A commissaire de justice — the court bailiff, still called huissier de justice in most court papers — has just handed your Paris office, your accountant or your French partner an ordonnance portant injonction de payer, an order telling your French company to pay several thousand euros to a supplier, a landlord or a former service provider. You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, you never saw a judge, you never argued your case, and the paper says you have one month to react. Your first instinct may be to pay immediately to make the problem disappear, or to ignore a decision taken without you. Both reflexes can cost you dearly: paying an inflated or time-barred claim waives defences you will never recover, while ignoring the order turns it into an enforceable title that lets the creditor seize your French bank account.
French law gives the debtor in this fast-track procedure a powerful weapon, and it gives it deliberately: the opposition. One filing at the court registry wipes the order out and forces the creditor to argue the whole case against you in a full hearing, where invoices, contracts and limitation periods are examined for real. This guide explains, for a foreign owner or director who cannot fly to France on short notice, how to read the order served on your company, how to check whether the creditor was even entitled to use this shortcut, how to file the opposition from abroad before the deadline — extended when you live outside France — and what happens after you oppose or if you let the month pass. Every rule below is taken from the Code of Civil Procedure as in force on 25 September 2026, with the official Légifrance references your lawyer will use.
I. What the Bailiff Just Delivered and Whether It Can Hurt You Yet
A. How to Read the Payment Order and Check the Claim Behind It
An injonction de payer is not a judgment after debate. It is a one-sided procedure: the creditor files a requête, a written petition, with the court registry, the judge reads only the creditor’s documents, and if the claim looks founded the judge signs an order to pay. The debtor is heard for the first time only if it opposes. Because the procedure is so one-sided, the law locks it to narrow conditions. Article 1405 of the Code of Civil Procedure states: “Le recouvrement d’une créance peut être demandé suivant la procédure d’injonction de payer lorsque : 1° La créance a une cause contractuelle ou résulte d’une obligation de caractère statutaire et s’élève à un montant déterminé” — recovery through this channel is available only for a contractual claim or a statutory obligation, for a fixed amount. A disputed invoice with penalty clauses computed by the contract itself qualifies; a vague claim for damages after a falling-out, an unquantified loss of profit or a tort claim does not. If the paper served on your company concerns anything else — damages for unfair competition, a contested balance after a terminated partnership — the creditor has used the wrong track, and that is your first line of defence.
The second checkpoint is the court. Article 1406 provides: “La demande est portée, selon le cas, devant le juge des contentieux de la protection ou devant le président du tribunal judiciaire ou du tribunal de commerce, dans la limite de la compétence d’attribution de ces juridictions.” In plain terms: a supplier suing your company over a commercial contract goes to the president of the commercial court, the tribunal de commerce; most other civil creditors go to the president of the judicial court, the tribunal judiciaire. The same article adds: “Le juge territorialement compétent est celui du lieu où demeure le ou l’un des débiteurs poursuivis.” — the court with territorial jurisdiction is the one where the debtor lives, which for your company means the court of the place of its registered office, its siège social, as shown on its Kbis, the official company identity certificate issued by the greffe, the registry office of the commercial court. And these jurisdiction rules are mandatory: “Les règles prescrites aux alinéas précédents sont d’ordre public. Toute clause contraire est réputée non écrite.” A contract clause sending all disputes to the creditor’s home court is simply unwritten for this procedure. If your company’s registered office is in Paris, the competent courts are in Paris; an order signed in Marseille against your Paris-registered SARL or SAS is vulnerable on that ground alone. Ask your accountant or your lawyer to pull a fresh Kbis and confirm the registered office before anything else.
The third checkpoint is the paperwork itself. The creditor’s petition must contain, under Article 1407, “l’indication précise du montant de la somme réclamée avec le décompte des différents éléments de la créance, le fondement de celle-ci ainsi que le bordereau des documents justificatifs produits à l’appui de la requête” — the exact amount claimed with a breakdown of each element, the legal basis, and a scheduled list of supporting exhibits, which must accompany the petition. When you receive the service, you should therefore get the order plus a certified copy of that petition with its exhibit list, and the bailiff must make the exhibits themselves available to you electronically. Article 1411 is explicit: “Une copie certifiée conforme de la requête accompagnée du bordereau des documents justificatifs et de l’ordonnance revêtue de la formule exécutoire est signifiée, à l’initiative du créancier, à chacun des débiteurs.” If pages are missing, if no breakdown shows how the total was computed, or if the exhibits are neither attached nor accessible, note it immediately: the judge who will hear your opposition reads files, and thin files lose.
Two outcomes of the judge’s review matter for you. Article 1409 states: “Si, au vu des documents produits, la demande lui paraît fondée en tout ou partie, le juge rend une ordonnance portant injonction de payer pour la somme qu’il retient.” The judge may also have granted only part of the claim — compare the amount ordered with the amount demanded, because the difference already tells you the file had weak spots. And there is a hidden expiry date many creditors miss: under Article 1411, an order that has not been served within three months of its date lapses automatically. An order signed more than three months before it was served is therefore void by operation of law. Check the date on the order against the date of service on the bailiff’s report: if more than three months separate them, the paper in your hands is already dead, and your lawyer’s first letter will say so.
The service report itself deserves a careful look, because the law forces the bailiff to warn you loudly. Article 1413 requires that the service document contain, on pain of nullity, a formal demand either to pay or to oppose — “soit, si le débiteur a à faire valoir des moyens de défense, à former opposition, celle-ci ayant pour effet de saisir le tribunal de la demande initiale du créancier et de l’ensemble du litige” — and it must show “de manière très apparente le délai dans lequel l’opposition doit être formée, le tribunal devant lequel elle doit être portée ainsi que les modalités selon lesquelles ce recours peut être exercé”, in highly visible form: the deadline, the court, and how to use the remedy. If the one-month deadline is buried in small print or missing, the service is defective. And when service is made personally on the debtor, Article 1414 adds that the bailiff “doit porter verbalement à la connaissance du débiteur les indications mentionnées à l’article 1413” — the warnings must be given orally too, a formality recorded in the report. A report silent on that oral warning, for a service handed to your manager in person, is another defect to raise.
B. Why the Paper Gives You One Month, and Why Living Abroad Gives You More Time
The right to oppose belongs to you unconditionally. Article 1412 says it in seven words: “Le débiteur peut s’opposer à l’ordonnance portant injonction de payer.” No justification is required at the filing stage, no court fee to argue the merits yet, no need to prove the claim is wrong before opposing. The opposition is the door to a real trial, and the creditor knows it: many inflated claims collapse as soon as the debtor opposes, because the creditor never wanted a judge to look closely at the file.
The starting deadline is printed on the service report: Article 1416 provides that “L’opposition est formée dans le mois qui suit la signification de l’ordonnance.” One month from service, not from the date the judge signed the order and not from the day you personally read the email your Paris contact forwarded. For a company, service is made on the company itself — delivered to its legal representative, to an authorised proxy, or to any person empowered for that purpose at the registered office — and only if personal service proves impossible may the bailiff leave the papers at the company’s domicile or residence, recording in the report the steps taken and why personal delivery failed. If nobody at the address will or can accept the copy, and the bailiff has verified the company really is at that address, service is made by leaving a delivery notice and keeping the copy at the bailiff’s office for three months. Each of these fallback modes must be documented precisely, with a same-day or next-business-day warning letter to the recipient. A file where the bailiff jumped straight to a fallback without recording the required checks is a file your lawyer can attack.
Living abroad changes the arithmetic twice in your favour. First, Article 1416 continues: “Toutefois, si la signification n’a pas été faite à personne, l’opposition est recevable jusqu’à l’expiration du délai d’un mois suivant le premier acte signifié à personne ou, à défaut, suivant la première mesure d’exécution ayant pour effet de rendre indisponibles en tout ou partie les biens du débiteur.” If the order was merely left at your empty Paris office or with a receptionist while you were abroad, the one-month clock restarts from the first document actually handed to a person or from the first enforcement measure that freezes your assets — typically a seizure of the company’s bank account. In practice, a foreign owner who discovers the case late, through a blocked account, often still has a live remedy precisely because of this second sentence.
Second, distance itself extends the deadline. Article 643 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that the time limits for appearance, appeal and opposition, among others, are increased for litigants far from the court, and it states the rule for foreign residents in these terms: “2. Deux mois pour celles qui demeurent à l’étranger.” — two months more for persons living abroad, when the case is before a court sitting in mainland France. A company whose decision-maker lives outside France invokes this extension through its representative, and courts apply it as of right once foreign residence is shown. Treat the extension as a safety net, not a plan: instruct your lawyer to oppose within the first month whenever possible, because proving foreign residence mid-dispute costs time and the creditor may meanwhile seek enforcement. But if the month has just expired when you learn about the order, do not assume all is lost — send the service report to counsel the same day so the extension and the defective-service arguments can be assessed together.
A Paris note is useful here, since most foreign-owned companies are registered there. For a commercial debt, the order comes from the president of the Paris commercial court and the opposition goes back to that same court; for a civil debt, it is the president of the Paris judicial court. The opposition is filed at the court registry, the greffe, not by travelling to Paris: as shown below, a registered letter from abroad or a filing by your Paris lawyer is enough. Keep every envelope, every bailiff’s report and the full petition with exhibits: the date of service, the method of service and the visible warnings are the three facts on which your entire defence timeline depends, and they are proved by paper, not by memory.
II. How to Oppose and Win Time Without Boarding a Plane
A. How to File the Opposition From Abroad Before the Deadline Dies
The filing itself is deliberately simple, so that no debtor is trapped by formalism. Article 1415 states: “Elle est formée au greffe, par le débiteur ou tout mandataire, soit par déclaration contre récépissé, soit par lettre recommandée.” Your Paris lawyer files a declaration at the registry against a receipt, or you send a registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt directly to the registry of the court named in the service report. The representative, if not a lawyer, must hold a special power of attorney — “Le mandataire, s’il n’est avocat, doit justifier d’un pouvoir spécial” — so if your French partner or accountant files for the company, sign a dated, specific proxy naming the case; a lawyer needs no such paper. And the opposition must state the debtor’s address on pain of nullity: “A peine de nullité, l’opposition mentionne l’adresse du débiteur.” Give the company’s registered office exactly as shown on the Kbis, plus an address abroad where you can actually be reached, and keep the postal receipt and the acknowledgement slip: they are your proof of date.
Send the opposition even if your arguments are not fully ready. The filing needs no statement of reasons, and the merits come later, at the hearing, where the court examines the creditor’s initial claim and all incidental claims and substantive defences. Article 1417 confirms the scale of that second round: “Le tribunal statue sur la demande en recouvrement. Il connaît, dans les limites de sa compétence d’attribution, de la demande initiale et de toutes les demandes incidentes et défenses au fond.” Limitation periods, payments already made, defective goods, set-off against your own counterclaim, an unfair penalty clause — everything the one-sided order procedure never examined is now on the table. That is why practitioners call the opposition an appeal that does not say its name: it converts a rubber stamp into a lawsuit the creditor must win twice, first on paper, then in adversarial debate.
After the filing, the registry summons both sides. Article 1418 describes the summons sent by registered letter: it must state its date, the court, the hearing date and how the parties may be assisted or represented, and “La convocation adressée au défendeur précise en outre que, faute de comparaître, il s’expose à ce qu’un jugement soit rendu contre lui sur les seuls éléments fournis par son adversaire. Ces mentions sont prescrites à peine de nullité.” Read that summons as carefully as the order: the hearing date in Paris, the courtroom, and the representation rules. Before the judicial court, parties must as a rule appoint a lawyer — Article 760: “Les parties sont, sauf disposition contraire, tenues de constituer avocat devant le tribunal judiciaire. La constitution de l’avocat emporte élection de domicile.” — which conveniently gives your company an elected domicile at your lawyer’s office for all later papers. Before the commercial court, Article 853 imposes the same duty to appoint a lawyer, with a narrow exception: “lorsque la demande porte sur un montant inférieur ou égal à 10 000 euros” the parties may be assisted or represented by any person of their choice, the non-lawyer representative holding a special power. For a foreign company, a Paris lawyer is in practice unavoidable above that threshold and strongly advisable below it: pleadings, exhibit bundles and procedural deadlines run in French, and a missed filing hurts more than a fee.
Two tactical points decide many cases at this stage. First, the creditor, seeing its shortcut collapse, often proposes a settlement — a discount for quick payment, a schedule, a waiver of penalties. An opposition filed in time is the leverage that produces that phone call; negotiate from the hearing calendar, not from panic, and have any agreement recorded by the court so it ends the case. If you are on the other side of this procedure — the foreign owner whose French customer will not pay — our creditor-side guide explains how to obtain the payment order, add late penalties and enforce it. Second, watch for a parallel fast-track move: a creditor in a hurry may also petition the interim judge for a provisional payment, since the president in summary proceedings may grant an advance to the creditor — Article 835 states: “Dans les cas où l’existence de l’obligation n’est pas sérieusement contestable, ils peuvent accorder une provision au créancier” — where the debt is not seriously disputable — and may order interim protective measures even where a serious dispute exists, to prevent imminent harm or stop a manifestly unlawful disturbance. If your debt is genuinely disputed, say so early and document the dispute: a serious contest kills the provisional payment, while silence invites it. Your lawyer coordinates both fronts so the opposition hearing and any interim hearing tell the same story.
B. What Happens After You Oppose, and What Happens If You Let the Month Pass
Once the opposition is filed, the case follows the ordinary track of the court seized: exchange of written pleadings with numbered exhibits, a case-management phase before a dedicated judge in larger courts, then a hearing where your lawyer argues limitation, payment, defective performance or set-off. The creditor must prove its claim all over again, this time against your evidence. Foreign owners are often surprised by how much turns on documents they already hold: the signed contract with its general terms, the delivery slips with reservations, the emails complaining about defects, the bank statements showing partial payment, the formal notice answering the creditor’s demand. Gather them now, in English or French, and let your lawyer select and translate what matters; French courts decide on exhibits, and an organised bundle beats a long explanation. If the claim is partly justified, admitting the principal while contesting penalties and interest is a respectable posture that judges reward with cost decisions — and it keeps settlement open until the deliberation.
The judgment that ends the hearing is enforceable fast. Article 514 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides: “Les décisions de première instance sont de droit exécutoires à titre provisoire à moins que la loi ou la décision rendue n’en dispose autrement.” First-instance decisions are provisionally enforceable as of right, which means the creditor does not have to wait for the appeal period to seize assets — unless the court says otherwise. Budget for that outcome from day one: keep the disputed sum available, discuss a guarantee or escrow with your lawyer if an appeal is planned, and remember that appeal deadlines themselves are extended by two months for persons living abroad. An appeal filed late because the Paris judgment sat unread in your spam folder is the most common way foreign owners lose winnable cases, If the creditor instead sues through an ordinary writ of summons, our companion guide explains how a foreign owner answers an assignation and defends from abroad. And so give your lawyer a standing instruction to calendar every deadline with the distance extension and to notify you the day each decision arrives.
If instead you let the opposition period expire without acting, the order becomes a full enforcement title and the creditor moves to seizure — a third-party holding order on the company‘s French bank account, seizure of receivables, or a bailiff’s inventory at the premises. At that stage the fight is no longer about whether the debt exists but about stopping or limiting enforcement before the enforcement judge, with far narrower arguments and immediate cash effects — frozen accounts, supplier panic, a stain on the company’s record. The one-month opposition is therefore the cheapest moment in the entire dispute to spend money on a lawyer: a registered letter and a hearing against, months later, an emergency defence of a blocked account. Owners who discover the case through a seizure should still call counsel at once, because service defects and the extended opposition period for non-personal service can sometimes reopen the door, but that rescue is uncertain where a timely opposition was a certainty.
A final practical checklist, built for an owner who runs the company from abroad. First, the day the paper arrives: photograph every page, keep the envelopes, and forward the bailiff’s report, the order, the petition and the exhibit list to your lawyer with the date and place of delivery. Second, within days: order a fresh Kbis to confirm the registered office and the identity of the legal representative, check the three-month service deadline on the order, and verify the visible warnings and the named court on the report. Third, within the month: file the opposition at the registry, appoint a Paris lawyer for the hearing, and notify your professional liability or legal-protection insurer — many policies cover defence costs but require prompt notice. Fourth, in parallel: instruct the accountant to preserve everything untouched, suspend automatic payment of the disputed invoice, and prepare the payment proofs and correspondence file. Companies that follow this sequence convert a frightening express procedure into an ordinary commercial dispute, argued on equal terms, on a timetable a foreign owner can actually manage.
Conclusion
A payment order served on your French company while you live abroad is a demand for speed, not a final defeat. Check the three locks — a fixed contractual claim, the court of the debtor’s domicile with mandatory jurisdiction rules, and service within three months with highly visible warnings — because creditors regularly fail at least one of them. Remember the debtor’s unconditional right to oppose, the one-month starting point, the restarted period when service was never made personally, and the two-month distance extension for residents abroad. File the opposition at the registry by declaration or registered letter, give the exact registered-office address, appoint a Paris lawyer for the hearing, and use the full trial that follows to argue limitation, payment, defects and set-off with a complete exhibit bundle. Above all, never let the month pass in silence: an opposed order becomes a lawsuit you can win, while an unopposed order becomes a seizure you will suffer. Move within days, prove every date with paper, and the express procedure the creditor chose for speed becomes the forum where your defence is finally heard.
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