You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore. Your French company — usually a SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the simplified joint-stock company most foreign founders choose) — is formed or about to be. Then the bank speaks. Either it refuses to open the company account, which freezes the whole formation, or, months later, it freezes, cuts or closes the operating account while suppliers and salaries wait. Both shocks have the same root: French banks verify foreign-owned files harder than local ones, and French law answers each shock with a different tool. This guide explains both tools in full: the right-to-account procedure (droit au compte) that forces a bank to be designated for your company, and the sixty-day notice rule that punishes banks which cut credit or close accounts brutally.

French acronyms appear once with their translation, then in short form: Kbis (the official extract proving your company is registered), greffe (the registrar office of the commercial court), URSSAF (the agency collecting employer social charges), BODACC (the official bulletin publishing company registrations), ACPR (the banking supervisor, Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution), RBE (the register of beneficial owners, registre des bénéficiaires effectifs), and SEPA (the euro payments area). The companion starting point for the whole setup — bank account, Kbis, VAT and first hire — is our foreign-founder setup guide; this article drills into the banking blockage alone, with the exact texts, deadlines and court decisions that decide these cases.

I. Refused at the counter: why French banks turn away companies owned from abroad, and the procedure that forces a door open

A. Why your file gets rejected: capital deposit duty, identity checks and the bank’s freedom to say no

French law starts with an obligation, not a right. Every merchant must hold a bank account: “Tout commerçant est tenu de se faire ouvrir un compte dans un établissement de crédit ou dans un bureau de chèques postaux”, says article L123-24 of the Commercial Code. For a company in formation, the obligation bites earlier and harder. Cash subscriptions must be deposited with a formal subscriber list under conditions set by decree, and “nul ne peut détenir plus de huit jours les sommes recueillies pour le compte d’une société en formation” — nobody may hold funds collected for a company in formation for more than eight days, per article L225-5 of the Commercial Code, whose rules reach the SAS through article L227-1 of the same code. The implementing rule, article R22-10-6 of the Commercial Code, names the authorised depositaries — the Caisse des dépôts et consignations (the state deposit fund), a notary (notaire), a bank or an approved intermediary — and repeats the deadline: “Ce dépôt est fait dans le délai de huit jours à compter de la réception des fonds”. Without a bank willing to receive the capital, the notary route or the Caisse des dépôts remains, but the file slows down and the eight-day clock keeps ticking for whoever holds the money.

Banks then apply their own gate: identity verification against money laundering. Before entering a business relationship, the persons covered by the regime must identify the client and, where relevant, the beneficial owner, and verify those identities against probative written documents, under article L561-5 of the Monetary and Financial Code. For a foreign founder, that means a passport, proof of the company’s French address, draft articles, and increasingly the RBE declaration of who really owns the company — our beneficial-owner guide details that parallel file. And when the bank cannot satisfy these duties, the statute orders it to walk away: “elle n’exécute aucune opération, quelles qu’en soient les modalités, n’établit ni ne poursuit aucune relation d’affaires”, provides article L561-8 of the Monetary and Financial Code. The same article adds that this walk-away applies even where the bank was designated by the Banque de France (the French central bank) under the right-to-account procedure. In plain terms: a bank with an unverified file owes you no account, designated or not, and outside that procedure no text forces a bank to contract with a company it does not want.

Refusals landing on foreign-owned files almost always cite one of three motives: an unverifiable beneficial owner, a representative living outside the European Union with documents the branch cannot authenticate, or a risk score the bank will not explain. The bank is allowed to refuse. What it is not allowed to do is refuse silently or sloppily — and that is where the rescue procedure starts.

Prepare the file as if the bank looked for a reason to say no, because it does. Attach the source of the funds (sale deed, loan agreement, savings statements), the founders’ tax residence documents, the draft articles showing the French registered office, and the identity documents of every person holding more than a quarter of the capital or voting rights, since those are the beneficial owners the bank must identify under article L561-5. Foreign-language documents should arrive with a sworn translation (traduction assermentée, a translation by a court-approved translator), and documents from outside the European Union often need an apostille or legalisation stamp to be trusted at the counter. A complete file rarely gets refused twice; an incomplete one feeds exactly the vigilance objection that article L561-8 rewards with a lawful walk-away.

B. The right-to-account rescue: a bank designated within one business day, an account within three

The right to an account belongs, first, to “Toute personne physique ou morale domiciliée en France”, any natural or legal person domiciled in France, provided it holds no deposit account in France — article L312-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code. Your SAS, domiciled at its French registered office, qualifies even if every shareholder and the president live abroad. A foreign parent company with no French domicile does not; the procedure protects the French entity, so create it first. In case of refusal by the chosen bank, the same article provides that “celle-ci peut saisir la Banque de France afin qu’elle lui désigne un établissement de crédit situé à proximité de son domicile ou d’un autre lieu de son choix, en prenant en considération les parts de marché de chaque établissement concerné, dans un délai d’un jour ouvré à compter de la réception des pièces requises définies par arrêté” — the applicant seizes the Banque de France, which designates a bank near the domicile or another chosen place within one business day of receiving the required documents. The refusing bank must hand over “systématiquement, gratuitement et sans délai” a written refusal attestation and inform the applicant of the Banque de France route. Never leave the branch without that paper: it is the key to the file.

Build the file as the Banque de France expects it. For a legal person (personne morale, the company), the official business portal lists: valid photo ID of the legal representative (président of the SAS or gérant of the SARL), the refusal letter, proof of the company’s French address, and, depending on progress, draft articles or the Kbis once the greffe has registered the company — see the portal’s professional-account refusal sheet at entreprendre.service-public.fr and the Banque de France’s own page at banque-france.fr. File at a Banque de France branch; in Paris, the Paris office receives these applications, and founders based in the capital can lodge the file without travelling. The statute then orders: “Ils procèdent à l’ouverture du compte de dépôt dans les trois jours ouvrés à compter de la réception de l’ensemble des pièces qui lui sont nécessaires à cet effet” (article L312-1, section III) — the designated banks open the account within three business days of receiving all needed documents — and management of the account is set by a written agreement. The account carries basic banking services defined by decree: article D312-5-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code lists, among others, the core services of article D312-5, cash deposits and withdrawals at the counter, a card whose each use is authorised by the bank, two bank cheques per month and cash operations. These statutory services are provided under the scheme without the usual commercial pricing, which is precisely why banks dislike the procedure — and why founders should not hesitate to use it.

Protection continues after opening. A bank that received you through designation can only terminate the agreement on six closed grounds: deliberate use of the account for suspected illegal operations, inexact information, loss of the French domicile or residence condition, a second account opened in France giving access to basic services, repeated rudeness toward staff, or an anti-money-laundering block under article L561-8. The statute requires a free motivated termination letter sent on paper, information to the Banque de France, notice of customer-relations and mediation contacts, and “Un délai minimum de deux mois de préavis est octroyé au titulaire du compte, sauf dans les cas mentionnés au 1° et au 2°” — at least two months’ notice except for suspected illegal use or inexact information — all in article L312-1, section IV. The official business portal indicates in practice forty-five days’ warning for professional accounts closed under the scheme; keep both figures in mind and count from the letter you actually receive, because only the written notice starts the clock. Separately, banks must publish their general and tariff conditions for deposit accounts under article L312-1-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code — compare them before choosing where to apply first, since a voluntary opening on commercial terms always beats a designated opening on basic services.

II. Frozen, cut off or closed mid-life: what your bank can legally do to an operating account

A. Three different shocks: the laundering freeze, the credit cut and the account closure

Once the company operates, three bank moves look alike and obey different rules. First, the anti-money-laundering stop. Vigilance is continuous, so a bank that can no longer identify the owner, understand the transactions or verify the origin of funds must end the relationship under article L561-8, and may file a suspicious-transaction report. Second, the state asset freeze: the ministers of the economy and of the interior can jointly order, “pour une durée de six mois, renouvelable”, the freezing of funds belonging to persons financing or facilitating terrorism, under article L562-2 of the Monetary and Financial Code. This is a rare administrative measure, published and renewable, not a commercial decision — do not confuse a bank’s internal freeze with it, and ask in writing which one you face. Third, the ordinary commercial cut: reducing or interrupting an open-ended facility, or closing the current account, which is where most disputes live and where the courts have drawn sharp lines.

The central rule sits in article L313-12 of the Monetary and Financial Code: any open-ended credit granted to a business “ne peut être réduit ou interrompu que sur notification écrite et à l’expiration d’un délai de préavis fixé lors de l’octroi du concours”, and “Ce délai ne peut, sous peine de nullité de la rupture du concours, être inférieur à soixante jours” — the notice period cannot, on pain of nullity of the break, be shorter than sixty days. Two exceptions only: seriously reprehensible conduct by the borrower (“comportement gravement répréhensible”) or a hopelessly compromised situation (“situation irrémédiablement compromise”). The bank must also, on the company’s request, give the reasons for the cut — reasons no third party can demand and none may be disclosed to. Breach of these duties engages the bank’s financial liability. Note the asymmetry the courts enforce: a break without the sixty days is void, and a void break keeps the credit alive, which can paralyse the bank’s recovery action.

The Cour de cassation (France’s supreme court for civil and commercial matters) tightened this further on 20 September 2023 (commercial chamber, appeal no. 22-15.878, full decision on Judilibre): notifying the termination of an open-ended facility at the end of a notice period does not turn it into a fixed-term facility. The bank in that case had given sixty days’ notice, then tried during the notice period to declare the loan due early for exceeding the overdraft ceiling; the Court rejected the manoeuvre and threw out the recovery action against the company and its guarantors. For a founder abroad, the lesson is concrete: during the sixty days, the facility continues, and the bank cannot invent an early maturity to shorten them.

The appeal courts show both faces of the exception. In a published judgment of 29 October 2025 (general roll no. 23/14341), the Paris Court of Appeal, read on Judilibre, upheld an immediate closure without any sixty-day notice where the bank had flagged, by registered letter of 9 January 2017, cheque operations that in its view did not look consistent with sound business practice — nearly 288,780 euros of cheques issued over three days between related entities and put back for collection — and the company produced only an unproven reply with no evidence of sending or receipt. The court held the bank entitled to close the company’s current account without the sixty-day notice because of seriously reprehensible conduct under article L313-12, so the debt could be enforced against the guarantor. Conversely, in a judgment of 6 May 2025 (general roll no. 23/02319), the Montpellier Court of Appeal, read on Judilibre, confirmed that a closure with a proper sixty-day notice by letter was lawful and that the break was not abusive, adding that the reasons for the break need not appear in the notification letter itself — it is for the company to ask for them. Together, the two rulings draw the founder’s map: unexplained or documented-misconduct files lose the sixty days; clean files closed with written sixty-day notice win nothing in damages.

B. Your unblock plan while you live abroad: papers, letters and remedies in the right order

Act in this order, because each step protects the next. First, force the bank to write. If an application is refused, demand the free written refusal attestation the statute requires the bank to deliver “systématiquement, gratuitement et sans délai”. If a facility is cut or an account closed, request the reasons in writing, invoking article L313-12, and keep the notification letter with its postmark: the sixty days run from written notice, and a break given by phone or by silent blocking has no starting point. Ask expressly whether the measure rests on anti-money-laundering duties (article L561-8), on an administrative freeze (article L562-2) or on a commercial decision — the remedy differs completely, and a bank that hides behind vague “compliance reasons” while closing a healthy account weakens its own file.

Second, open the parallel track immediately. File a right-to-account application with the Banque de France using the refusal attestation, so a designated bank opens basic services within the statutory days while you dispute the first bank’s move. Nothing in article L312-1 forbids holding the designated account alongside the disputed one during the fight, except the rule that a second account giving access to basic services can later justify terminating the designated one — sequence matters, so take advice on timing before multiplying accounts. At the same time, move the company’s documentary file to standard: updated Kbis from the greffe, published accounts, RBE declaration current, tax filings done. Founders in Paris can handle the Banque de France filing at the Paris office and the Kbis request at the greffe of the Paris commercial court in the same trip; outside Paris, every Banque de France branch and every greffe receives these steps, and most accept filings by post or online with a foreign address for correspondence.

Third, challenge a brutal break where it hurts: nullity. A cut of open-ended credit without written notice and without sixty days is void, and the void break maintains the facility — the 2023 Cour de cassation ruling above killed a bank’s entire recovery on exactly this ground, guarantors included. Sue before the commercial court (tribunal de commerce) for a declaration of nullity and damages for the brutal rupture, and answer any payment claim with the nullity defence first, before discussing amounts. Where the bank invokes seriously reprehensible conduct, learn the Paris lesson: produce dated, verifiable explanations for every flagged transaction, with proof of sending and receipt for each letter — an unproven reply, as the 2025 case shows, weighs nothing. Where the bank respected sixty days in writing, do not spend fees attacking the closure itself; attack instead any early enforcement during the notice period, which the supreme court forbids, and negotiate the transfer of direct debits and standing orders to the new account.

Fourth, know the exits if formation itself stalls for lack of a bank. If the company is not formed within six months of the first deposit of funds, or not registered at the registre du commerce et des sociétés (the trade and companies register held by the greffe) within the same period, “tout souscripteur peut demander en justice la nomination d’un mandataire chargé de retirer les fonds pour les restituer aux souscripteurs, sous déduction des frais de répartition”, under article L225-11 of the Commercial Code — any subscriber can ask the court to appoint an agent to withdraw and return the funds. Founders who later restart must deposit again. And fifth, keep the company’s calendar clean so no bank can credibly plead a hopelessly compromised situation: approve the annual accounts, hold the meeting, file at the greffe, publish in BODACC where required — the full timetable sits in our setup guide and our annual-calendar coverage. A company current on filings, taxes and URSSAF declarations is far harder to describe as compromised, and every paragraph of this plan assumes that discipline.

Conclusion

A French bank may refuse your company, but it must give you the refusal paper; the Banque de France then designates a bank within one business day and the account opens within three, with statutory basic services. A bank may close your operating account, but open-ended credit dies only on written notice with at least sixty days, on pain of nullity — unless it proves seriously reprehensible conduct or a hopelessly compromised situation, with dated evidence, not slogans. Identity checks can always end a relationship the bank cannot verify, and only a published administrative freeze can lock funds by state order. From abroad, the winning posture never changes: demand every reason in writing, run the designation track in parallel, answer flagged transactions with verifiable documents, and plead nullity before amounts. Banks win these disputes on files; founders who build the better file take the account with them.