You run your company from London, New York, Montreal, Dubai or Singapore, and your French venture needs real premises: an office in Paris, a shop in the Marais, a workshop or a warehouse in the Paris region. The contract the landlord puts in front of you will almost always be a bail commercial, the French 3/6/9 commercial lease, and it is a nine-year commitment that shapes your costs, your ability to leave and even the value of your business. The security deposit alone commonly represents three to six months of rent, the rent can be revised every year against official indices, and walking away at the wrong moment can cost you the loss of your clientele or a court bill for years of remaining rent. This guide explains, in plain English, how the 3/6/9 lease works when the owner of the company lives abroad: what you sign before getting the keys, how the rent moves during the lease, how you leave early or at the end of the term, what money you can claim if the landlord refuses to renew, and what to do in the emergency of unpaid rent. Every French acronym is explained, every decisive rule is quoted from the statute or the Cour de cassation, and each section ends with what to do from abroad. If you are still at the company-formation stage, read first our pillar guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, then come back here before you sign anything.
I. How to sign a 3/6/9 commercial lease in France when you live abroad
A. Duration, deposit, guarantees and charges: what you commit to before getting the keys
The first question is whether your premises fall under the protective statute at all. Article L. 145-1 of the Commercial Code states: “Les dispositions du présent chapitre s’appliquent aux baux des immeubles ou locaux dans lesquels un fonds est exploité”, meaning the rules apply to leases of buildings or premises in which a business (fonds de commerce) is operated, whether the operator is a trader registered with the Registre du commerce et des sociétés (RCS, the French companies register kept by the greffe, the clerk’s office of the commercial court) or a craft business. If you sell, produce or receive customers in the premises, you are inside the statute, and most clauses that try to take you outside it are treated as unwritten by the courts. Pure office space used without any commercial operation and some storage premises can sit outside the regime, which is exactly why the description of your activity (destination des lieux) in the lease must match what you will really do there. A mismatch between the contractual destination and your real activity is one of the most frequent sources of litigation three years later.
The core of the deal is its duration. Article L. 145-4 of the Commercial Code provides: “La durée du contrat de location ne peut être inférieure à neuf ans.” Nine years is the floor, not the ceiling, and the same article gives the tenant a weapon the landlord does not have: “le preneur a la faculté de donner congé à l’expiration d’une période triennale, au moins six mois à l’avance, par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception ou par acte extrajudiciaire.” This is the famous 3/6/9 rhythm: you can walk away after three years, then after six, then at nine, each time with at least six months of notice sent by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt or by acte extrajudiciaire, which means service through a commissaire de justice, the French enforcement officer who serves court papers. The landlord, by contrast, can only take the premises back at the three-year marks in narrow cases defined by statute, such as rebuilding or raising the building, and otherwise must wait for the end of the nine years and pay eviction compensation if it refuses renewal. From abroad, diary this immediately: a notice posted five months and three weeks before the three-year date is late, and lateness here is measured in years of extra rent, not days.
Before the keys change hands, three documents protect you more than any negotiation about the rent. First, the condition report (état des lieux), drawn up jointly at entry and compared at exit, which decides what the landlord can deduct from your deposit for damage beyond normal wear. Refuse a handover without one. Second, the technical file annexed to the lease, including the energy performance certificate (DPE, diagnostic de performance énergétique) and, for older Paris buildings, the asbestos and lead surveys. Third, proof that the person signing for the landlord actually owns the walls or holds a valid mandate, because Paris commercial buildings are often held through a société civile immobilière (SCI, a non-trading property company) and a manager who signs without authority creates years of dispute about who your real landlord is.
Money changes hands in three forms, and each has its own trap. The security deposit (dépôt de garantie) is commonly set at three to six months of rent for Paris commercial leases; the statute does not cap it the way residential leases are capped, so the amount is contractual, but its return is litigated constantly. Make the lease state the exact amount, the trigger for restitution after you hand the keys back, and the set-off rules for damage shown by comparing the entry and exit condition reports. Next, the key money (droit au bail or pas-de-porte): a one-off payment for taking over an existing lease in a good location, which is the market price of the Paris address and has nothing to do with the deposit. Never confuse the two in your accounts. Finally, the guarantee: Paris landlords routinely demand either a first-demand bank guarantee (garantie à première demande), which the bank pays before any discussion, or a personal guarantee (caution) from the director. A caution signed lightly by a foreign director follows that person home, across borders, and survives the company. Our guide on personal guarantees given by foreign directors in France explains how to challenge or contain them, but the cheapest moment to fight a caution is before signing: cap it in amount and time, exclude its extension to renewed or tacitly prolonged leases, and require the landlord to sue the company first.
Charges and taxes are the second rent that foreign founders discover too late. Article L. 145-40-2 of the Commercial Code states: “Tout contrat de location comporte un inventaire précis et limitatif des catégories de charges, impôts, taxes et redevances liés à ce bail, comportant l’indication de leur répartition entre le bailleur et le locataire.” The lease must therefore contain a precise, closed inventory of charges, taxes and fees with their split between landlord and tenant, followed by an annual summary from the landlord and, every three years, a forecast of planned works with a budget and a report of works done with their cost. In a building with several tenants the split follows the surface area operated. In practice, check three lines with suspicion: the property tax (taxe foncière), which Paris leases often push entirely onto the tenant; management fees (frais de gestion), which belong to the landlord; and major structural works on the shell of the building, which cannot be quietly loaded onto a tenant behind a vague “all charges” clause. Anything not in the closed inventory is your argument for refusing to pay it.
Two company-law steps condition the whole operation. Your French company, usually a SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible company form foreigners prefer) or a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the closed limited company), must be registered before it can sign as tenant: registration with the RCS produces the Kbis extract, the official identity card of the company issued through the INPI single window (guichet unique, the online filing portal run by the Institut national de la propriété industrielle). Landlords in Paris ask for the draft articles, the company registration number and the Kbis before handing over the keys, and registration can stall, as our guide to a blocked Kbis for foreign founders shows. Make the lease conditional on obtaining registration and, if you need an address before the lease starts, use a domiciliation contract (a registered-office service) rather than signing the lease in your own name, a confusion our guide to domiciliation and registered-office transfers helps you avoid. If you sign from abroad, give a special power of attorney (procuration) limited to this lease, use a qualified electronic signature, and wire the deposit from the company account, because paying from a personal foreign account muddies the proof of payment and the corporate veil at once. Founders who hit a wall with French banks at this stage should read our guide to refused bank accounts and the right-to-account procedure.
B. Rent during the lease: indexation, review and the capped renewal ceiling
The headline rent is only the starting point. Almost every Paris commercial lease contains an indexation clause (clause d’échelle mobile) that moves the rent each year with an official index: the ILC (indice des loyers commerciaux, the commercial rents index) for shops and commercial premises, or the ILAT (indice des loyers des activités tertiaires, the tertiary-activities index) for offices. Check which index the lease names, which reference quarter it uses and whether the clause works both ways, because a clause drafted to rise only is a dispute waiting for a falling market. The annual revision is automatic once the clause exists; without a clause, the landlord cannot simply impose an increase mid-lease and must use the three-yearly review or wait for renewal. For a foreign owner, the practical move is to model the rent over nine years with the index history published by INSEE (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, the national statistics office), not with the first-year figure alone.
At renewal, the statute replaces negotiation with a legal price. Article L. 145-33 of the Commercial Code states: “Le montant des loyers des baux renouvelés ou révisés doit correspondre à la valeur locative.” The renewed rent must match the rental value, assessed from the characteristics of the premises, their contractual destination, the obligations each party bears, local commerciality factors and the prices commonly charged nearby. Each of these five factors is fought over with expert reports: a tenant who paid for its own air conditioning, shopfront and disabled access argues the landlord’s obligations were light; a landlord on a Paris high street argues the footfall justifies a premium. Courts examine this evidence concretely. In a 26 March 2020 ruling (Third Civil Chamber, appeal no. 19-17.588), the Cour de cassation let stand an assessment built on transport and footfall statistics, including tramway ridership data and the changing profile of neighbouring shop signs, which shows how seriously judges take the fourth factor, the facteurs locaux de commercialité. If your street in Paris is gentrifying, start building your commerciality file years before renewal: transport works, pedestrian counts, vacant units, the mix of luxury and discount signs.
The ceiling that protects sitting tenants is in the next article. Article L. 145-34 of the Commercial Code provides that “A moins d’une modification notable des éléments mentionnés aux 1° à 4° de l’article L. 145-33”, the change in the rent when the renewed lease takes effect, for a lease of nine years or less, cannot exceed the change in the ILC or ILAT index since the original rent was fixed. This is the cap (plafonnement): absent a notable change in the premises, their use, the parties’ obligations or local commerciality, your renewed rent follows the index, not the Paris market. The fight is therefore about uncapping (déplafonnement): the landlord will argue that the neighbourhood has been transformed, that your activity has changed, or that the premises were substantially altered, and each ground must be proved with dates and documents. A new metro station, a street pedestrianised by the City of Paris, or your own authorised change of activity can uncap the rent; general inflation in Paris cannot. Because the comparison runs from the initial fixing of the expired lease’s rent, keep every rent receipt and every amendment: the landlord who cannot prove the starting point cannot prove the cap.
Three practical consequences follow for a company run from abroad. First, never agree in the original lease to a renewed rent fixed in advance at market value “without cap”, because you would be contracting out of a protection the statute gives you and paying Paris prices twice: once in the key money, once in the rent. Second, answer every landlord letter about works, destination or activity in writing and keep copies outside France, since the uncapping case is built from your own correspondence. Third, calendar the renewal machinery eighteen months before the term: the tenant can itself serve a demande de renouvellement (renewal request) within the six months before expiry, which forces the landlord to answer within three months and frames the negotiation on your timetable rather than on the landlord’s congé. The tenant who waits for the landlord’s move negotiates with a clock running against it.
II. How to leave, renew or fight over your French commercial lease from abroad
A. Leaving early or at term: the three-year break, notice and selling the business
Leaving early is a right, but only if you exercise it in the statutory form and on time. The tenant’s break at each three-year mark requires notice of at least six months, by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt or by service through a commissaire de justice, as article L. 145-4 states in the passage quoted above. From abroad, use service through a commissaire de justice rather than a foreign posting: the officer’s report (procès-verbal) proves the date and the content, while a registered letter sent from outside France generates exactly the proof dispute you do not want. Name the lease precisely, state the three-year date you are targeting, and keep the original lease, the notice and the proof of service together: a congé that misidentifies the premises or the date is the classic Paris litigation starter.
At the end of the nine years the mechanism changes. Article L. 145-9 of the Commercial Code states: “les baux de locaux soumis au présent chapitre ne cessent que par l’effet d’un congé donné six mois à l’avance ou d’une demande de renouvellement.” The lease ends only through a six-month congé or a renewal request, and “A défaut de congé ou de demande de renouvellement, le bail fait par écrit se prolonge tacitement au-delà du terme fixé par le contrat.” Without a congé or renewal request, the written lease continues by tacite prolongation (tacit extension) beyond its term, and during that extension notice must be given at least six months ahead for the last day of a calendar quarter. The statute adds two strict formalities: “Le congé doit être donné par acte extrajudiciaire.”, meaning service by a commissaire de justice, and it must state its reasons (préciser les motifs pour lesquels il est donné) and inform the tenant of its right to challenge the notice or seek renewal. A congé that forgets the reasons or the information about remedies is voidable, and that nullity belongs to the tenant, as the case law below confirms.
Often the smartest exit is not a congé but a sale: the lease itself has value. Article L. 145-16 of the Commercial Code states: “Sont également réputées non écrites, quelle qu’en soit la forme, les conventions tendant à interdire au locataire de céder son bail ou les droits qu’il tient du présent chapitre à l’acquéreur de son fonds de commerce”, so any clause forbidding the tenant from assigning the lease to the buyer of the business is treated as unwritten. You can sell the fonds de commerce with the lease attached, and the price (droit au bail) reflects the Paris location, the remaining term and the gap between your rent and the market rent. The landlord keeps limited rights: approval clauses (clauses d’agrément) and pre-emption clauses must be operated in good faith and within their contractual bounds, and the landlord must be invited to the assignment deed. From abroad, structure the sale as a single file: assignment of the lease, sale of the business, landlord invitation, and registration of the buyer with the RCS, handled by your counsel under powers of attorney, because a buyer who cannot register cannot pay your price.
In Paris and the Île-de-France, add three local reflexes. First, use the Commission départementale de conciliation (CDC, the departmental conciliation board for commercial rents) before going to court over the renewal rent: the procedure is cheap, it suspends nothing but it often settles the index-versus-market fight, and judges look kindly on the party that tried it. Second, bring disputes to the tribunal judiciaire de Paris (the Paris judicial court) with a complete file: lease and amendments, condition reports, rent receipts, the inventory of charges, correspondence about works and activity, and the congé or renewal request with proof of service. Paris judges decide on papers first and punish incomplete files. Third, budget in euros and in time: a renewal-rent case with a court-appointed expert commonly runs over a year, during which the provisional rent ordered by the judge must be paid on time, because a tenant in arrears loses credibility and, as the next section shows, risks the termination clause.
B. Refusal to renew, eviction money and the unpaid-rent emergency
The landlord’s right to take the premises back is real, but it has a price. Article L. 145-14 of the Commercial Code states: “Le bailleur peut refuser le renouvellement du bail. Toutefois, le bailleur doit, sauf exceptions prévues aux articles L. 145-17 et suivants , payer au locataire évincé une indemnité dite d’éviction égale au préjudice causé par le défaut de renouvellement.” Refusal is allowed, but compensation (indemnité d’éviction) is the rule, measured by the loss caused: “Cette indemnité comprend notamment la valeur marchande du fonds de commerce, déterminée suivant les usages de la profession, augmentée éventuellement des frais normaux de déménagement et de réinstallation”, plus transfer duties for an equivalent business. For a going concern in Paris this is often the largest cheque in the file, which is why landlords prefer to negotiate a renewal at a higher rent rather than pay it, and why you should have your own valuation ready. The exceptions are narrow. Article L. 145-17 of the Commercial Code states: “Le bailleur peut refuser le renouvellement du bail sans être tenu au paiement d’aucune indemnité : 1° S’il justifie d’un motif grave et légitime à l’encontre du locataire sortant.” A serious and legitimate ground, such as persistent breach or unexplained closure of the shop, can erase the compensation, but for breach of an obligation or cessation of trading the statute requires that the breach continued more than one month after a formal demand (mise en demeure) served by acte extrajudiciaire stating its ground. A landlord who never served that demand cannot invoke your breach to escape the eviction money.
The Cour de cassation polices the congé strictly, and its leading ruling helps tenants in two ways. On 28 June 2018 (Third Civil Chamber, appeal no. 17-18.756, published in the Bulletin), the Court held: “Mais attendu qu’un congé délivré sans motif ou pour motifs équivoques par le bailleur produit néanmoins ses effets et met fin au bail commercial”, because the landlord is always entitled to refuse renewal provided it pays the eviction compensation, and the Court added: “la nullité de ce congé prévue par l’article L. 145-9 du code de commerce est une nullité relative qui ne peut être soulevée que par le preneur”. In plain terms: a congé without reasons still ends the lease, but its nullity belongs to you alone, and you choose your weapon. Either you waive the nullity, claim the eviction compensation and stay in the premises until it is paid, or you rely on the nullity and demand the lease continue. The landlord cannot use its own defective notice to escape paying. From abroad, this choice must be made quickly and in writing through counsel: staying silent while remaining in the premises, or leaving while claiming the lease continues, destroys one branch of the alternative.
The emergency that destroys foreign-owned tenants fastest is unpaid rent meeting the termination clause (clause résolutoire). Article L. 145-41 of the Commercial Code states: “Toute clause insérée dans le bail prévoyant la résiliation de plein droit ne produit effet qu’un mois après un commandement demeuré infructueux.” The automatic termination clause takes effect only one month after a formal payment order (commandement de payer) that produced nothing, and “Le commandement doit, à peine de nullité, mentionner ce délai.” The commandement must state the one-month period, failing which it is void. That month is your window: pay the arrears in full, cure any other breach named in the order, and restart punctual payment of the current rent. Since the 26 May 2026 economic-simplification statute (law no. 2026-403), the judge’s power to suspend the clause for rent arrears is conditioned on the tenant showing it can clear the rental debt and resume full payment of the current rent before the first hearing, so arrive at court with bank statements, not promises. More broadly, article 1343-5 of the Civil Code provides: “Le juge peut, compte tenu de la situation du débiteur et en considération des besoins du créancier, reporter ou échelonner, dans la limite de deux années, le paiement des sommes dues.” The judge can defer or spread the debt over up to two years, suspending enforcement in the meantime. Ask for these délais de grâce (grace periods) at the first hearing, through a lawyer holding your power of attorney, with a written repayment plan attached: judges grant schedules to tenants who pay, not to tenants who explain.
Acting from abroad changes the logistics, not the law. Give your Paris counsel a standing power of attorney covering conciliation, expert meetings and hearings; centralise every lease document in one shared file with certified translations where needed; never let a commandement or a congé sit unanswered because you were travelling, since the one-month and six-month clocks run whether you read your mail or not. Check that your lease notices clause accepts electronic service at an address you actually monitor, and appoint a Paris address for service (élection de domicile) with your counsel so that no deadline depends on international post. Limitation periods in lease matters are short and unforgiving: treat every landlord letter as a two-week task, instruct counsel within days, and challenge defective notices rather than ignoring them. The tenant who answers fast, pays the current rent without fail and documents everything wins most Paris lease fights before they reach a courtroom.
Conclusion
Your 3/6/9 lease is manageable from abroad if you treat it as a calendar, a file and a strategy rather than as a rent receipt. Calendar the three-year breaks, the six-month notices, the renewal request window and the one-month commandement period, because every right in this statute dies on a missed date. Keep the file complete: signed lease with its charges inventory, condition reports, rent receipts, correspondence about works and activity, and every notice with its proof of service. Use the strategy the statute offers: the triennial break and the assignment of the lease to sell when you want to leave, the capped renewal rent and the conciliation board when you want to stay, the eviction compensation and the tenant-only nullity when the landlord wants you out, and payment plus court-ordered schedules when arrears threaten the termination clause. Paris and Île-de-France raise the stakes with high rents and aggressive uncapping claims, but the same articles apply in the Paris court as everywhere in France. Before you sign your next lease or answer your next congé, have the document reviewed against the articles quoted above: a one-hour review today is worth a year of litigation tomorrow.