You have registered your French company, the Kbis company identity certificate has arrived from the greffe, the commercial court registry, and now comes the moment your structure starts to live: hiring your first employee in France. For a foreign founder managing the business from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, this step feels deceptively simple. You found the right person, you agreed on a salary, and you want them to start on Monday. In France, that handshake is the last step, not the first. Before the employee performs a single hour of work, you must file a nominative prior declaration with the social bodies, give the employee written contractual documents, affiliate yourself as an employer, and set up monthly payroll reporting. Miss one of these steps and the consequences arrive fast: back payment of contributions recovered by URSSAF, the social contributions collection agency, an administrative fine, a trial period your judges will declare void, or a criminal prosecution for concealed work. This guide explains, in practical order, how a foreign-owned company hires its first employee in France lawfully, which contract to use, how the trial period really works, and what each mistake costs.
I. How do you lawfully hire your first employee in France when you run the company from abroad?
A. How do you file the DPAE prior declaration and open your URSSAF employer account before day one?
The DPAE, the declaration préalable à l’embauche or prior declaration of hiring, is the gateway to every lawful hire in France. It is a nominative statement you send to URSSAF, the body that collects social security contributions and family allowance contributions, identifying both your company and the person you are about to employ. The rule is strict and admits almost no exception: Article L1221-10 of the French Labour Code provides that hiring may only take place after a nominative declaration made by the employer to the designated social protection bodies, worded as follows: “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 terms, no declaration, no lawful start of work, even for a one-day assignment.
The declaration must reach the competent URSSAF before the employee actually starts, and at the earliest eight days before the hiring date. The official guidance on the Service Public Entreprendre portal explains that the DPAE goes to URSSAF at the earliest eight days before hiring and always before the employee actually starts work, and URSSAF itself presents the step as compulsory for every planned hire, to be completed during the eight days preceding the start date. A foreign director should read that deadline as a hard operational constraint: collect the employee’s full identity details at least two weeks before the planned start date, because without the surname, forenames, sex, date and place of birth, and the hiring date and hour, the file cannot be submitted.
The content of the declaration is fixed by regulation. Article R1221-1 of the Labour Code lists every item the DPAE must contain: your company name, APE activity code, address, SIREN/SIRET business directory number and occupational health service, plus the employee’s identity, the date and hour of hiring, and the nature, duration and any trial period of the contract. For a founder based abroad, the practical lesson is to ask the future employee for a complete identity file early, including their French social security number when they already hold one, and to decide the contract type before filing, since the DPAE already announces whether the hire is permanent or fixed-term and whether a trial period applies.
Filing the DPAE does far more than notify the administration that someone starts work. In a single step it triggers your registration as an employer with URSSAF under the general social security scheme when this is your first hire, the registration of the employee with the Cpam, the local health insurance fund, your affiliation as an employer to the unemployment insurance scheme run through France Travail, the national employment operator, and your request to join an SPST, a prevention and occupational health service. URSSAF confirms that the very first DPAE triggers the opening of your employer account with URSSAF. That is why the first hire is an administrative milestone for a foreign-owned SAS, the simplified joint-stock company most founders choose, or SARL, the limited liability company: from that day your company owes monthly payroll declarations and contributions in France, even if the directors remain abroad.
In practice you file online. If this is your first employee, you create the employer account through the dedicated portal at due.urssaf.fr, and for later hires you use net-entreprises.fr, the shared portal for social declarations, either by entering the form online or by uploading a file generated by your payroll software. Companies that sent more than fifty hiring declarations in the previous calendar year must file online, failing which URSSAF applies a penalty of 0.5 percent of the monthly social security ceiling. One piece of good news for growing teams: when a fixed-term contract turns into a permanent contract for the same job with no break between the two, URSSAF states that no new DPAE is needed. If a planned hire falls through after a first DPAE, notify your URSSAF office promptly so the employer account opening can be stopped.
Foreign founders operating from Paris and the Île-de-France region follow exactly the same national portals; there is no separate Paris DPAE. What changes locally is the ecosystem around the hire: the Île-de-France URSSAF office processes the file, the SPST you select from the dropdown list during the online filing will be the occupational health service covering the Paris workplace, and any later employment dispute will normally go before the labour court of the place where the employee works, which the Labour Code designates as a competent court. Our firm, based in Paris, files and reviews these steps for foreign-owned companies every week, because a DPAE rejected for a wrong SIRET number or a missing health service can delay a start date by several days.
B. Which written contract do you sign: permanent CDI, fixed-term CDD, and what must it state?
Once the DPAE is filed, you must give the employee proper contractual documents. French law distinguishes two families of contracts, and the acronyms matter. The CDI, contrat à durée indéterminée, is the permanent contract and the default form of employment. The CDD, contrat à durée déterminée, is the fixed-term contract, allowed only in exhaustively listed cases such as replacing an absent employee or facing a temporary increase in activity. A foreign employer who wants flexibility often reaches for the CDD first. That reflex is dangerous without advice, because a defective fixed-term contract does not simply get corrected: it converts into a permanent one.
The written requirement for fixed-term contracts is absolute. Article L1242-12 of the Labour Code states that the fixed-term contract must be drawn up in writing and must define its motive precisely, failing which it is deemed concluded for an indefinite duration: “Le contrat de travail à durée déterminée est établi par écrit et comporte la définition précise de son motif. A défaut, il est réputé conclu pour une durée indéterminée.” The text then lists everything the document must contain, including the name and qualification of any replaced person, the end date or minimum duration, the job description, the applicable collective agreement, any trial period, the pay and its components, and the supplementary pension fund. In court, the judges verify each of these items, and the reclassification as a CDI opens the door to back pay, damages and, upon termination, the full severance regime of permanent contracts. A foreign company that lets an employee start on a verbal promise while the written CDD is still being drafted abroad is therefore building a permanent contract without knowing it.
Even the trial period inside a fixed-term contract follows special rules. Article L1242-11 provides that during the trial period of a CDD, the standard rules on the contract taking effect, early termination, postponement of the end date and end-of-contract indemnity do not apply. Concretely, ending the relationship during the trial phase of a CDD is simpler than breaking a CDD after the trial, where early termination is limited to a handful of statutory cases. This is one more reason to draft the CDD with precision from the start and to calendar the trial end date separately from the contract end date.
Beyond the contract itself, the employer must hand over written information about the employment relationship. The official hiring formalities sheet on Service Public Entreprendre requires the employer to give the employee one or more written documents covering the main terms: identity of the parties, place of work, job title, pay, working time, paid leave, notice periods, and, for a fixed-term contract, its end date, plus the duration and conditions of any trial period. That same official sheet adds that this information duty is treated as fulfilled when the employee holds a written employment contract naming the body to which the declaration was sent. In other words, a complete written contract kills two birds with one stone: it proves the hire was declared and it documents the agreed terms if a dispute arises a year later before the labour court.
Two further obligations start with the first payslip. First, the DSN, the déclaration sociale nominative or monthly electronic payroll return, replaces most paper returns. Article L133-5-3 of the Social Security Code requires every employer of salaried staff to send the designated collection body an electronic nominative social declaration establishing, for each employee, the place of activity, the characteristics of the job and contract, pay amounts, social contributions, working time, and the start, suspension and end dates occurring during the month. For a foreign director, the message is that French payroll is monthly, electronic and nominative: every hire, absence, overtime hour and departure feeds the DSN, which in turn drives contribution collection, benefit entitlements and tax withholding. Most foreign-owned companies outsource this to a French payroll provider from the first hire, and that is usually the right call.
Second, the employer must organise occupational health coverage. During the DPAE you select your SPST from the dropdown menu, and the employer must then arrange the information and prevention visit, the standard hiring medical check, or a full fitness examination for higher-risk posts. Employers who skip these examinations face specific penalties and, above all, uncovered liability if the employee suffers a workplace accident. Combined with the DPAE, the written contract and the DSN, these steps form the complete lawful hiring chain for a first employee in France.
II. What goes wrong most often when foreign employers hire in France, and what does it cost?
A. Why does the trial period trap so many foreign employers: duration, written renewal, notice?
The période d’essai, the trial period at the start of employment, is the single greatest source of disputes for foreign employers. The concept sounds familiar to common-law founders, but the French version is nothing like at-will probation. Its legal purpose is narrow: Article L1221-20 states that the trial period allows the employer to assess the employee’s skills in the work, particularly in light of experience, and the employee to consider whether the duties suit them. During the trial, each side may end the relationship quickly and without the severance procedure. Once the trial expires, that freedom disappears and every termination must follow the dismissal or resignation regime. Getting the trial wrong therefore means losing the right to part ways simply.
Maximum durations are set by statute for permanent contracts and cannot be stretched by private agreement. Article L1221-19 caps the trial at two months for manual and office workers, three months for supervisors and technicians, and four months for executives: “Le contrat de travail à durée indéterminée peut comporter une période d’essai dont la durée maximale est : 1° Pour les ouvriers et les employés, de deux mois ; 2° Pour les agents de maîtrise et les techniciens, de trois mois ; 3° Pour les cadres, de quatre mois.” Sector-wide collective agreements often shorten these ceilings, so the foreign employer must check the convention collective, the sectoral agreement applicable to the business, before copying a four-month clause into every contract. Any clause exceeding the legal or conventional ceiling is cut back to the lawful maximum, and the excess period is treated as ordinary employment with full dismissal protection.
The trial clause must also be written into the contract or the hiring letter. Article L1221-23 lays down a rule foreign founders constantly underestimate: the trial period and the option to renew it are never presumed and must be expressly stated in the hiring letter or the employment contract, in these exact words: “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.” An offer letter silent on probation, followed by a contract signed two weeks after the start date, means the employee was hired without any trial at all. Every early separation then becomes a dismissal without cause, with damages assessed by the labour court.
Renewal is where even careful employers stumble. Article L1221-21 allows the trial to be renewed only once, and only where an extended sectoral agreement provides for it, with total durations capped at four, six and eight months depending on the category: “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.” Two cumulative conditions follow from the case law: the applicable sectoral agreement must authorise renewal, and the employee must give a clear written agreement before the initial trial expires. A countersigned letter that merely acknowledges receipt of the renewal notice is not enough.
The Cour de cassation, the supreme court for labour matters, enforced that second condition strictly in a widely noted ruling. In its judgment of 11 June 2025, No. 23-21.128, the Social Chamber quashed an appeal decision that had accepted a renewal from an employee’s signed letter accompanied by an email saying here is the signed renewal letter. The Court recalled that renewal requires a written agreement concluded between the employee and the employer before the initial trial ends: “Ce renouvellement fait l’objet d’un accord écrit entre le salarié et l’employeur ou son représentant, avant le terme de la période d’essai initiale.” It then held that reasoning which treats a signature given as a mere acknowledgment of receipt as an unequivocal agreement deprives the decision of legal basis: “En se déterminant ainsi, par des motifs qui ne suffisent pas à caractériser l’accord écrit non équivoque du salarié au renouvellement de la période d’essai, la cour d’appel a privé sa décision de base légale.” The renewal was therefore void, the separation reclassified, and the employer condemned. For a foreign company, the operational rule is simple: send the renewal proposal at least a week before expiry, obtain a dated countersignature expressly agreeing to the renewal, and keep the sectoral agreement clause on file.
The companion precedent points the same way. In its judgment of 27 June 2018, No. 16-25.756, the Social Chamber rejected an employee’s challenge only after verifying that the renewal complied with the conditions of the applicable sectoral agreement, which in that cleaning-industry case allowed renewal upon demonstrated technical necessity. The lesson is symmetrical: where the sectoral text authorises renewal under conditions, the employer must prove those conditions were met, not merely assert a wish to assess the employee longer. Check the agreement first, document the reason, then renew in writing.
Ending the trial also obeys mandatory notice periods, the délai de prévenance. When the employer ends the contract during or at the end of the trial, Article L1221-25 requires minimum notice of 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: “le salarié est prévenu dans un délai qui ne peut être inférieur à : 1° Vingt-quatre heures en deçà de huit jours de présence ; 2° Quarante-huit heures entre huit jours et un mois de présence ; 3° Deux semaines après un mois de présence ; 4° Un mois après trois mois de présence.” The same article adds that the trial, renewal included, cannot be extended by the notice period, and that failure to observe the notice gives the employee a compensatory indemnity equal to the wages and benefits, paid leave included, they would have received: “La période d’essai, renouvellement inclus, ne peut être prolongée du fait de la durée du délai de prévenance.” Where the employee ends the trial, Article L1221-26 requires forty-eight hours’ notice, reduced to twenty-four hours below eight days of service. A foreign manager who dismisses a trial employee with immediate effect on a Friday evening therefore owes the missing notice as money, and each late day after the trial expiry converts the separation into a dismissal case.
B. What do you pay if you skip the DPAE or misdeclare: URSSAF recovery, administrative fine, criminal court, six-month indemnity?
Skipping the DPAE, filing it late, or letting someone work before the declaration is recorded exposes the company on four separate fronts, and foreign ownership is no shield. The layers add up: civil recovery of unpaid contributions, an administrative penalty, criminal prosecution for concealed work, and a flat-rate indemnity owed to the employee. Understanding each layer is the best incentive to file on time.
The first layer is civil. URSSAF regularises the social security contributions evaded through the missing declaration, assessing the sums the employer should have paid from the first day of actual work. Contributions are computed on real wages, with late-payment surcharges, and the adjustment follows the company for years through payroll audits. For a start-up that paid its first developer partly in cash or through a foreign payroll while waiting for the French account, the regularisation bill routinely exceeds the contributions that timely filing would have cost.
The second layer is administrative and automatic. Failure to file exposes the employer to a penalty equal to three hundred times the hourly rate of the minimum garanti, the statutory hospitality-sector reference wage, with URSSAF fixing the fine at three hundred times that hourly rate. This fine applies per undeclared employee regardless of intent, on top of the recovered contributions. It is the figure URSSAF inspectors cite first during audits of young companies, and it cannot be negotiated away once the inspection report is final.
The third layer is criminal and the most underestimated abroad. Article L8221-1 of the Labour Code prohibits totally or partially concealed work, advertising aimed at favouring it, and knowingly using the services of someone performing concealed work. URSSAF’s guidance is explicit: a deliberate failure to file the DPAE constitutes the offence of concealed work through concealment of salaried employment. Upon conviction by the criminal court, an individual faces a cumulative sentence of 45,000 euros in fines and three years’ imprisonment, while a company faces 225,000 euros in fines plus judicial supervision. Directors living abroad sometimes assume distance protects them; in practice the French legal representative of the company answers the summons, and the judgment is enforced against the French entity’s assets and bank accounts.
The fourth layer is owed directly to the employee. Article L8223-1 grants the undeclared employee, upon termination of the working relationship, a flat-rate indemnity equal to six months’ wages: “En cas de rupture de la relation de travail, le salarié auquel un employeur a eu recours dans les conditions de l’article L. 8221-3 ou en commettant les faits prévus à l’article L. 8221-5 a droit à une indemnité forfaitaire égale à six mois de salaire.” This indemnity stacks on top of any severance, notice and paid-leave indemnities the labour court awards. An employee hired without a DPAE who is later dismissed can therefore collect six months’ salary as a bonus for the employer’s own omission, before any discussion of the merits of the dismissal.
Foreign groups should also watch the vigilance duty when they use contractors and subsidiaries. Where a contract for work or services reaches 5,000 euros, the principal must verify the co-contractor’s social compliance at signing and every six months, failing which joint financial liability for taxes, contributions and wages can follow a concealed-work report against the contractor. For a foreign parent that routes French business through local service providers before incorporating, this is a classic trap: the parent can end up jointly liable for a provider’s undeclared staff.
If a dispute reaches court, geography matters. Article R1412-1 of the Labour Code sends employment disputes to the territorially competent labour court, which is the court of the district where the establishment in which the work is performed is located: “Soit celui dans le ressort duquel est situé l’établissement où est accompli le travail”. An employee working in Paris will therefore normally sue before the Paris labour court, while retaining the option of the court of the hiring place or the employer’s seat. For a company run from abroad, defending a case in Paris means instructing local counsel, translating evidence, and flying in witnesses, which is another reason to get the DPAE, the contract and the trial right from the start. Our Paris office pleads these cases regularly and measures every hiring file against the four sanction layers described above before the employee’s first day.
Conclusion
Hiring a first employee in France as a foreign-owned company is a sequence, not a single signature. File the DPAE with URSSAF before the start and within the eight-day window, so the employer account opens correctly. Sign a written contract that matches the real need, permanent by default and fixed-term only with a precise statutory motive, failing which the courts will deem it permanent. Draft the trial period expressly, keep it within the two, three or four-month ceilings, renew it only where the sectoral agreement allows and only with the employee’s unequivocal written agreement before expiry, and observe the graduated notice periods on exit. Run monthly payroll through the DSN and organise the occupational health visit. Each step is cheap when done on time; each omission is expensive, from the three-hundredfold administrative penalty to the six-month indemnity and the criminal court. Prepared this way, the first hire becomes what it should be: the day your French company truly starts operating.
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 company hiring in France. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 (Maître Reda Kohen) or write through our contact page. We assist companies in Paris and throughout the Île-de-France region with DPAE filings, contracts, trial periods and URSSAF disputes.