You formed a company in France, the business made money, and you live in London, New York, Singapore or Dubai. The profit sits in the French company’s bank account, and the practical question is simple: how do you get it out, how much tax will France take on the way out, and what can you do if too much is taken or if a co-shareholder blocks the payment? This guide answers all three questions for a foreign founder or foreign shareholder of a French SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company most foreigners choose) or SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the limited liability company with stricter statutory rules). If you have not yet chosen your vehicle, read first our guide on choosing between a SAS, a SARL, a branch and a subsidiary in France as a foreign investor, then come back here when the first profits arrive. French dividends follow a strict sequence: only distributable profit can be paid, only the shareholders can vote it, the company must withhold French tax before wiring the money abroad, and each of these steps leaves a paper trail that the tax authorities can audit later. Getting the order right saves real money, because treaty relief and European exemptions usually have to be claimed with the right certificate at the right moment, not after the cash has left.
I. Getting the Profit Out of Your French Company While Living Abroad
A. Voting and Paying Dividends From Abroad: Distributable Profit, Shareholder Vote and the Nine-Month Deadline
A French company cannot distribute whatever cash happens to be in its account. Article L232-11 of the Commercial Code defines the starting point: « Le bénéfice distribuable est constitué par le bénéfice de l’exercice, diminué des pertes antérieures, ainsi que des sommes à porter en réserve en application de la loi ou des statuts, et augmenté du report bénéficiaire. » In plain English, the distributable profit is the profit of the financial year, minus prior losses and the sums that must go to reserves by law or under the articles of association, plus retained earnings carried forward. The shareholders’ meeting may also distribute sums taken from voluntary reserves, but the decision must expressly state from which reserve items the amounts are taken, and dividends are taken first from the distributable profit of the year. Before voting anything, check the balance-sheet test in the same article: « aucune distribution ne peut être faite aux actionnaires lorsque les capitaux propres sont ou deviendraient à la suite de celle-ci inférieurs au montant du capital augmenté des réserves que la loi ou les statuts ne permettent pas de distribuer. » No distribution is allowed if shareholders’ equity is, or would become after the payout, lower than the share capital plus the non-distributable reserves. A company that ignores this rule exposes its directors to personal liability and the distribution to repayment claims, so your accountant must confirm the equity position before the meeting, not after. The full text is on article L232-11 of the Commercial Code on Légifrance.
Once distributable sums exist, only the shareholders decide. Article L232-12 of the Commercial Code provides: « Après approbation des comptes annuels et constatation de l’existence de sommes distribuables, l’assemblée générale détermine la part attribuée aux associés sous forme de dividendes. » After approving the annual accounts and confirming that distributable sums exist, the general meeting sets the share paid to shareholders as dividends. In practice this means the ordinary annual meeting, held within six months of the financial year-end, approves the accounts and votes the dividend in the same sitting. Our companion guide on the annual legal calendar of a French company run from abroad walks through that meeting step by step. Living abroad does not prevent you from voting: in a SAS the articles can allow videoconference, telephone participation, written consultation or proxy voting, and the official English-language guidance on decision-making in a SAS on service-public.fr confirms how flexible the SAS form is. Check your articles now, before the meeting, because a vote taken in a form the articles do not allow can later be annulled. The shareholder-vote rule is published on article L232-12 of the Commercial Code on Légifrance. Draft minutes that record the amount per share, the total, the timetable and the tax deducted, keep them at the registered office with the attendance sheet, and have the meeting file the accounts with the greffe (the registry office of the commercial court, which keeps the public company register and issues the Kbis, the official certificate proving the company’s legal existence) within the legal deadlines.
Two timing tools deserve attention. First, interim dividends: the same article L232-12 allows « il peut être distribué des acomptes sur dividendes avant l’approbation des comptes de l’exercice », meaning interim dividend payments can be made before the year’s accounts are approved, but only on the basis of an interim balance sheet certified by the statutory auditor (commissaire aux comptes, the independent auditor who certifies company accounts) showing a profit after depreciation, provisions, prior losses and mandatory reserves, and never above that profit. The full conditions are on article L232-12 of the Commercial Code on Légifrance. Small companies without an auditor cannot use this route, which is a common trap for foreign-owned startups that want cash mid-year. Second, the payment deadline: article L232-13 of the Commercial Code states that « la mise en paiement des dividendes doit avoir lieu dans un délai maximal de neuf mois après la clôture de l’exercice. La prolongation de ce délai peut être accordée par décision de justice. » Voted dividends must actually be paid within nine months of the year-end, and only a court can extend that period, as confirmed on article L232-13 of the Commercial Code on Légifrance. A dividend voted but left unpaid for years is not a harmless delay: the shareholder becomes a creditor of the company, interest may run, and in a dispute the delay can look like a disguised refusal to pay, which leads to the minority-shareholder remedies examined in Part II.
B. Dividends, Salary or Shareholder Loan: Choosing How the Money Leaves France
Dividends are only one of three ways to move profit to yourself, and the cheapest route on paper is not always the cheapest after tax and social charges. A salary or director’s remuneration is deductible from the company’s taxable profit, which lowers the corporate income tax (IS, impôt sur les sociétés), but it attracts French social security contributions collected by URSSAF (the network of agencies that collects employers’ and employees’ social contributions), and for a director living abroad the applicable social security regime depends on residence, nationality and any secondment or multi-state arrangements. Our guide on paying yourself as president or gérant while living abroad compares these regimes in detail, and a URSSAF audit of the classification can be expensive, as explained in our guide on challenging a URSSAF reassessment from abroad. Dividends work the other way round: they are paid out of after-tax profit and are not deductible, but they carry no URSSAF contributions for a shareholder who is not an employee, and the only levy at source is the withholding tax studied in Part II. For a foreign individual shareholder with no French payroll status, dividends are therefore often the cleanest exit route, provided the withholding rate has been optimised. For a director who works daily in the business, a mix is usually better: enough salary to cover social protection and deductible cost, then dividends on top once the profit is confirmed.
The third route is the shareholder loan, known in France as the compte courant d’associé, literally the shareholder’s current account with the company. When you advance cash to your French company, or when you leave sums at its disposal instead of withdrawing them, the company books a debt to you that you can in principle reclaim at any time, unless the articles or a loan agreement freeze it. Two legal conditions decide whether this route is safe. First, interest can only be paid if a written agreement provides for it. The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed this logic in a dispute where shareholders fought over whether their current accounts bore interest: the court treated as the central question whether sums paid into shareholder current accounts could bear interest, and held that faulty bookkeeping did not release the company from its duty to apply the signed current-account agreement (Paris Court of Appeal, Pôle 4, Chambre 13, 30 May 2023, RG 20/10487). In other words, sign the agreement before advancing the money, state the rate and the repayment terms, and book the interest every year. A handshake plus a bank transfer is an invitation to litigation with a co-shareholder or with the tax office.
Second, interest paid to a shareholder or related company is only deductible within a statutory ceiling. Article 212 of the General Tax Code (CGI, Code général des impôts) provides: « Les intérêts afférents aux sommes laissées ou mises à disposition d’une entreprise par une entreprise qui est son associée ou par une entreprise liée, directement ou indirectement, au sens du 12 de l’article 39, sont déductibles », and then caps the deduction: « Dans la limite de ceux calculés d’après le taux prévu au premier alinéa du 3° du 1 du même article 39 ou, s’ils sont supérieurs, d’après le taux que cette entreprise emprunteuse aurait pu obtenir d’établissements ou d’organismes financiers indépendants dans des conditions analogues ». Interest is deductible only up to the statutory rate, or a higher rate if the company proves it could have borrowed at that rate from an independent bank in similar conditions. The full rule is on article 212 of the General Tax Code on Légifrance. Interest above the ceiling is added back to taxable profit, and in a SAS any loan or agreement between the company and a shareholder holding more than ten percent of the voting rights must go through the regulated-agreements procedure: « Le commissaire aux comptes ou, s’il n’en a pas été désigné, le président de la société présente aux associés un rapport sur les conventions intervenues directement ou par personne interposée entre la société et son président, l’un de ses dirigeants, l’un de ses actionnaires disposant d’une fraction des droits de vote supérieure à 10 % », with the shareholders voting on the report, as set out on article L227-10 of the Commercial Code on Légifrance. Amounts taken out without a genuine legal basis can also be reclassified as hidden distributions under article 109 of the General Tax Code, which treats as distributed income « Tous les bénéfices ou produits qui ne sont pas mis en réserve ou incorporés au capital » and « Toutes les sommes ou valeurs mises à la disposition des associés, actionnaires ou porteurs de parts et non prélevées sur les bénéfices », the full definition being on article 109 of the General Tax Code on Légifrance. The practical lesson is to keep the three channels strictly separate: salary under an employment or corporate-office decision, dividends under a shareholder vote, loans under a signed and approved agreement, each with its own paperwork.
II. What France Withholds on Dividends Paid Abroad and How to Pay Less or Get It Back
A. The Withholding Rates, the Tax Treaties and the EU Parent-Subsidiary Exemption
When a French company pays dividends to a shareholder who has no French tax domicile or registered office, France taxes first and asks questions later. Article 119 bis of the General Tax Code provides that « Les produits visés aux articles 108 à 117 bis donnent lieu à l’application d’une retenue à la source dont le taux est fixé par l’article 187 lorsque leurs bénéficiaires effectifs sont des personnes qui n’ont pas leur domicile fiscal ou leur siège en France »: income covered by articles 108 to 117 bis is subject to a withholding tax (retenue à la source, the tax the paying company deducts and sends to the Treasury before paying the net amount) at the rate set by article 187 whenever the beneficial owners have neither their tax domicile nor their registered office in France. The full mechanism is on article 119 bis of the General Tax Code on Légifrance. Concretely, your French company withholds the tax, pays it to the DGFIP (Direction générale des finances publiques, the French tax administration), and wires you only the net dividend. The company must also declare your identity, your address and the amounts on the single investment-income return (IFU, imprimé fiscal unique), because article 242 ter of the General Tax Code requires that « Les personnes qui assurent le paiement des revenus de capitaux mobiliers visés aux articles 108 à 125 ainsi que des produits des bons ou contrats de capitalisation et placements de même nature sont tenues de déclarer l’identité et l’adresse des bénéficiaires » and « le détail du montant imposable et du crédit d’impôt, le revenu brut soumis à un prélèvement et le montant dudit prélèvement et le montant des revenus exonérés », as published on article 242 ter of the General Tax Code on Légifrance. Expect the figures to be cross-checked: what the company declares about you must match what you reclaim.
The domestic rates are set by article 187 of the General Tax Code: « 12,8 % pour les bénéficiaires personnes physiques », meaning 12.8 percent for individual beneficiaries, while for companies and other entities the rate is « Celui prévu au deuxième alinéa du I de l’article 219 pour tous les autres revenus », the rate set by article 219 for other income, and article 219 states « Le taux normal de l’impôt est fixé à 25 % », the standard corporate rate being 25 percent. Dividends paid to entities in a non-cooperative tax haven face a dissuasive « 75 % pour les produits mentionnés aux articles 108 à 117 bis ou 119 bis A et payés hors de France, dans un Etat ou territoire non coopératif ». All three rates appear on article 187 of the General Tax Code on Légifrance and article 219 of the General Tax Code on Légifrance. Do not confuse the 12.8 percent withholding on non-residents with the 12.8 percent prepayment (prélèvement) paid by individuals who live in France: for French residents article 117 quater provides that « Les personnes physiques fiscalement domiciliées en France » receiving the listed distributed income « sont assujetties à un prélèvement au taux de 12,8 % », a prepayment credited against their final income tax under article 117 quater of the General Tax Code on Légifrance, whereas for you, living abroad, the withholding is generally final in France, with any extra relief coming from your treaty. The official English-language page on the taxation of dividends received by shareholders on service-public.fr explains the resident-side mechanics and is the page to send your French accountant when roles get confused. A simple example: a 100,000 euro dividend voted to an individual living outside France and outside any treaty relief bears 12,800 euros of French withholding, leaving 87,200 euros wired abroad, before any tax your country of residence may add under its own rules.
Two relief systems can reduce that bill to zero, but both demand proof before or at payment. The first is the tax treaty between France and your country of residence. Treaties typically cap the French tax on dividends at 15 percent for portfolio shareholders, sometimes 5 percent for parent companies, and allocate the remaining taxing rights to your state of residence. A recent Paris decision shows both the mechanism and the cost of getting it wrong: the court recalled that under article 10 of the France-Spain treaty of 10 October 1995, dividends paid by a French company to a Spanish resident remain taxable in France, but where the recipient is the beneficial owner the French tax cannot exceed 15 percent of the gross dividends (Paris Court of Appeal, Pôle 5, Chambre 8, 15 September 2026, RG 24/06926). In that case a 21 percent withholding had been applied instead of 15 percent on gross dividends of 849,006 euros, and the shareholder recovered the 50,040 euro difference. The operational tool is the residence certificate: form 5000-SD, the attestation of residence for foreign tax authorities, available on the official page for form 5000-SD residence certificate on impots.gouv.fr. Have it signed by your local tax authority and sent to the French paying company before the dividend is paid so the reduced treaty rate applies immediately; a reclaim after payment is possible but slower, requires the same proof, and leaves your cash with the Treasury in the meantime. Read your specific treaty before acting, because rates, definitions of beneficial owner and anti-abuse clauses differ from one country to another.
The second relief is the European parent-subsidiary exemption, which wipes out the withholding entirely for qualifying EU and EEA (European Economic Area) parent companies. Article 119 ter of the General Tax Code states: « La retenue à la source prévue au 2 de l’article 119 bis n’est pas applicable aux dividendes distribués à une personne morale qui remplit les conditions énumérées au 2 du présent article par une société ou un organisme soumis à l’impôt sur les sociétés au taux normal. » The parent must prove to the payer « qu’elle est le bénéficiaire effectif des dividendes », that it is the beneficial owner, hold « directement, de façon ininterrompue depuis deux ans ou plus et en pleine propriété ou en nue-propriété, 10 % au moins du capital de la personne morale qui distribue les dividendes », directly and continuously for two years or more at least ten percent of the distributing company’s capital, have its place of effective management in the EU or EEA, take one of the company forms listed in the « directive 2011/96/UE du Conseil du 30 novembre 2011 concernant le régime fiscal commun applicable aux sociétés mères et filiales d’Etats membres différents », and be subject to corporate tax without exemption. The full conditions are on article 119 ter of the General Tax Code on Légifrance. A two-year holding commitment with a designated French tax representative can substitute for the two years already elapsed, but a letterbox holding company with no staff, no premises and no decision-making where it claims to sit will fail the beneficial-owner test and may also trigger anti-abuse reassessment. If your foreign parent also bills the French subsidiary for management services, keep those fees at arm’s length and documented, as our guide on transfer pricing and management fees charged to a French subsidiary explains, because inflated fees followed by exempt dividends is exactly the pattern auditors look for.
B. When the Payout Goes Wrong: Blocked Dividends, Hidden Distributions and How to Challenge From Abroad
The most bitter disputes are not with the tax office but between shareholders. A majority shareholder who controls the meeting can vote year after year to put all profits into reserves, leaving the minority with a valuable company on paper and nothing in the bank. French courts call this abuse of majority (abus de majorité), and the Poitiers Court of Appeal recently restated the test: abuse of majority means a decision taken against the company’s interest with the sole purpose of favouring majority members over minority members, with both conditions required together (Poitiers Court of Appeal, 2nd Civil Chamber, 11 March 2025, RG 24/00333). In that case the minority shareholder attacked two years of systematic retained earnings, and the court examined whether the reserves served any investment policy or merely starved the minority. A one-off prudent reserve rarely qualifies; a pattern of hoarding cash with no investment plan, combined with extra salary or perks for the majority, points toward annulment of the decision and damages. If you are the minority shareholder living abroad, demand the management report and the justification for the reserves in writing before the meeting, vote against, have your opposition recorded in the minutes, and act within the short limitation periods for challenging meeting decisions before the commercial court (tribunal de commerce, the court that hears business disputes). If you are the majority, document the genuine business reason for every reserve, such as a planned acquisition, a bank covenant or a regulatory ratio, because a court will ask for it.
The tax authorities attack from the opposite direction: sums that left the company without following the dividend procedure can be reclassified as hidden distributions. The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed the admission to a company’s liabilities of fines for hidden distributions covering 2012 to 2015 under article 1759 of the General Tax Code (Paris Court of Appeal, Pôle 5, Chambre 9, 8 December 2022, RG 19/05693). Article 1759 is severe: « Les sociétés et les autres personnes morales passibles de l’impôt sur les sociétés qui versent ou distribuent, directement ou par l’intermédiaire de tiers, des revenus à des personnes dont, contrairement aux dispositions des articles 117 et 240, elles ne révèlent pas l’identité, sont soumises à une amende égale à 100 % des sommes versées ou distribuées. » Companies that pay income without disclosing the beneficiary’s identity face a fine of 100 percent of the sums, reduced to « 75 % » only « Lorsque l’entreprise a spontanément fait figurer dans sa déclaration de résultat le montant des sommes en cause », when the company spontaneously reported the amounts in its tax return. The full penalty is on article 1759 of the General Tax Code on Légifrance. Undocumented shareholder withdrawals, personal expenses run through the company, and inflated invoices from related parties all feed this reclassification, on top of the income-tax adjustment on the beneficiary. Our guide on setting up a company in France as a foreign founder shows how to keep corporate and personal money apart from day one, which is the cheapest insurance against this risk.
When the dispute is about too much withholding rather than too little paperwork, the remedy is administrative and follows a clear order. First, assemble proof of residence and beneficial ownership for the year of payment: the signed 5000-SD certificate, your foreign tax assessments, the dividend minutes and the IFU slip showing the tax deducted. Second, file the reclaim with the French tax office that received the withholding, referring to the exact treaty article and rate, and keep proof of filing. The Spanish-resident case above shows courts grant full compensation of the over-withheld slice when the treaty entitlement is proven, with the loss computed euro by euro between the rate applied and the treaty rate. Third, if the administration rejects expressly or stays silent past the statutory reply period, appeal through the formal tax claim (réclamation) and then to the administrative court within the deadlines stated on the rejection notice; a late claim fails whatever its merits. From abroad, appoint a French-based representative or counsel with a written power of attorney so notices are received and deadlines are actually monitored, because French tax mail does not wait for you to open it. The same discipline applies to voted-but-unpaid dividends: once the nine-month payment period expires without payment or court extension, the shareholder-creditor can put the company on formal notice (mise en demeure) and then enforce through seizure procedures, and persistent non-payment by a company that visibly has cash strengthens both the abuse-of-majority claim and any director-liability action.
Companies based in Paris and the Paris region follow the same national rules, with local practicalities worth knowing. Filings and Kbis matters go through the greffe (registry) of the Paris commercial court, shareholder disputes between partners go to the Paris commercial court, extension of the nine-month dividend payment deadline is asked from the Paris judicial court (tribunal judiciaire, the civil court), and over-withholding reclaims travel through the tax office that collected the payment, with correspondence best centralised through one French representative. None of this requires moving back to France, but all of it requires someone on the ground who opens mail, files receipts and diaries deadlines while you decide from abroad.
Conclusion
Taking profits out of a French company from abroad follows a fixed order: confirm the distributable profit and the equity test, vote the dividend in a form your articles allow, withhold the correct French tax with the treaty or European certificate already in hand, declare the payment on the IFU, and pay within nine months. Salary and shareholder loans are legitimate alternatives, but each carries its own price in social charges, interest caps and regulated-agreement paperwork, and mixing the channels without documents is what creates hidden-distribution reassessments. When the payout is blocked or over-taxed, French law offers real remedies, from annulment of abusive reserve decisions to euro-by-euro recovery of excess withholding, yet every one of them runs on short deadlines and written proof. Prepare the certificate before the payment, keep the minutes after the vote, and treat each distribution as a small file of its own rather than a line in a bank statement.