You formed your French company from abroad, obtained the Kbis (the official company identity certificate issued by the greffe, the court clerk’s office), and hired your first employee in France. Six weeks later the fit is clearly wrong: missed deadlines, skills that do not match the role, a working relationship that will not improve. French law gives you a specific exit lane for exactly this situation, the rupture of the période d’essai (the trial period at the start of the employment contract). It is faster and lighter than a dismissal, but it is also a lane with strict guardrails. Notify one day too late, forget that the trial period was never put in writing, or renew it without the employee’s clear written agreement, and what you believed was a simple trial-period termination is reclassified by the labour court as a dismissal without real and serious cause, with damages on top. This article explains, for a foreign founder or manager running a French company from abroad, how to check that a trial period still exists, how to end it lawfully before it expires, how to count the mandatory notice period (délai de prévenance), and how to close the file cleanly so the dispute does not follow you back across the border.

I. End the trial period before it expires, in writing and for work-related reasons

A. Did your contract really create a trial period, and when does it exactly end?

The first question surprises many foreign employers: in France, the trial period is never automatic. The official Entreprendre service-public guide states it plainly: “la période d’essai n’est pas obligatoire” (the trial period is not mandatory) (Période d’essai pour un salarié, Entreprendre Service Public, verified 12 August 2026). It exists only if it is written into the employment contract or the lettre d’engagement (the written hiring letter). Article L. 1221-23 of the Code du travail (the French Labour Code) states: “La période d’essai et la possibilité de la renouveler ne se présument pas. Elles sont expressément stipulées dans la lettre d’engagement ou le contrat de travail.” (Article L1221-23, Code du travail, Légifrance). If your first hire started on a verbal agreement or on a contract that says nothing about a trial period, there is no trial period to terminate, and ending the relationship means entering dismissal law with its full procedure. From abroad, the practical lesson is immediate: before any decision, ask your French counsel or payroll provider for the signed contract and read the trial-period clause itself, not a summary of it.

Where a clause exists, the second check is the duration. For a CDI (contrat à durée indéterminée, the open-ended employment contract that is the standard form of employment in France), Article L. 1221-19 of the Code du travail provides: “Le contrat de travail à durée indéterminée peut comporter une période d’essai dont la durée maximale est : 1° Pour les ouvriers et les employés, de deux mois ; 2° Pour les agents de maîtrise et les techniciens, de trois mois ; 3° Pour les cadres, de quatre mois.” (Article L1221-19, Code du travail, Légifrance). Your contract or the applicable convention collective (the sector-wide collective bargaining agreement, which often sets shorter periods) may provide less, never more, and the trial period counts in calendar days, weekends and public holidays included. Many foreign founders discover at this stage that the two-month period for an employee-status hire has already expired while they were waiting to “see how things go”. Once the last day has passed, the exit lane is closed, as the case law examined below confirms.

The third check concerns renewal, the most frequent trap for first-time employers. Article L. 1221-21 of the Code du travail states: “La période d’essai peut être renouvelée une fois si un accord de branche étendu le prévoit. Cet accord fixe les conditions et les durées de renouvellement. La durée de la période d’essai, renouvellement compris, ne peut pas dépasser : 1° Quatre mois pour les ouvriers et employés ; 2° Six mois pour les agents de maîtrise et techniciens ; 3° Huit mois pour les cadres.” (Article L1221-21, Code du travail, Légifrance). Renewal therefore requires two cumulative conditions: an extended sector-level agreement that authorises it, and the employee’s agreement given in clear written form during the initial period. On this second condition the Cour de cassation (the French supreme court for civil and criminal matters) is strict. In a judgment of 11 June 2025 (pourvoi n° 23-21.128), the Social Chamber quashed an appeal decision that had accepted a renewal evidenced only by a signed letter treated as an acknowledgement of receipt plus an accompanying email, holding: “En se déterminant ainsi, par des motifs qui ne suffisent pas à caractériser l’accord écrit non équivoque du salarié au renouvellement de la période d’essai, la cour d’appel a privé sa décision de base légale.” (Cass. soc., 11 June 2025, n° 23-21.128). In plain terms, a signature that merely acknowledges receipt of the renewal letter is not an unambiguous written agreement to the renewal, and without that agreement the renewal is void, the trial period ended on its initial date, and the later termination becomes a dismissal. If you hired on a CDD (contrat à durée déterminée, the fixed-term contract) rather than a CDI, different ceilings apply: “Le contrat de travail à durée déterminée peut comporter une période d’essai. Sauf si des usages ou des stipulations conventionnelles prévoient des durées moindres, cette période d’essai ne peut excéder une durée calculée à raison d’un jour par semaine, dans la limite de deux semaines lorsque la durée initialement prévue au contrat est au plus égale à six mois et d’un mois dans les autres cas.” (Article L1242-10, Code du travail, Légifrance).

One last preliminary point belongs to the hiring itself. Under Article L. 1221-10 of the Code du travail, “L’embauche d’un salarié ne peut intervenir qu’après déclaration nominative accomplie par l’employeur auprès des organismes de protection sociale désignés à cet effet.” (Article L1221-10, Code du travail, Légifrance). In practice this is the DPAE (déclaration préalable à l’embauche, the pre-hiring declaration filed with URSSAF, the body that collects social-security contributions). If the DPAE was never filed for your first hire, regularise it through your payroll provider before any termination step: ending a contract whose hiring was never declared multiplies the penalties and destroys your credibility before the labour court. Readers setting up the whole hiring process for the first time will find the broader sequence, bank account, Kbis registration and first payroll steps, in our companion guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder.

B. Notify the termination during the trial period, for the employee’s professional suitability

Once you have confirmed that a trial period exists and is still running, French law asks a single substantive question: is the termination genuinely based on the employee’s professional suitability? Article L. 1221-20 of the Code du travail defines the purpose of the mechanism: “La période d’essai permet à l’employeur d’évaluer les compétences du salarié dans son travail, notamment au regard de son expérience, et au salarié d’apprécier si les fonctions occupées lui conviennent.” (Article L1221-20, Code du travail, Légifrance). The courts draw a direct consequence from this text: a trial-period termination used for another purpose, for example to cut headcount for economic reasons, to punish an employee for asserting a right, or to sidestep a dismissal procedure whose outcome seems uncertain, is a détournement de finalité (a misuse of the mechanism’s purpose) and is sanctioned as an abusive termination. Keep a short written record of the professional reasons, missed technical milestones, unsuitability for the functions described in the job description, documented quality issues, before you notify. You do not have to state these reasons in the termination letter itself, and most practitioners advise against doing so, but you will need them if the employee later claims before the conseil de prud’hommes (the French labour court with jurisdiction over individual employment disputes) that the real motive had nothing to do with professional appraisal.

Two absolute boundaries frame this freedom. First, discrimination law applies in full during the trial period. Article L. 1132-1 of the Code du travail provides that “aucun salarié ne peut être sanctionné, licencié ou faire l’objet d’une mesure discriminatoire, directe ou indirecte”, on grounds including origin, sex, morals, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, family situation, pregnancy, health, disability and the other protected characteristics the article lists in full (Article L1132-1, Code du travail, Légifrance). A termination notified days after the announcement of a pregnancy, a disability disclosure, or a harassment complaint will be presumed discriminatory, and the burden will shift to you to prove a purely professional motive. Second, certain protected statuses, including pregnancy and maternity leave and mandates such as staff representative, suspend or prohibit termination outright. Map these situations with counsel before signing anything, because an error at this stage cannot be repaired afterwards.

On procedure, the trial period is deliberately light, which is precisely its value for a foreign-run company. Article L. 1231-1 of the Code du travail states: “Le contrat de travail à durée indéterminée peut être rompu à l’initiative de l’employeur ou du salarié, ou d’un commun accord, dans les conditions prévues par les dispositions du présent titre. Ces dispositions ne sont pas applicables pendant la période d’essai.” (Article L1231-1, Code du travail, Légifrance). No preliminary meeting, no notification of charges, no severance procedure: a written notice is enough. From abroad, however, proof of delivery becomes the whole case. Hand delivery against receipt is impossible when you are in London, New York or Dubai, so send the termination by lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception (registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt) and keep the postal receipts, or mandate in writing a person in France, your local director, counsel or payroll provider, to deliver it. Date the letter on the day it is sent, state unambiguously that the trial period is terminated, and make sure the notification reaches the employee before the trial period expires. Case law treats the date of notification, not the date the employee reads the letter, as decisive in most configurations, but the safest course remains to send early: postal delays counted against you are the classic way a valid termination becomes a late one. Where the contract or the convention collective requires a specific form, a longer notice, or an interview, follow it to the letter: Article L. 1221-22 of the Code du travail states that “Les durées des périodes d’essai fixées par les articles L. 1221-19 et L. 1221-21 ont un caractère impératif”, subject only to shorter periods set by later collective agreements or by the hiring letter or contract itself (Article L1221-22, Code du travail, Légifrance), and collective agreements frequently add employee-friendly steps that override the statutory minimum.

II. Count the notice period and pay every euro owed, even when managing from abroad

A. Apply the statutory notice scale, and pay the compensatory allowance when you miss it

Ending the trial period does not mean the employee leaves the next morning. French law imposes a délai de prévenance (a mandatory notice period running between the notification and the actual end of the contract), and its scale depends on how long the employee has already been with the company. Article L. 1221-25 of the Code du travail states: “Lorsqu’il est mis fin, par l’employeur, au contrat en cours ou au terme de la période d’essai définie aux articles L. 1221-19 à L. 1221-24 ou à l’article L. 1242-10 pour les contrats stipulant une période d’essai d’au moins une semaine, le salarié est prévenu dans un délai qui ne peut être inférieur à : 1° Vingt-quatre heures en deçà de huit jours de présence ; 2° Quarante-huit heures entre huit jours et un mois de présence ; 3° Deux semaines après un mois de présence ; 4° Un mois après trois mois de présence.” (Article L1221-25, Code du travail, Légifrance). In practice, for a first hire who joined two months ago, you owe two weeks’ notice; after three months of presence, a full month. The same article adds a rule that foreign employers frequently misunderstand: “La période d’essai, renouvellement inclus, ne peut être prolongée du fait de la durée du délai de prévenance.” The notice does not extend the trial period. If the notice carries the employee past the last day of the trial period, the contract still ends, but the portion of the notice falling after expiry converts into money: “Lorsque le délai de prévenance n’a pas été respecté, son inexécution ouvre droit pour le salarié, sauf s’il a commis une faute grave, à une indemnité compensatrice.” This indemnité compensatrice de prévenance (the compensatory allowance for unperformed notice) equals the wages and benefits, paid leave included, the employee would have received by working through the notice. Notify late, or send the employee home immediately for convenience, and you pay the missing days and weeks on the final payslip.

The symmetry is worth noting because first hires sometimes resign during the trial period. Article L. 1221-26 of the Code du travail provides: “Lorsqu’il est mis fin à la période d’essai par le salarié, celui-ci respecte un délai de prévenance de quarante-huit heures. Ce délai est ramené à vingt-quatre heures si la durée de présence du salarié dans l’entreprise est inférieure à huit jours.” (Article L1221-26, Code du travail, Légifrance). You cannot hold a departing employee beyond these short periods, and any clause purporting to impose a longer employee-side notice during the trial period is unenforceable. For your own termination decision, build a simple timeline on one page: start date of the contract, end date of the initial trial period, any renewal and its written proof, length of presence on the notification date, resulting notice, and the actual last day worked. Foreign-run companies lose these cases on arithmetic, not on principle, and a one-page timeline reviewed by your payroll provider before the letter goes out prevents most of them. Readers dealing with working-time disputes with the same first employee should also review our analysis of overtime, the 35-hour week and time records for a first French hire, since notice pay, overtime back-pay and missing time records are routinely claimed together before the labour court.

B. Close the file cleanly from abroad, or face reclassification as an unfair dismissal

The closing formalities are identical whether you manage from Paris or from another continent, and distance is no excuse for skipping them. On the last day, the employee must receive the final pay statement (solde de tout compte) itemising every sum paid, including the compensatory allowance for notice and for accrued paid leave, the certificat de travail (the work certificate stating the positions held and dates), and the attestation for the French employment agency so the employee can claim unemployment benefits. Instruct your payroll provider in writing, before the notification goes out, to prepare these three documents with the exact dates from your one-page timeline, and have them sent by registered letter or handed over by your mandated representative in France. Keep copies of everything for at least the limitation period: an employee who claims missing documents or missing sums will produce them as exhibits, and a foreign company that cannot produce its own copies starts the hearing at a disadvantage. Where the relationship involved cross-border elements, posted-worker formalities or an A1 social-security form, align the end-of-contract filings with the payroll provider at the same time; our guide to posted workers, SIPSI declarations and inspections explains the parallel French enforcement track that foreign employers underestimate.

The sanction for getting the timing wrong is the heart of the matter, and recent case law states it without ambiguity. In a judgment of 9 April 2026 (pourvoi n° 24-19.688), an employer had notified the end of the trial period on 14 August 2020 with effect on 13 September 2020, while the trial period, whose renewal had never been regularly agreed, had in fact expired months earlier. The Social Chamber approved the appeal court’s analysis that “la rupture, notifiée le 14 août 2020 avec effet au 13 septembre 2020, s’analysait en un licenciement verbal nécessairement dépourvu de cause réelle et sérieuse” and that the employee, having worked and been paid in the meantime, had received one paid month counting toward the dismissal notice, the employer owing only the balance (Cass. soc., 9 April 2026, n° 24-19.688). Three lessons follow for a foreign-run company. First, notifying after expiry does not produce a late but valid trial-period termination; it produces a verbal dismissal, which by definition lacks written reasons and is therefore necessarily without real and serious cause. Second, the price is no longer the short compensatory allowance of Article L. 1221-25 but dismissal damages assessed by the conseil de prud’hommes, plus the balance of the dismissal notice and paid leave on that notice. Third, the entire dispute will be litigated in France, in French, under French procedure, with hearings your company must attend or be represented at: factor that cost into the decision before you notify, not after the summons arrives at your registered office in France.

Practical discipline therefore matters more than legal creativity. Send the notification early in the trial period rather than in its final days, so that postal time and the délai de prévenance both fit inside the period. Never renew a trial period by email inference, a countersigned acknowledgement of receipt, or an oral understanding: demand the extended sector agreement, check it covers your employee’s category, and obtain a separate signed statement in which the employee unambiguously agrees to the renewal and its length. State nothing about motives in the letter, keep the professional file separately, and screen for protected situations before sending. Finally, remember that the trial period is only one chapter of the employer’s French obligations: working-time records, overtime rates and URSSAF filings continue to run during the notice and generate their own disputes, as examined in our companion pieces on URSSAF audits of French companies run from abroad. A clean trial-period exit closes one risk; it does not audit the rest.

Conclusion

Ending your first French hire’s trial period from abroad is a three-step exercise: confirm in the signed contract that a trial period exists and is still running, with any renewal authorised by an extended sector agreement and accepted in the employee’s clear written agreement; notify in writing before expiry, for reasons genuinely tied to professional suitability and free of any discrimination; and serve the full statutory notice, paying the compensatory allowance for any working days the employee does not perform. Miss the expiry date or the renewal formalities and the labour court will not see a late trial-period termination but a verbal dismissal without real and serious cause, priced as a dismissal and litigated in France. The trial period is French law’s simplest separation tool, and that simplicity is exactly why its formal conditions are enforced to the letter.