You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, your French company is registered, and now you need real premises: a shop, an office, a restaurant, a warehouse. In France that means signing a commercial lease, the famous 3-6-9 lease, a nine-year contract with its own courts, its own rent math and its own traps for foreigners who sign from abroad. Get it right and your rent stays capped for years while your landlord cannot push you out without paying you an eviction indemnity that often equals the value of your business. Get it wrong and you discover that the short lease you signed gave you no right to stay, that your rent can be uncapped because the neighbourhood changed, or that the termination letter you sent by email was worthless. This guide explains, for a foreign owner running a French business from abroad, how to sign the lease at a distance, how the rent is set and revised, how to leave cleanly before the nine years end, and how to fight back when your landlord refuses renewal or doubles the rent, with the exact articles and court rulings your lawyer will use in Paris and the Île-de-France.

I. How do you sign and run a French 3-6-9 commercial lease from abroad without getting trapped?

A. Does your premises qualify, and which lease should you sign at a distance?

Not every rented space in France is a commercial lease under the protective statute. The status covers premises where a commercial, industrial or craft business, a fonds de commerce, is operated by a trader registered with the Registre du commerce et des sociétés, the RCS, the French company register kept by the greffe, the registry office of the commercial court, or by a craft business registered with the Registre national des entreprises. 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 », which means the whole protective chapter applies to leases of buildings or premises where a business is operated. If you only need a registered address with mail forwarding, that is domiciliation, a registered-office service, not a lease, and it gives you no right to stay and no eviction indemnity. If you operate a real shop, restaurant, workshop, office or warehouse attached to your trade, insist on a true bail commercial, because only that status gives you the nine-year term, the capped rent and the right to renewal explained below. Your Kbis, the official company identity extract issued by the greffe from the RCS, will show your registered address, and your registration runs through the Guichet unique, the single online filing desk operated by the INPI, the French intellectual property and business formalities institute, with publication in the BODACC, the official bulletin of commercial announcements. Landlords in Paris check the Kbis before handing over keys, so complete your company registration before you negotiate. Our full setup roadmap is explained in our guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, from bank account to Kbis, VAT and first hire.

The standard contract lasts nine years minimum, and that duration protects you, not the landlord. Article L. 145-4 of the Commercial Code provides: « La durée du contrat de location ne peut être inférieure à neuf ans. Toutefois, 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. » In plain English, the lease cannot be shorter than nine years, but you, the tenant, may walk away at the end of each three-year period with six months notice sent by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt or by a bailiff, now called a commissaire de justice. The landlord has no mirror right: during the nine years the landlord can only end the lease early to rebuild or redevelop under narrow statutory cases, never simply because a better tenant appeared. Since the Macron law of 6 August 2015, your three-year exit by simple registered letter is fully valid, and the Cour de cassation confirmed it. In Cass. 3rd civ., 24 October 2019, No. 18-24.077, the Court quashed a court of appeal that had annulled a tenant notice sent by registered letter, holding that the new article L. 145-4 « confère au preneur 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 ». From abroad, that sentence is gold: you do not need to fly to Paris to serve a bailiff deed on your landlord every three years. A registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt, tracked and kept with its receipt slip, ends your lease at the three-year or six-year mark, provided you respect the six-month deadline.

Beware the tempting alternative, the short lease, called bail dérogatoire. Article L. 145-5 of the Commercial Code allows the parties, when the tenant first takes the premises, to depart from the protective statute « à la condition que la durée totale du bail ou des baux successifs ne soit pas supérieure à trois ans », on condition that the total duration of the lease or successive leases does not exceed three years. A two-year or three-year lease lets you test the French market cheaply, but at expiry you have no right to renewal and no eviction indemnity unless staying on creates a new nine-year lease by operation of law. Landlords in Paris love offering a three-year short lease to a foreign company in a hurry, then tripling the rent at renewal when the tenant has fitted out the shop and cannot move. Sign a short lease only if you genuinely accept that risk, put the test logic in writing, and calendar the expiry date from day one. If at expiry you stay on even one month with the silent consent of the landlord, a new nine-year lease under the full statute is created automatically, which can save you or trap you depending on which side of the table you sit. For the day-to-day companion questions of deposits, service charges and simple early exits, read also our practical guide to deposits, rent, renewal and early exit under a French 3-6-9 lease; the present guide goes further into the fight itself: uncapping, refusal of renewal and the eviction indemnity.

Signing from abroad is routine if you prepare the paperwork. A nine-year commercial lease can be signed by your French director, president or manager, or by any representative holding a written power of attorney, a pouvoir, ideally notarised or apostilled with a sworn French translation if signed outside France. Foreign company documents used for the KYC file, passport, proof of address, parent company extract, usually need an apostille under the Hague Apostille Convention or legalisation, then translation by a traducteur assermenté, a sworn translator listed by a French court of appeal. Personally verify the identity of the true owner of the premises at the land register, the fichier immobilier, because Paris has its share of fake landlords and subletting scams targeting foreigners. Insist on a detailed entry inventory, an état des lieux d’entrée, with dated photographs of every room, meter readings and the condition of equipment, plus the energy file, the DPE, diagnostic de performance énergétique, which the landlord must provide. Without an entry inventory, the law presumes you received the premises in good repair and you will pay for pre-existing damage on exit. Keep every rent receipt, every works invoice and every letter, because in a renewal or eviction dispute the tenant who proves continuous operation and payment wins, and the tenant who kept nothing begs.

B. How is your rent set, revised and capped while you operate the premises?

The initial rent is freely negotiated, but every later rent follows strict math that favours the sitting tenant. Article L. 145-33 of the Commercial Code sets the compass: « Le montant des loyers des baux renouvelés ou révisés doit correspondre à la valeur locative. » The renewed or revised rent must match the rental value, assessed from five legal criteria: the characteristics of the premises, their permitted use, the respective obligations of landlord and tenant, local commercial factors, and current prices for comparable premises nearby. A Paris landlord who demands double rent at renewal must therefore prove double rental value under these five criteria, not simply quote the overheated market of the 8th arrondissement. From abroad, commission an independent rental valuation, an expertise locative, before accepting any increase: judges appoint their own expert anyway, and the landlord who opens at an absurd figure loses credibility for the whole case.

Even a proven rental value does not let the landlord charge it in full, thanks to the cap, the plafonnement. Article L. 145-34 of the Commercial Code provides that, absent a significant change in the factors listed in article L. 145-33, the change in rent at renewal of a lease of nine years or less « ne peut excéder la variation, intervenue depuis la fixation initiale du loyer du bail expiré », of the official commercial rent indices, the ILC, indice des loyers commerciaux, for shops and workshops, or the ILAT, indice des loyers des activités tertiaires, for offices and service premises, published by INSEE, the French national statistics institute. In practice your renewal increase is capped at index growth since the lease started, often far below Paris market growth. The administration explains the mechanism in its business guidance on the commercial lease for companies, and the official public service file describes the nine-year lease, renewal and rent rules. Read both before negotiating, because landlords sometimes present an uncapped demand as standard and hope the foreign tenant never checks.

The cap falls away only through déplafonnement, uncapping, and the landlord must prove it. Uncapping requires a significant change in the premises characteristics, their use, the parties obligations or local commercial factors. The Cour de cassation applies this test strictly but realistically. In Cass. 3rd civ., 18 September 2025, No. 24-13.288, the most recent ruling on the point, the Court held: « Il résulte des articles L. 145-34 et R. 145-6 du code de commerce que la modification notable des facteurs locaux de commercialité constitue un motif de déplafonnement du prix du bail renouvelé si elle est de nature à avoir une incidence favorable sur l’activité commerciale effectivement exercée par le locataire, indépendamment de son incidence effective et réelle sur le commerce exploité dans les locaux. » A new metro station, a pedestrianised street or a shopping centre next door can therefore uncap your rent if it is capable of helping your actual trade, even if your turnover has not yet moved. Conversely, even a terrace held on public land can help the landlord uncap: in Cass. 3rd civ., 13 October 2021, No. 20-12.901, the Court quashed a ruling that had refused uncapping despite an extended terrace operated under municipal authorization, holding: « En se déterminant ainsi, alors que l’autorisation municipale accordée, en permettant d’étendre l’exploitation d’une terrasse sur le domaine public, contribue au développement de l’activité commerciale, la cour d’appel, qui n’a pas recherché, comme elle y était pourtant invitée, si cette situation modifiait les facteurs locaux de commercialité et constituait par là-même un motif de déplafonnement, n’a pas donné de base légale à sa décision. » Works you paid for yourself, on the other hand, cannot be used against you to justify an increase. When your Paris landlord claims the neighbourhood has changed, demand the exact factor, its date, and its concrete link to your trade, then check whether your own fit-out works are being counted in the rental value by mistake.

Between renewals, the landlord may also seek the three-year revision, the révision triennale. Article L. 145-38 of the Commercial Code states: « La demande en révision ne peut être formée que trois ans au moins après la date d’entrée en jouissance du locataire ou après le point de départ du bail renouvelé. » A revision is possible every three years, takes effect from the date of the demand, and unless local commercial factors have materially moved the rental value by more than 10 percent, the resulting increase or decrease cannot exceed index variation either. From abroad, diary these dates on day one: year three and year six revision windows, year nine renewal deadline. A landlord who misses the six-month notice for renewal loses the initiative and the lease continues by tacit extension, tacite prolongation, on the old terms. Also budget the side costs correctly: the property tax, the taxe foncière, is routinely passed to the tenant by clause, as are major maintenance charges within legal limits, while the business premises tax, the CFE, cotisation foncière des entreprises, is your own company tax bill each year. Ask for a full breakdown of recoverable charges before signing, cap the management fees in writing, and require annual statements, because Paris service charges in office buildings can add 15 to 25 percent on top of the headline rent.

II. How do you leave, renew or fight when your landlord moves against you?

A. How do you leave your lease cleanly before the nine years end?

French law gives the tenant three clean exits, and each has a formality that kills the careless foreigner. First, the three-year exit: as seen above, article L. 145-4 lets you serve notice for the end of each three-year period with at least six months warning by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt or by commissaire de justice. The six months run backwards from the period date, not from when the landlord reads the letter, so post from abroad at seven months to absorb postal delays and keep the La Poste tracking slip with the acknowledgment card. An email, a phone call or a WhatsApp message to the landlord has zero legal effect, however friendly the reply. Second, the expiry exit: at the end of the nine years, or at the end of any tacitly extended period, the lease ends only through a formal congé or a renewal request. Article L. 145-9 of the Commercial Code provides: « Par dérogation aux articles 1736 et 1737 du code civil, 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. » And without that formality: « 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. » Miss the six-month deadline and you stay bound on the same terms, paying rent for premises you already emptied. Third, the negotiated exit: you can always agree an early surrender, a résiliation amiable, against compensation, often three to six months rent plus restoration, which suits a foreign group closing its French operation fast. Put the agreement in a signed protocole with the exact handover date, the compensation amount, the fate of the deposit and a mutual waiver, because an oral deal with a Paris landlord evaporates the day the new tenant offers more.

The most profitable exit is often not a termination but a sale: your lease travels with your business. Article L. 145-16 of the Commercial Code declares unwritten any clause « 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 », any clause forbidding the tenant from transferring the lease to the buyer of the business. Your landlord cannot block the sale of your Paris shop or restaurant by vetoing the lease transfer, and any clause saying otherwise is deemed never written. The landlord keeps only limited protections: the deed of sale must follow the required form, the buyer must continue a compatible trade, and the seller often stays as guarantor, garant, of the buyer for a few years. If you plan to sell rather than close, read our guide to buying a business in France from abroad, fonds de commerce or shares, creditors, staff and closing safely, which explains the creditor opposition period and the staff transfer that run alongside the lease assignment. From a negotiation standpoint, a protected nine-year lease with capped rent is a saleable asset worth real money in Paris: buyers pay a pas-de-porte, a key-money premium, precisely because the lease carries renewal rights and uncapped market upside. Never surrender that lease for free to a landlord who asks for the keys back with a smile.

Whatever the exit route, the handover decides what the adventure really cost. Organise a joint exit inventory, an état des lieux de sortie, preferably with a commissaire de justice if relations are tense, compare it line by line with the entry inventory, and photograph everything again. French law lets the landlord charge remise en état, restoration to the agreed condition, including removing your partitions, signs and cables, but not normal wear and tear, vétusté, and not improvements the landlord accepted in writing. The security deposit, dépôt de garantie, commonly one quarter to one year of rent for commercial leases, must be returned once the final utility bills, charges and restoration are settled, with documented deductions only. If the landlord invents damage or withholds the deposit without accounts, the exit inventory plus your dated photographs become the whole trial: courts routinely halve or cancel restoration claims when the entry inventory was vague and the landlord cannot prove the prior condition. Before you board your flight, leave a French forwarding address for service, keep the lease file for at least five years, and confirm in writing that all keys, badges and access codes were returned against receipt, because a landlord who claims you never left can bill you occupation rent, indemnité d’occupation, for months.

B. Your landlord refuses renewal or doubles the rent: how do you fight back and get paid?

The tenant right to renewal is the heart of the French system, and it belongs to the business operator, not to the foreign shareholder behind it. Article L. 145-8 of the Commercial Code provides: « Le droit au renouvellement du bail ne peut être invoqué que par le propriétaire du fonds qui est exploité dans les lieux. » The business must also have been genuinely operated during the three years before expiry, « sauf motifs légitimes », unless legitimate reasons explain a closure. A Paris boutique kept dark for two years while the foreign owner waited for better times has no renewal right and no indemnity, while a business closed six months for authorised works keeps it. Keep your Kbis active, your VAT returns filed, your insurance and electricity contracts running and your accounts showing turnover at the address, because the landlord contesting renewal always starts by alleging you stopped trading. If you meet the test, the landlord faces a binary choice: renew, or refuse and pay the eviction indemnity, the indemnité d’éviction. The classic mechanics of refusal notices and compensation are set out in our guide to refused renewal, congé formalities and eviction compensation; the sections below focus on what is new and decisive since: renewal on degraded terms treated as refusal, unclear notices, the leasehold-value rule and the latest uncapping rulings.

Landlords rarely say they refuse; they disguise the refusal as a renewal on impossible terms. The Cour de cassation sees through the trick. In Cass. 3rd civ., 11 January 2024, No. 22-20.872, the Court held: « Il résulte de ces textes qu’à défaut de convention contraire, le renouvellement du bail commercial s’opère aux clauses et conditions du bail venu à expiration, sauf le pouvoir reconnu au juge en matière de fixation de prix. » Renewal continues the old lease terms, except the price which the judge may reset. The Court then drew the consequence: « un congé avec une offre de renouvellement du bail à des clauses et conditions différentes du bail expiré, hors le prix, doit s’analyser comme un congé avec refus de renouvellement ouvrant droit à indemnité d’éviction. » A notice offering renewal on different terms, apart from price, counts as a refusal and opens the right to eviction compensation. If your landlord answers your renewal request by cutting the floor area, banning storage, imposing new opening hours or shifting all works onto you, treat the letter as a refusal, claim the indemnity, and do not sign. A related trap is the vague or reason-free notice. In Cass. 3rd civ., 28 June 2018, No. 17-18.756, the Court ruled: « un congé délivré sans motif ou pour motifs équivoques par le bailleur produit néanmoins ses effets et met fin au bail commercial, dès lors que le bailleur est en toujours en droit de refuser le renouvellement du bail à la condition de payer une indemnité d’éviction », an unclear landlord notice still ends the lease since the landlord may always refuse renewal by paying compensation. And: « 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 », the nullity of such a notice is relative and only the tenant may invoke it. You therefore hold the choice: stay on by invoking the nullity, or leave with the indemnity while remaining in the premises until it is paid.

The indemnity itself is where foreign owners recover serious money. Article L. 145-14 of the Commercial Code provides: « Le bailleur peut refuser le renouvellement du bail. » The landlord may refuse renewal, but must then « payer au locataire évincé une indemnité dite d’éviction égale au préjudice causé par le défaut de renouvellement », pay the evicted tenant an eviction indemnity equal to the harm caused by non-renewal, subject only to the exceptions of articles L. 145-17 and following. The indemnity equals the harm caused by non-renewal, and: « Cette indemnité comprend notamment la valeur marchande du fonds de commerce, déterminée suivant les usages de la profession », it includes the market value of the business assessed by professional usage, plus moving, reinstallation and transfer costs, unless the landlord proves lesser harm. The Cour de cassation polices the calculation closely. In Cass. 3rd civ., 13 October 2021, No. 20-19.340, the Court restated: « Selon ce texte, l’indemnité d’éviction doit être égale au préjudice causé par le défaut de renouvellement. » Then the key sentence: « L’indemnité d’éviction doit être fixée en tenant compte de la valeur du droit au bail des locaux dont le locataire est évincé, lequel est un élément du fonds de commerce. » The valuation must include the leasehold right, the droit au bail, the market premium a new tenant pays for a protected Paris lease, as an element of the business value. A court that sets the leasehold value at zero because you found cheaper premises elsewhere will be quashed: your relocation bargain does not erase the asset the landlord took. In Paris retail streets, the indemnity routinely reaches several years of rent or a percentage of turnover by trade usage, and the landlord also owes accessory indemnities for moving, staff dismissal costs, loss of signage and relocation duties. Crucially, article L. 145-28 of the Commercial Code protects you during the fight: « Aucun locataire pouvant prétendre à une indemnité d’éviction ne peut être obligé de quitter les lieux avant de l’avoir reçue. » No tenant entitled to the indemnity can be forced out before receiving it, and until payment you stay on under the expired lease terms, paying an occupation rent instead. Never vacate before the money lands.

The landlord escapes payment only in narrow cases, and each has a tripwire you can test. Article L. 145-17 of the Commercial Code allows refusal without compensation: « 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, typically persistent unpaid rent, unauthorised subletting or prolonged closure. But for breach of an obligation or unexplained shutdown, the breach « ne peut être invoquée que si elle s’est poursuivie ou renouvelée plus d’un mois après mise en demeure du bailleur d’avoir à la faire cesser », it counts only if it continued more than one month after a formal demand served by bailiff reproducing the statutory text. A landlord who never served that mise en demeure has no serious ground, however late the rent once was. The other classic weapon is the termination clause, the clause résolutoire, for unpaid rent or charges. Article L. 145-41 of the Commercial Code provides: « Toute clause insérée dans le bail prévoyant la résiliation de plein droit ne produit effet qu’un mois après un commandement demeuré infructueux. Le commandement doit, à peine de nullité, mentionner ce délai. » The clause takes effect only one month after an unheeded bailiff payment order, which must mention the one-month period on pain of nullity, and the judge may grant payment delays that suspend the clause. From abroad, react within days to any commandement de payer: pay or instruct counsel to seek délais de grâce within the month, because after the month expires the landlord can ask the court to confirm termination and evict, and your renewal right dies with the lease.

In Paris and the Île-de-France, these fights follow local habits worth knowing. Commercial lease disputes go to the Tribunal judiciaire, the unified civil court, with the Paris court handling the capital most expensive streets, and judges systematically order a judicial expert valuation, an expertise judiciaire, of the rental value and the eviction indemnity, a procedure lasting twelve to twenty-four months during which you stay in the premises. Paris experts reason by street sections and trade categories, so your comparable evidence must be hyper-local: same street or adjacent streets, same retail category, recent lettings, not a national average. Serve every congé, renewal request, payment order answer and formal notice through a Paris commissaire de justice with French wording checked by counsel, because a notice served from abroad by foreign process does not meet French formal requirements. Finally, calendar the strict two-year limitation, the prescription biennale, for most lease claims: an indemnity or rent claim older than two years from the event is dead, and foreign owners who discovered the problem late lose everything on timing alone.

Conclusion

A French commercial lease is a nine-year partnership the landlord cannot end on a whim, with rent chained to official indices and departure compensated at the value of your business. For a foreign owner, the winning method holds in four moves: sign a true bail commercial with a registered power of attorney and a photographed entry inventory, never a vague short lease you do not understand; diary every three-year revision and the six-month congé deadlines from signature day; treat any renewal offer on degraded terms as a refusal opening the eviction indemnity, and have the leasehold right valued by an expert; and answer any payment order within one month while staying in the premises until the indemnity is paid. Paris landlords respect tenants who know the statute and the latest Cour de cassation rulings, because they know the judge will appoint an expert and apply them anyway. Prepare your file as if the dispute were certain, and most disputes settle on good terms without ever reaching the courtroom.

Need a quick opinion on your case?

Running a French shop, office or warehouse from abroad raises fast-moving deadlines, and a missed congé date or an unsigned renewal offer can cost the value of your business. Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm to review your lease, your rent math and your renewal or eviction position. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or reach us through our contact page. For Paris and Île-de-France premises, we act before the Tribunal judiciaire de Paris and arrange the expert valuation your case needs.