You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore. When your French company ran short of cash, you wired money from your personal account abroad straight into the company bank account. Your French accountant booked the transfer as a compte courant d’associé, a shareholder current account, and told you it was the simplest way to fund the business. Months later the questions arrive all at once: can you take that money back whenever you want, can you charge interest on it, what tax will France and your home country take, and what happens if the company, or the co-founder who runs it day to day, refuses to repay you while you sit thousands of kilometres away? This guide answers those four questions in order. It is written for the foreign founder who already owns a French société par actions simplifiée (SAS, the simplified joint-stock company most foreigners choose) or a société à responsabilité limitée (SARL, the limited liability company), and it explains every French acronym as it goes. The starting point matters: an advance booked in your current account is a loan, not capital, and loans get repaid. The rest of this article shows the conditions, the paperwork and the remedies that make that promise real from abroad.

Before going further, keep the broader picture in mind. The current account only works well inside the right vehicle, so if you are still hesitating between structures, read our guide on how to choose between an SAS, an SARL, a branch and a subsidiary in France alongside this article: the vehicle you chose determines who approves your advances, who signs the agreement and which court you will face if repayment goes wrong.

I. Getting Your Money Back: When and How You Can Demand Repayment From Abroad

A. When Your Advance Becomes Due: Repayment at Any Time and the Paper That Proves It

French law treats your advance exactly as what it is: a consumer-type loan of money. The Civil Code defines a consumer loan as a contract in which one party delivers things consumed by use, on condition the other returns the same quantity of the same kind and quality (Article 1892 of the Civil Code on Légifrance). A loan of money, in other words, where one party hands over funds and the other must return the same amount in the same currency. The same Code states the borrower’s core duty: the borrower must return what was lent, in the same quantity and quality, at the agreed term (Article 1902 of the Civil Code on Légifrance). Your French company is that borrower, and you are that lender, even though you are also its shareholder and even though you live abroad. Distance changes nothing about the nature of the claim.

The decisive practical question is when you can call the loan back. The answer given by the courts is one of the most founder-friendly rules in French company law: unless your paperwork says otherwise, you can demand repayment at any time. The Paris Court of Appeal put it this way in a 2026 decision about shareholders who had funded a company through current-account advances and then fallen out with its president: “Une avance en compte courant étant un prêt consenti à la société, tout associé est en droit d’en exiger le remboursement à tout moment s’il est à durée indéterminée à moins qu’il n’en soit disposé autrement par les statuts ou la convention des parties.” An advance left for an indefinite period is therefore repayable on demand, and only the articles of association (the statuts, the company’s constitutional document) or a signed agreement between you and the company can impose a different timetable. In that Paris case, the company argued that a shareholders’ meeting had frozen repayments for three years; the court examined the resolution, found it had not been adopted with the unanimity required when a decision increases shareholders’ obligations, and confirmed the outcome in clear terms: “Il s’ensuit que le jugement qui a condamné la société T World Investment à rembourser Mmes [Q] [Z], [L], [M] et [E] du montant de leurs comptes courants respectifs doit être confirmé.” The judgment ordering the company to repay each shareholder’s current-account balance was confirmed (Paris Court of Appeal, Pôle 5, Chamber 8, 14 April 2026, case no. 24/01215, full decision on courdecassation.fr). For a foreign founder, the lesson is direct: your right to be repaid exists by default, and anyone who wants to delay it must point to a clause you actually agreed to, adopted with the correct majority.

Not everyone can leave money in a French company’s current account, but as a foreign shareholder you are squarely in the permitted circle. The Monetary and Financial Code draws the boundary by carving shareholders out of the banking monopoly: “ne sont pas considérés comme fonds remboursables du public : 1. Les fonds reçus ou laissés en compte par les associés en nom ou les commanditaires d’une société de personnes, les associés ou actionnaires, les administrateurs, les membres du directoire et du conseil de surveillance, les directeurs généraux et directeurs généraux délégués, les présidents de sociétés par actions simplifiées ou les gérants ainsi que les fonds provenant de prêts participatifs”. Money received from or left on account by shareholders, directors, the president of an SAS or the manager of a SARL is not treated as public deposits that only a bank may collect (Article L312-2 of the Monetary and Financial Code on Légifrance). The official service-public guide confirms in its English version that any individual shareholder, whatever the size of the holding, and any company director may make such advances, while noting that no shareholder current account can exist in a sole proprietorship, because there is no separate company person to borrow from you. If you funded an SAS or SARL in which you hold shares, you are on solid ground; if you wired money to your own one-person sole-trader business, the whole construction needs rethinking.

Being right on the law is only half the battle when you manage from abroad, because you must also prove the transfer. Two proof rules combine here, and founders often confuse them. Against a company, commercial acts can be proved by any means: “A l’égard des commerçants, les actes de commerce peuvent se prouver par tous moyens à moins qu’il n’en soit autrement disposé par la loi” (Article L110-3 of the Commercial Code on Légifrance). Bank statements, emails and accounting entries therefore count. But the general civil rule on writing still hangs over large amounts: “L’acte juridique portant sur une somme ou une valeur excédant un montant fixé par décret doit être prouvé par écrit sous signature privée ou authentique.” Any legal act above the threshold set by decree must be proved in writing, signed by the parties (Article 1359 of the Civil Code on Légifrance). For advances of several thousand euros, a founder who relies only on a wire slip and a bookkeeping line takes an avoidable risk, especially when the dispute will be argued years later, in French, before judges who never met you. Build the file now: a short current-account agreement signed by you and by the company’s legal representative, dated and stating the amount, the currency, the interest rate or its absence, and the repayment terms; the SWIFT or SEPA transfer slips showing the path from your foreign personal account to the company account; the shareholders’ decision or minutes acknowledging the advance; and the balance-sheet entries where the accountant recorded the liability. Each piece is cheap to create today and expensive to reconstruct from abroad once relations have broken down.

One mirror rule deserves a clear warning because foreign founders read it backwards. French law strictly forbids the company lending money to its own individual directors: “A peine de nullité du contrat, il est interdit aux administrateurs autres que les personnes morales de contracter, sous quelque forme que ce soit, des emprunts auprès de la société, de se faire consentir par elle un découvert, en compte courant ou autrement, ainsi que de faire cautionner ou avaliser par elle leurs engagements envers les tiers.” Any loan by the company to its directors, any overdraft in current account, any guarantee of their personal debts is void (Article L225-43 of the Commercial Code on Légifrance). The same prohibition reaches the president and senior managers of an SAS: “Les interdictions prévues à l’article L. 225-43 s’appliquent, dans les conditions déterminées par cet article, au président et aux dirigeants de la société” (Article L227-12 of the Commercial Code on Légifrance). In a SARL the wording targets managers and non-corporate shareholders: “A peine de nullité du contrat, il est interdit aux gérants ou associés autres que les personnes morales de contracter, sous quelque forme que ce soit, des emprunts auprès de la société, de se faire consentir par elle un découvert, en compte courant ou autrement” (Article L223-21 of the Commercial Code on Légifrance). These texts run in the opposite direction from your situation: the company borrowing from you is lawful and routine, while you or a co-founder borrowing from the company is void and can trigger personal liability. Never net the two directions in a single informal arrangement, and never let a local manager treat the company account as an extension of his own current account.

B. Forcing Repayment From Abroad: Demand Letters, Payment Orders and Court Deadlines

When repayment stalls, work through the escalation in order and keep every step writable from your country of residence. Start with a formal demand letter, the mise en demeure, sent by registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt or by bailiff’s writ through a commissaire de justice (the French enforcement officer, formerly called huissier de justice), giving the company a clear deadline and stating the exact balance claimed with interest. The letter matters twice: it crystallises the amount due, and it starts the clock for late-interest and for several limitation arguments. If the articles or the agreement fixed a term, quote it; if nothing fixed a term, recall the default rule that the balance is repayable at any time. Send a copy to the company’s statutory auditor (commissaire aux comptes) when the company has one, because an unpaid shareholder advance that management ignores can become an auditor’s disclosure point, and auditors read their mail.

If the demand letter goes unanswered, the fastest judicial route for a quantified contractual claim is the payment-order procedure, the injonction de payer. The Code of Civil Procedure opens it in these terms: “Le recouvrement d’une créance peut être demandé suivant la procédure d’injonction de payer lorsque : 1° 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 on Légifrance). A shareholder current-account balance documented by an agreement and account statements fits that definition well: contractual cause, determined amount. You file a petition with the president of the competent court, who can issue the order without an initial hearing; the order is then served on the company, which has a short window to oppose, and opposition sends the case to a full hearing. For a company registered in Paris, that means the tribunal judiciaire de Paris (the Paris judicial court) and service through a Paris commissaire de justice, both of which your French counsel can instruct by email with powers of attorney signed abroad. The procedure does not require you to fly in for the filing, and it converts silence into an enforceable title quickly when the debt is genuinely undisputed.

Expect the company to raise the two standard defences, and prepare for each. The first is hardship: the business cannot pay now without collapsing. French judges can grant breathing room, but only within a strict statutory frame: “Le juge peut, compte tenu de la situation du débiteur et en considération des besoins du créancier, reporter ou échelonner, dans la limite de deux années, le paiement des sommes dues.” The court may defer or spread payments over a maximum of two years, balancing the debtor’s situation against your needs as creditor (Article 1343-5 of the Civil Code on Légifrance). Two years is a ceiling, not a reward, and the official service-public guidance adds that the company cannot simply refuse repayment or cap it at whatever its cash position allows, even when it faces financial difficulty. The second defence is the alleged freeze: management produces minutes claiming the shareholders blocked all current accounts for several years. Here the Paris 2026 ruling is your shield. A freeze that increases shareholders’ obligations must be adopted unanimously, a bare majority does not bind the dissenting lender, and a vague promise of repayment within a reasonable time does not replace a genuine agreed term. Ask for the signed blocking agreement or the unanimous resolution; if management produces neither, the freeze argument collapses back to the default rule of repayment on demand.

Two clocks run against you while you hesitate, so calendar them now. The general limitation period for personal claims is five years: “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 on Légifrance). For a balance repayable at any time, each explicit demand and each acknowledgement of the debt in approved accounts can matter for the calculation, which is exactly why you send written demands and insist the balance appears in the annual accounts filed with the greffe (the registry of the commercial court, where French companies deposit their yearly financial statements). The second clock is insolvency. From the publication of a court-ordered rescue or liquidation judgment, every creditor whose claim predates the judgment must declare it to the court-appointed receiver: “A partir de la publication du jugement, tous les créanciers dont la créance est née antérieurement au jugement d’ouverture, à l’exception des salariés, adressent la déclaration de leurs créances au mandataire judiciaire dans des délais fixés par décret en Conseil d’Etat” (Article L622-24 of the Commercial Code on Légifrance). A shareholder who misses that declaration window loses the practical ability to recover, and shareholder advances rank behind preferential creditors in any distribution. Monitor the BODACC (the official bulletin in which French insolvency judgments are published) for your company’s name, and treat any rumour of collective proceedings as a reason to declare immediately rather than to wait for a friendly settlement.

A final practical note for Paris-based companies managed from abroad. Filings and certificates run through the Guichet unique, the single online portal operated with the INPI (the French National Institute for Industrial Property, which also runs the national companies register), while evidentiary extracts such as the Kbis (the official identity certificate of a French company, issued by the greffe) prove who legally represents the company on the day you sue. Check the Kbis before every step: if the president or manager changed without your knowledge, your demand and your petition may be aimed at the wrong representative, and weeks will be lost correcting service. All of this can be handled by correspondence, which is precisely why foreign founders should instruct counsel in the city of the registered office, most often Paris, rather than in their home country.

II. Interest, Tax and Boardroom Paperwork: Making the Advance Pay Without a Tax Bill

A. Charging Interest as a Non-Resident Lender: Rate Caps, Deduction Limits and Tax on What You Receive

Nothing obliges you to lend to your own company for free, and lending for free can even look suspicious. The interest rate is normally fixed by the articles of association or by the current-account agreement signed between you and the company, and the interest the company pays you is in principle a deductible financial expense. But deductibility has two locks, and both must be opened at the same time. First, the company’s share capital must be fully paid up: shareholders who have subscribed capital but never actually transferred the funds cannot expect the tax authorities to subsidise interest on top. Second, the rate charged must not exceed the statutory reference rate, the taux de référence, a floating ceiling computed from average bank lending rates for the financial year in question. The official service-public guide states both conditions plainly and publishes the moving scale of maximum deductible rates, which has hovered around four to five percent in recent periods, varying with each year’s closing date. When the agreed rate exceeds the ceiling, the excess is simply added back to taxable profit: the company still owes you the contractual interest, but the Treasury refuses to share the cost. The statute behind the ceiling for related-company funding expresses the same logic of arm’s-length comparison: “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 : a) 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” (Article 212 of the General Tax Code on Légifrance). Interest is deductible up to the statutory rate, or up to the higher rate the borrowing company could actually have obtained from an independent bank in similar conditions. Document that second branch only if you intend to rely on it: a bank quote or refused-loan letter in the file beats an expert debate three years later.

The symmetrical trap is a zero rate. Advance the money interest-free and the company deducts nothing, which seems harmless, until a tax audit asks why an independent lender would have behaved that way. The administration can recharacterise a free advance as an abnormal act of management (acte anormal de gestion) when the profile of the transaction looks like a gift of earning power to the shareholder’s detriment or a hidden benefit to another party, and the official guidance warns founders explicitly against undocumented interest-free funding. None of this means every advance must bear interest: many foreign founders deliberately leave early advances interest-free for simplicity. It means the choice must be conscious, written and consistent. Either charge a rate at or below the reference ceiling with capital fully paid up, so the company deducts and you are taxed once on the coupon, or record a reasoned zero rate with the shareholders’ approval, accepting that the company gets no deduction. What destroys files is the middle path: a rate mentioned nowhere, interest paid some years and not others, and bookkeeping that contradicts the agreement.

On your side of the border, the interest you receive is income, and France says so in the broadest terms. The General Tax Code treats as income, outside business profits, interest, arrears and all similar proceeds from private loans, cash deposits, cash guarantees and, expressly, “4° Des comptes courants”, current accounts (Article 124 of the General Tax Code on Légifrance). As a non-resident, you then face the classic two-state question: France may tax French-source interest at the border, and your country of residence will generally tax your worldwide income with relief under the applicable double-tax treaty. The exact levy, the treaty rate and the reporting forms depend on your residence, on whether you lend as an individual or through a foreign company, and on certificates of residence that must be renewed and kept. Do not improvise this layer from a blog summary: have the interest clause reviewed for treaty purposes before the first coupon is paid, keep the bank certificates of each interest payment, and make sure your home-country return actually claims the relief. Founders who skip this step discover the cost years later, when two tax offices each claim the same coupon and the paperwork that would have prevented double taxation no longer exists.

One related funding channel deserves a brief mention because foreign groups confuse it with shareholder advances. When one company lends to another company with which it has economic links, the tax code applies its own comparison test, quoted above, and transfer-pricing reasoning can overlay the rate analysis for cross-border intra-group loans. A wire from your foreign holding company to your French SAS is therefore not documented like a wire from your personal account: the agreement must read as a group treasury document, with term, rate justification and arm’s-length benchmarking. Keep the two piles separate in the accounts and in the paperwork. Mixing personal shareholder advances and parent-company loans in a single undifferentiated current-account balance is one of the most common reasons French auditors widen a routine check into a full review of the file.

B. Regulated-Agreement Reports and Filings: Approving the Advance So Nobody Can Unwind It

An advance from a shareholder or director to the company is a related-party deal, and French company law routes such deals through a formal approval procedure, the conventions réglementées regime. In an SAS, the mechanism centres on a report and a shareholder vote: “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 % ou, s’il s’agit d’une société actionnaire, la société la contrôlant au sens de l’article L. 233-3. Les associés statuent sur ce rapport.” The auditor, or the president when no auditor exists, presents a report on agreements between the company and its president, its managers, its shareholders holding more than ten percent of voting rights or its controlling company, and the shareholders vote on that report (Article L227-10 of the Commercial Code on Légifrance). Your current-account agreement with your SAS falls squarely into that list whenever you are its president or a significant shareholder, which covers almost every foreign founder. The sanction for skipping the vote is subtler than many expect: “Les conventions non approuvées, produisent néanmoins leurs effets, à charge pour la personne intéressée et éventuellement pour le président et les autres dirigeants d’en supporter les conséquences dommageables pour la société.” Unapproved agreements still take effect, but the interested person, and potentially the president and managers, bear any harmful consequences for the company. The advance does not vanish, but the liability shifts onto you if the terms damage the business. When the SAS has a single shareholder, the procedure is lighter but not optional: mention of each agreement with the sole shareholder or the manager must be recorded in the decisions register. Run from abroad, this means one disciplined routine per advance: signed agreement, auditor-or-president report, shareholder vote recorded in minutes, register entry where required. A founder who cannot produce that chain will still own a valid claim, yet will argue it with one hand tied behind his back.

The content of the agreement matters as much as its approval, and the Paris 2026 ruling shows exactly which clauses judges inspect. The court read the company’s articles line by line, noted that the current-account clause set no repayment timetable and merely referred future terms to collective shareholder decisions, then tested whether the later freezing resolution had been adopted with the unanimity required for decisions increasing shareholders’ commitments. Because it had not, the freeze failed and the default rule of repayment on demand applied. Draft your clause the other way round: state the amount and currency, the interest rate with its reference to the deductible ceiling, the term or its absence, the notice mechanics for a demand, and the majority required for any later change. If the business plan genuinely requires locked-in funding, for example to reassure a bank that is about to lend, use a proper blocking agreement (convention de blocage) signed with the company, with a defined period and, where relevant, a stated consideration such as the bank facility it secures. The official guidance confirms that blocking converts the advance into quasi-permanent capital and requires either unanimity at the meeting or a signed blocking contract. A bank that sees a signed, dated, unanimous freeze treats the money as stable; a bank that sees disputed minutes treats it as a future lawsuit.

Finally, close the loop in the company’s public filings, because private paperwork that never reaches the accounts loses half its probative force. Each year’s financial statements should show the current-account balances per shareholder, the interest accrued and the movements of the year, and those statements are deposited with the greffe and reflected in publications that third parties, banks and future buyers will read. The BODACC will carry any collective proceedings, the Kbis obtained from the greffe, in Paris the greffe du tribunal de commerce de Paris, proves who may sign for the company, and the Guichet unique filing trail shows the company’s representatives and capital history. None of these registries creates your claim, which was born the day the money arrived, but together they make it legible to everyone who was not in the room. A foreign founder’s file is persuasive when a Paris judge, opening the bundle, finds the wire slip, the signed agreement, the shareholder vote, the auditor’s report where one exists, and three years of consistent balance sheets all telling the same story. Build that bundle while relations are good, and the remedies described in the first part of this article become a formality rather than a gamble.

Conclusion

Money you wired from abroad into your French company’s current account is a loan the company must return, with the interest your paperwork provides and under the tax treatment both countries impose. Repayment is due at any time unless the articles or a properly adopted agreement says otherwise, and a disputed freeze adopted without the required unanimity will not survive judicial review, as the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed in 2026. Interest below the reference ceiling on fully paid-up capital is deductible for the company and taxable in your hands, with treaty paperwork to prevent the same coupon being taxed twice. Related-party approval, a signed agreement, consistent accounts and filings with the greffe turn that legal position into an enforceable file. Keep the wire slips, sign the agreement before the next transfer, calendar the five-year limitation period, and watch the BODACC for any collective proceedings that would force you to declare your claim. Managed this way from abroad, the shareholder current account remains what it should be: the foreign founder’s simplest funding tool, and one of the easiest claims to collect.