Your French bank has just written to say it is closing your current account, or the branch has refused to open one for you at all. For a British citizen living in France after Brexit, this is more than an administrative annoyance: salary, rent, tax payments and health reimbursements all pass through that account, and rebuilding those payment chains takes time. French law gives you two distinct shields. The first is procedural: a bank that closes an ordinary deposit account must give you written notice of at least two months, and a court can order it to pay damages if the notice is too short. The second is substantive: anyone domiciled in France, whatever their nationality, holds a statutory right to a deposit account, and where every bank says no, the Banque de France (the French central bank) designates one that must take you on. This article explains both mechanisms in the order you need them, with the exact statutory wording, two recent Paris appeal decisions that show how judges apply the rules, and the practical steps that protect your money while the dispute runs its course.

I. Your bank is closing your French account: the two-month notice rule and what you can really challenge

A. How a French bank may close an ordinary account, and why the notice period is where cases are won

A French deposit account held by an individual acting outside any professional activity is governed by a written account agreement, the convention de compte. Either side may end that agreement, but the bank does not enjoy the same freedom as you. You, the customer, may terminate at any time, with only a contractual notice period that cannot exceed thirty days. The bank, by contrast, must serve prior notice of at least two months. Article L312-1-1 of the Code monétaire et financier (the French Monetary and Financial Code) states the rule in these terms: “L’établissement de crédit résilie une convention de compte de dépôt conclue pour une durée indéterminée moyennant un préavis d’au moins deux mois, fourni sur support papier ou sur un autre support durable.” In plain English: a bank ends an open-ended deposit account agreement only on at least two months’ notice, given on paper or another durable medium. The same paragraph adds that payment-service charges regularly incurred are owed only pro rata for the period elapsed at the termination date, and that charges paid in advance must be reimbursed pro rata. If you paid a full year’s card fee in January and the account closes at the end of April, the bank must return the unused portion.

Three consequences follow for a British account holder. First, the closure letter itself must be in writing and must reach you a full two months before the effective closure date. A telephone call from an adviser, a message buried in your online banking inbox that you never acknowledged, or a letter dated after the account was already frozen does not satisfy the requirement of a notice on paper or another durable medium: “fourni sur support papier ou sur un autre support durable”. Keep the envelope, the postmark and every screenshot: the starting point of the two months is the first issue judges examine. Second, the two months are a minimum, not a target. Where your situation makes reorganisation harder — a salary paid late in the month, quarterly tax instalments, a mortgage direct debit — a notice that is formally two months but leaves you no realistic way to move recurring transactions can still be attacked, as the Paris appeal court showed in 2024. Third, the decision to close does not have to be explained. The Cour d’appel de Paris put it bluntly in a judgment of 21 February 2024: “il est exact que la décision de clôturer le compte n’a pas à être motivée et est donc discrétionnaire”. A bank may therefore close a properly functioning account simply because it wishes to end the relationship, and you cannot force it to keep you as a customer. What you can force it to do is to close the account cleanly, on time, and with the compensating payment flows maintained until the end.

That 2024 decision deserves a closer look, because it is the clearest recent illustration of how the notice rule works in practice. In arrêt of 21 February 2024, RG 21/14330, Pôle 5, chambre 6, a property company and related parties challenged BNP Paribas over the closure of several accounts. The court recalled the governing principle in these words: “le délai de préavis préalable à sa clôture résulte de l’article L312-1-1 du code monétaire et financier et est fixé à au moins 2 mois.” It then checked the calendar: the closure letter had been sent on 10 March 2017 with effect on the following 11 May, so the period had been respected for that particular account, and the letter had even provided that cheque and payment-instrument services would continue for thirty days beyond the period where cover existed. But for another account the court found the opposite, holding that “La Bnp PARIBAS doit donc être condamnée à indemniser la société Immobilières des Comptoirs venant aux droits de la société Omnium Immobilier Normand des conséquences préjudiciables du caractère trop bref du préavis de clôture et des dysfonctionnements du compte.” The bank was ordered to pay 8,000 euros in damages for material loss, plus 3,000 euros under article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure: “CONDAMNE la société Bnp PARIBAS à payer à la société Immobilière des Comptoirs la somme de 8 000 euros de dommages-intérêts au titre du préjudice matériel”. Two lessons emerge. The notice period is measured in facts, account by account, and a short notice combined with operational disruption during the run-down — rejected transfers, manual re-keying, partners left unpaid — converts an administrative closure into a compensable fault. And the remedy is damages, not reinstatement: the court compensates the loss, it does not reopen the account.

In practical terms, the day you receive a closure letter, start a dated file. Note the date on the letter, the date of actual receipt, and the announced effective date, then count two full months from receipt. List every recurring transaction on the account: salary or pension credits, electricity, internet and telephone debits, insurance premiums, tax instalments, social charges, and any mortgage or rent payments. Open the replacement account immediately — the notice period is meant, in the words of the official guidance, to let you open another account and carry out the last operations needed for continuity — and move the recurring items one by one, keeping written confirmation of each new direct debit mandate. If the bank freezes incoming transfers or refuses to honour presented cheques or direct debits before the notice expires, protest in writing at once, by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt (lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception), and keep copies of every rejected transaction slip. Those documents are the exhibits on which a later damages claim turns. Where the bank has observed the full two months and maintained normal service throughout, a claim for damages has little prospect: as the official service-public guidance confirms, you cannot contest the closure itself, only claim compensation where the notice was not honoured, then turn to the bank mediator (médiateur bancaire) and, if refused, to the court.

B. When the bank closes without explanation and when it must justify itself: financial-crime controls and the protected basic-services account

There are two situations in which the ordinary two-month picture changes, and both matter greatly to British residents. The first concerns closures driven by anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing controls, known in France as LCB-FT (lutte contre le blanchiment des capitaux et le financement du terrorisme). Banks must identify their customers and understand their transactions, and where they cannot satisfy those know-your-customer duties, the statute orders them to walk away. Article L561-8 of the Monetary and Financial Code provides: where a bank “n’est pas en mesure de satisfaire aux obligations prévues à l’article L. 561-5 ou à l’article L. 561-5-1”, “elle n’exécute aucune opération, quelles qu’en soient les modalités, n’établit ni ne poursuit aucune relation d’affaires et peut transmettre la déclaration prévue à l’article L. 561-15 dans les conditions prévues à cet article”. And where the relationship already exists: “Si celle-ci a déjà été établie en application du IV de l’article L. 561-5, elle y met un terme”. In other words, a bank that cannot complete its identification and due-diligence duties carries out no transaction, enters into no business relationship, and ends any relationship already established. This is why some closure letters give no usable reason: the bank may be legally constrained in what it discloses, and the general two-month notice can sit uneasily alongside an immediate freeze ordered for compliance reasons. If you receive such a letter, do not assume a mistake in your file explains everything, and do not bombard the branch with demands for reasons it may be forbidden to give. Instead, secure your position: ask in writing for the effective date of closure, for the balance statement (solde de tout compte), for the return of unused payment instruments, and for the transfer of the credit balance to your new account. Then move the dispute to the terrain where you can win — the regularity of the notice and the continuity of service — rather than demanding explanations the bank will not supply.

The second situation is the mirror image: an account opened under the statutory right-to-an-account procedure, which the bank may only close on exhaustively listed grounds, with reasons, and with the central bank informed. Article L312-1, IV, of the Monetary and Financial Code, in the version in force since 27 December 2021, provides: “L’établissement de crédit ne peut résilier unilatéralement la convention de compte de dépôt assorti des services bancaires de base, ouvert en application du III, que si l’une au moins des conditions suivantes est remplie : 1° Le client a délibérément utilisé son compte de dépôt pour des opérations que l’organisme a des raisons de soupçonner comme poursuivant des fins illégales ; 2° Le client a fourni des informations inexactes ; 3° Le client ne répond plus aux conditions de domicile ou de résidence définies au I ; 4° Le client a ultérieurement ouvert un deuxième compte de dépôt en France qui lui permet d’utiliser les services bancaires de base ; 5° Le client a fait preuve d’incivilités répétées envers le personnel de l’établissement de crédit ; 6° L’établissement est dans l’une des situations prévues à l’article L. 561-8”. Every termination at the bank’s initiative must then be notified in a paper letter sent to the customer at no cost, and “La décision de résiliation est motivée sauf lorsque cette motivation contrevient aux objectifs de sécurité nationale ou de maintien de l’ordre public”, with a copy sent to the Banque de France for information. The customer receives at least two months’ notice, except in the first two cases — deliberate misuse for suspected illegal purposes and false information — and the letter must tell the customer about the customer-relations department and the mediation scheme for any dispute over the termination. This is a far stronger shield than the ordinary regime: a bank that closes a basic-services account because it simply prefers other customers, or without a written and reasoned letter, breaches the statute directly.

The Paris appeal court applied exactly that framework in arrêt of 30 June 2022, RG 19/18242, Pôle 4, chambre 9-A, a dispute between an individual customer and Milleis Banque, which had taken over Barclays France. The customer complained that the bank had closed his account without observing a sixty-day notice period and had blocked the account from 3 August 2017, refusing direct debits and transfers. The court rehearsed the statutory conditions word for word: “Aux termes de l’article L. 312-1 IV du code monétaire et financier, l’établissement de crédit ne peut résilier unilatéralement la convention de compte de dépôt assorti des services bancaires de base, ouvert en application du III, que si l’une au moins des conditions suivantes est remplie”, followed by the six cases, then recalled that “Toute décision de résiliation à l’initiative de l’établissement de crédit fait l’objet d’une notification écrite motivée et adressée gratuitement au client” and that “Un délai minimum de deux mois de préavis est octroyé au titulaire du compte, sauf dans les cas mentionnés au 1° et au 2°.” On the facts, the court confirmed the first-instance judgment in full — “Confirme le jugement dont appel en toutes ses dispositions” — and ordered the unsuccessful appellant to pay the appeal costs plus 1,500 euros under article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The outcome cuts both ways and British readers should take both lessons. A customer who withholds the real timeline, who was warned of the termination and kept operating a debit balance while asking the bank to reconsider, does not win by invoking the notice period in the abstract. Conversely, the judgment confirms that the sixty-day minimum, the written reasoned notification and the information to the Banque de France are hard requirements the bank must evidence: where the bank’s file shows proper notification and genuine grounds, it wins; where it cannot produce them, the customer does.

A final practical warning concerns dormant money. An account you stopped using — a Livret or old current account left behind when you moved between France and the United Kingdom — does not sit untouched for ever. An account becomes inactive after twelve months with no transactions and no contact from the holder, or five years for savings books, term accounts and securities accounts, under Article L312-19 of the Monetary and Financial Code: “Un compte est considéré comme inactif : 1° Soit à l’issue d’une période de douze mois au cours de laquelle les deux conditions suivantes sont remplies”, with “La période de douze mois est portée à cinq ans pour les comptes sur lesquels sont inscrits des titres financiers, les comptes sur livret, les comptes à terme”. The bank then keeps the inactive account for ten years, or three years where the holder has died, before transferring the balance to the Caisse des dépôts et consignations (the state deposit institution, CDC), which holds it for a further twenty years before any remainder falls to the State. If you return to France after years in Britain and find an old account closed and emptied, ask the bank in writing for the closure statement, the date of transfer to the CDC and the archived documents — which the bank must keep for five years — and then claim directly from the CDC with proof of identity and entitlement. This is a retrieval exercise, not a fault-based claim, and it starts with a calm written request rather than an accusation.

II. Your French bank refused to open an account: the statutory right to an account after Brexit

A. Who holds the right when you are British: domicile in France, not nationality

Since the end of the Brexit transition period, British citizens are third-country nationals in European Union law. That change removed the automatic right to live, work and access services across the Union, and many Britons assume it also weakened their position at a French bank counter. For the right to an account, that assumption is wrong in the case that matters most. The French droit au compte (right to an account) does not depend on nationality at all: it depends on domicile. Article L312-1, I, opens the right to anyone opening a deposit account with the credit institution of their choice, provided they hold no such account in France, and lists as first beneficiaries: “1° Toute personne physique ou morale domiciliée en France”. A British citizen who lives in France — tenant, owner, student, retiree, employee — falls squarely within that first category, exactly like a French national. The bank may not lawfully refuse you on the ground of your British passport alone, and where refusal happens for other stated reasons, the designation procedure described below applies to you in full, including where you are registered in the Banque de France’s incident files. The statute says so expressly: “Le présent article s’applique aux personnes inscrites aux fichiers gérés par la Banque de France en application de l’article L. 131-85 du présent code et de l’article L. 751-1 du code de la consommation.” A past bounced cheque or a credit-repayment incident does not strip you of the right.

The Brexit effect bites elsewhere: on Britons who do not live in France. The second limb of the right covers “Toute personne physique résidant légalement sur le territoire d’un autre Etat membre de l’Union européenne n’agissant pas pour des besoins professionnels ainsi que toute personne physique de nationalité française résidant hors de France.” Before withdrawal, a Briton living in London could rely on the European-resident limb; after withdrawal, the United Kingdom is no longer a Member State, so a United Kingdom resident who is not a French national falls outside both limbs. A British retiree spending four months a year in a Dordogne holiday home but domiciled for tax and civil purposes in Kent has no statutory right to force a French bank to open an account — though nothing prevents a bank from accepting such a customer commercially, and many do where the file is clean and the purpose is clear. By contrast, a French national living in London keeps the right expressly, and a British citizen who can evidence genuine domicile in France — lease or title deed, utility bills, tax notices, residence permit — holds it unconditionally. Domicile is a question of fact, not of the passport you carry, and newcomers should assemble that proof before walking into the branch: identity document, proof of French address less than three months old, and, where relevant, visa or residence permit. British newcomers dealing with first arrival formalities more broadly will find the visa and residence-permit route mapped in our guide to which long-stay visa and which carte de séjour to seek after Brexit, and how to challenge a refusal.

Two further statutory details strengthen the applicant’s hand. First, banks must process ordinary applications promptly. For individuals acting outside professional needs, Article L312-1, II, requires the institution to open the requested deposit account “au plus tard dans les six jours ouvrés à compter de la réception de l’ensemble des pièces qui lui sont nécessaires à cet effet” — no later than six working days after receiving all the documents it needs — subject only to compliance with the anti-money-laundering chapter. A branch that lets your file sleep for a month without requesting anything further is not complying with that timetable. The bank may still reject the application on the ground that you could obtain an account under the designation procedure, but any refusal must then be reasoned in writing: “Si l’établissement refuse l’ouverture du compte de dépôt, il fournit au demandeur gratuitement, sur support papier, et sur un autre support durable lorsque celui-ci en fait la demande expresse, les motifs de ce refus en mentionnant, le cas échéant, la procédure prévue au III.” Second, holding a joint account does not block you: “La détention d’un compte collectif par une personne physique mentionnée au présent article ne fait pas obstacle au droit à l’ouverture d’un compte individuel dans les conditions prévues au présent article.” A British spouse who shares only a joint account with their partner may still demand an individual account in their own name.

Where the designation procedure applies, the account opened is not a premium package but a defined set of basic banking services, the services bancaires de base, whose content and pricing are fixed by decree. Article D312-5 of the Monetary and Financial Code lists them: “1° L’ouverture, la tenue et la clôture du compte ; 2° Un changement d’adresse par an ; 3° La délivrance à la demande de relevés d’identité bancaire ; 4° La domiciliation de virements bancaires ; 5° La fourniture mensuelle d’un relevé des opérations effectuées sur le compte ; 6° L’encaissement de chèques et de virements bancaires ; 7° Les paiements par prélèvements SEPA, titre interbancaire de paiement SEPA ou par virement bancaire SEPA, ce dernier pouvant être réalisé aux guichets ou à distance ; 8° Des moyens de consultation à distance du solde du compte ; 9° Les dépôts et les retraits d’espèces au guichet ou aux distributeurs automatiques de l’organisme teneur de compte ; 10° Une carte de paiement permettant notamment le paiement d’opérations sur internet et le retrait d’espèces dans l’Union européenne.” That catalogue covers everything daily life in France requires: receiving a salary or pension, paying by direct debit, withdrawing cash, and holding a card that works online and across the Union. No overdraft and no chequebook are included, and the bank remains entitled to charge for services outside the list, but the core is guaranteed by law, not by commercial goodwill.

B. The Banque de France designation procedure step by step, and your remedies if the system fails

When the bank of your choice refuses to open an account, the statute gives you a public backstop with binding deadlines. You may apply to the Banque de France, which designates a credit institution near your home or another place of your choosing, taking market shares into account, “dans un délai d’un jour ouvré à compter de la réception des pièces requises définies par arrêté” — within one working day of receiving the required documents set by ministerial order. The refusing bank must help you rather than show you the door. It must provide systematically, at no cost and without delay, on paper — and on another durable medium if you expressly ask — a refusal certificate (attestation de refus d’ouverture de compte) and tell you that you may ask the Banque de France to designate an institution. For an individual, it must offer to act in your name by forwarding the designation request and the account-opening information to the Banque de France. The circle of helpers is deliberately wide: at your request, the département, the family-benefits fund (caisse d’allocations familiales), the municipal or inter-municipal social-action centre on which you depend, a non-profit association or foundation supporting people in difficulty or defending family interests, or an approved consumer association may also transmit the request and documents for you. The designated institution must then open the account “dans les trois jours ouvrés à compter de la réception de l’ensemble des pièces qui lui sont nécessaires à cet effet” — within three working days of receiving everything it needs — under a written account agreement, on paper or another durable medium with your consent. From refusal to functioning account, the statutory timetable is therefore counted in days, not months, and the whole scheme is policed: the banking-accessibility charter adopted by the profession is approved by the Minister for the Economy and its compliance is supervised by the Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (the Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority, ACPR) under the procedure of article L612-31.

Keep every document in that chain. The refusal certificate is your entry ticket to the Banque de France; without it, the file stalls. If the refusing bank withholds the certificate, note the date, time, branch and name of the person you saw, and send a written request for it by registered letter the same day. If the designated bank then drags its feet beyond three working days, write again, citing the deadline, and copy the Banque de France office handling your designation. Most files unblock at that stage, because the deadlines are monitored and the charter fixes the document standards. Where the blockage persists, two remedies exist. The first is mediation. Article L316-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code provides that “Tout consommateur a droit de recourir gratuitement à un médiateur dans les conditions prévues au chapitre II du titre Ier du livre VI du code de la consommation en vue de la résolution d’un litige qui l’oppose à un établissement de crédit”, for disputes about the services provided and the performance of contracts concluded under the relevant titles. Mediation suspends limitation while it runs, its findings cannot be used against you later without agreement, and the existence of the scheme must be stated in your account agreement and on your statements — check those documents before writing, so your referral letter cites the exact mediator and address. The second remedy is the court. Claims about notice periods, wrongful refusal mechanics and damages go to the civil courts, with the competent court depending on the amount at stake, and the two Paris decisions examined in Part I show judges engaging closely with the calendar, the letters and the operational facts. A referral to the mediator does not prevent court action if mediation fails, but courts look more favourably on claimants who tried the graduated route first.

Three related duties complete the picture for British households. First, the mirror obligation on your side of the Channel: once you are domiciled in France for tax purposes, you must declare your British accounts to the French tax authorities each year. Article 1649 A of the Code général des impôts (the French Tax Code) provides that “Les personnes physiques, les associations, les sociétés n’ayant pas la forme commerciale, domiciliées ou établies en France, sont tenues de déclarer, en même temps que leur déclaration de revenus ou de résultats, les références des comptes ouverts, détenus, utilisés ou clos à l’étranger.” A current account with a London bank, a savings account, a share-dealing account: each must be reported annually on the dedicated foreign-accounts form alongside your income return, even where the balance is modest and even where the account earned nothing. Failure exposes you to fixed fines per undeclared account per year, and the exchange of information between tax administrations means omission is discovered routinely rather than exceptionally. Declare first, argue about residence later. Second, death does not freeze access for small balances. Article L312-1-4 of the Monetary and Financial Code allows direct-line heirs, on proof of their status, to obtain payment of funeral costs and protective expenses from the deceased’s payment accounts within capped amounts, and to obtain closure of the accounts with payment of the balances where the total held by the institution is below a set threshold — upon an affidavit-like attestation signed by all heirs confirming there is no will, no other heir, no marriage contract and no dispute. British families dealing with a parent’s French accounts should ask the bank for that procedure by name before commissioning a full continental succession file. Third, the United Kingdom government’s own guidance for Britons settled in France, the Living in France guide on GOV.UK, remains the useful starting point for the non-legal practicalities — healthcare registration, driving licences, voting rights — while the official service-public page on the right to an account and the official page on closing a bank account state the current administrative position in the administration’s own words. Read the statute for your rights, the service-public pages for the procedure, and keep the GOV.UK guide for life beyond the bank counter.

Conclusion

A British citizen in France holds exactly the same banking rights as a French neighbour: closure only on two months’ written notice, with damages where the notice is cut short or the run-down mishandled, and a statutory right to an account where every bank says no, enforced through the Banque de France within days. The Paris appeal courts confirm both edges of the regime — an 8,000-euro award where BNP Paribas gave too short a notice, and dismissal with costs where the customer could not evidence the breach he alleged against Milleis Banque. Your strongest asset in either scenario is a dated paper trail: the closure or refusal letter, the acknowledgments of receipt, the transaction slips, and the designation file. Assemble it from day one, move your recurring payments inside the notice period, declare your British accounts each spring, and use mediation before litigation. The law does the heavy lifting only for those who can prove the dates.