You have just hired your first employee in France and you run the company from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore. The employment contract provides for a trial period, known in French as the période d’essai, and after a few weeks you are asking yourself the questions every foreign founder asks: how long can this trial period lawfully last, can you extend it to observe the employee a little longer, and if the fit is not right, how do you end the relationship from abroad without creating a case before the French labour court. The answers are counter-intuitive for anyone used to at-will employment. In France, the trial period is strictly capped by statute according to the employee’s category, it can be renewed only once and only if a sector-wide agreement allows it, ending it requires a notice period that grows with length of service, and certain reasons for ending it, such as pregnancy or discrimination, can make the termination void and expensive. This article explains the full regime as it applies to a French company held from abroad: the declaration you must file before the employee starts, the maximum lengths for permanent and fixed-term contracts, the renewal trap that reclassified a Paris executive’s dismissal in October 2025, the notice scale and the documents you must deliver, and the evidence a labour court will examine if the employee challenges you. The examples assume a French subsidiary, usually a SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company most foreign founders choose) or a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the limited liability company), and the reasoning applies wherever in France the employee works, with Paris and Île-de-France specifics where they matter.

I. How long can you set the trial period for your first French hire, and can you renew it?

Before the employee’s first day, one formality conditions everything: the déclaration préalable à l’embauche, universally shortened to DPAE, which is the prior hiring declaration every employer must file with URSSAF (the network of bodies that collects social security contributions). Article L. 1221-10 of the Labour Code states that hiring can only take place after a nominative declaration made by the employer to the designated social protection bodies, and the declaration itself must list the employer’s identity, the employee’s identity, the date and hour of hiring, and the nature, duration and trial period of the contract, as article R. 1221-1 details. The practical guide on the official business portal walks through the procedure step by step (Déclaration préalable à l’embauche (DPAE)). A foreign-held company files exactly like a French-held one, through the URSSAF online service (DPAE – Réaliser la déclaration préalable à l’embauche), and the distance of the founder changes nothing: the French entity is the employer, it must be registered as such, and the monthly payroll return known as the DSN (déclaration sociale nominative) will then carry the employee every month. If you have not yet chosen the vehicle for your French presence, read our comparison of the SAS, the SARL, the branch and the subsidiary in Setting up in France: SAS, SARL, branch or subsidiary, how a foreign founder chooses the right vehicle, because the employer registered on the DPAE must match the legal entity on the Kbis (the official company identity extract issued by the greffe, the commercial court registry).

A. Maximum probation lengths for permanent and fixed-term contracts

The trial period is optional, but when you use it, its ceiling is set by statute and it varies with the employee’s category. Article L. 1221-19 provides that a permanent contract, the CDI (contrat à durée indéterminée), may include a trial period with a maximum of two months for workers and employees, three months for supervisors and technicians, and four months for executives (cadres). These ceilings are mandatory in the employer’s disfavour: article L. 1221-22 states that the durations set by articles L. 1221-19 and L. 1221-21 are imperative, except for shorter durations fixed by collective agreements concluded after the 2008 reform or by the commitment letter or the employment contract itself. In plain terms, a sector agreement (convention collective, the agreement negotiated for a business sector that completes the statute) or your contract can shorten the trial period, but nothing you write can lengthen it beyond the statute. The official employee guide confirms that the trial period is not mandatory and that the employee performs one only if it is provided for in the employment contract or commitment letter (Trial period for an employee), and the ministry’s overview adds the method of counting (La période d’essai). Three consequences follow for a founder hiring from abroad. First, the trial period must be written into the contract or the commitment letter before work starts; it is never implied, and an offer letter silent on probation followed by a contract that adds one late is exactly the pattern that made a termination abusive in a 2025 case discussed below. Second, the employee’s category must be stated correctly in the contract by reference to your applicable sector agreement, because the two-month, three-month or four-month ceiling follows that classification, and misclassifying an executive as a supervisor to grant a shorter ceiling, or the reverse, creates the very dispute you want to avoid. Third, the statute’s purpose clause matters if you ever have to justify yourself: article L. 1221-20 states that the trial period allows the employer to assess the employee’s skills in the work, particularly in light of experience, and the employee to assess whether the duties suit them. A trial period used for another purpose, for example to test whether the order book justifies the position, departs from this purpose and exposes the termination. For a fixed-term contract, the CDD (contrat à durée déterminée), the scale is different and shorter: article L. 1242-10 caps the trial period at one day per week of contract, within a limit of two weeks where the initial term is six months or less and one month otherwise, and article L. 1242-11 suspends during the trial the rules on early termination and end-of-contract indemnity. A six-month CDD therefore carries at most a two-week trial, and a twelve-month CDD at most one month. One more adjustment exists where your first hire is a former intern: article L. 1221-24 deducts an end-of-studies internship completed in the previous three months from the trial period, in full where the job matches the internship duties. Foreign founders who recruit through a Paris internship programme should check this before drafting the contract, because the trial period they thought was four months may lawfully be far shorter.

B. Renewal only with a written sector agreement and the employee’s express agreement

Renewal is where foreign employers most often fail, because in many countries extending probation is a simple letter, while in France it is a three-lock mechanism. Article L. 1221-21 provides that the trial period may be renewed once if an extended sector agreement so provides, that this agreement fixes the conditions and durations of renewal, and that the total including renewal cannot exceed four months for workers and employees, six months for supervisors and technicians, and eight months for executives. The three locks are therefore cumulative: your sector agreement must expressly authorise renewal, the employment contract or commitment letter must itself provide for the possibility of renewal, and the renewal must be accepted expressly by the employee before the initial period expires. The Cour de cassation, the supreme court for labour matters whose decisions are published on its official site, stated the third lock in absolute terms in a judgment of 22 October 2025 concerning a Paris consulting executive: it results from these texts that renewal of the trial period must result from an express agreement of the parties and requires a clear and unequivocal manifestation of will by the employee (Cass. soc., 22 October 2025, appeal no. 24-15.053). In that case the employer had renewed a four-month executive trial period for three more months and then terminated it; the court of appeal had accepted the renewal because the employee had not expressly refused it, and the Cour de cassation quashed that reasoning precisely because passive acceptance is not an express agreement, reclassifying the termination as a dismissal without real and serious cause with the full package of notice, severance and damages. For a founder managing from abroad, the lesson is operational. First, before any renewal, check the sector agreement applicable in Paris or your place of work: many agreements authorise renewal, some do not, and if yours is silent, renewal is simply forbidden whatever the contract says. Second, the renewal must be signed by the employee, in a separate letter or amendment, before the initial period ends; an email informing the employee that the trial is renewed, a meeting note, or continued attendance after the expiry date proves nothing, and the October 2025 judgment shows that even an executive’s sophisticated conduct cannot substitute for express consent. Third, calendar discipline is essential because the total including renewal cannot pass the statutory ceiling, and the notice period discussed below cannot stretch it: the renewed period ends on its date, and a late termination is a dismissal. If any lock is missing, do not renew; either confirm the employee or terminate within the initial period with proper notice. The cost asymmetry is brutal: a valid non-renewed termination costs at most the notice indemnity, while an invalid renewal converts the same decision into an unfair dismissal with statutory severance, notice indemnity and damages assessed under the Macron scale, plus repayment claims. When in doubt from abroad, the safe sequence is to diary the expiry date minus the applicable notice, decide one week earlier, and send the signed decision in time rather than gambling on a renewal whose paperwork you cannot complete from another time zone.

II. How do you end the trial period from abroad without creating a Paris labour court case?

Ending the trial period is easier than a dismissal but narrower than most foreign founders assume. No dismissal procedure applies, no prior interview, no notification of reasons, no severance: either party can end the relationship during the trial, and the employer need not state a motive. That freedom is real but bounded on four sides: the timing must fall inside the trial period strictly understood, the notice period must be observed or paid, the reason must relate to the employee’s professional suitability rather than an extraneous or prohibited ground, and the end-of-contract documents must be delivered. Distance adds a fifth constraint of pure logistics: the decision must be notified, received and documented in France while you sit abroad, with proof. The competent court if the dispute ignites is the conseil de prud’hommes, the labour court composed of employer and employee representatives that hears individual employment disputes; article R. 1412-1 sends the parties to the court of the establishment where the work is performed, while the employee may also seise the courts of the place where the commitment was made or where the employer is established. For a first hire working in Paris, that means in practice the Paris labour court, whose judges read exactly the paper trail described below.

A. Notice periods, pay in lieu and the documents you must deliver

The notice mechanism, called délai de prévenance, applies as soon as the contract stipulates a trial period of at least one week. Article L. 1221-25 sets the employer’s minimum notice at twenty-four hours below eight days of presence, forty-eight hours between eight days and one month of presence, two weeks after one month of presence, and one month after three months of presence. The official English-language guide reproduces this scale and adds that the employer must hand the employee the end-of-contract documents at the end of the notice (Trial period for an employee). Two features of the same article deserve attention because they trap distant employers. First, the trial period, renewal included, cannot be extended by the duration of the notice period: the contract ends at the latest on the trial’s expiry date, and if the notice would run past that date you must notify earlier, not overflow. Second, where the notice has not been observed, its non-performance gives the employee a compensatory indemnity equal to the wages and benefits the employee would have received working until the end of the notice, including compensatory paid-leave indemnity, unless the employee committed serious misconduct. In practice, therefore, a late decision is never costless: you either notify early enough for the employee to work the notice, or you pay the equivalent, which for a one-month notice after three months of presence equals a full month of salary and charges. The employee ending the trial owes a shorter mirror notice: article L. 1221-26 requires forty-eight hours, reduced to twenty-four hours where presence is below eight days. From abroad, organise the logistics before the decision: mandate in writing whoever hands over or sends the termination letter in France, use a provable channel such as hand delivery against receipt or registered letter with acknowledgement, keep the proof of the date of presentation, and prepare the three end-of-contract documents the same day, namely the certificate of employment (certificat de travail), the final payslip with the balance of any account (solde de tout compte), and the France Travail attestation (the former Pôle emploi certificate that opens unemployment rights). An employee who receives no documents on time files first and negotiates later, and the Paris labour court’s emergency judge can order delivery under penalty. Diary arithmetic closes this section: take the trial expiry date, subtract the notice matching the employee’s length of presence on the notification date, subtract international transmission time, and that is your real decision date. A founder in California managing a Paris hire must decide the previous week, not the previous evening. The social paperwork continues after departure through the DSN, which must report the exit, and any outstanding paid leave is compensated on the final payslip. None of this requires a trip to France; all of it requires someone authorised in France and dated proof of every step.

B. Discrimination, abuse of rights and the evidence the judges will read

The employer’s freedom to end the trial without stating reasons stops where discrimination and abuse of rights begin, and these two limits generate most of the litigation that foreign companies lose. Discrimination first: article L. 1132-1 provides that no employee may be punished, dismissed or subjected to a discriminatory measure, direct or indirect, as defined by the 2008 anti-discrimination statute, and the prohibition covers the trial period as much as any later stage, whatever the company’s nationality of ownership. Pregnancy is the sharpest illustration: article L. 1225-1 forbids the employer from taking a woman’s pregnancy into account to refuse to hire her, to terminate her contract during a trial period, or to order a transfer, and forbids seeking any information about her pregnancy. A termination decided days after the announcement of a pregnancy, even during the trial and even without a stated reason, will be examined for nullity, and nullity means reinstatement or, where the employee does not seek return, enhanced damages well beyond ordinary dismissal compensation. The same analysis applies to every prohibited ground, including age, origin, disability, trade union activity and harassment reporting: the trial period never authorises a decision taken for such a reason. Abuse of rights second: where no discrimination is involved, the Cour de cassation still polices misuse of the employer’s discretionary power. On 12 February 2025 it recalled the governing formula in a case with a cross-border flavour, an employee recruited from Switzerland whose trial-period termination followed a promise of employment silent on probation: it results from this text that the employer may discretionarily end the contractual relationship before the expiry of the trial period, subject to not turning this right into abuse (Cass. soc., 12 February 2025, appeal no. 23-21.165). The court faulted reasoning based on circumstances before the contract’s signature alone, but the principle stands and lower courts apply it daily: a termination unrelated to the employee’s professional qualities, for example to cut costs after a lost contract, to replace the hire with a cheaper profile, or to punish a legitimate complaint, can be judged abusive and compensated in damages. The February 2025 facts carry a direct warning for international recruitment: the employee had relocated from Switzerland, organised her move and planned a flat purchase with the manager’s knowledge and financial help, while the hiring promise mentioned no trial period; promises made to attract talent across borders are read by judges as commitments, and the gap between the promise and the contract becomes evidence. Evidence, finally, is where distance hurts. French labour litigation runs on documents: the signed contract with its trial clause, the commitment letter, the dated renewal amendment, the notice letter with proof of receipt, the evaluations and warnings during the trial, the payroll records proving presence and notice, and the DPAE and DSN filings proving regular employment. An employer who managed everything orally from abroad arrives at the hearing with nothing, while the employee produces messages, appraisals and witnesses. Build the file during the trial, not after the dispute: written objectives at the start, at least one documented review meeting before any termination, contemporaneous notes of observed shortcomings tied to the duties described in article L. 1221-20, and a termination letter that states the professional assessment briefly and consistently. If the file is thin, the cheaper course is often to let the trial run to confirmation or to negotiate a mutual separation rather than to terminate and defend a weak case three time zones away. Companies already facing working-time or pay disputes with the same employee should read our companion pieces on overtime exposure and on contractor reclassification before adding a trial-period termination to an inflamed file: Your first French employee works overtime while you live abroad and Your French contractor was really an employee.

Conclusion

The trial period of a first French hire is a short window governed by long rules: declare the hiring through the DPAE before day one, write the trial clause into the contract with the correct category ceiling of two, three or four months, renew only once and only with a sector agreement plus the employee’s express signed consent, notify termination early enough to serve the twenty-four-hour to one-month notice inside the trial, deliver the end-of-contract documents the same day, and never let the decision rest on pregnancy, a prohibited ground or a reason foreign to professional suitability. The October 2025 consulting case and the February 2025 cross-border recruitment case show that French courts examine the paper trail with precision and that distance is never an excuse. A founder living abroad who diaries the dates, signs the right papers in France and documents the professional assessment keeps the full flexibility the trial period offers; one who improvises by message from another continent converts a simple non-confirmation into dismissal litigation before the Paris labour court. Set the clock on the day you sign the contract, and the trial period will do exactly what article L. 1221-20 intends: a mutual test, cleanly passed or cleanly ended.