You formed a French SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company) or a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the private limited company) from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, obtained the Kbis (the official company identity certificate issued by the greffe, the court registry office), opened a bank account, and traded for a while. Now the project is over, the French client is gone, or the group is restructuring, and the company sits idle, generating accounting fees, tax filings and payroll declarations for nothing. Closing it from abroad is entirely possible, but it is a two-stage legal operation, not a single form to sign. French law separates the dissolution, which is the décision to end the company and open the winding-up period, from the liquidation, which is the actual settlement of assets and debts, and finally from the radiation, the striking-off from the RCS (registre du commerce et des sociétés, the trade and companies register) that makes the disappearance enforceable against third parties. Each stage has its own vote, its own filing on the Guichet unique (the single online company formalities portal), its own tax consequences and its own traps for a director who lives thousands of kilometres away. This guide explains how to vote the dissolution from abroad, how the friendly liquidation (liquidation amiable) works in practice, how to clear corporate tax, VAT and staff files, when the simplified single-shareholder route applies, and when closing is the wrong décision altogether.
Two warnings before you start. First, this guide covers solvent companies only: a company that can still pay its debts. If your French subsidiary cannot pay its debts as they fall due, do not vote a friendly dissolution. French law sends insolvent companies into court-led proceedings with strict duties for the director, and those duties from abroad are explained in our companion guide on what happens when a French subsidiary becomes insolvent and what a director abroad must declare. Second, if the slowdown may be temporary, closing and later reincorporating is usually more expensive than pausing: our guide on putting a French company to sleep with the mise en sommeil explains the cheaper standby option. Closing is final, and reopening means starting from zero.
The guidance that follows is general in scope: it describes the steps useful in any comparable shutdown and does not describe the situation of any particular business, about which this article makes no finding.
I. Vote the dissolution and run the friendly liquidation from abroad
A. Dissolve the company on paper first: vote, liquidator and the survival of the legal person
The starting point is simple: a French company ends for the causes listed by the Civil Code, and one of them is the early dissolution voted by the shareholders. Article 1844-7 of the Civil Code states that “La société prend fin : 1° Par l’expiration du temps pour lequel elle a été constituée, sauf prorogation effectuée conformément à l’article 1844-6 ; 2° Par la réalisation ou l’extinction de son objet ; 3° Par l’annulation du contrat de société ; 4° Par la dissolution anticipée décidée par les associés” (Civil Code, Article 1844-7 on Legifrance). In practice, almost every voluntary closure uses that fourth case: the shareholders meet, in person or remotely according to the articles, and vote the early dissolution. From abroad, organise the meeting exactly as the articles require for extraordinary decisions, keep proof of convocation, and have the minutes signed: the greffe (the registry of the commercial court) will ask for those minutes at the first filing.
The majority needed to dissolve depends on the company form, and this is where foreign founders often stumble by applying the rules of their home country. The official English-language guidance of the French administration states that in a SAS the décision to dissolve and appoint the friendly liquidator is taken unanimously unless the articles provide otherwise, while in a SARL it is taken by a majority of the shares plus one share (service-public.fr, voluntary dissolution procédure in English). Check your articles first: many SAS articles lower the unanimity requirement to a qualified majority, and that clause, if it exists, governs the vote. In a SARL, count in shares, not in heads: a shareholder holding 60 percent of the capital carries the dissolution alone, while three minority shareholders holding 40 percent together cannot force it. The same meeting appoints the liquidateur amiable, the friendly liquidator who will run the winding-up. It can be the président of the SAS, the gérant (manager) of the SARL, another shareholder, or an outsider such as an accountant or a lawyer. The mandate may not exceed three years and it is renewable (service-public.fr, voluntary dissolution procédure in English).
The vote does not kill the company; it changes its legal state. The Commercial Code provides that “Sous réserve des dispositions du présent chapitre, la liquidation des sociétés est régie par les dispositions contenues dans les statuts” (Commercial Code, Article L237-1 on Legifrance), which means your articles continue to matter during the winding-up, and then that “La société est en liquidation dès l’instant de sa dissolution pour quelque cause que ce soit sauf dans le cas prévu au troisième alinéa de l’article 1844-5 du code civil. Sa dénomination sociale est suivie de la mention ” société en liquidation “. La personnalité morale de la société subsiste pour les besoins de la liquidation, jusqu’à la clôture de celle-ci. La dissolution d’une société ne produit ses effets à l’égard des tiers qu’à compter de la date à laquelle elle est publiée au registre du commerce et des sociétés” (Commercial Code, Article L237-2 on Legifrance). Three consequences follow for a director abroad. First, every letter, invoice and email must carry the words “société en liquidation” after the company name, and forgetting that mention exposes the company to a fine of 1,500 euros (service-public.fr, voluntary dissolution procédure in English). Second, the company keeps its legal personality for the needs of the liquidation, so it can still be sued, can still sue, and its bank account usually stays open until the end. Third, the dissolution binds third parties only once published at the RCS, so the filing matters as much as the vote: the liquidator must declare the voluntary dissolution on the Guichet unique within the month following the décision (service-public.fr, voluntary dissolution procédure in English).
Foreign directors sometimes assume that once the company is struck off the register, everything is over and no claim can resurface. The Court of Cassation has rejected that assumption in clear terms: “Il résulte de ce texte que la personnalité morale d’une société dissoute subsiste aussi longtemps que ses droits et obligations à caractère social ne sont pas liquidés” (Court of Cassation, Commercial Chamber, 20 September 2023, Nos 21-14.252 and 22-21.718, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2023:CO00577, Cour de cassation, Commercial Chamber, 20 September 2023). In that case, a company dissolved in 2017 and struck off the RCS in 2018 was still held capable of defending à commercial lease dispute, because the lease obligations might not have been fully settled despite the striking-off. The lesson for a founder abroad is direct: close the substance, not just the paperwork. Pay the landlord, settle the supplier balances, terminate the contracts, and keep the proof, because a radiation entry alone does not extinguish an unsettled company debt.
B. Pay every creditor, approve the final accounts and strike the company off the register
Once appointed, the liquidator replaces the président or the gérant for everything connected with the winding-up: selling the remaining stock and equipment, collecting receivables, terminating ongoing contracts, paying suppliers, the landlord, the tax office and the social bodies, and preparing accounts. The Civil Code confirms the sequence in one sentence: “La dissolution de la société entraîne sa liquidation, hormis les cas prévus à l’article 1844-4 et au troisième alinéa de l’article 1844-5” (Civil Code, Article 1844-8 on Legifrance). In other words, dissolution without liquidation is the exception, not the rule, and that exception only covers the single-shareholder transfer described in section II below. If the winding-up lasts beyond one financial year, the liquidator must, within three months of each year-end, draw up the annual accounts from an inventory of the remaining assets and liabilities and report in writing on the opérations of the past year: “Le liquidateur, dans les trois mois de la clôture de chaque exercice, établit les comptes annuels au vu de l’inventaire qu’il a dressé des divers éléments de l’actif et du passif existant à cette date et un rapport écrit par lequel il rend compte des opérations de liquidation au cours de l’exercice écoulé” (Commercial Code, Article L237-25 on Legifrance). A liquidation that drags on therefore keeps producing accounting costs, which is one more reason to prepare the file before voting the dissolution rather than after.
The closing meeting is the legal moment when the company truly dies on paper. The shareholders are convened at the end of the liquidation to approve the final picture: “Les associés, y compris les titulaires d’actions à dividende prioritaire sans droit de vote, sont convoqués en fin de liquidation pour statuer sur le compte définitif, sur le quitus de la gestion du liquidateur et la décharge de son mandat et pour constater la clôture de la liquidation” (Commercial Code, Article L237-9 on Legifrance). Three approvals in one meeting: the final accounts showing a zero balance, the quitus (the formal discharge of the liquidator for his management), and the recorded closure of the liquidation. From abroad, this meeting can be held by videoconference if the articles allow it, and shareholders can vote by correspondence or proxy; what matters is that the minutes record each approval expressly, because the greffe checks them before striking the company off.
A recent ruling of the Court of Cassation gives this closing meeting a sharp edge that foreign shareholders should understand. The Court held that “Il résulte de ces textes qu’à compter de la clôture de la liquidation, le liquidateur n’a plus qualité pour représenter la société en défense ou en demande. Un mandataire ad hoc doit être désigné en justice aux fins de représenter la société” (Court of Cassation, Commercial Chamber, 1 October 2025, No 24-14.109, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2025:CO00502, Cour de cassation, Commercial Chamber, 1 October 2025). In that case, a liquidator tried to act for a company years after the closing meeting, arguing that the closure had never been published; the Court answered that the closing vote itself had ended the mandate, regardless of the missing publicity: “avait mis fin au mandat de son liquidateur, peu important l’absence d’accomplissement des formalités de publicité de cette décision de clôture”. Two lessons follow. First, keep the liquidator in place until every account, every tax balance and every payroll file is genuinely settled, because once the closing is voted, he can no longer sign, pay or represent the company. Second, if a forgotten creditor or a tax claim resurfaces after the closing, only a court-appointed ad hoc representative can act for the former company, which means extra proceedings, extra delays and extra fees from abroad.
The final administrative step is the radiation, and it runs entirely through the Guichet unique even from another continent. Within one month of the publication of the closing of the liquidation, the liquidator must complete the striking-off formality on the company formalities portal, filing the minutes approving the liquidation accounts certified by the liquidator, a copy of the final accounts, and proof of publication of the closing notice in a legal gazette (service-public.fr, voluntary dissolution procédure in English). The administration guidance adds that the closure of the winding-up must take place within three years of the dissolution, failing which the public prosecutor or any interested person, such as a creditor, can ask the court to order the winding-up of the company (service-public.fr, voluntary dissolution procédure in English). Once the greffe records the radiation, the disappearance becomes enforceable against third parties: creditors can no longer demand payment from a company that no longer exists, and the Kbis, which used to prove the company was alive, now shows a radiated company. The practical sequence for a founder abroad is therefore: vote, publish and file the dissolution, liquidate over weeks or months, vote the closing, publish the closing notice, then file the radiation, and only then close the bank account and archive the records. The INPI, the public institute that operates the company register side of the process, describes the same two-formality path of dissolution then radiation with its related tax steps (INPI, closing a company: dissolution and radiation).
II. Clear tax, staff and the single-shareholder shortcut without creating new liability
A. Settle corporate tax, VAT, payroll and the Paris business filings from abroad
Dissolution accelerates tax. For a company subject to French corporate income tax (IS, impôt sur les sociétés), the Tax Code provides that in case of dissolution, the corporate tax is assessed under the conditions of Article 201 of the same code: “En cas de dissolution” … “l’impôt sur les sociétés est établi dans les conditions prévues aux 1 et 3 de l’article 201” (General Tax Code, Article 221 on Legifrance). Article 201 itself requires taxpayers, within forty-five days, to inform the administration of the transfer or cessation and to state the date on which it took or will take effect: “Les contribuables doivent, dans un délai de quarante-cinq jours déterminé comme il est indiqué ci-après, aviser l’administration de la cession ou de la cessation et lui faire connaître la date à laquelle elle a été ou sera effective, ainsi que, s’il y a lieu, les nom, prénoms, et adresse du cessionnaire” (General Tax Code, Article 201 on Legifrance). Concretely, the liquidator files the final corporate tax return covering the period from the start of the financial year to the dissolution date, pays any balance, and notifies the SIE (service des impôts des entreprises, the corporate tax office) through the professional account on impôts.gouv.fr, the tax administration portal (impots.gouv.fr, French tax administration portal). Keep the acknowledgement of receipt: the greffe does not always ask for it, but a later buyer, auditor or court will.
VAT (TVA, taxe sur la valeur ajoutée) follows its own short clock. The administration guidance states that the liquidator must file the VAT declaration within thirty days of the cessation of activity (service-public.fr, voluntary dissolution procédure in English). Reconcile the final return with the liquidation inventory, repay any VAT credit the company claimed on assets it keeps or transfers, and request the deregistration of the intra-Community VAT number if the company traded across borders. Our guide on setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, from bank account to Kbis, VAT and first hire describes the VAT registration side; the closure mirrors it in reverse. As for the CFE (cotisation foncière des entreprises, the local business premises tax), check the professional tax account for any remaining balance for the current year before distributing the liquidation surplus to yourself: a small unpaid balance is the classic cause of a radiation file bouncing back.
Staff files deserve the same rigour, because employment contracts do not evaporate with the dissolution vote. The administration reminds liquidators of the duty to terminate the employment contracts of the staff (service-public.fr, voluntary dissolution procédure in English), and each termination follows ordinary French dismissal law even though the reason, the closure of the company, is usually uncontestable. Every employee with at least eight months of continuous service holds a statutory severance right except in case of serious misconduct: “Le salarié titulaire d’un contrat de travail à durée indéterminée, licencié alors qu’il compte 8 mois d’ancienneté ininterrompus au service du même employeur, a droit, sauf en cas de faute grave, à une indemnité de licenciement” (Labour Code, Article L1234-9 on Legifrance). Run the final payroll returns, including the DSN (déclaration sociale nominative, the monthly online social declaration), issue the final payslips, the work certificate and the France Travail certificate (the employment-centre document that lets the employee claim unemployment benefits), and settle the last URSSAF (the social security collection body) and pension contributions. From abroad, give your payroll provider a written instruction letter with the dismissal dates, the severance computation and the document checklist, and keep copies of everything: a labour court (conseil de prud’hommes) claim filed two years later is decided on paper, and the paper will be in France while you are not.
If the company seat is in Paris or the Ile-de-France region, three local details change the daily handling. First, the competent registry is the greffe du tribunal de commerce de Paris, but since the reform of company formalities, filings go through the Guichet unique rather than over the counter, so a founder in another time zone files at midnight Paris time exactly like a founder in the 8th arrondissement; the Paris greffe then records the dissolution, the appointment of the liquidator and later the radiation. Second, disputes about the liquidation, for example a creditor contesting the final accounts or a shareholder refusing the quitus, go to the Paris commercial court (tribunal de commerce de Paris), and court-appointed representatives such as the ad hoc agent mentioned by the Court of Cassation are designated there. Third, the final social statements for Paris-based staff go through URSSAF Ile-de-France, and the Paris region chamber of commerce offers hands-on filing support for dissolutions of SAS and SARL companies (the Paris region chamber of commerce). None of this requires a trip to Paris, but all of it requires a calendar: dissolution filing within the month, VAT within thirty days, forty-five days for the tax notice, radiation within one month of the closing publication, and a three-year outer limit for the whole winding-up.
B. Use the single-shareholder transfer correctly and know when closing is the wrong move
Many foreign groups hold their French company through one parent entity, and for them the law offers a shortcut: no liquidation at all. When all the shares end up in a single hand, the company does not automatically disappear; any interested person can ask a court for dissolution if the situation is not fixed within a year, and the court can grant up to six months to fix it, but it cannot order dissolution if the fix has happened by the day it rules. If dissolution is ordered or decided in that configuration, it triggers the universal transfer of the whole estate to the sole shareholder, with no liquidation phase. The Civil Code also gives creditors a protection window: they can oppose the dissolution within thirty days of its publication, a judge then either rejects the opposition or orders repayment or guarantees, and the transfer of assets and the disappearance of the legal person only take effect once that window closes or the opposition is resolved. The key statutory sentence reads: “En cas de dissolution, celle-ci entraîne la transmission universelle du patrimoine de la société à l’associé unique, sans qu’il y ait lieu à liquidation. Les créanciers peuvent faire opposition à la dissolution dans le délai de trente jours à compter de la publication de celle-ci” (Civil Code, Article 1844-5 on Legifrance). The administration confirms the practical scope: the dissolution of a single-member EURL (entreprise unipersonnelle à responsabilité limitée, the one-person SARL) or SASU (société par actions simplifiée unipersonnelle, the one-person SAS) whose sole shareholder is a legal person skips the liquidation phase entirely and moves the assets and debts to that shareholder (service-public.fr, voluntary dissolution procédure in English).
Three conditions decide whether your group can use this TUP (transmission universelle du patrimoine, the universal transfer of assets and liabilities). First, there must be exactly one shareholder left; if two group entities each hold shares, consolidate them first. Second, that sole shareholder must be a legal person, typically the foreign parent company; a sole shareholder who is a natural person still goes through the ordinary liquidation described in section I. Third, the thirty-day creditor opposition period must be respected to the letter: publish the dissolution, wait, and only then book the transfer. The transfer moves everything, including the debts you had forgotten, the disputed invoices, the pending litigation and the tax reassessments not yet notified, which is why the parent should run the same creditor review as in a friendly liquidation before voting the dissolution. Used properly, the TUP closes a French subsidiary in a few months with a single publication, a single filing and no liquidator; used carelessly, it imports unknown French liabilities directly onto the foreign parent balance sheet with no liquidation filter in between.
Finally, know the three situations where closing is the wrong move. The first is insolvency, already mentioned: a company that cannot pay its due debts belongs before the commercial court, not before a friendly liquidator, and attempting a voluntary dissolution in that state exposes the director to personal liability for the shortfall. Our companion guide on subsidiary insolvency and director liability from abroad explains which declarations are expected and which payments must stop. The contrast with the friendly liquidation is instructive: in a court-ordered judicial liquidation closed for lack of assets, the Court of Cassation allows the proceedings to be reopened where assets turn out not to have been realised or where actions in the creditors interest were never brought, so that the liquidator can even pursue enforcement of a judgment obtained during the proceedings: “si la clôture de la liquidation judiciaire est prononcée pour insuffisance d’actif et qu’il apparaît que des actifs n’ont pas été réalisés ou que des actions dans l’intérêt des créanciers n’ont pas été engagées pendant le cours de la procédure, celle-ci peut être reprise. Il en résulte que le droit d’agir ainsi reconnu au liquidateur emporte, pour celui-ci, la faculté de poursuivre l’exécution forcée d’une décision obtenue pendant la liquidation judiciaire au bénéfice des créanciers et qu’il n’avait pu ramener à exécution” (Court of Cassation, Commercial Chamber, 21 October 2020, No 19-14.894, ECLI:FR:CCASS:2020:CO00596, Cour de cassation, Commercial Chamber, 21 October 2020). A friendly liquidation offers no such second chance: once the closing is voted and the radiation recorded, the company is gone, and only a court-appointed representative can clean up what was forgotten.
The second wrong move is closing for tax reasons without computing the exit cost. Dissolving triggers the immediate assessment of corporate tax on profits not yet taxed, the final VAT return can produce repayments on assets transferred to shareholders, and any liquidation surplus distributed to the foreign parent may face withholding and treaty analysis in both countries. Run those numbers with the accountant before the dissolution vote, not after the radiation, because the forty-five-day notice and the thirty-day VAT return leave no time for restructuring once the clock starts. The third wrong move is simply walking away: stopping the filings, emptying the account and assuming the company will fade. It will not fade. Its legal personality survives for unsettled company matters, as the Court of Cassation recalled in 2023, creditors keep their actions, the tax office keeps its assessments, and the director who organised the silent exit remains reachable. A clean voluntary closure costs a few months and a few thousand euros in fees; a dirty exit costs years of correspondence with administrations that never forget.
Conclusion
A solvent wind-down run from a distance follows a fixed order: vote the early wind-down with the right majority, appoint the liquidator, file the decision on the single portal within the month and add “société en liquidation” to the company name; then sell, collect, pay every creditor, run the annual or final accounts, and vote the closing with the final balance, the discharge of the liquidator and the recorded end of the process; then publish the closing, file the removal within one month, clear the forty-five-day corporate income notice, the thirty-day VAT return, and the final payroll and social statements with severance for eligible staff, and archive the records. Single-shareholder groups held by a legal person can replace the whole liquidation with the universal transfer of assets, provided they respect the thirty-day creditor opposition window. Insolvent businesses and temporary slowdowns call for different tools: court proceedings in the first case, the standby arrangement of the mise en sommeil in the second. Done in this order, with the votes, the filings and the payments each documented, a local company leaves no tail behind it: a published decision, satisfied creditors, cleared tax and payroll files, and a removal entry that any partner, bank or administration can verify.