You formed a French company from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, the Kbis (the official certificate proving your company is registered with the trade register) arrived, business started, and now the company needs more money: a French client demands stronger equity before signing, the bank makes a loan conditional on fresh capital, or accumulated losses have eaten half the share capital and the balance sheet looks fragile. Wiring money from your personal account is not enough. In France, only a formal capital increase (augmentation de capital), voted, subscribed, paid up, deposited and registered, changes the capital figure printed on the Kbis and recognised by banks, courts and suppliers.

This guide walks a foreign founder through the full operation in 2026: who votes the increase when you live abroad and how you sign and pay from another country, whether you keep a preferential right to subscribe or can be diluted by your partners, what you file on the Guichet unique (the single online portal for all business formalities, run by the INPI, the French intellectual property and companies office) and at the greffe (the registry office of the commercial court), and how you challenge an increase that squeezed you out. Where a simple repayable advance would do the job instead, our companion guide on funding your French SAS through a shareholder loan from abroad explains the compte courant d’associé (shareholder current account) alternative. Every French acronym below is explained the first time it appears, and every decisive rule is quoted from the official text.

I. How do you increase the capital of a French SAS or SARL when you live abroad?

A. Who votes the increase and how do you sign and pay from another country?

The starting point is the same in a SAS (société par actions simplifiée, simplified joint-stock company) and a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, limited liability company): the increase is a collective decision, and distance does not remove you from the room. Article L.225-129 of the Commercial Code (Code de commerce) states: “L’assemblée générale extraordinaire est seule compétente pour décider, sur le rapport du conseil d’administration ou du directoire, une augmentation de capital immédiate ou à terme.” Only the extraordinary general meeting (assemblée générale extraordinaire) can decide the increase, on the basis of a management report. In a SAS, Article L.225-129 of the Commercial Code applies through the SAS framework, which Article L.227-1 of the Commercial Code defines in these terms: “Une société par actions simplifiée peut être instituée par une ou plusieurs personnes qui ne supportent les pertes qu’à concurrence de leur apport.” The SAS borrows the public limited company rulebook wherever its own chapter is silent, while your articles of association (statuts) designate who acts in place of a board. If you are the sole shareholder (associé unique), you decide alone and record the decision in writing. If there are several partners, check the statuts first: many SAS articles allow consultation in writing or by videoconference, which lets a founder in another country vote, sign the minutes (procès-verbal) and return them by secure electronic signature without flying to Paris.

The meeting can also delegate the technical work. Article L.225-129-1 of the Commercial Code provides: “Lorsque l’assemblée générale extraordinaire décide l’augmentation de capital, elle peut déléguer au conseil d’administration ou au directoire le pouvoir de fixer les modalités de l’émission des titres.” In a SAS, that delegation goes to the president (président) or the managers your statuts designate. Practically, the shareholders fix the ceiling, the price and the deadline, and the president handles the bank, the depositary certificate and the filing. This delegation is valid for a limited time: the increase must be completed within five years of the decision or delegation, a ceiling stated in Article L.225-129 of the Commercial Code. Put that date in your calendar the day you vote, because an expired delegation forces you to reconvene and vote again.

Paying from abroad is where foreign founders stumble. French law does not require the full amount on day one, but it sets a floor below which the subscription is void. For a SAS, which follows the share rules, Article L.225-3 of the Commercial Code states: “Le capital doit être intégralement souscrit. Les actions de numéraire sont libérées, lors de la souscription, de la moitié au moins de leur valeur nominale. La libération du surplus intervient en une ou plusieurs fois sur décision du conseil d’administration ou du directoire selon le cas, dans un délai qui ne peut excéder cinq ans à compter de l’immatriculation de la société au registre du commerce et des sociétés.” Every new cash share must be subscribed in full and paid up at least halfway when you sign; the balance follows within five years. For a SARL, Article L.223-32 of the Commercial Code sets a different floor: “Ces parts sont obligatoirement libérées, lors de la souscription, d’un quart au moins de leur valeur nominale. La libération du surplus doit intervenir, en une ou plusieurs fois, dans le délai de cinq ans à compter du jour où l’augmentation du capital est devenue définitive.” New SARL units (parts sociales) need only one quarter paid on subscription, the rest within five years of the day the increase becomes final.

Two traps catch foreigners here. First, a SARL whose existing capital was never fully paid cannot increase at all: Article L.223-7 of the Commercial Code warns that “le capital social doit être intégralement libéré avant toute souscription de nouvelles parts sociales à libérer en numéraire, à peine de nullité de l’opération.” If you only paid the minimum when you formed the company, top up the old capital before voting the new one, or the whole operation is void. Second, the money must be parked where the law says: the funds are deposited with a bank or a notary (notaire), which issues the depositary certificate (certificat du dépositaire) listing each subscriber and the sums paid. The official service-public guide to increasing the share capital of a company confirms that the sums received for the release of shares must be deposited with the notary or the bank within eight days of receipt, and that the increase must be completed within six months of the first deposit, failing which subscribers can reclaim their money. From abroad, organise the international transfer early: ask the bank which branch issues depositary certificates for capital increases, what identity and origin-of-funds documents it requires from a non-resident, and how many days the certificate takes. A transfer that arrives without a_subscription reference, or a certificate that names the wrong subscriber, blocks the filing at the worst moment.

If the increase is paid by contributing an asset instead of cash, a business, a patent, a building, the law adds an independent valuation. Article L.225-147 of the Commercial Code provides: “En cas d’apports en nature ou de stipulation d’avantages particuliers, un ou plusieurs commissaires aux apports sont désignés à l’unanimité des actionnaires ou, à défaut, par décision de justice.” The contributions auditor (commissaire aux apports) is appointed unanimously or, failing agreement, by the court, and the same article continues: “Ces commissaires apprécient, sous leur responsabilité, la valeur des apports en nature et les avantages particuliers.” The auditor values the contribution under his own liability, his report is made available to the shareholders before the vote, and if the meeting approves the valuation it records the completion of the increase. A founder who contributes know-how or work (apport en industrie, contribution of industry) should note that such contributions are possible in a SAS under conditions set by the statuts but never form part of the share capital. Do not skip this step to save fees: as shown below, a rigged valuation can void the operation and expose the managers to criminal prosecution.

B. Do you keep a preferential right to subscribe or can the increase dilute you?

Dilution is the real fear of the minority shareholder living abroad: you wake up, the capital has doubled, your 30 percent is now 15, and a new investor sits at the table. In a SAS or a company with shares, the Code gives you a shield called the preferential subscription right (droit préférentiel de souscription, DPS). Article L.225-132 of the Commercial Code states: “Les actions comportent un droit préférentiel de souscription aux augmentations de capital. Les actionnaires ont, proportionnellement au montant de leurs actions, un droit de préférence à la souscription des actions de numéraire émises pour réaliser une augmentation de capital.” Each shareholder can subscribe in proportion to his existing holding and keep his percentage. The same article adds that shareholders “peuvent renoncer à titre individuel à leur droit préférentiel”: you may waive your right individually, but nobody can waive it for you. From abroad, exercise or waiver must be express and in writing; silence is not a waiver, and a president who treats your silence as consent commits a fault.

The shield can be lifted, but only by a formal vote with full information. Article L.225-135 of the Commercial Code provides that the meeting “peut supprimer le droit préférentiel de souscription pour la totalité de l’augmentation de capital ou pour une ou plusieurs tranches de cette augmentation, selon les modalités prévues par les articles L. 225-136 à L. 225-138-1 et L. 22-10-52”, and adds: “Elle statue sur rapport du conseil d’administration ou du directoire.” The removal of your preferential right requires a specific resolution, a management report explaining the reasons and the issue price, and, where auditors exist, a report from the statutory auditor (commissaire aux comptes). An increase voted without those reports, or with a report that hides the price calculation, is vulnerable to annulment. Always demand both reports before the meeting and keep the proof that you received them: from another country, email timestamps are your evidence.

The most aggressive form of dilution is the reserved increase (augmentation de capital réservée), where the new shares go straight to a named person. Article L.225-138 of the Commercial Code states: “L’assemblée générale qui décide l’augmentation du capital peut la réserver à une ou plusieurs personnes nommément désignées ou catégories de personnes répondant à des caractéristiques déterminées. A cette fin, elle peut supprimer le droit préférentiel de souscription.” The named beneficiaries cannot vote on the resolution, the quorum and majority are calculated after deducting their shares, the issue price must be justified by the reports, and the operation must be completed within eighteen months of the meeting. If your co-shareholder pushes through a reserved increase for himself at a discount while you are abroad and cannot attend, each of these conditions is a checkpoint: were you properly convened, did you receive the reports, did the beneficiary vote despite the prohibition, was the price serious? A single failure can support a court action.

One formality surprises almost every foreign founder: when the company has employees and the increase is paid in cash, the meeting must also vote on opening part of the increase to the staff. Article L.225-129-6 of the Commercial Code provides: “Lors de toute décision d’augmentation du capital par apport en numéraire, sauf si elle résulte d’une émission au préalable de valeurs mobilières donnant accès au capital, l’assemblée générale extraordinaire doit se prononcer sur un projet de résolution tendant à la réalisation d’une augmentation de capital dans les conditions prévues aux articles L. 3332-18 à L. 3332-24 du code du travail, lorsque la société a des salariés.” The Cour de cassation (the supreme court for civil and commercial matters) enforces this strictly. In a decision of 28 November 2018, appeal no. 16-28.358, concerning a SAS whose 2013 cash increase had been adopted without that employee resolution, the Court approved the appeal judges for holding that the defective increase could be regularised by a later vote on the single resolution reserving an increase for the employees, whose minutes recorded that “cette autorisation entraîne la renonciation de plein droit des associés à leur droit préférentiel de souscription” (Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, 28 November 2018, no. 16-28.358). The lesson runs both ways: forgetting the employee resolution exposes the whole increase to an annulment claim, but the defect can be cured by a proper later vote instead of redoing everything, which matters when your bank deadline is near.

In a SARL the protection works differently, and founders who assume the SAS rules apply make costly mistakes. The Code grants SARL members no automatic preferential right equivalent to Article L.225-132; who subscribes to the new parts sociales is decided by the meeting under the extraordinary majority, and your real protection sits in the statuts: clauses requiring that new parts be offered first to existing members, approval clauses (agrément) controlling who enters, and reinforced majorities for capital operations. Read those clauses before any vote, because once the increase is registered, renegotiating them means another full procedure. Conversely, a SARL founder is protected by the liberation rule recalled above: nobody can force you to subscribe, and the one-quarter minimum plus the five-year balance schedule in Article L.223-32 of the Commercial Code cap what any subscriber, including you, must pay on day one. If cash is tight, subscribing fewer units and paying the minimum, rather than refusing the operation and being diluted, is often the rational compromise.

II. How do you register the new capital and what if the increase was unfair?

A. What do you file on the Guichet unique, deposit at the bank and update on the Kbis?

Voting and paying are only half the job. Until the modification is registered, the company cannot prove the new capital to anyone: the old Kbis still circulates, the bank keeps the old figure, and contracts signed in the name of the increased capital rest on shaky ground. The filing runs through the Guichet unique des formalités des entreprises, the single online portal operated via the INPI, which replaced the old network of business formalities centres. The deadline is short. Article R.123-66 of the Commercial Code states: Article R.123-66 requires “une inscription modificative dans le mois de tout fait ou acte rendant nécessaire la rectification ou le complément des énonciations”: in plain terms, a modifying registration within one month of any event changing the registered particulars. The company therefore requests the modifying registration (inscription modificative) through the single portal, with a file that typically contains the minutes recording the increase, the updated statuts showing the new capital and its division into shares or units, the depositary certificate, the auditor’s report where one was required, and the legal announcement (annonce légale) publishing the modification in an authorised notices journal. The official service-public guide to increasing the share capital of a company details each supporting document and confirms the portal route; keep its checklist open while you prepare the file, because an incomplete submission bounces back and the one-month clock does not stop.

Founders based in Paris and the Île-de-France region (the Paris region, eight departments around the capital) handle two practical specifics. First, the competent greffe is the registry of the Paris commercial court (tribunal de commerce de Paris) for a company seated in Paris, and the legal announcement must appear in a journal authorised (habilité) for the department of the registered office (siège social): a Paris-seated SAS publishes in a Paris-authorised journal, not in a cheaper provincial one, or the filing is rejected. Second, Paris timelines are real but manageable: allow two to four weeks between the complete Guichet unique submission and the updated Kbis in routine periods, longer in September and January when filings pile up. Order a fresh Kbis the day the modification is recorded and check three lines immediately: the capital amount (montant du capital social), the number and division of shares or units, and the identity of the managers. Every bank, landlord and major client will pull that document through the official channels before releasing funds or signing, and an error caught on day one costs a corrective filing while an error caught by your bank costs the deal. The modification is also publicised in the BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, the official bulletin of civil and commercial announcements), which third parties are deemed to know: from publication, nobody can claim ignorance of your new capital.

After registration, close the loop inside the company. Release the deposited funds: the depositary pays out against proof of registration, and the president or manager (gérant, the SARL manager) moves the money to the operating account with a clean paper trail from subscriber to company. Update the shareholders’ register (registre des mouvements de titres) for a SAS or the updated parts division in the statuts for a SARL, record the paid and unpaid portions of each subscription so future calls for the balance go to the right person, and inform the expert-comptable (chartered accountant) so the accounts, the annual meeting file and the tax returns reflect the new capital. If the increase was meant to repair balance-sheet damage, verify that equity (capitaux propres) is back above half the share capital: falling below that line triggers a separate statutory procedure of recapitalisation or dissolution warning, and an increase that leaves equity under the threshold has missed its target. Our step-by-step map of setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, from bank account to Kbis, VAT and first hire shows where this operation fits in the life of the company, from formation to growth. Keep every proof for at least the life of the company plus the limitation periods: minutes, reports, certificate, announcement, filing receipt, new Kbis. A founder abroad who keeps that file can answer any bank, auditor or court from another country; one who trusted memory cannot.

B. How do you challenge an irregular increase, a rigged valuation or a blocked subscription?

Now the defensive side, which is why many foreign founders read this guide after the damage is done. Suppose you were never convened, the meeting suppressed your preferential right without the required reports, a reserved increase handed cheap shares to your partner, or an asset contribution was wildly overvalued to give the contributor control. French law answers with annulment (nullité): the irregular resolution, and sometimes the whole increase, can be cancelled by the commercial court at the request of an interested shareholder, with the company restored as if the operation never happened and damages available for the loss suffered. Act fast and in writing: protest by registered letter or bailiff as soon as you learn of the meeting, demand the minutes, the reports and the depositary certificate, and have a lawyer review the convening notices against the statuts before the trail cools. Courts forgive a shareholder who was kept in the dark; they show less patience toward one who knew and waited.

The contributions auditor is the second checkpoint, and a 2026 Cour de cassation decision shows how seriously courts police it. On 28 May 2026, appeal no. 25-13.211, the commercial chamber held that the duties of contributions auditor are, on pain of nullity of the resolutions adopted on the basis of his report, incompatible with any activity or act liable to harm his independence toward any party to the contribution or any person controlling or controlled by it, and that this defect is punished by a nullity protecting public order, not merely the company or its shareholders. The Court’s own words deserve quotation: “les fonctions de commissaire aux apports sont, à peine de nullité des délibérations prises au vu de son rapport, incompatibles avec toute activité ou tout acte de nature à porter atteinte à son indépendance à l’égard de l’une des parties à l’opération d’apport ou d’une personne qui la contrôle ou qu’elle contrôle” (Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, 28 May 2026, no. 25-13.211). In that case the auditor had previously performed accounting work for the company whose shares were contributed, and the Court extended the nullity to his engagement letter itself. For a founder abroad, the message is concrete: if your partner’s asset was valued by an auditor who also keeps that partner’s books, challenge the valuation and the resolutions adopted on its basis, and demand a truly independent expert appointed by the court.

Criminal law guards the same door. Article L.241-3 of the Commercial Code punishes with five years’ imprisonment and a 375,000 euro fine “Le fait, pour toute personne, de faire attribuer frauduleusement à un apport en nature une évaluation supérieure à sa valeur réelle”: fraudulently causing an in-kind contribution to be overvalued is a criminal offence, alongside fictitious dividends, false accounts and abuse of corporate powers. A founder who discovers a deliberately inflated contribution should therefore preserve the evidence and consider a criminal complaint in parallel with the civil annulment action, since the threat of prosecution often brings the other side back to the negotiating table. Conversely, a founder accused of such inflation needs counsel immediately, because the same facts can trigger civil nullity, damages and prosecution at once.

Three reflexes protect you before any dispute. First, never let a capital operation be voted on the basis of promises: require the management report, the auditor’s report where one exists, the draft resolutions and the subscription terms in writing, in advance, and confirm receipt from abroad in a traceable form. Second, never subscribe or waive rights informally: sign a subscription form (bulletin de souscription) stating the number of shares or units, the price and the amount paid, or sign an express waiver, and pay exclusively by identified transfer to the depositary account. Third, calendar every deadline the day you vote: the five-year delegation ceiling, the six-month completion window after the first deposit, the eight-day deposit rule, the eighteen-month limit for a reserved increase, and the one-month filing deadline on the Guichet unique. Most lost cases are not lost on the merits but on a missed date.

Conclusion

A capital increase is the moment a French company changes scale, and for a founder living abroad it is also the moment distance is most dangerous: others meet, vote and sign while you sleep in another time zone. The method in this guide removes that disadvantage. Vote or delegate expressly under Article L.225-129, pay at least the legal minimum with an identified transfer to the depositary, keep your preferential right or waive it knowingly under Articles L.225-132, L.225-135 and L.225-138, never skip the employee resolution of Article L.225-129-6 or the independent valuation of Article L.225-147, file the modifying registration within the month of Article R.123-66, and check the new Kbis line by line. Done in that order, the operation gives your company the equity French banks and clients respect and gives you a file that answers any challenge. Done informally, it gives your partners your money and your percentage. When the stakes exceed a routine top-up, when a partner pushes a reserved increase, when a valuation looks inflated, or when you were never convened, treat the file as a dispute from day one: protest in writing, collect the reports, and have the operation reviewed before the registration makes it final.