffe, and the seat to appear on invoices and correspondence, on pain of a fourth-class fine. You cannot print those mentions until the greffe has given them to you. The commercial cost of a frozen file is therefore not only the delayed bank account. It is an unopposable company, unprintable invoices, and personal signatures stacking up under article L. 210-6.

B. The fifteen-day challenge before the president of the commercial court, including in Paris

When the competent authority is the greffier and the decision is a refusal of immatriculation or of a statutory amendment, the path leaves the INPI dashboard. Article R. 123-143 is the whole procedure in four sentences: “La décision de refus d’immatriculation ou d’enregistrement de modifications statutaires prise par le greffier en application du deuxième alinéa de l’article R. 123-95 peut être contestée dans le délai de quinze jours à compter de sa notification. La demande est adressée par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception au président de la juridiction à laquelle est attaché le greffier qui a refusé l’immatriculation ou l’enregistrement des modifications statutaires. Elle est formée, selon le cas, par les fondateurs et les premiers membres des organes de gestion, d’administration, de direction et de surveillance ou l’un d’entre eux, ou par la société ou son représentant. Elle est motivée et accompagnée de toutes pièces utiles.” Fifteen days. Registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt. To the president of the court to which that greffier is attached. Brought by a founder, a first director, the company or its representative. Reasoned, and with exhibits.

The rest of the section confirms that this is an emergency track, not a leisurely commercial case. Article R. 123-139 sends ordinary disputes between the person required to register and the greffier to the juge commis à la surveillance du registre (the judge appointed to supervise the RCS), who rules by order. Article R. 123-143 is the special route for a refusal of immatriculation. Article R. 123-144 then says that the president or the judge delegated for that purpose “statue en urgence par ordonnance, au vu de la décision et de tous autres documents utiles”, with the option to send the matter to a hearing of the court, which also “statue en urgence”. Article R. 123-145 provides that the judicial decision “est revêtue sur l’expédition de la formule exécutoire” and is notified to the applicant by registered letter. Article R. 123-146 requires the notification of a judicial refusal to state “la forme et le délai du recours ainsi que les modalités suivant lesquelles il doit être exercé”. Article L. 123-6, already quoted, is the statutory basis: the president or the delegated judge is competent for every dispute between the person subject to registration and the greffier.

The Cour de cassation treats that supervisory jurisdiction as real, and as limited. On 9 September 2020, no. 19-15.422, published in the Bulletin, the commercial chamber held that “le juge commis à la surveillance du registre du commerce et des sociétés peut, à la requête de toute personne, justifiant y avoir intérêt, enjoindre à toute personne immatriculée au registre du commerce et des sociétés qui ne les aurait pas requises de faire procéder soit aux mentions complémentaires ou rectifications qu’elle doit y faire porter, soit aux mentions ou rectifications nécessaires en cas de déclarations inexactes ou incomplètes, soit à la radiation.” An associate of the registered company has that interest (Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, 9 September 2020, no. 19-15.422). Three years later, in no. 21-22.446 already cited, the same chamber forbade that judge to order a rewriting of the articles themselves. For a foreign founder facing a refusal, the lesson is double. You do have a judge, quickly, on the RCS. You do not have a judge who will redraft your shareholders’ agreement. The letter of 15 days must attack the legality of the refusal under articles R. 123-94 and R. 123-95: the statement was consistent with the exhibits, the constitution complied with the Commercial Code, the occupancy proof meets article L. 123-11, the foreign identity document is coherent. It should attach the INPI notification, the rejected file, the occupancy title, the articles, and a short legal argument. It should not attach a business plan.

Paris and Île-de-France add a layer of logistics, not a different law. If the siège social is in Paris, the greffe is the greffe of the Tribunal de commerce de Paris and the registered letter under article R. 123-143 goes to the president of that court. If the seat is in Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne or another Île-de-France département, the competent greffe and the competent president follow that seat, not the founder’s hotel, not the lawyer’s office, and not the foreign parent’s headquarters. Infogreffe publishes the territorially competent greffe by municipality; using the wrong court wastes the fifteen days. A founder who is not in France can sign a special power of attorney for the court letter. The exhibits that tend to decide Paris files are mundane: a domiciliation contract whose provider is actually approved for that address, a landlord notice that was sent before the filing as article L. 123-11-1 requires, a passport whose spelling matches the articles down to the hyphen, and a capital-deposit certificate that still matches the amount in the statutes. What does not decide them is a complaint that “the guichet unique is down”. If the portal is genuinely unavailable, Service-public Entreprendre notes that since 1 January 2025 a serious technical impossibility can give rise to an INPI receipt treating the formality as filed on time. That receipt is not a Kbis. It is a shield against lateness. The legality check by the greffe still happens afterwards.

Two mistakes close this path. The first is to sue the greffier as if he were an ordinary defendant before the judicial court. Article R. 123-139 says the dispute is brought before the supervisory judge, who rules by order. The second is to wait for a “final” INPI email that never comes. The fifteen days run from notification of the greffier’s refusal, not from the day you understood the dashboard. If you are still inside a regularization window, use it: upload, do not litigate. If you have a written refusal of immatriculation, litigate inside fifteen days and, in parallel, prepare a corrected filing so that a favourable order can be executed on a complete file. The order does not create the company by magic. It tells the greffier that the refusal was unlawful. The greffier then registers, and only then does article L. 210-6 give you a person, a Kbis, and the ability to take over the acts signed during formation.

Conclusion

A frozen guichet unique file is a legal event, not an IT ticket. Article L. 123-33 makes the INPI the single door; articles L. 123-6, R. 123-94 and R. 123-95 keep the greffe as the authority that tests regularity; article L. 123-11 makes occupancy of a real French seat a condition of registration; article L. 210-6 withholds legal personality, and loads personal liability on the people who signed, until the RCS is written. The Cour de cassation has said both that the registry judge cannot rewrite articles (21-22.446) and that a founder who signed during formation is not necessarily doomed by a missing magic formula (22-12.865 and 24-13.370). The operational sequence from abroad is therefore short. Read whether you are in regularization or in rejection. Align the articles, the occupancy proof and the identity papers. Resubmit or upload. If the greffier has refused immatriculation, send a reasoned registered letter to the president of the commercially competent court within fifteen days, in Paris to the Tribunal de commerce de Paris when the seat is in Paris. Do not keep signing as if the SAS already existed. The Kbis is not a souvenir. It is the moment at which French law finally agrees that the company is there.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm for any foreign founder whose French company filing is rejected, frozen or sent back for occupancy proof, including in Paris and the Île-de-France region. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write via our contact page with the INPI notification, the occupancy documents and the draft articles, and receive a clear action plan before the fifteen-day challenge expires.