You run a company registered in France but you live abroad, and a French customer has simply stopped paying. The invoice is two months overdue, your reminders disappear into silence, and every week that passes makes the cash-flow hole deeper. The questions you ask are concrete: from another country, how do I force a French debtor to pay, how long will it take, how much will it cost, and what happens if the customer disputes the invoice or goes bust while I am chasing it? This article answers those questions in the order a French lawyer would handle the file. French law gives a foreign-based creditor the same weapons as a creditor living in Paris: late-payment penalties that run automatically, a formal demand letter (mise en demeure) that starts legal interest, a fast-track paper procedure called the injonction de payer that produces a court order without a hearing, an emergency hearing (référé-provision) that grants an advance when the debt is clear, and forced seizure of bank accounts and assets through a commissaire de justice, the enforcement officer formerly known as the huissier de justice. Each step can be launched from abroad through a lawyer or authorised representative, and each step has strict deadlines you must respect. This guide explains the French acronyms as they come: the greffe is the court clerk office where filings are lodged, the RCS (registre du commerce et des sociétés) is the trade and companies register, the BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales) is the official bulletin where insolvency openings are published, and the DGCCRF (direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes) is the authority that fines businesses for late-payment violations. Companies that sell to French customers on a regular basis usually pair this recovery guide with their yearly compliance routine, described in our guide to the annual legal calendar of a French company run from abroad, so that unpaid invoices are spotted early and chased before they become time-barred.
I. How do you turn an unpaid French invoice into a legally enforceable claim from abroad?
A. When is your French invoice legally due, and what does a late payer owe you automatically?
The first question is whether the invoice is actually payable, because a French judge will check the payment term before anything else. Between businesses, French law sets a default rule: unless the sales conditions or the contract say otherwise, the payment period cannot exceed thirty days after the goods are received or the service is performed. Where the parties agree on a term, that agreed term cannot exceed sixty days from the date the invoice is issued: « Le délai convenu entre les parties pour régler les sommes dues ne peut dépasser soixante jours après la date d’émission de la facture. » (Article L441-10 of the Commercial Code). By way of exception, the parties may agree on a maximum of forty-five days end of month from the invoice date, provided that term is expressly written into the contract and is not clearly abusive toward the creditor. Any clause that grants the customer ninety or one hundred and twenty days is unenforceable in France, and the judge will simply substitute the statutory ceiling. Check your general terms of sale (conditions générales de vente) before you write anything: if they stipulate thirty days, the invoice became due thirty days after performance, whatever the customer claims on the phone.
Once the due date has passed, three financial consequences pile up without you having to ask for them. First, late penalties (pénalités de retard) start running on the day after the payment date shown on the invoice, at a rate equal to the interest rate applied by the European Central Bank to its most recent refinancing operation plus ten percentage points: « ce taux est égal au taux d’intérêt appliqué par la Banque centrale européenne à son opération de refinancement la plus récente majoré de 10 points de pourcentage. » (Article L441-10 of the Commercial Code). Unless the contract says otherwise, and it may never set a rate below three times the legal interest rate, that is the rate the judge will apply. Second, these penalties are due automatically: « Les pénalités de retard sont exigibles sans qu’un rappel soit nécessaire. » No reminder, no formal notice and no prior warning are needed for them to accrue. Third, every business customer in late payment owes the creditor, as of right, a fixed recovery fee (indemnité forfaitaire pour frais de recouvrement): « Tout professionnel en situation de retard de paiement est de plein droit débiteur, à l’égard du créancier, d’une indemnité forfaitaire pour frais de recouvrement, dont le montant est fixé par décret. » That decree sets the amount at a flat figure: « Le montant de l’indemnité forfaitaire pour frais de recouvrement prévue au II de l’article L. 441-10 est fixé à 40 euros. » (Article D441-5 of the Commercial Code). Where your actual collection costs exceed that sum, for example lawyer fees or enforcement costs, the statute lets you claim additional compensation on proof. Put those three heads of claim on every invoice and every reminder from the start: principal, penalties at the ECB-plus-ten rate, and the 40-euro fixed fee, plus legal interest as explained below.
Alongside the Commercial Code penalties, the Civil Code adds default interest (intérêts moratoires) from the date of the formal demand: « Les dommages et intérêts dus à raison du retard dans le paiement d’une obligation de somme d’argent consistent dans l’intérêt au taux légal, à compter de la mise en demeure. » (Article 1231-6 of the Civil Code). These damages are due automatically once the demand is sent: « Ces dommages et intérêts sont dus sans que le créancier soit tenu de justifier d’aucune perte. » You do not have to prove any loss. Where the debtor acted in bad faith and caused harm going beyond the mere delay, that same article allows separate damages on top of the moratory interest. In practice the judge combines both regimes: contractual or statutory penalties under the Commercial Code, plus legal-rate interest running from the mise en demeure. The official business portal summarises these payment-time rules and the remedies for late payment on its page about délais de paiement entre professionnels, which is worth reading alongside the statutes quoted here.
One more lever matters when the debtor is a repeat offender. A business that ignores the statutory payment ceilings, that omits the mandatory penalty wording from its own payment conditions, or that imposes penalty terms below the legal floor faces an administrative fine: « Est passible d’une amende administrative dont le montant ne peut excéder 75 000 € pour une personne physique et deux millions d’euros pour une personne morale » (Article L441-16 of the Commercial Code). That fine is imposed by the administration, not paid to you, but mentioning in your demand letter that the debtor’s eighty-day term violates the sixty-day ceiling and exposes it to a DGCCRF sanction often concentrates minds faster than any threat of court action. Never invent a sanction, though: quote the article, give the exact term written in the contract, and let the numbers speak.
B. How do you send a demand letter from abroad that counts as a mise en demeure and builds a file a judge will accept?
The mise en demeure is the act that puts the debtor officially on notice, and everything later depends on it: legal interest runs from that date, the judge reads it as proof of your seriousness, and a sloppy letter can cost you months. The Civil Code defines it in one sentence: « Le débiteur est mis en demeure de payer soit par une sommation ou un acte portant interpellation suffisante, soit, si le contrat le prévoit, par la seule exigibilité de l’obligation. » (Article 1344 of the Civil Code). In plain terms, you need a written demand that clearly tells the debtor to pay a specific sum within a stated deadline, unless your contract already says that the debt becomes formally due on its due date alone. From abroad, the safest channel is a registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt (lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception), sent to the debtor company’s registered office (siège social) as shown on its Kbis extract, the official company identity document issued by the greffe. International tracked mail with signed proof of delivery works, but keep the receipt: if the debtor later claims it never received anything, the signed slip is your answer. An even stronger option is to instruct a commissaire de justice in the debtor’s area to serve a formal summons (sommation de payer). Service by an officer of the court is almost impossible to challenge, it can include the full statement of account, and it signals that enforcement will follow. You do not need to be in France for any of this; your lawyer or the officer acts on your signed authority.
Draft the letter the way a judge reads it. Identify the contract or order, list each unpaid invoice by number and date, state the exact principal per invoice and the total, add the late penalties at the contractual or statutory rate, add the 40-euro fixed recovery fee per invoice paid late, and set a clear deadline, typically eight to fifteen days, before court action. State expressly that the letter constitutes a mise en demeure and that legal interest will run from its receipt. Warn that you will file an injonction de payer and then enforce, and mention, where true, that the debtor’s payment term breaches the sixty-day ceiling and exposes it to the administrative fine described above. What you must not do is threaten anything unlawful: no threat to publish the debtor’s name, no threat to approach its clients, no invented criminal complaint. French courts punish abusive collection tactics, and a threatening letter weakens your file instead of strengthening it.
Build the proof file at the same time, because every fast-track procedure below is decided on paper. Assemble the signed contract or accepted quote, the general terms of sale, each invoice, proof that the goods were delivered or the service performed (signed delivery slips, acceptance reports, time sheets, email confirmations saying the work is satisfactory), your full statement of account, and the complete correspondence history showing the debtor never disputed the quality, only delayed payment. The absence of any complaint about your performance is often decisive: judges grant fast-track orders precisely when the debtor paid late without ever contesting the substance. If the debtor did complain about defects, say so honestly in your instructions to your lawyer, because a genuine dispute over quality pushes you toward the emergency-hearing route rather than the paper-only route, as explained in part II.
Two preliminary checks belong in every file run from abroad. First, verify that the debtor is still alive as a business: search the company on the official record, check for a pending insolvency opening in the BODACC, and look at whether its offices are still operating. If an insolvency judgment (jugement d’ouverture) has already been handed down, individual lawsuits and seizures are frozen: « Le jugement d’ouverture interrompt ou interdit toute action en justice de la part de tous les créanciers » and « le jugement d’ouverture arrête ou interdit toute procédure d’exécution tant sur les meubles que sur les immeubles » (Article L622-21 of the Commercial Code). In that case the demand letter is useless and you must declare your claim (déclaration de créance) to the insolvency practitioner within two months of the BODACC publication, a procedure our companion guide on declaring your claim when a French debtor goes bust walks through step by step. Second, watch the clock: business-to-business payment claims are time-barred after five years, « Les obligations nées à l’occasion de leur commerce entre commerçants ou entre commerçants et non-commerçants se prescrivent par cinq ans » (Article L110-4 of the Commercial Code), and the general civil rule sets the same five-year limit running from the day the creditor knew or should have known the facts allowing it to act: « Les actions personnelles ou mobilières se prescrivent par cinq ans à compter du jour où le titulaire d’un droit a connu ou aurait dû connaître les faits lui permettant de l’exercer. » (Article 2224 of the Civil Code). Each invoice has its own starting point at its due date, so chase old invoices first and never let the oldest one drift past the five-year mark while you negotiate politely.
II. Which French fast-track procedure actually recovers the money when the customer still does not pay?
A. Can you get a court order without any hearing through the injonction de payer?
The injonction de payer, literally an order to pay, is the workhorse of French debt collection: a paper-only procedure that produces an enforceable court order without a hearing, without the debtor being summoned first, and without you setting foot in France. It is available when the claim has a contractual cause or comes from a statutory obligation and stands at a fixed amount: « La créance a une cause contractuelle ou résulte d’une obligation de caractère statutaire et s’élève à un montant déterminé » (Article 1405 of the Code of Civil Procedure). An unpaid invoice for delivered goods or performed services is the textbook case. Claims based on bills of exchange, promissory notes and assigned receivables qualify too. What does not qualify is a claim whose amount is still debated, a pure damages claim with no contract behind it, or an invoice the debtor genuinely disputes on quality grounds. If your file shows an undisputed delivery and a silent debtor, file here; if it shows an argument about defective work, skip to the emergency hearing in section B.
The filing itself (requête) is lodged with the clerk (greffe) of the competent court by you or any authorised representative, which is how foreign-based creditors proceed through their French lawyer: « La demande est formée par requête remise ou adressée, selon le cas, au greffe par le créancier ou par tout mandataire. » That petition must state the precise amount claimed with a breakdown of each element, the legal basis, and an index of the supporting documents, which must be attached: « la requête contient 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. » (Article 1407 of the Code of Civil Procedure). This is where the proof file built in part I pays off: contract, invoices, delivery evidence, statement of account, demand letter with proof of receipt. Between businesses the petition goes to the president of the commercial court (tribunal de commerce); for non-commercial debtors it goes to the judicial court (tribunal judiciaire) or the protection-litigation judge, within each court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. The territorial rule is mandatory and cannot be contracted around: « Le juge territorialement compétent est celui du lieu où demeure le ou l’un des débiteurs poursuivis. » (Article 1406 of the Code of Civil Procedure). So you file where the debtor is established, typically the commercial court of the debtor’s city, for a Paris-based debtor the Paris commercial court, and any clause in your terms purporting to send the case elsewhere is treated as unwritten. Court fees for this procedure are modest, no bailiff summons is needed at this stage, and the judge decides on the papers, usually within a few weeks.
If the judge is convinced, he issues the payment order (ordonnance portant injonction de payer), which must then be formally served on the debtor by a commissaire de justice. Service is the debtor’s first notice that a judge has looked at the file, and it is also the starting gun for its only defence: a challenge (opposition) filed within one month of service: « L’opposition est formée dans le mois qui suit la signification de l’ordonnance. » (Article 1416 of the Code of Civil Procedure). Where service was not made personally on the debtor, the challenge remains admissible until one month after the first document served personally or, failing that, after the first enforcement measure that freezes all or part of the debtor’s assets. If no challenge is filed in time, you ask the clerk to stamp the order enforceable (formule exécutoire), and the paper becomes a full enforcement title: bank-account seizure, seizure of receivables, seizure and sale of equipment. If the debtor does challenge, the case automatically converts into an ordinary lawsuit before the same court, with a hearing, arguments on both sides, and a judgment. That is not a failure: the challenge tells you the debtor disputes something, and you continue the fight with a judge who has already seen your file. From abroad you follow both branches through your representative, and the official business portal describes each step, including the opposition form, on its injonction de payer procedure page.
Three practical points decide whether this route succeeds. First, claim everything the statutes allow in the petition: principal, contractual or ECB-plus-ten penalties, the 40-euro fixed fee per late invoice, and legal interest from the demand letter, because the order can only grant what you asked for. Second, never file an injonction de payer against a debtor you know to be insolvent: the insolvency freeze described in part I blocks the procedure and wastes your filing. Third, calendar the one-month challenge period per debtor and per service date; diary the date on which you may request the enforceable stamp, and instruct your officer the same week. Speed matters because an unpaid order that sits in a drawer teaches the debtor that court papers can be ignored.
B. What if the debtor disputes the invoice or hides its money: emergency provision, protective seizure and forced enforcement?
When the debtor answers your demand with complaints about quality, counterclaims, or elaborate excuses, the paper-only order is the wrong tool, because the judge will refuse it or the debtor will challenge it. The answer is the emergency procedure before the president of the court (référé), and specifically the claim for an interim payment (provision). The president of the judicial court, or the protection-litigation judge within his jurisdiction, may always, even where a serious dispute exists, order protective or restoration measures needed to prevent imminent harm or stop a clearly unlawful disturbance, and, crucially, « Dans les cas où l’existence de l’obligation n’est pas sérieusement contestable, ils peuvent accorder une provision au créancier, ou ordonner l’exécution de l’obligation même s’il s’agit d’une obligation de faire. » (Article 835 of the Code of Civil Procedure). Before the commercial court the same function is performed by the president ruling in urgent proceedings. The test is not whether the debtor argues, debtors always argue, but whether its challenge is serious: an invoice backed by a signed contract, signed delivery slips and months of silence about quality will pass that test, while an invoice met from day one with detailed, documented complaints about defective performance may not. Unlike the injonction de payer, the emergency hearing involves both sides summoned to appear, usually within a few weeks of the summons, and you can be represented by your lawyer without travelling. The order grants an advance on the final amount, enforceable immediately even if the debtor appeals, and it often unlocks settlement: once a court president has called the debt essentially undisputed, continued resistance becomes expensive theatre.
Where you fear the money will vanish before any judgment, French law offers a pre-emptive strike: the protective seizure (saisie conservatoire) and the judicial security (sûreté judiciaire). The rule is generous to creditors: « Toute personne dont la créance paraît fondée en son principe peut solliciter du juge l’autorisation de pratiquer une mesure conservatoire sur les biens de son débiteur, sans commandement préalable, si elle justifie de circonstances susceptibles d’en menacer le recouvrement. » (Article L511-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures). Note the threshold: the claim need only appear founded in principle, not be proven, and no prior demand is required, though your demand letter obviously helps. The classic scenario is the debtor who empties its accounts, transfers its business, closes its offices, or has a known history of organising its own insolvency. The request is filed by petition, and outside the cases where the statute dispenses with it, prior permission from the judge is required: « Sauf dans les cas prévus à l’article L. 511-2 , une autorisation préalable du juge est nécessaire. » (Article R511-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures). Once authorised, the commissaire de justice freezes the debtor’s bank accounts or seizes its receivables the same day, without warning. The freeze does not pay you yet, it immobilises the funds until you obtain an enforcement title, but a debtor that discovers its payroll account blocked on a Tuesday morning very often finds the money to pay by Friday. Use this weapon honestly: the judge must be told everything, including facts that favour the debtor, and an abusive freeze can lead to damages. Reserve it for genuine flight risk, documented by bank-returned transfers, sudden asset sales, closure notices, or credible reports of dissipation.
Once you hold an enforcement title, whether an unchallenged payment order stamped enforceable, an emergency provision order, or a full judgment, the same officer converts paper into money. The principle is stated simply: « Le créancier muni d’un titre exécutoire constatant une créance liquide et exigible peut en poursuivre l’exécution forcée sur les biens de son débiteur dans les conditions propres à chaque mesure d’exécution. » (Article L111-2 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures). In practice the most effective measure against a business debtor is the seizure of money debts (saisie-attribution) served on its bank: the funds on the accounts at that day are frozen and then attributed to you up to the amount of the debt. Next come seizures of receivables owed to the debtor by its own customers, then seizure and sale of vehicles, stock and equipment. For debtors based in Paris and the surrounding region, enforcement runs through officers competent in the Paris area and the commercial court that issued the title, so instruct an officer whose territorial competence covers the debtor’s registered office and, where known, the banks holding its accounts. Every enforcement step must be served and notified within strict procedural deadlines, which is another reason to keep a French representative in charge rather than managing service dates from another time zone.
Two boundaries close this section. First, the insolvency wall described in part I applies with full force at the enforcement stage: once the opening judgment is published, no new seizure may be launched and pending ones are stopped, so the BODACC check is not a one-time formality but a verification to repeat before each enforcement instruction. If insolvency intervenes, pivot immediately to the claim declaration within the two-month window. Second, the five-year limitation clock keeps running through all of this: filing the petition, serving the summons, and each enforcement act interrupt the period and restart it, but months of informal waiting do not. A creditor that negotiates for four years and eleven months without filing anything is one unanswered email away from losing everything.
Conclusion
A French customer that does not pay is not a fatality, even when you live on another continent. Verify the due date against the sixty-day ceiling, add the automatic penalties and the 40-euro fee, and send a demand letter that qualifies as a mise en demeure so legal interest starts running. Assemble the contract, the invoices, the delivery proof and the correspondence into a file a judge can decide on without a hearing. If the debtor stays silent, file the injonction de payer where the debtor is established and push through to the enforceable stamp within weeks of the one-month challenge period expiring. If the debtor disputes the debt without serious grounds, take the emergency-hearing route and ask for a provision; if the money risks disappearing, freeze it first with a court-authorised protective seizure. Check the BODACC before every step so you never sue an insolvent company, and never let an invoice approach its fifth birthday unfiled. Handled in that order, from abroad through a French representative, an unpaid invoice becomes what it should have been from the start: a payment, with interest.