You have registered your French company from abroad. The Kbis extract (the official identity card of a French company, issued by the greffe, the clerk’s office of the commercial court) is on its way, the Siren number (the unique identification number issued by INSEE, the French statistics institute) is active, and now a Paris agent sends you a draft lease: nine years, a deposit equal to six months of rent, a personal guarantee in your own name, and a clause stating that any new partner or shareholder must be approved by the landlord. You live in London, New York or Dubai and you wonder what you are really signing, whether the famous 3-6-9 means you can leave after three years, what happens if the business outgrows the premises after eighteen months, and how a landlord who has never met you can seize rent from a foreign bank account. This guide answers those questions in English. It is written for foreign founders and companies doing business in France, it explains every French acronym, and every decisive rule is quoted verbatim from the statute or from the Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation, France’s supreme court for civil and commercial matters). Setting up the company itself is covered in our hub guide to setting up a company in France from abroad, and the choice between a branch (succursale) and a subsidiary (filiale) is covered in our branch versus subsidiary guide. Choosing between a 3/6/9, a short lease and simple domiciliation, and defending your renewal against a hostile landlord, are covered in our companion guide to signing a 3/6/9 commercial lease and saving your renewal right. Here, only the money and the exit: the entry ticket you pay before the keys, the deposit interest the landlord owes you, the guarantees that follow you personally, the inventory that decides the exit bill, and the termination and limitation machinery that ends the story.

I. How do I sign a French commercial lease from abroad: nine years, the three-year exit, the short lease and the inventory?

A. The nine-year lease, the tenant’s three-year termination right and the short lease that turns into a full lease

French commercial leases (baux commerciaux) are governed by a protective statute in the Commercial Code (Code de commerce), and the first protection is duration. Article L145-4 of the Commercial Code states: « La durée du contrat de location ne peut être inférieure à neuf ans. » (The term of the lease may not be less than nine years.) A landlord who offers you a six-year or seven-year commercial lease is therefore offering you, in principle, a nine-year lease: the clause cutting the duration is treated as unwritten and the nine-year statute applies. That is why the draft sent from Paris always says nine years. The nine years protect you as much as they bind you, because the second sentence of the same article gives the tenant the famous three-year exit: « 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 » (The tenant may nevertheless give notice at the end of each three-year period, at least six months in advance, by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt or by extrajudicial act). This is the 3-6-9 you hear about: nine years of security, with a tenant’s right to leave every three years. Note carefully that this three-year termination right belongs to the tenant (preneur). The landlord (bailleur) cannot use it except to demolish, rebuild or redevelop the building under the narrow cases listed at the end of the article. A clause giving the landlord a general three-year exit is treated as unwritten.

Before signing, check that your lease really falls under this protective statute, because not every business lease does. Article L145-1 of the Commercial Code applies the statute to leases of premises in which a business (fonds de commerce, the going concern: clientele, lease right, equipment and trade name) is operated by a trader registered with the Trade and Companies Register (registre du commerce et des sociétés, universally called the RCS). From abroad, the practical point is registration: your French SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible company form most foreign founders choose) or SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the limited liability company with stricter rules) must be registered with the RCS through the single online desk (guichet unique, the INPI-run portal where all French business filings are made since 2023) and hold premises it is entitled to occupy. If the company is not yet registered when you sign, make the lease conditional on registration, or sign a short pre-incorporation occupancy agreement instead. And if the landlord proposes an agreement that expressly excludes the commercial-lease statute — a so-called professional lease (bail professionnel) or a simple hire agreement (convention d’occupation précaire) — understand that you are giving up the nine-year term, the regulated rent and, above all, the tenant’s right to renewal or eviction compensation (indemnité d’éviction) described in Part II. Such an agreement is only valid outside the statute’s scope, typically where no retail or craft business with clientele is operated, and landlords sometimes dress a real commercial lease in precarious clothing to strip the tenant of rights.

The Court of Cassation polices exactly this kind of dressing-up, but with a strict time limit you must know. In a widely commented ruling, the Third Civil Chamber held that a tenant claiming that its occupancy agreement was really a commercial lease had to act within two years of signing. The Court stated: « l’article L. 145-15 du code de commerce réputant non écrites certaines clauses d’un bail, n’est pas applicable à une demande en requalification d’un contrat en bail commercial » (Article L. 145-15 of the Commercial Code, which deems certain lease clauses unwritten, does not apply to a claim seeking reclassification of a contract as a commercial lease), and it added: « la demande de la locataire, qui tendait à la requalification en bail statutaire de la convention de location de terrain nu signée le 16 juillet 2009, était soumise à la prescription de deux ans commençant à courir à compter de la conclusion de la convention » (the tenant’s claim, which sought reclassification as a statutory lease of the bare-land rental agreement signed on 16 July 2009, was subject to the two-year limitation running from the conclusion of the agreement) (Cass., 3rd civ., 7 December 2022, no. 21-23.103, published in the Bulletin). The two-year rule comes from Article L145-60 of the Commercial Code: « Toutes les actions exercées en vertu du présent chapitre se prescrivent par deux ans. » (All actions brought under this chapter are time-barred after two years.) For a foreign founder, the lesson is concrete: if you signed a precarious agreement and realise, a year later, that you operate a real shop with clientele, do not wait. Have counsel challenge the drafting within two years, because after that the reclassification claim is dead even if the landlord deliberately excluded the statute.

Where the business is untested, French law offers a lawful trial format: the derogatory short lease (bail dérogatoire). Article L145-5 of the Commercial Code allows the parties, when the tenant takes possession, to opt out of 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). This is ideal for testing a Paris location from abroad: twelve, twenty-four or thirty-six months outside the statute, with freely negotiated rent and no renewal right. But the trap is automatic. The same article provides: « Si, à l’expiration de cette durée, et au plus tard à l’issue d’un délai d’un mois à compter de l’échéance le preneur reste et est laissé en possession, il s’opère un nouveau bail dont l’effet est réglé par les dispositions du présent chapitre » (If, at the end of that period, and no later than one month after expiry, the tenant remains and is left in possession, a new lease arises governed by the provisions of this chapter). Stay one month too long without signing anything and you wake up inside a nine-year statutory lease — which may be good news or bad news, but it is never what an inattentive foreign tenant planned. From abroad, diary the expiry date twice: once with the agent, once with your French accountant (expert-comptable) or counsel, and give formal notice or sign the long lease before the month expires. Note also that the short lease requires a jointly prepared inventory of fixtures (état des lieux), discussed in the next section, and that seasonal lettings follow their own rules.

B. The entry ticket from abroad: deposit, advance rent, inventory of fixtures and the guarantees the landlord will demand

The landlord who has never met you will price the risk of distance, and the entry ticket for a foreign company is therefore heavier than for a local tenant. Expect three demands: a deposit (dépôt de garantie) of three to six months of rent, one or two quarters of rent payable in advance, and a personal guarantee (cautionnement) from you as founder, often joint and several (solidaire, meaning the landlord can pursue you directly without first pursuing the company). French law caps none of these amounts directly for ordinary commercial leases, but it regulates their cost. Article L145-40 of the Commercial Code provides: « Les loyers payés d’avance, sous quelque forme que ce soit, et même à titre de garantie, portent intérêt au profit du locataire, au taux pratiqué par la Banque de France pour les avances sur titres, pour les sommes excédant celle qui correspond au prix du loyer de plus de deux termes. » (Rents paid in advance, in whatever form, even as a guarantee, bear interest for the tenant at the rate applied by the Banque de France for advances on securities, for sums exceeding the price of more than two terms’ rent.) In plain terms, everything you pay upfront beyond two quarters’ rent must earn you interest at the Banque de France advances rate. A six-month deposit plus a quarter paid in advance therefore produces interest-bearing credit in your favour, and your counsel should verify each year that the landlord actually credits it.

The Court of Cassation confirmed this mechanism in a 2025 ruling that every foreign tenant should read before wiring a large deposit. The Third Civil Chamber first recalled the general valuation rule: « les obligations imposées au locataire au-delà de celles qui découlent de la loi ou des usages, sans contrepartie, constituent un facteur de diminution de la valeur locative » (obligations imposed on the tenant beyond those flowing from statute or usage, without counterpart, reduce the rental value), then held: « Dès lors qu’elle a pour contrepartie l’obligation légale du bailleur de payer au locataire des intérêts à un taux fixé par la loi, une stipulation d’un bail commercial qui met à la charge du locataire une obligation de payer en avance des sommes excédant celle correspondant au prix du loyer de plus de deux termes ne constitue pas en soi un facteur de diminution de la valeur locative. » (Since it is matched by the landlord’s statutory duty to pay the tenant interest at a rate fixed by law, a commercial-lease clause obliging the tenant to pay in advance sums exceeding more than two terms’ rent does not in itself reduce the rental value) (Cass., 3rd civ., 7 May 2025, no. 23-15.394). In that case the lease required a deposit of six months’ rent including VAT plus charges, with quarterly rent payable in advance on the first day of the civil quarter — and the Court upheld it. So do not expect a French judge to cancel a six-month deposit as excessive: negotiate it instead. From abroad, your leverage is the file you present — Kbis extract, parent-company accounts, proof of share capital actually paid up, and a first-class bank guarantee (garantie bancaire, an undertaking by your bank to pay the landlord if you default) — because a landlord who receives a bank guarantee covering twelve months will often accept a three-month cash deposit instead of six. And never sign a personal guarantee without a cap in amount and time: an unlimited, indefinite cautionnement solidaire follows you personally even after you sell the company, and enforcing it against assets abroad is exactly the kind of cross-border litigation that costs ten times the rent it secures.

The inventory of fixtures (état des lieux) is the document foreign tenants neglect most and regret most. For short leases, Article L145-5 of the Commercial Code requires that « un état des lieux est établi lors de la prise de possession des locaux par un locataire et lors de leur restitution, contradictoirement et amiablement par les parties ou par un tiers mandaté par elles, et joint au contrat de location. » (an inventory of fixtures is drawn up when the tenant takes possession and when the premises are returned, jointly and amicably by the parties or by a person they appoint, and attached to the lease.) For statutory nine-year leases the same practice applies by case law presumption: without an entry inventory, the tenant is presumed to have received the premises in good repair and must return them so, paying for everything the landlord claims. From 6,000 kilometres away you cannot argue about a stain on the carpet or a cracked window. Appoint a huissier de justice (a judicial officer, now called commissaire de justice, whose official report is evidence in court) to draw up the entry inventory with dated photographs, and do the same at exit. The few hundred euros this costs are the cheapest insurance in the whole French setup. The same logic applies to the registered office (siège social): the lease address becomes the company’s address on the RCS and on every invoice, so verify before signing that the premises may lawfully host your activity — check the co-ownership rules (règlement de copropriété), the commercial-use authorisation, and, in Paris, the rules on converting housing into business premises. A cheaper interim solution is domiciliation (domiciliation d’entreprise, a registered-office service provided by an approved company), which gives you an RCS address within days while you negotiate the real lease — but a domiciliation is not a lease and gives no right to occupy, so do not confuse the two when the landlord asks for proof of premises.

II. How do rent, renewal and termination work once the lease is running: increases, eviction money and the unpaid-rent procedure?

A. Triennial rent revision, renewal at rental value and the landlord offer that counts as a refusal

Once installed, your rent can move through two channels: triennial revision (révision triennale) during the lease, and renewal (renouvellement) at the end. Revision is strictly timetabled. Article L145-38 of the Commercial Code provides: « 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 claim may only be made at least three years after the tenant took possession or after the start of the renewed lease.) Either party can then ask the court to align the rent with rental value, but the increase is capped at the change in the quarterly commercial-rents index or the tertiary-activities index since the last agreed or court-ordered fixing of the rent. The indices are the ILC (indice des loyers commerciaux, for retail and craft) and the ILAT (indice des loyers des activités tertiaires, for offices and services), published quarterly by INSEE. Only proof of a material change in local business conditions moving rental value by more than 10% can break the cap — the déplafonnement (uncapping) — and even then yearly increases are capped at 10% of the previous year’s rent. From abroad, the operational rule is simple: calendar every third anniversary of the lease and of each renewal, because a landlord who misses the window cannot backdate the increase — revision takes effect only from the date of the demand — while a tenant who misses it keeps paying an above-market rent for three more years.

At expiry, the tenant’s renewal right (droit au renouvellement) is the crown jewel of the statute and the reason the nine-year lease has value on your balance sheet. Article L145-33 of the Commercial Code states: « Le montant des loyers des baux renouvelés ou révisés doit correspondre à la valeur locative. » (The rent for renewed or revised leases must reflect the rental value.) Rental value (valeur locative) is assessed on the premises’ characteristics, their use, the parties’ respective obligations, local business conditions and market prices — and a lease signed at an undervalue years ago can therefore jump sharply at renewal, subject to smoothing rules and the cap in Article L145-34 of the Commercial Code unless local conditions have materially changed. If the landlord refuses renewal without a lawful reason (demolition, rebuilding, legitimate motive), it owes eviction compensation (indemnité d’éviction) covering the loss of the business, including the value of the clientele and the cost of reinstalling elsewhere — often one to two years of gross profit for a retail business. This is where foreign tenants lose fortunes by mishandling paperwork: renewal must be requested, or notice given, by extrajudicial act (acte extrajudiciaire, a formal document served by a commissaire de justice) within strict six-month periods, and an email from abroad counts for nothing.

The most dangerous renewal trap is the landlord’s offer with strings attached. In January 2024 the Court of Cassation gave foreign tenants a powerful shield. A landlord had served notice coupled with a renewal offer conditional on reducing the rented area and adding maintenance duties for the tenants; the tenants left and claimed eviction compensation. The Court quashed the appeal ruling and held, on Articles L145-8 and L145-9 of the Commercial Code and Article 1103 of the Civil Code: « 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. » (failing agreement otherwise, a commercial lease renews on the terms of the expired lease, except for the court’s power over the rent), and therefore: « 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. » (notice coupled with a renewal offer on terms different from the expired lease, apart from the price, must be treated as notice refusing renewal, opening the right to eviction compensation) (Cass., 3rd civ., 11 January 2024, no. 22-20.872, quashing Bordeaux, 21 June 2022). Read that twice before your next renewal: if your Paris landlord offers renewal but shrinks your space, adds heavy works, or rewrites the charges clause, that is legally a refusal — and a refusal pays eviction compensation. From abroad, never answer such an offer with a simple yes or no by email. Have French counsel analyse whether the new terms differ from the expired lease, because accepting in haste waives compensation worth years of rent, while rejecting correctly preserves it. Our guide to forcing a French bank account open from abroad follows the same method: formal steps, through the right officer, within the right deadline.

B. Giving notice from abroad, the termination clause that needs a formal demand, and what happens if the building is sold

Leaving is where distance punishes the careless. The tenant’s notice (congé) obeys Article L145-9 of the Commercial Code: « 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. » (leases under this chapter end only by notice given six months in advance or by a renewal request.) Three formal points decide everything. First, the notice must be served by extrajudicial act — in practice a commissaire de justice serving it in person — and, during tacit extension (tacite prolongation, the automatic continuation when neither party acts at expiry: « le bail fait par écrit se prolonge tacitement au-delà du terme fixé par le contrat », a written lease continues tacitly beyond its contractual term), for the last day of a calendar quarter. Second, the six months run from service, not from sending: instruct the officer early, because a notice served five months and three weeks before the date is void and the lease runs on. Third, retirement and disability open early-exit rights under Article L145-4 even mid-period, useful for an individual founder-tenant. From abroad, the procedure is entirely delegable: a written mandate (pouvoir) to your counsel, funds for the officer’s fee, and one instruction — confirm service in writing with the date. Keep the original proof (procès-verbal de signification) with the company’s records; French courts ask for it years later.

Being removed for unpaid rent follows an even more formal choreography that protects tenants who react fast. Most leases contain a termination clause (clause résolutoire) allowing the landlord to end the lease automatically if rent is unpaid. Article L145-41 of the Commercial Code defuses it: « Toute clause insérée dans le bail prévoyant la résiliation de plein droit ne produit effet qu’un mois après un commandement demeuré infructueux. » (Any clause providing for automatic termination takes effect only one month after an unsuccessful formal demand.) And: « Le commandement doit, à peine de nullité, mentionner ce délai. » (The demand must, on pain of nullity, mention that period.) The commandement de payer is a formal payment order served by a commissaire de justice, giving you one month to pay, and any demand forgetting to mention the one-month period is void. Better still, judges seized within that month may grant payment delays (délais de grâce) of up to the statutory maximum and suspend the termination clause while you pay — provided the company can actually clear the arrears and resumes paying current rent in full before the first hearing. For a foreign-run company hit by a cash crisis at home, this one-month-plus-grace architecture is the lifeline: the day the commandement arrives by email from Paris, do not negotiate informally. Pay or formally commit within the month, file for grace periods through counsel, and document the resumption of current rent. Landlords know that a tenant who pays during the month kills the clause; tenants who discover the demand three months later in an unopened pile of forwarded mail lose the premises. Organise mail scanning with your domiciliation agent or accountant from day one.

Finally, two events of the lease’s later life deserve a foreign founder’s attention: sale of the building and the two-year clock on all disputes. If your landlord sells the Paris building, your lease survives — sale does not break the lease — and since the Pinel Act of 2014 the sitting tenant even holds a right of first refusal (droit de préemption) when the owner sells the walls of an occupied shop: Article L145-46-1 of the Commercial Code requires that « il en informe le locataire par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception » (he informs the tenant by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt), triggering a one-month window to buy at the stated price and conditions. A foreign-owned company can exercise this right — a remarkable chance to buy your own walls in Paris — but the month runs from receipt, so ensure someone in France opens registered mail weekly. And for every dispute — deposit restitution, charges, works, renewal — remember the guillotine of Article L145-60 of the Commercial Code: « Toutes les actions exercées en vertu du présent chapitre se prescrivent par deux ans. » Two years from the event giving rise to the claim, not from when you discover it from abroad. The deposit you forgot to reclaim, the overpaid charges you never audited, the renewal you never requested: after two years they are gone. Close each financial year with a lease audit — deposit interest credited, charges backed by invoices, revision deadline calendared — and the Paris lease becomes what it should be for a foreign company: a nine-year asset with a three-year emergency exit, rather than a nine-year liability discovered too late.

Conclusion

A French commercial lease signed from abroad is neither the trap some founders fear nor the formality others assume: it is a nine-year statutory asset whose value depends entirely on respecting forms and deadlines. Sign only a lease your registered company can bear — nine years with a tenant’s three-year exit under Article L145-4, or a short derogatory lease under Article L145-5 whose expiry you diary twice, because one month of silent occupation converts it into a nine-year lease. Pay the entry ticket with open eyes — a deposit of several months is lawful and earns you Banque de France interest beyond two terms’ rent under Article L145-40, as the Court of Cassation confirmed in May 2025 — but cap every personal guarantee and photograph every square metre with a commissaire de justice before the furniture arrives. Once running, calendar the triennial revision under Article L145-38, treat any renewal offer on changed terms as the refusal it legally is under the January 2024 ruling, and never let an email replace the extrajudicial act for notice under Article L145-9. If rent goes unpaid, the Article L145-41 commandment gives you one month plus judicial grace to save the lease — but only if someone opens the mail. And over everything hangs the two-year limitation of Article L145-60: in French commercial leases, the right you forget for two years is the right you no longer have.