You live in London, Dubai, New York or Singapore. Your French company — usually a SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company most foreign founders choose) or a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the limited-liability company with stricter statutory rules) — is running, invoicing, perhaps even profitable. Then the French tax machine starts sending its bills: four corporate-tax instalments a year, a final balance, and a local business tax you owe even when you make no profit. You cannot walk into your tax office, your French is administrative at best, and every deadline seems to fall on the 15th of some month. This guide gives you the complete picture: which taxes your French company really pays, at what rate, on which dates, how to pay each of them from abroad, and how to fight back when the bill is wrong.
Corporate tax in France is called IS (impôt sur les sociétés). It is governed by the CGI (Code général des impôts, the French general tax code) and collected by the DGFiP (direction générale des finances publiques, the public-finances administration). Your company’s file is handled in practice by the SIE (service des impôts des entreprises, the corporate-tax office of your company’s district). Everything is filed and paid online through your espace professionnel (professional account) on impots.gouv.fr — including from abroad, with no need to travel. The companion piece to this article explains the earlier steps of the journey, from the bank account to the Kbis (the official company identity certificate issued by the greffe, the commercial-court registry): Setting Up a Company in France as a Foreign Founder: Bank Account, Kbis, VAT and Your First Hire. Once the company exists, tax takes over — and this article is its manual.
I. Corporate tax (IS): who pays, how much, and when
French corporate tax looks simple from the outside — one rate, one return — but its payment mechanics surprise almost every foreign owner. The tax is not billed to you like a restaurant check. You pay it spontaneously, in advance, four times a year, and you settle the difference once your accounts are closed. Understanding this mechanism is the difference between a company that runs smoothly from abroad and one that accumulates interest and penalties without its owner noticing.
A. Which companies pay IS, on which profits, at what rate
The starting point is the scope of the tax. Article 206 of the CGI provides that “sont passibles de l’impôt sur les sociétés, quel que soit leur objet, les sociétés anonymes, les sociétés en commandite par actions, les sociétés à responsabilité limitée”, alongside cooperatives and profit-making public bodies. In plain English: your SAS pays IS as a matter of course, whatever its business, and your SARL does too unless it validly opted for partnership taxation. If you chose a SASU (société par actions simplifiée unipersonnelle, the one-shareholder SAS) or an EURL (entreprise unipersonnelle à responsabilité limitée, the one-member SARL), the same default applies — IS from day one, unless a specific option was filed.
The second question foreign founders always ask is: which profits does France actually tax — worldwide profits, or only French ones? France applies a territorial system. Article 209 of the CGI taxes “uniquement des bénéfices réalisés dans les entreprises exploitées en France”, plus certain listed categories of French-source income and profits attributed to France by a double-tax treaty. Concretely, the profits your French company earns through its French operations are taxable in France; profits earned abroad through a genuine foreign branch or establishment are generally outside French IS, subject to the applicable treaty. This is why your transfer-pricing policy between the French company and your foreign entities matters so much: the French administration taxes what it considers French, and checking where value is really created is one of its favourite audits. If your structure involves a foreign parent billing its French subsidiary, document every intra-group charge as if an auditor were already reading it.
The rate is the good news. Article 219 of the CGI states: “Le taux normal de l’impôt est fixé à 25 %.” One flat rate of 25% on taxable profit — no progressive scale, no regional surcharge at this level. Small companies meeting the statutory capital-ownership and turnover conditions also benefit from a reduced 15% rate on the first slice of their profit, which makes the early profitable years of a startup significantly cheaper. Compare this with the personal income-tax scale, and you understand why most foreign founders keep profits inside the SAS at 25% rather than extracting everything as salary. The arbitrage between salary, dividends and retained earnings is the central tax decision of a foreign-owned French company, and it deserves a dedicated computation each year with your expert-comptable (the French chartered accountant who prepares your liasse fiscale, the standardized annual tax return).
One practical consequence of the territorial rule combined with the flat rate: your French company’s tax residence follows its real management, not your passport. A SAS registered in Paris but effectively managed from your living room abroad can raise difficult questions about where the company is really run — and a company whose siège (registered office) leaves France triggers immediate taxation of latent gains under rules examined below. Keep the decision-making, the board minutes and the substance visibly in France if France is where you want the company taxed.
Finally, note the calendar logic before we reach the payment mechanics. IS follows your exercice (financial year), which for most young companies runs from 1 January to 31 December but can legally close on any date you chose in your statuts (articles of association). Your liasse fiscale is filed a few months after closing — for a 31 December closing, the standard deadline is the second working day after 1 May — and it is that return which fixes the final tax. Between two returns, you pay blind, on account. That is the system of acomptes (advance instalments), and it is where foreign owners most often stumble.
B. The four instalments, the final balance, and the refund clock
Article 1668 of the CGI sets the rule in one sentence: “L’impôt sur les sociétés donne lieu au versement, au comptable public compétent, d’acomptes trimestriels déterminés à partir des résultats du dernier exercice clos.” Your company pays its IS itself, spontaneously, in quarterly instalments computed from the last closed year. There is no bill, no prior notice, no reminder that excuses a missed payment — the obligation exists by operation of law, and the impots.gouv.fr professional account simply records what you declare and pay. For a founder living abroad who checks the account twice a year, this is the single most dangerous feature of the French system.
The official doctrine confirms the rhythm in detail. The BOFiP (Bulletin officiel des finances publiques, the administration’s binding published doctrine) sets four due dates for a calendar-year company — 15 March, 15 June, 15 September and 15 December — with a correspondence table shifting those dates when the financial year closes on another date (see the BOFiP calendar of IS instalments). The same doctrine adds that the first instalment is provisionally computed on the year before last and regularized with the second, which is computed on the last closed year. The tax administration’s professional pages give the operational summary: companies liable for IS pay four instalments and settle the balance no later than the 15th of the fourth month after closing, on the relevé de solde IS, the standard form 2572-SD on which the balance is computed and paid. For a 31 December closing, that means a final settlement by 15 May. Mark these five dates — 15 March, 15 June, 15 September, 15 December, 15 May — in a calendar with two reminders each; from abroad, a missed acompte starts costing money immediately, as section II explains.
There is one piece of genuine relief for new companies, and it is written in the same article. Article 1668 of the CGI continues: “Les sociétés nouvellement créées ou nouvellement soumises, de plein droit ou sur option, à l’impôt sur les sociétés sont dispensées du versement d’acomptes au cours de leur premier exercice d’activité” or first tax period Your first year, no instalments: you pay the whole first-year IS with the first relevé de solde. Many foreign founders discover this exemption by accident and assume the announces of impots.gouv.fr are broken. They are not — year one is simply free of acomptes, and the quarterly machinery starts in year two, computed on that first year’s result. Anticipate the cash impact: year two cumulates the balance of year one plus four instalments based on year one. Budget it before it arrives.
The system is not blind to business reality: you may modulate your instalments. If the current year’s profit will clearly fall short of the reference year, you can reduce or even skip an instalment, and you can increase them if profit surges. The administration’s guidance expressly allows modulation upward or downward and even full dispensation from an instalment you reasonably expect to exceed the final tax. But modulation is a bet you place with the administration’s money: if your estimate proves over-optimistic and the unpaid instalments exceed the legal tolerance, late-payment interest and a specific surcharge apply to the shortfall. Modulate only on numbers your accountant signs off, keep the computation in your files, and never modulate to zero on a mere feeling. From abroad, the safe rule is simple — pay the full instalment unless a documented forecast says otherwise.
When you overpay — and profitable-then-slow years make overpayment common — the refund has its own clock. Article 1668 of the CGI itself sets both sides of the settlement: “S’il résulte de cette liquidation un complément d’impôt, il est acquitté lors du dépôt du relevé de solde au plus tard le 15 du quatrième mois qui suit la clôture de l’exercice.” And where the company overpaid: “Si la liquidation fait apparaître que les acomptes versés sont supérieurs à l’impôt dû, l’excédent, défalcation faite des autres impôts directs dus par l’entreprise, est restitué dans les trente jours à compter de la date de dépôt du relevé de solde et de la déclaration prévue au 1 de l’article 223.” Thirty days from filing the balance return and the results return, after offsetting your other direct taxes. But that refund is not automatic in the practical sense: as the same decision teaches, the relevé de solde is the document that informs the administration of the overpayment, and a refund claim filed without it is inadmissible. File the return, claim the excess on it, and the thirty-day clock runs. Miss the return, and there is nothing to count from — a trap for companies whose accountant resigned and whose foreign owner never noticed.
II. The other bills and how to fight back: CFE, penalties and challenges from abroad
IS is the main course, but two side dishes complete the French tax meal of every company: the CFE, a local tax due even in loss-making years, and the system of interest and surcharges that punishes every delay. Both can be managed — and challenged — entirely from abroad, provided you know the procedure. French tax litigation is a written, deadline-driven game, and distance is no excuse the courts accept.
A. The CFE: the tax you pay even when you earn nothing
The CFE (cotisation foncière des entreprises, the local business tax assessed on the premises you use) shocks every foreign founder the first time: it is due even if your company made zero revenue and zero profit. Article 1447 of the CGI provides that “La cotisation foncière des entreprises est due chaque année par les personnes physiques ou morales, les entités non dotées de la personnalité morale ou les fiduciaires pour leur activité exercée en vertu d’un contrat de fiducie qui exercent à titre habituel une activité professionnelle non salariée.” Habitual professional activity is enough — profit is irrelevant. If your SAS is active on 1 January, it owes the CFE for the whole year: article 1478 of the CGI states that “La cotisation foncière des entreprises est due pour l’année entière par le redevable qui exerce l’activité le 1er janvier.” Close the company in March and you still owe the full year, except in narrow cases of genuine cessation without transfer. Plan closures and seat transfers with 1 January in mind — moving a closing date across New Year can save or cost a full year of CFE.
Three mitigations soften the blow, and all three matter to foreign founders. First, the year of creation is free: article 1478 continues: “En cas de création d’un établissement autre que ceux mentionnés au III, la cotisation foncière des entreprises n’est pas due pour l’année de la création.” Your first calendar year, no CFE. Second, for the two years after creation the base is computed on restrained terms under article 1478, and “En cas de création d’établissement, la base du nouvel exploitant est réduite de moitié pour la première année d’imposition” — the taxable base is halved for the first taxable year. Third, the base itself is the rental value of the premises at your disposal on 31 December of the reference year, which is why a light domiciliation address (a simple registered-address contract, often called domiciliation) usually produces a modest CFE while a real Paris office produces a heavy one. If your notice shows a minimum-base line, that is your commune’s floor: many communes, Paris included, tax small occupiers on a minimum rather than on their actual square metres, so even a letterbox company pays a few hundred euros a year.
Payment is fully dematerialized, which is good news from abroad. The official service-public.fr guidance on the CFE explains that the company receives a dematerialized assessment notice — no paper letter — on its online fiscal account, and that the amount is generally payable no later than 15 December inclusive. 15 December, online, by default through the same espace professionnel as the IS. If that date falls on a weekend or holiday it rolls to the next working day, but do not rely on the roll: pay on the 13th. Above 3,000 euros an advance-payment mechanism applies, with the balance on the same December date. Set a recurring reminder for early December — the CFE notice arrives quietly in autumn, and unlike the IS it is a tax you cannot modulate, only pay or formally challenge.
B. Late payment, penalties, and how to challenge everything from abroad
Every missed deadline in this article triggers the same two machines: interest and surcharges. Article 1727 of the CGI provides: “Toute créance de nature fiscale, dont l’établissement ou le recouvrement incombe aux administrations fiscales, qui n’a pas été acquittée dans le délai légal donne lieu au versement d’un intérêt de retard.” Late-payment interest runs automatically on any tax paid late — acomptes, balance, CFE — currently at a statutory monthly rate that compounds while you hesitate. On top of interest come the sanctions of article 1728 of the CGI: “Le défaut de production dans les délais prescrits d’une déclaration ou d’un acte comportant l’indication d’éléments à retenir pour l’assiette ou la liquidation de l’impôt entraîne l’application, sur le montant des droits mis à la charge du contribuable ou résultant de la déclaration ou de l’acte déposé tardivement, d’une majoration de :” followed by “10 % en l’absence de mise en demeure ou en cas de dépôt de la déclaration ou de l’acte dans les trente jours suivant la réception d’une mise en demeure d’avoir à le produire dans ce délai”, “40 % lorsque la déclaration ou l’acte n’a pas été déposé dans les trente jours suivant la réception d’une mise en demeure d’avoir à le produire dans ce délai”, and 80% for concealed activity. A foreign owner who files the liasse fiscale three months late without ever receiving — or reading — the mise en demeure (formal notice) starts at 10% plus interest on the whole IS, before any discussion of the merits. Distance never counts as an excuse; only a documented impossibility, filed in writing, has any chance.
Now the fight-back. French tax disputes start with a mandatory prior claim. Article R*190-1 of the LPF (Livre des procédures fiscales, the tax-procedure code) provides: “Le contribuable qui désire contester tout ou partie d’un impôt qui le concerne doit d’abord adresser une réclamation au service territorial, selon le cas, de la direction générale des finances publiques ou de la direction générale des douanes et droits indirects dont dépend le lieu de l’imposition.” No court will hear you before the administration has answered — or silently rejected — your réclamation (administrative claim). And the claim itself has a guillotine deadline: article R*196-1 of the LPF requires that “Pour être recevables, les réclamations relatives aux impôts autres que les impôts directs locaux et les taxes annexes à ces impôts, doivent être présentées à l’administration au plus tard le 31 décembre de la deuxième année suivant celle”, in particular the payment of the disputed tax where no assessment notice was issued — which is exactly the case for spontaneously-paid IS. In practice: IS paid in 2025 can be challenged until 31 December 2027. File the réclamation from your messagerie sécurisée (secure messaging) inside the espace professionnel, attach every supporting document, and keep the acknowledgement. If the administration rejects expressly or stays silent for six months, you have two months to seize the TA (tribunal administratif, the administrative court) — a deadline no distance excuses.
The leading illustration of how these mechanics trap the unwary is a Conseil d’État decision every foreign owner moving a company should know: Conseil d’État, 3rd and 8th chambers combined, 9 June 2020, no. 417936 (Sofil). A company that had transferred its seat and paid IS instalments sought restitution of its acomptes without filing its relevé de solde. The Court first restated the principle: “l’impôt sur les sociétés fait l’objet d’un paiement spontané par le contribuable, suivi d’une régularisation lorsque la société dépose sa déclaration de résultats, que celle-ci intervienne du fait de la clôture de l’exercice” It then drew the decisive line: “Une contestation tendant à la restitution de tout ou partie de l’impôt sur les sociétés dont une société s’est spontanément acquittée après sa liquidation par ses soins ne concerne pas la détermination de l’assiette de l’impôt ou son calcul mais le montant de la dette fiscale de la société compte tenu des paiements déjà effectués. Il s’agit ainsi d’une contestation relative au recouvrement et non à l’assiette de l’impôt sur les sociétés, alors même que la société considère finalement ne devoir aucun impôt du fait du transfert de son siège social à l’étranger ou de la cessation de sa soumission à l’impôt sur les sociétés.” Translation: asking your instalments back is a recovery dispute, not an assessment dispute — different judge, different procedure, different prior claim. Finally, the Court held that “le relevé de solde prévu par l’article 360 de l’annexe III au code général des impôts a vocation à informer l’administration de l’existence d’un excédent de versement et doit être produit devant cette dernière avant qu’elle ne statue sur une demande de restitution d’acomptes provisionnels d’impôt sur les sociétés versés au Trésor public, de sorte qu’elle soit en mesure d’en apprécier l’existence et le montant, et une demande de restitution à l’appui de laquelle ne sont pas produites, devant l’administration, avant que celle-ci n’y statue, les pièces justificatives, nécessaires à l’appréciation de son bien-fondé, est, de ce fait, irrecevable”, so that a refund claim filed without the return is inadmissible — and the company’s appeal was rejected (pourvoi rejeté) for exactly that reason. The lesson for you: never claim IS back without filing the balance return first, and address the claim to the recovery service, not the assessment service.
The same decision showcases the seat-transfer rules that matter most to internationally mobile founders. Article 221 of the CGI, quoted by the Court, targets these moves expressly: “En cas de dissolution, de transformation entraînant la création d’une personne morale nouvelle, d’apport en société, de fusion, de transfert du siège ou d’un établissement dans un Etat étranger autre qu’un Etat membre de l’Union européenne ou qu’un Etat partie à l’accord sur l’Espace économique européen ayant conclu avec la France une convention d’assistance mutuelle en matière de recouvrement”, the IS being established immediately as in a cessation — the company’s latent gains are taxed at once. Within the EU/EEA with assistance treaties, the transfer can benefit from payment over time: “l’impôt sur les sociétés calculé à raison des plus-values latentes constatées sur les éléments de l’actif immobilisé transférés et des plus-values en report ou en sursis d’imposition est acquitté dans les deux mois suivant le transfert des actifs : a) Soit pour la totalité de son montant ; b) Soit, sur demande expresse de la société, pour le cinquième de son montant. Le solde est acquitté par fractions égales au plus tard à la date anniversaire du premier paiement au cours des quatre années suivantes.” If you plan to move your SAS from Paris to Amsterdam, Dublin or Lisbon, this fractioned-payment option is the provision to invoke expressly — the word “expresse” matters; the administration grants nothing automatically. And if you move outside the EU, budget the immediate taxation of all unrealized gains before you vote the transfer, or the company will owe a tax it can no longer fund from French profits.
From abroad, the operational checklist is therefore short and strict. First, give your expert-comptable and one French-based contact standing instructions: nothing from impots.gouv.fr stays unread more than a week. Second, pay every acompte and the CFE on time by SEPA transfer from any euro account — theprofessional account accepts payment regardless of the country of the bank, and a foreign IBAN is no obstacle. Third, never modulate an instalment without a written forecast from the accountant kept in the company’s files. Fourth, calendar the réclamation deadline — 31 December of the second year after payment — for every tax you might dispute, including CFE notices you consider excessive. Fifth, if a dispute crystallizes (reassessment, refusal of refund, CFE on premises you had vacated), file the réclamation immediately through the secure messaging, then instruct French counsel: the TA procedure is entirely written, hearings need no physical presence, and a lawyer (avocat) can represent you from the first claim to the final appeal. Distance changes none of your rights — but it punishes every delay.
Conclusion
A French company owned from abroad pays three certainties: IS at 25% on its French profits, paid spontaneously in four instalments with a final balance; CFE every year it is active on 1 January, even at zero profit, payable by 15 December; and automatic interest plus 10, 40 or 80% surcharges on anything late or unfiled. Against these certainties you hold symmetrical tools: modulation of instalments on documented forecasts, exemption from acomptes in year one and from CFE in the creation year, refund of overpayments within thirty days of the balance return, and a full challenge procedure — réclamation, then administrative court — open from anywhere in the world. The system rewards the organized foreign owner and taxes the distracted one: five dates in your calendar, one accountant who answers, one secure-message habit. Put those in place this week, and the French tax machine becomes what it should be — a predictable cost of a profitable French business, not a source of midnight anxiety across time zones.
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