You live in London, New York, Dubai, or Singapore, and you want a French company. The bank asks for the company address before opening the account, the accountant asks for it before registering for VAT, and the online filing portal asks for it before anything else can move. In France, the address is not a detail you fix later. It is a condition of existence. No company, whether 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 with stricter statutory rules), can be entered on the Registre du commerce et des sociétés, the RCS or trade and companies register kept by the greffe (the registry office of the commercial court), without proof of premises. The Kbis (the official company identity certificate issued by the greffe, the document every bank, supplier, and administration asks to see) displays that address, and everything official follows it: court summons, tax notices, social security letters, and the publications in the BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, the official gazette where company registrations and strike-offs are published). Foreign founders who treat the address as a borrowed letterbox discover too late that French law attaches concrete duties, time limits, and penalties to it, including a court-ordered strike-off in the worst cases. This guide explains, entirely for a reader who does not live in France, the three lawful ways to house your company, the contract you sign with a domiciliation provider, what the Kbis address triggers in practice, and the traps that close foreign-owned companies. If you are starting from zero, read this together with our pillar guide on setting up a company in France as a foreign founder: bank account, Kbis, VAT and first hire, which covers the full formation chain of which the address is only the first link.

Three warnings frame everything that follows. First, the registered office, called siège social, is the legal home of the company, not necessarily the place where the business operates. A Paris address on the Kbis with developers in Berlin and customers in Milan is perfectly lawful, provided the address itself is real and held under one of the three titles French law accepts. Second, every filing described here passes through the Guichet unique (the single online company formalities portal run by the INPI, the French intellectual property and companies office), and the greffe checks the proof of address before registering anything. A foreign founder signs and files from abroad, but the evidence must satisfy a French registrar. Third, a fake or purely decorative address is worse than no address at all. As the Cour de cassation held in 2025, a company keeps the benefit of its published address only until someone proves it fictitious or fraudulent, and the consequences of that proof run from procedural nullities to the loss of lawsuits. The discipline of this guide is therefore simple: choose a real address under a real title, keep the proof current, and read your mail.

I. THE THREE LAWFUL ADDRESSES FOR A COMPANY RUN FROM ABROAD

French law does not let a founder invent an address. It offers a closed list of titles, and the foreign owner picks one of them, proves it at registration, and keeps proving it whenever the company moves. The principle sits in the Commercial Code. As Article L123-11 of the Commercial Code states, “Toute personne morale demandant son immatriculation au registre du commerce et des sociétés doit justifier de la jouissance du ou des locaux où elle installe, seule ou avec d’autres, le siège de l’entreprise”. Every legal person must therefore show that it holds, alone or shared with others, the premises where it places its siège. The same article extends the logic to foreign companies entering France, since it covers the case “lorsque celui-ci est situé à l’étranger, l’agence, la succursale ou la représentation établie sur le territoire français”: when the head office sits abroad, the French branch, agency, or representative office must equally justify its premises. And the article expressly blesses shared addresses, adding that “La domiciliation d’une personne morale dans des locaux occupés en commun par plusieurs entreprises est autorisée dans des conditions fixées par décret en Conseil d’Etat”. Sharing is lawful, but only through the regulated channel described below. For a one-person business the rule is parallel. As Article L123-10 of the Commercial Code provides, individuals registering a business “doivent déclarer l’adresse de leur entreprise et en justifier la jouissance”, and they too “peuvent notamment domicilier leur entreprise dans des locaux occupés en commun par plusieurs entreprises”. The address always rests on a title, never on a declaration alone.

A. Your own lease, your director’s home, or an approved domiciliation provider: what French law allows and what it forbids

The first option is the classic one: the company itself holds premises, alone, under a lease or a ownership title in its own name. A foreign-owned SAS signs a commercial lease (bail commercial) for an office in Paris, Lyon, or anywhere else, and the lease is the proof of jouissance filed on the Guichet unique. Nothing in French law requires the shareholders or the director to live in France for this, and nothing requires the company to operate only from that address. The premises can be modest at the start, and the company can later add secondary establishments. What matters is that the title is in the company’s name, that the use of the premises matches the lease and planning rules, and that the company can actually receive mail and inspections there. For groups, the law adds a useful simplification. As Article R123-170 of the Commercial Code states, “Les sociétés et leurs filiales qui installent leur siège dans le même local dont l’une a la jouissance ne sont pas tenues de conclure entre elles un contrat de domiciliation”. A French subsidiary that shares the office already held by its parent or sister company needs no domiciliation contract between them. Foreign groups that already rent through one vehicle therefore house the new subsidiary at the same address without a second contractual layer, provided the company holding the lease genuinely holds it.

The second option places the siège at the home of the legal representative, the représentant légal, typically the president of the SAS or the gérant (manager) of the SARL. The statute allows it directly. As Article L123-11-1 of the Commercial Code states, “Toute personne morale est autorisée à installer son siège au domicile de son représentant légal et y exercer une activité, sauf dispositions législatives ou stipulations contractuelles contraires”. A director living in France can therefore register the young company at home, unless a statute or a contract clause forbids it. The two standard obstacles are the residential lease, which often bans professional use, and the co-ownership rules (règlement de copropriété), which sometimes do the same, and the official guidance reminds founders to check both before filing, since the lease, the co-ownership rules, and planning authorisations must not prohibit housing the company there (service-public.fr guidance on domiciling a company and its activity). Where a prohibition exists, the law still offers a bridge, but a temporary one. The same article continues: “Lorsque la personne morale est soumise à des dispositions législatives ou stipulations contractuelles mentionnées à l’alinéa précédent, son représentant légal peut en installer le siège à son domicile, pour une durée ne pouvant ni excéder cinq ans à compter de la création de celle-ci, ni dépasser le terme légal, contractuel ou judiciaire de l’occupation des locaux”. Even against a contractual ban, the home address can serve for up to five years from creation, and never beyond the director’s own right to occupy the flat. The price of this tolerance is a formality many founders miss: “elle doit, préalablement au dépôt de sa demande d’immatriculation ou de modification d’immatriculation, notifier par écrit au bailleur, au syndicat de la copropriété ou au représentant de l’ensemble immobilier son intention d’user de la faculté ainsi prévue”. Before filing, the company must warn the landlord, the co-ownership syndicate, or the building manager in writing. For a foreign founder, this second option only works where the director actually lives in France. A Paris flat rented by a friend, a cousin’s address, or an accommodation occupied without title proves nothing and protects no one. The home route follows the director’s real residence, not the shareholders’ convenience.

The third option, and the one most foreign founders use, is the approved domiciliation provider, the entreprise de domiciliation: a licensed company that rents the siège address, receives the mail, and makes a meeting room and the company books available. This activity is strictly regulated, and that regulation is your protection against letterbox sellers. As Article L123-11-3 of the Commercial Code states, “Nul ne peut exercer l’activité de domiciliation s’il n’est préalablement agréé par l’autorité administrative, avant son immatriculation au registre du commerce et des sociétés”. No one may sell domiciliation without prior approval (agrément) from the administrative authority, granted before the provider’s own registration. The approval screens the seriousness of the premises and the honesty of the operator. The provider must “Justifier la mise à disposition des personnes domiciliées de locaux dotés d’une pièce propre à assurer la confidentialité nécessaire et à permettre une réunion régulière des organes chargés de la direction, de l’administration ou de la surveillance de l’entreprise ainsi que la tenue, la conservation et la consultation des livres, registres et documents prescrits par les lois et règlements”. In plain terms: a real room, capable of hosting board meetings confidentially and of storing and showing the company’s books and registers. It must also “Justifier être propriétaire des locaux mis à la disposition de la personne domiciliée ou titulaire d’un bail commercial de ces locaux”, meaning the provider owns the building or holds a genuine commercial lease over it, and it must show a clean criminal record across a long list of offences from fraud and money laundering to tax fraud and banqueroute (fraudulent bankruptcy). Corporate providers face an additional filter. As Article L123-11-4 of the Commercial Code adds, “L’agrément n’est délivré aux personnes morales que si les actionnaires ou associés détenant au moins 25 % des voix, des parts ou des droits de vote et les dirigeants satisfont aux conditions posées aux 3°, 4° et 5° de l’article L. 123-11-3”. Significant shareholders and managers must themselves be clean. One boundary completes the picture. As Article L123-11-2 of the Commercial Code states, “L’activité de domiciliation ne peut être exercée dans un local à usage d’habitation principale ou à usage mixte professionnel”. A domiciliation business cannot operate from a home or a mixed-use dwelling. If the “provider” offers a prestigious Paris postcode that turns out to be somebody’s flat, walk away: that operator is outside the law, and your company’s address with it. The practical test for a founder abroad is therefore short: ask for the prefectoral approval number (numéro d’agrément préfectoral), check that the provider owns or commercially leases real offices, and confirm that mail handling, meeting-room access, and book-keeping availability are in the contract, not in the brochure.

B. The domiciliation contract signed from abroad: written form, three-month minimum, register entry, and identity checks

The domiciliation contract is not a simple mailbox rental. It is a regulated instrument that the greffe reads before registering your company, and it follows you for the life of the siège. Its first function is evidentiary. As Article R123-167 of the Commercial Code states, “Toute personne physique ou morale qui installe le siège de son entreprise dans des locaux qu’elle occupera en commun avec une ou plusieurs entreprises présente à l’appui de sa demande d’immatriculation le contrat de domiciliation conclu à cet effet avec le propriétaire ou le titulaire du bail de ces locaux”. Whoever places its siège in premises shared with other companies must attach the domiciliation contract, signed with the owner or the leaseholder, to the registration application. The same article extends the requirement to foreign companies: “Les dispositions du précédent alinéa sont également applicables à toute personne morale dont le siège est situé à l’étranger et qui installe son agence, sa succursale ou sa représentation en France dans des locaux qu’elle occupera en commun avec une ou plusieurs entreprises”. A German, American, or Emirati company opening a French branch (succursale), agency, or representative office inside shared premises files the same contract. From abroad, this means the domiciliation step comes before the registration step in time: you negotiate and sign the contract first, receive the provider’s documents, then file on the Guichet unique with the contract attached. Founders who file first and shop for an address afterwards stall their own registration, because the greffe cannot enter a shared address without the contract behind it.

The content of the contract is largely imposed, which protects a foreign signer who cannot visit the premises. As Article R123-168 of the Commercial Code states, “Le contrat de domiciliation est rédigé par écrit. Il est conclu pour une durée d’au moins trois mois renouvelable par tacite reconduction, sauf préavis de résiliation”. Written form is mandatory, the term is at least three months, and renewal runs by tacit agreement (tacite reconduction) unless a party gives notice. The provider must be registered itself throughout, must supply the equipped room described above, and must keep for each domiciled company a file (dossier) with supporting documents: for individuals, home address and telephone details, and for legal persons, the identity and contact details of directors and of the persons holding qualifying stakes, together with the places where the company books are kept. The contract is then made public in its existence. As Article R123-169 of the Commercial Code states, “Le contrat de domiciliation prévu aux articles R. 123-167 et R. 123-168 est mentionné au registre du commerce et des sociétés, avec l’indication du nom ou de la dénomination sociale et des références de l’immatriculation principale sur un registre public de l’entreprise domiciliataire”. The RCS entry records the provider’s name and registration references, so anyone reading your Kbis can see who houses you. That transparency is deliberate: creditors, courts, and administrations know exactly where to write and where to serve.

Two further duties fall on the provider, and a careful foreign founder verifies both before signing. First, the anti-money-laundering net. As Article L123-11-5 of the Commercial Code states, “Les personnes exerçant l’activité de domiciliation mettent en œuvre les obligations relatives à la lutte contre le blanchiment des capitaux et le financement du terrorisme définies au chapitre Ier du titre VI du livre V du code monétaire et financier”. Providers apply the same customer-identification and vigilance duties as banks and other covered professionals. Expect to supply a certified passport copy, proof of home address, the company’s draft articles, the ownership chain up to the ultimate beneficial owners, and the origin of the funds for the share capital, and expect updates whenever directors or significant shareholders change. A provider that asks for nothing is not doing you a favour; it is failing a legal duty, and its failure can contaminate your file. Second, the provider owes the greffe and the authorities ongoing information about the companies it houses, including the end of contracts, which is how the register learns that a company has lost its address. From your side, the mirror duties are to inform the provider of every change in directors, shareholders, and contact details, to collect or forward the mail on the agreed rhythm, and to renew or replace the contract before it lapses. A lapsed contract plus an unreported move is the classic path to the strike-off described in the second part.

Signing all of this from abroad is routine if you organise it. Reputable Paris and regional providers work daily with foreign clients: video identification, electronic signature that meets the eIDAS qualified or advanced standard accepted by the Guichet unique, English-language service schedules attached to a French-law contract, mail scanning with same-day PDF forwarding, and optional telephone answering. What the distance changes is vigilance, not validity. Never sign a domiciliation contract that the provider refuses to put in writing in French, never accept an address whose approval number cannot be shown, and never let the provider file the registration in your name without sending you the filed forms and the draft Kbis details for review. The INPI portal centralises every company formality, and its company section explains the current filing paths for creation, modification, and strike-off through the Guichet unique (INPI company formalities: modify your company). Keep a complete address file from day one: the signed contract, the provider’s approval number, proof of each renewal, every notice of change, and the mail-forwarding log. If a dispute later arises about whether you were reachable at your siège, that file is your evidence.

II. WHAT THE KBIS ADDRESS TRIGGERS IN PRACTICE, AND THE TRAPS THAT CLOSE FOREIGN-OWNED COMPANIES

Once registered, the address on the Kbis works like a legal magnet. It attracts claims, deadlines, and presumptions, whether or not you physically sit there. Foreign owners who grasp this early run their company calmly from abroad. Those who treat the Paris address as decoration learn its power from a bailiff, a tax office, or a judge. The case law below shows both sides of the magnet: the address protects you as long as it is real, and it binds you even when you wish it did not.

A. Mail, bailiffs, and courts: why the registered address binds you even when you never set foot there

The starting rule favours the company that keeps a genuine address. In a 2025 ruling, the Cour de cassation recalled that a company which has not chosen a new siège is deemed to keep the one shown in its articles and published on the register, unless an opponent proves that address fictitious or fraudulent. The company in that case, an SCI (société civile immobilière, the French property-holding company), had served process from the address shown on its Kbis; the Paris court of appeal had annulled the act because a bailiff had once found nobody there and the address hosted an accountancy firm. The Cour de cassation quashed that reasoning. The published reasoning holds that “à défaut de preuve de son caractère fictif ou frauduleux, la SCI BD était réputée domiciliée à cette adresse”, the company being deemed domiciled at its registered address absent proof of a fictitious or fraudulent character, and the appeal court’s decision was annulled in full: “CASSE ET ANNULE, en toutes ses dispositions, l’arrêt rendu le 2 juin 2022, entre les parties, par la cour d’appel de Paris” (Cour de cassation, Second Civil Chamber, 12 June 2025, appeal no. 22-24.111, full decision no. 22-24.111 of 12 June 2025). The lesson for a foreign-owned SAS or SARL is direct. Your Kbis address speaks for you in court filings, and a court cannot discard it because nobody answered the door once. But the protection runs only one way: it holds “sous réserve de la preuve de son caractère fictif ou frauduleux”, subject to proof of a fictitious or fraudulent character. If the other side proves the siège is a shell with no reality behind it, the presumption collapses, and with it the procedural acts built on that address. A real domiciliation contract, a provider that confirms your file, contemporaneous mail logs, and books actually available at the address are what make the presumption survive contact with an aggressive opponent.

The mirror rule is less comfortable: the address binds you even when you would rather be served elsewhere. In a 2024 ruling, the Cour de cassation decided that service of enforcement papers on a company at its siège is valid even where that siège is only a domiciliation address inside a business incubator (pépinière d’entreprises), and the bailiff has no duty to hunt down the real place of business. The governing text states the destination clearly. As Article 690 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides through the Court’s reading, “la notification destinée à une personne morale de droit privé ou à un établissement public à caractère industriel ou commercial est faite au lieu de son établissement”, and the Court adds the decisive equation: “Le lieu de l’établissement de la personne morale s’entend, au sens de ce texte, de son siège social”. The establishment of a legal person means its siège social. In that case, the debtor argued that its siège was a mere domiciliation inside an incubator, far from the sports complex it actually operated, which the creditors knew perfectly well, so the bailiff should have served at the operating site. The Nancy court of appeal agreed and freed the seizures. The Cour de cassation quashed: since the address served was the undisputed siège, the service stood, and no additional detective work was required of the bailiff (Cour de cassation, Second Civil Chamber, 12 September 2024, appeal no. 22-13.949, full decision no. 22-13.949 of 12 September 2024). For a founder in another country, the message is blunt. Summonses, seizure notices, and enforcement denunciations served at your Paris domiciliation address are valid against you even if you were thousands of kilometres away and the provider merely scanned them. Deadlines to challenge a seizure, to oppose an order to pay (injonction de payer, the fast-track court order to pay an allegedly undisputed debt), or to appeal run from that service. The only workable response is organisational: a same-day mail escalation clause in the domiciliation contract, a named person in France or a lawyer authorised to collect originals, and a rule that every enforcement-looking envelope is opened, translated, and diary-managed within days, not weeks.

Beyond litigation, the address organises the whole administrative life of the company. Tax assessments, VAT control letters, URSSAF (Union de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales, the social security collection agency) notices, and employee-related mail all go to the siège unless you have validly elected another correspondence address for a specific procedure. Moving the siège without filing the transfer on the Guichet unique leaves the old address legally operative for senders who rely on the register, while the proof of any new premises must be filed with the modification application. Companies that change provider, outgrow the incubator, or take their first real office therefore file the transfer first and celebrate second. The tax side follows the same logic of continuity: the company’s file travels with its siège, the local business tax (cotisation foncière des entreprises, CFE, the local tax every French business pays) is assessed where the company sits, and the first bills and exemption mechanics are worth studying before they arrive, as explained in our companion guide on the first CFE bill, exemptions, and how to challenge it from abroad. Keep the address, the mail circuit, and the filings aligned, and the magnet works for you. Let them drift apart, and it works against you.

B. The five-year home limit, the strike-off risk, and the Paris practicalities for founders living abroad

The most dangerous trap is time. A company validly housed at its director’s home can lose its address five years later without anyone sending a reminder that the founder reads. The statute sets the ceiling and the sanction together. As Article L123-11-1 of the Commercial Code provides for the tolerance case, the home installation lasts “pour une durée ne pouvant ni excéder cinq ans à compter de la création de celle-ci, ni dépasser le terme légal, contractuel ou judiciaire de l’occupation des locaux”, and “Avant l’expiration de la période mentionnée au deuxième alinéa, la personne doit, sous peine de radiation d’office, communiquer au greffe du tribunal les éléments justifiant son changement de situation”. Before the five years expire, the company must send the court registry proof of its new situation, failing which it faces radiation d’office, the registrar’s own-motion strike-off. The implementing article organises the warning. As Article R123-171 of the Commercial Code states, “le greffier lui adresse trois mois avant l’expiration du délai de cinq ans prévu par cet article une lettre l’invitant à lui communiquer l’adresse de son nouveau siège”, and “Faute pour l’assujetti d’avoir régularisé sa situation au regard des deuxième et quatrième alinéas de l’article L. 123-11-1 dans le délai imparti, le greffier procède à la radiation”. The clerk writes three months before the deadline, and without regularisation, strikes the company off. For a founder who moved back to London or New York in year three and left the company at a former director’s Paris flat, that letter goes to the flat, the deadline passes unread, and the strike-off follows. A radiated company cannot cleanly invoice, borrow, sue, or sell itself, and rebuilding the registration costs more than a timely transfer filed on the Guichet unique. Diary the five-year date at incorporation, even if moving to a provider or an office within two years is the plan, and file the transfer the month the decision is taken, not the month the new lease starts.

The second trap is the address that was never real. Domiciliation exists to give young and foreign-run companies a lawful home, not to simulate one. Where the siège has no reality, opponents ask courts to draw the consequences: procedural acts annulled, service redirected, and in extreme patterns, the company’s standing attacked. The 2025 ruling above shows the boundary precisely. The presumption protects the published address, but proof of a fictitious or fraudulent siège destroys it, and the proof can come from a bailiff’s report, a provider’s denial, or an empty file. From abroad, reality is built with paper and presence combined: a signed and renewed contract with an approved provider, a file the provider can actually produce, books and registers available at the address as Article R123-168 of the Commercial Code requires, periodic board meetings or written consultations genuinely routed through the siège, and mail that is collected, answered, and archived. Tax and social administrations apply the same realism in their own field. A company whose only French footprint is a letterbox while its effective management sits permanently elsewhere invites questions about where it is really run, which is a separate inquiry from the address title but one that an empty siège makes harder to answer. Our guide on VAT registration, fiscal representatives, and penalties from abroad shows how quickly an unreachable company accumulates assessments it then must fight from a weak position.

Paris and the Île-de-France add their own practical layer, worth one focused section because most foreign founders choose a Paris postcode. First, the competent registry is the greffe of the commercial court of the siège’s département, so a Paris siège files through Paris and litigates locally, while a siège in Hauts-de-Seine or Val-de-Marne answers to Nanterre or Créteil. The choice of postcode therefore chooses a court and a local practice, including for labour disputes once the first employee is hired, a sequence described in our guide on hiring the first French employee from abroad. Second, Paris domiciliation is a mature market with real price and quality dispersion: check the prefectoral approval, visit by video call, ask how mail is scanned and how fast originals are forwarded abroad, and confirm meeting-room booking works on the days your board actually meets. Third, Paris landlords and co-ownerships enforce home-use bans more actively than elsewhere, so the director’s-home route needs the lease and building rules read before filing, plus the written notice the statute demands. Fourth, plan the move. Companies that start domiciled and later take an office in the same city still file a formal siège transfer when the address changes, even within Paris, with the new proof of jouissance, an update of the articles’ siège clause where the articles fix the address, and fresh publications. None of this requires living in France. It requires a calendar, a provider or landlord who answers, and filings made on time through the Guichet unique rather than after the reminder letter.

Conclusion

A French company run from abroad stands on its address. The own lease gives the most substance and the most cost. The director’s French home gives a lawful start, capped at five years and conditioned on the lease and building rules. The approved domiciliation provider gives a compliant Paris or regional home with mail, meetings, and books covered, provided the approval is real and the contract is maintained. In each case the statute demands the same thing, proof of a genuine title, and the courts give that proof its full weight: the Kbis address is presumed yours until someone proves it hollow, and service at that address binds you even when you never received the envelope in person. Foreign founders who internalise these two sentences make few mistakes. Sign a real contract before registering, keep the file alive through every renewal and every move, read the mail the same week it arrives, and diary the five-year home limit from day one. The companies that fail on their address rarely fail for lack of money or ideas. They fail because nobody owned the letterbox, and the law, sooner or later, always writes to it.