You run your French company from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, the work is delivered, the invoice is issued, and then nothing happens. The French client stops answering emails, the thirty-day deadline printed on the invoice passes, and your cash stays in someone else’s account. For a foreign founder this moment is stressful twice over: you do not know which French procedure applies, and you assume you must fly to France, hire local help at unknown cost, and spend months in a courtroom. French law offers a shorter path. An unpaid commercial invoice that rests on a contract can be converted into a court order without any hearing, through a paper procedure called the injonction de payer, and that order can then be enforced against the debtor’s bank accounts by a public enforcement officer while you remain abroad.
This guide follows the recovery in the order you will actually live it, for a foreign-owned French company whose client, French or foreign but established in France, has not paid. First, how to make your file immediately actionable: payment deadlines, automatic late penalties, the flat recovery fee, and the formal demand letter that starts interest running. Second, which fast-track court route to choose: the injunction-to-pay order or the emergency provision order. Third, how the order becomes enforceable and how enforcement works on French assets. A few French terms appear throughout and each is explained on first use: the RCS (registre du commerce et des sociétés, the trade and companies register), the greffe (the registry office of the commercial court that keeps company records), the Kbis (the official certificate proving a French company exists), the commissaire de justice (the regulated enforcement officer, formerly called huissier de justice, who serves court papers and carries out seizures), the BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, the gazette where insolvency openings are published), the DGCCRF (Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes, the competition and fraud authority that fines late payers), and the Cerfa (the official numbered administrative form). If you are still choosing the vehicle through which you bill French clients, our comparison of the SAS, the SARL, the branch and the subsidiary for foreign owners, at SAS, SARL, branch or subsidiary in France: how foreign founders choose the right vehicle, explains which structure you are collecting from.
I. How do you turn an unpaid French invoice into a court order without flying to France.
A. Why is your invoice already worth more than its face value, and what formal demand starts the clock.
French commercial law does not leave the payment date to goodwill. Unless your general terms of sale or a negotiated clause say otherwise, Article L. 441-10, I of the Commercial Code caps the default at thirty days after receipt of the goods or performance of the service, and any agreed term can never exceed sixty days from the invoice date, or forty-five days end-of-month where that variant is expressly stipulated and is not manifestly abusive toward the creditor. Periodic invoices within the meaning of the tax rules are capped at forty-five days from issue. An acceptance or verification procedure for checking conformity cannot be used to stretch these limits: it is capped at thirty days and it can neither extend the maximum payment period nor shift its starting point unless expressly agreed without abuse. Check your own invoice first, because the date printed on it as the payment date is the reference the judge will use, and the penalties described below run from the day after that date.
From that day after the payment date, three financial consequences apply by operation of law. First, late penalties accrue automatically, and the statute says they are due “without any reminder being necessary”: “Les pénalités de retard sont exigibles sans qu’un rappel soit nécessaire.” The rate must appear in your payment terms, and failing that the statute supplies it (Article L. 441-10, II of the Commercial Code): “Sauf disposition contraire qui ne peut toutefois fixer un taux inférieur à trois fois le taux d’intérêt légal, 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.” In plain English, the European Central Bank refinancing rate plus ten percentage points, never below three times the French legal interest rate, with the rate fixed by semester by reference to 1 January and 1 July. Second, every professional in late payment owes a flat recovery fee by right, and Article D. 441-5 of the Commercial Code fixes the 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.” Forty euros per invoice, claimed without proof, and any documented recovery costs above that figure can be claimed on top with evidence. Third, these penalties cannot be stacked with ordinary civil late interest, and the Court of Cassation has settled the point. In its judgment of 24 April 2024, pourvoi No. 22-24.275, the Commercial Chamber held: “Il en résulte que la pénalité de retard prévue à l’article L. 441-6, I, alinéa 8, du code de commerce, devenu L. 441-10, II, du même code, constitue un intérêt moratoire et que, ayant la même nature, elle ne se cumule pas avec les intérêts légaux de retard au sens de l’article 1153, alinéas 1 et 2, et de l’article 1231-6 du code civil.” The full decision is published at Cour de cassation, Commercial Chamber, 24 April 2024, No. 22-24.275. Claim the commercial penalty or civil interest, not both, and your demand letter should name the commercial penalty because its rate is far higher than the legal rate.
The same body of case law protects service providers, which matters because most foreign-owned French companies sell services, not goods. In its judgment of 18 January 2023, pourvoi No. 21-18.809, the Commercial Chamber quashed an appeal ruling that had confined the commercial late-penalty regime to sales contracts, holding that a mandate to manage and operate leased wagons, with collection of rents and deduction of a management commission, constituted services within the statute, so that the lower court had “violé, par refus d’application, le texte susvisé” by awarding only legal-rate interest. The decision is published at Cour de cassation, Commercial Chamber, 18 January 2023, No. 21-18.809. If your debtor argues that penalties at the European Central Bank rate plus ten points apply only to suppliers of goods, that decision is the answer: management, intermediation, training, consulting and maintenance contracts are covered.
With the legal basis confirmed, the practical starting gun is the formal demand, the mise en demeure. Article 1344 of the Civil Code defines it: “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.” In practice, send a dated written demand that identifies each unpaid invoice by number, date and amount, states the contractual payment date, invokes the commercial late penalties and the forty-euro fee expressly, sets a final deadline of eight to fifteen days, and warns of court action and enforcement costs. From abroad, use international registered post with acknowledgment of receipt, keep the tracking slip, and keep an identical copy by email so the sending date is provable twice over. Where the amount justifies it, have a commissaire de justice serve a sommation de payer: service by that officer is an “acte portant interpellation suffisante” with unquestionable date and content, and the same officer can later serve the court order and enforce it, which keeps one file with one office. Interest at the penalty rate runs from the day after the invoice payment date regardless of reminder, but judges expect to see a serious demand before a claim, and a debtor who pays within your deadline saves you the court fee entirely.
One administrative lever deserves mention because debtors take it seriously, even though it is not your personal remedy. Article L. 441-16 of the Commercial Code exposes a company that ignores statutory payment terms to an administrative fine of up to 75,000 euros for an individual and two million euros for a company, doubled on repeat offending within two years, imposed by the DGCCRF after investigation. You do not collect that fine, and threatening to report the debtor can backfire in negotiations, but mentioning in your demand that payment terms are a matter of public economic order, policed by the DGCCRF with published fines, signals that your claim is not an isolated complaint. Keep that mention to one sentence: the core of your letter is the contract, the invoices, the penalty rate and the deadline.
B. Which fast-track court route gives you an order fastest when the debtor stays silent.
The workhorse for silent debtors is the injonction de payer, the injunction-to-pay procedure. Article 1405 of the Code of Civil Procedure opens it: “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 ; en matière contractuelle, la détermination est faite en vertu des stipulations du contrat y compris, le cas échéant, la clause pénale ; 2° L’engagement résulte de l’acceptation ou du tirage d’une lettre de change, de la souscription d’un billet à ordre, de l’endossement ou de l’aval de l’un ou l’autre de ces titres ou de l’acceptation de la cession de créances conformément à la loi n° 81-1 du 2 janvier 1981 facilitant le crédit aux entreprises.” An unpaid invoice for delivered goods or performed services is the textbook case: contractual cause, fixed amount. There is no hearing, no summons to a trial, and no need for you to attend anything in France.
Jurisdiction follows the debtor, not you. Article 1406 of the Code of Civil Procedure sends the petition to the president of the judicial court or the commercial court within their subject-matter limits, and adds: “Le juge territorialement compétent est celui du lieu où demeure le ou l’un des débiteurs poursuivis.” These rules are a matter of public policy, any contrary clause is deemed unwritten, and the judge must raise lack of jurisdiction on his own motion. If your debtor is a company, that is the commercial court of its registered seat; a Paris-seated debtor means the president of the Paris Commercial Court, and the greffe of that court receives the file. Your own location abroad changes nothing about competence, and your petition is filed by deposit at the court reception or by post, using the Cerfa petition form with a schedule of exhibits and the exhibits themselves: contract or accepted quote, general terms of sale showing payment terms, delivery slips or time sheets, the invoices, the formal demand and its proof of sending, and a recent statement of account. For a claim between companies, representation by counsel is not mandatory before the commercial court, and a foreign company can mandate a French lawyer or an authorised representative with a written power; powers signed abroad need no consular formality for this filing, though a sworn French translation of any foreign-language exhibit is expected by the judge.
The judge rules on the papers. If the file proves a contractual claim for a fixed amount, he issues an ordonnance portant injonction de payer ordering payment of principal, penalty interest and costs. That order must then be served on the debtor by a commissaire de justice, and service is the step that makes everything else run: instruct the officer at the debtor’s place, send him the order with the debtor’s exact corporate name and registered address taken from a fresh Kbis or RCS extract, and ask for signification à personne where possible, because personal service shortens later challenges. From the date of service, the debtor has one month to file opposition, and Article 1416 of the Code of Civil Procedure states: “L’opposition est formée dans le mois qui suit la signification de l’ordonnance.” Where service was not made personally, opposition remains available until one month after the first act served personally or, failing that, the first enforcement measure freezing assets in whole or part. If no opposition is filed, you ask the court to add the formule exécutoire, the enforcement formula, and the order becomes a fully enforceable title. If opposition is filed, the case continues as an ordinary trial before the court that issued the order, and the judgment replaces the order: recent commercial-court practice confirms that an unmeritorious opposition ends in a judgment substituted for the order with costs, so a tactical opposition buys the debtor months but not victory.
The alternative fast track is the référé-provision, the emergency order for an interim payment, available where the injunction route is closed or too slow. Article 835 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides: “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.” Choose this route where the debtor disputes the invoice with weak arguments, where you need a provisionally enforceable title within weeks, or where the claim mixes contractual and non-contractual heads that the injunction procedure cannot carry. The price is adversarial: a writ of summons served by a commissaire de justice, a hearing before the president of the court with counsel, and a burden of showing invoices, delivery proof and correspondence that leave no serious contest. The reward is speed and immediate provisional enforcement, with the provision often equalling most of the principal. As a rule of thumb from abroad: silent debtor and clean file, file the injunction to pay; noisy debtor with bad-faith excuses and urgency on cash, sue in référé for a provision while keeping the injunction file ready as a fallback for any undisputed balance.
II. How do you convert the court order into money in your account.
A. When does your order become enforceable and what can the enforcement officer actually seize.
An order for payment with no opposition, stamped with the enforcement formula, is a titre exécutoire, an enforceable title. Article L. 111-2 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures states: “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.” Liquid means fixed in amount, exigible means due: your order states both, so the commissaire de justice can move directly to forced execution on the debtor’s assets without any further judgment. A provision order from the référé judge carries provisional enforcement by nature, so it can be enforced even while the debtor appeals, at your risk of having to repay if reversed. If the debtor filed opposition to the injunction, there is no enforceable title until the trial judgment, and enforcement waits for that judgment, which is why the quality of the initial petition matters: a complete file produces an order the debtor will often let become final, while a thin file invites an opposition that costs you a year.
Enforcement in France is not a letter but a visit, and the commissaire de justice chooses the measure that fits what the debtor owns. The most effective against a trading company is the saisie-attribution, the garnishment served on the debtor’s bank, which freezes the credit balance of the accounts up to your claim and transfers it after one month if unchallenged; it requires knowing at least one bank, and your pre-contract checks, prior transfers and the debtor’s own invoices often reveal it. Against tangible business assets there is the saisie-vente, seizure for sale of equipment, stock or vehicles, with inventory, one month to pay, then auction. Against debts owed to your debtor by its own clients there is seizure of receivables. Each measure follows its own statutory timetable and must be served and, where required, notified to the debtor within strict delays, which is precisely why a local enforcement officer, not correspondence from abroad, runs this phase. Fees follow a regulated tariff with a proportional component added since the reforms, plus the officer’s disbursements; they are advanced by you and added to the debtor’s bill, and the trial judgment or the enforceable order usually awards a fixed sum under Article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure toward your legal costs, though it rarely covers everything.
Two checks must precede any enforcement spending. First, verify that the debtor is not under insolvency protection: search the BODACC for a sauvegarde, redressement judiciaire or liquidation judiciaire opening concerning the exact corporate name, because collective proceedings freeze individual enforcement and, as the Commercial Code states for penalties, the creditor cannot claim late-payment penalties and the flat fee where a safeguard, reorganisation or liquidation proceeding bars payment at due date. If a proceeding is open, declare your claim to the appointed mandataire judiciaire within the statutory period instead of paying an officer to seize frozen assets. Second, confirm the debtor still exists at the served address with a fresh Kbis extract from the RCS via the greffe or the INPI single window: companies move, merge and change names, and an enforcement measure served on a vacated seat wastes months. Where the debtor is an individual entrepreneur rather than a company, additional protections on the primary residence apply, and your officer will advise whether a seizure of business assets or a payment schedule is realistic before you commit funds.
B. What deadlines, costs and cross-border safeguards decide whether your case is worth bringing.
Time limits in commercial collection are generous but not infinite. Article 2224 of the Civil Code provides: “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.” Five years from when you knew or should have known the facts allowing exercise of the right, which for an invoice means five years from the payment date, interrupted by a writ, a court petition or an acknowledged act. In practice, never approach that limit: memories fade, exhibits scatter across email accounts, and a debtor’s solvency only deteriorates. Send the formal demand within days of default, file the injunction petition within one to three months if unpaid, and enforce within weeks of the enforceable title. Penalty interest at the European Central Bank rate plus ten points compensates waiting, but only a solvent debtor pays it, and only enforcement converts it into cash.
Budget the operation before launching it, because a foreign creditor who knows the costs negotiates better settlements. Court fees for the injunction petition itself are modest, measured in tens of euros of greffe and registry costs, and no lawyer is compulsory before the commercial court, though one is strongly advisable to draft the petition, compute penalties by semester and assemble a judge-ready file. Service of the order and enforcement measures are billed per act under the regulated tariff, typically a few hundred euros per significant act, advanced by you and recoverable against the debtor. Counsel fees for a full file from demand to enforceable order commonly run from one to a few thousand euros depending on amount, opposition and travel-free organisation; compare that with principal, accrued penalties at the commercial rate and the forty-euro fee per invoice, plus the Article 700 award the court will add. Below roughly two thousand euros of principal, a firm demand served by a commissaire de justice plus a proposed payment schedule often beats any court filing; above that threshold, the injunction route usually pays for itself, and the filed petition itself frequently triggers payment, because a company director who ignores emails rarely ignores an order signed by the president of the commercial court.
Running the case from abroad is an organisation question, not a legal obstacle. Give your French counsel or officer a single complete bundle at the start: certificate of incorporation and Kbis of your own company, contract and general terms, proof of performance, every invoice with its sending proof, the demand letter with tracking, a current statement of account converted into euros with the penalty computation by semester, the debtor’s Kbis or RCS references, and a short chronology in French or English. Sign a clear power of attorney covering filing, service instructions and enforcement advances with a capped amount. Agree in writing on reporting dates, because the injunction procedure has quiet stretches of several weeks while the judge deliberates, and silence from your representative during those stretches is normal, not alarming. Keep originals for five years after full payment, since a debtor who paid can still dispute the computation of penalties, and your file is your proof. Where the debtor counters with defects in your performance, answer on the documents within days: judges deciding on papers punish slow or evasive creditors, and an unfounded complaint about quality raised only after the demand letter is a classic delaying tactic that a complete delivery file defeats.
Conclusion
An unpaid French invoice is not a write-off and it is not a plane ticket. The statute gives you the payment term, the penalty rate and the flat fee without any reminder; the formal demand starts the documented phase; the injunction-to-pay procedure converts a clean contractual file into a court order without a hearing before the court of the debtor’s seat; opposition, where filed, leads to a trial judgment that replaces the order; and the enforceable title empowers a commissaire de justice to freeze bank balances and seize assets while you stay abroad. The two Court of Cassation rulings cited above frame the economics: services are covered by the commercial penalty regime, and that penalty, as moratory interest, excludes cumulation with civil interest, so claim it correctly once rather than everything twice. File early within the five-year limit, verify solvency on the BODACC before spending on enforcement, and keep one complete bundle from contract to statement of account. Handled in that order, from demand to order to seizure, a French collection from abroad is a paper chain in which each link is filed, served and stamped, and the debtor who understood that chain usually pays at the second link rather than the last.