The payroll software shows a green JEI flag. The French accountant applied the employer exemption on the DSN, the d\u00e9claration sociale nominative, the monthly social-security return. Six months later URSSAF, the Union de recouvrement des cotisations de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale et d’allocations familiales, the body that collects social contributions, sends a lettre d’observations. The French SAS, soci\u00e9t\u00e9 par actions simplifi\u00e9e, a simplified joint-stock company, is 100% owned by a Delaware C-corporation or a UK Ltd. The inspectors write that the company is not a jeune entreprise innovante, a JEI, young innovative company, because its capital is not held by individuals and because it was created as the French arm of an activity that already existed abroad. The exemption is reversed, with majorations de retard, late-payment increases. The US or UK parent asks, in English, whether the status can be obtained as if it were a licence.<\/p>\n
It is not a licence. JEI is a legal qualification tested at the close of each financial year under article 44 sexies-0 A of the code g\u00e9n\u00e9ral des imp\u00f4ts<\/a>, the CGI, the French tax code. The social exemption is applied by the employer itself, without a prior URSSAF filing. A 100% industrial foreign parent usually fails two independent tests: the 50% capital test and the ban on creating the company as an extension of a preexisting activity. Founder-owned French startups, including those with a minority foreign corporate investor or a qualifying venture-capital fund, can still pass. This article is for the foreign owner who already has, or is about to have, a French company. The pillar guide on setting up a French company as a foreign founder<\/a> remains the hub for the bank account, the Kbis, the official extract from the registre du commerce et des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s, the RCS, trade and companies register, VAT and the first hire. What follows is the missing incentive in that calendar: when JEI is available, when a foreign parent kills it, and how to contest the recovery.<\/p>\n Article 44 sexies-0 A of the CGI<\/a>: “Une entreprise est qualifi\u00e9e de jeune entreprise innovante r\u00e9alisant des projets de recherche et de d\u00e9veloppement lorsque, \u00e0 la cl\u00f4ture de l’exercice, elle remplit simultan\u00e9ment les conditions suivantes :”<\/p>\n The conditions are read at the close of the financial year, not on the day of incorporation, and they must all be true together. The first condition is the SME, petite et moyenne entreprise, small and medium-sized enterprise, ceiling.<\/p>\n Article 44 sexies-0 A, 1\u00b0<\/a>: “elle est une petite ou moyenne entreprise, c’est-\u00e0-dire employant moins de 250 personnes, et qui a soit r\u00e9alis\u00e9 un chiffre d’affaires inf\u00e9rieur \u00e0 50 millions d’euros au cours de l’exercice, ramen\u00e9 ou port\u00e9 le cas \u00e9ch\u00e9ant \u00e0 douze mois, soit un total du bilan inf\u00e9rieur \u00e0 43 millions d’euros.”<\/p>\n Headcount is the average number of employees during that year. A French subsidiary of a large foreign group can still be an SME on its own figures, but the capital test discussed below is a separate filter. The URSSAF page updated on 16 July 2026 repeats the same 250 \/ 50 million \/ 43 million figures as conditions common to JEI, to the jeune entreprise universitaire, the JEU, university spin-off, to the jeune entreprise de croissance, the JEC, young growth company, and to the jeune entreprise d’innovation \u00e0 impact, the JEII, impact innovation company.<\/p>\n Article 44 sexies-0 A, 2\u00b0<\/a>: “elle est cr\u00e9\u00e9e depuis moins de huit ans”<\/p>\n URSSAF and the official Entreprendre.service-public.fr page still distinguish companies created before 1 January 2023, which could use an eleven-year clock for the social and tax exemptions, from companies created from that date, which lose the status in the year of their eighth anniversary. A foreign founder incorporating in 2026 works with eight years, counted at each year-end. The social exemption itself is not open-ended inside that window. URSSAF states that the exemption applies until the last day of the seventh year following the year of creation of the establishment, and gives the example of a JEI created on 1 January 2023 remaining eligible until 31 December 2030, provided the company is still under eight years at year-end.<\/p>\n Article 44 sexies-0 A, 3\u00b0 a<\/a>: “elle a r\u00e9alis\u00e9 des d\u00e9penses de recherche, d\u00e9finies aux a \u00e0 g du II de l’article 244 quater B et au 1 du A du II de l’article 244 quater B bis, repr\u00e9sentant au moins 20 % des charges, \u00e0 l’exception des pertes de change et des charges nettes sur cessions de valeurs mobili\u00e8res de placement, fiscalement d\u00e9ductibles au titre de cet exercice.”<\/p>\n Research expenditure is the same family of costs as for the cr\u00e9dit d’imp\u00f4t recherche, the CIR, research tax credit: personnel, depreciation of research assets, patent costs, subcontracted research within the statutory limits. Foreign-exchange losses and net charges on disposals of marketable securities are stripped out of the denominator. Charges invoiced by other JEI that themselves carry out R&D projects are stripped out of the ratio so that a group of JEI cannot inflate the percentage by invoicing one another. URSSAF and Entreprendre.service-public.fr add that for financial years closed before 1 March 2025 the old 15% floor could still apply. A 2026 year-end is a 20% year.<\/p>\n Three substitutes exist if the 20% ratio is out of reach. 3\u00b0 b is the JEU path: the company is directed or held at least 10% by students, recent masters or doctors, or teaching and research staff, its main activity is the valorisation of research carried out in a higher-education institution, and a convention with that institution is in place. 3\u00b0 c is the JEC path, in force since 1 June 2024: research spend between 5% and 20% of deductible charges, that amount at least equal to the previous year, and a doubling of headcount compared with the financial year before last, with an increase of at least ten full-time-equivalent employees. 3\u00b0 d is the JEII path added in the 2026 rewrite of the same article: the 5% to 20% research band plus the criteria of a jeune entreprise d’utilit\u00e9 sociale under article L. 3332-17-1 of the code du travail<\/a>, the labour code, or the commercial-company conditions of the social and solidarity economy. A US software group that simply books French engineers against a cost-plus agreement will not become a JEC or a JEII by relabelling the spreadsheet.<\/p>\n Article 44 sexies-0 A, 5\u00b0<\/a>: “elle n’est pas cr\u00e9\u00e9e dans le cadre d’une concentration, d’une restructuration, d’une extension d’activit\u00e9s pr\u00e9existantes ou d’une reprise de telles activit\u00e9s au sens du III de l’article 44 sexies.”<\/p>\n Article 44 sexies, III, of the CGI<\/a>: “Les entreprises cr\u00e9\u00e9es dans le cadre d’une concentration, d’une restructuration, d’une extension d’activit\u00e9s pr\u00e9existantes ou qui reprennent de telles activit\u00e9s ne peuvent pas b\u00e9n\u00e9ficier du r\u00e9gime d\u00e9fini au I.”<\/p>\n Article 44 sexies, III<\/a> continues: “L’existence d’un contrat, quelle qu’en soit la d\u00e9nomination, ayant pour objet d’organiser un partenariat, caract\u00e9rise l’extension d’une activit\u00e9 pr\u00e9existante lorsque l’entreprise nouvellement cr\u00e9\u00e9e b\u00e9n\u00e9ficie de l’assistance de ce partenaire, notamment en mati\u00e8re d’utilisation d’une enseigne, d’un nom commercial, d’une marque ou d’un savoir-faire, de conditions d’approvisionnement, de modalit\u00e9s de gestion administrative, contentieuse, commerciale ou technique, dans des conditions telles que cette entreprise est plac\u00e9e dans une situation de d\u00e9pendance.”<\/p>\n Brand, know-how, supply terms, administrative or technical management, and a contract that organises a partnership are enough, if they place the new company in a situation of dependence. That is the usual fact pattern of a French commercial subsidiary of a foreign software, life-sciences or industrial group.<\/p>\n The social exemption is the cash that foreign founders actually budget. Entreprendre.service-public.fr states that a JEI created before 31 December 2028 can obtain an exemption from employer social-insurance and family-allowance contributions. URSSAF lists what remains due: employee social-security contributions, CSG and CRDS, the contribution de solidarit\u00e9 pour l’autonomie, employer unemployment insurance, accidents du travail et maladies professionnelles, AT\/MP, occupational injury contributions, the FNAL housing-fund contribution, the social-dialogue contribution, and where applicable versement mobilit\u00e9 and forfait social. Two caps apply. URSSAF describes the first as remuneration below 4.5 times the SMIC, the salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance, the statutory minimum wage, and the second as five times the plafond annuel de la S\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale, the PASS, annual social-security ceiling, per establishment and per calendar year. Entreprendre.service-public.fr publishes the 2026 euro translations of those caps as 8,401.58 euros of monthly remuneration taken into account and 240,300 euros of exemption per establishment per year. The exemption is lost for the calendar year, and for later years until the conditions are met again, if any JEI condition fails during the year. The employer must also be up to date with URSSAF filings and payments.<\/p>\n Article 44 sexies A of the CGI<\/a>: “Les entreprises r\u00e9pondant aux conditions fix\u00e9es \u00e0 l’article 44 sexies-0 A sont exon\u00e9r\u00e9es d’imp\u00f4t sur le revenu ou d’imp\u00f4t sur les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s \u00e0 raison des b\u00e9n\u00e9fices r\u00e9alis\u00e9s au titre du premier exercice ou de la premi\u00e8re p\u00e9riode d’imposition b\u00e9n\u00e9ficiaire, cette p\u00e9riode d’exon\u00e9ration totale des b\u00e9n\u00e9fices r\u00e9alis\u00e9s ne pouvant exc\u00e9der douze mois.”<\/p>\n The official Entreprendre.service-public.fr page states, in terms that a foreign founder should treat as the administration’s current reading, that JEI created from 1 January 2024 can no longer obtain an exemption from tax on profits. Optional seven-year exemptions from taxe fonci\u00e8re sur les propri\u00e9t\u00e9s b\u00e2ties, the property tax on built property, and from cotisation fonci\u00e8re des entreprises, the CFE, the local business-property contribution, remain possible where the commune has deliberated, for companies created until 31 December 2028.<\/p>\n Article 1383 D of the CGI<\/a>: “Les communes et leurs \u00e9tablissements publics de coop\u00e9ration intercommunale dot\u00e9s d’une fiscalit\u00e9 propre peuvent, par une d\u00e9lib\u00e9ration de port\u00e9e g\u00e9n\u00e9rale prise dans les conditions pr\u00e9vues au I de l’article 1639 A bis , exon\u00e9rer de taxe fonci\u00e8re sur les propri\u00e9t\u00e9s b\u00e2ties pour une dur\u00e9e de sept ans les immeubles appartenant \u00e0 une entreprise cr\u00e9\u00e9e jusqu’au 31 d\u00e9cembre 2028”<\/p>\n Article 1466 D of the CGI<\/a>: “Les communes et leurs \u00e9tablissements publics de coop\u00e9ration intercommunale dot\u00e9s d’une fiscalit\u00e9 propre peuvent, par une d\u00e9lib\u00e9ration prise dans les conditions pr\u00e9vues au I de l’article 1639 A bis , exon\u00e9rer de cotisation fonci\u00e8re des entreprises pour une dur\u00e9e de sept ans les entreprises existant au 1er janvier 2004 ou cr\u00e9\u00e9es entre cette date et le 31 d\u00e9cembre 2028”<\/p>\n Both articles subject the aid to the de minimis regulation (EU) 2023\/2831. A request must be filed with the service des imp\u00f4ts des entreprises, the SIE, the corporate tax office. CIR can be claimed in parallel. The JEI option, where it still competes with other territorial exemptions, is irrevocable once exercised.<\/p>\n Article 44 sexies-0 A, 4\u00b0<\/a>: “son capital est d\u00e9tenu de mani\u00e8re continue \u00e0 50 % au moins”<\/p>\n The holders must be, continuously, at least 50% individuals; or a company meeting the same conditions whose capital is itself at least 50% held by individuals; or named venture-capital vehicles, without a dependency link within the meaning of article 39, 12 of the CGI; or recognised scientific foundations or associations, or another JEI carrying out R&D projects; or public research and teaching institutions or their subsidiaries.<\/p>\n Article 44 sexies-0 A, 4\u00b0 b<\/a>: “par une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9pondant aux m\u00eames conditions dont le capital est d\u00e9tenu pour 50 % au moins par des personnes physiques”<\/p>\n Article 44 sexies-0 A, 4\u00b0 c<\/a>: “des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s de capital-risque, des fonds communs de placement \u00e0 risques, des fonds professionnels sp\u00e9cialis\u00e9s”<\/p>\n A Delaware C-corporation, a UK Ltd, a German AG or a Singapore Pte that is an operating company is not on that list. A 100% foreign industrial parent fails 4\u00b0 even if the French SAS spends 80% of its costs on engineers and is under eight years old. The list is not a ban on every foreign euro. Individuals, including non-resident founders, count. A French or foreign holding that itself meets the statutory description and is at least 50% held by individuals can count. A qualifying FCPR, FPCI, SCR or soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de libre partenariat can count, if there is no dependency link. A US venture fund that is not one of the named vehicles does not automatically qualify merely because it is called a fund. The test is continuous: a recapitalisation in June that puts an industrial parent above 50% contaminates the year-end. URSSAF repeats the 50% capital-holding requirement without rewriting the CGI list. Inspectors read the Kbis, the registre des b\u00e9n\u00e9ficiaires effectifs, the RBE, beneficial-owner register, the shareholders’ register of the SAS, and the foreign parent’s own cap table.<\/p>\n Even a founder-owned SAS can fail if it is in substance the French shop-front of a preexisting foreign business. The Administrative Court of Appeal of Versailles, 3rd chamber, 9 April 2019, n\u00b0 17VE01500<\/a>, unpublished, dealt with SARL INSO, created on 29 September 2006, which had obtained a rescrit, a tax ruling, on 14 February 2007. The tax authorities later withdrew JEI for 2008 on the ground that INSO was only an extension of iTAC Software AG, a German software company seeking to develop its activity on the French market.<\/p>\n The Versailles court<\/a> stated: “En excluant du champ d’application de l’exon\u00e9ration institu\u00e9e par l’article 44 sexies du code g\u00e9n\u00e9ral des imp\u00f4ts”<\/p>\n Complementarity of objects plus links of dependence that deprive the new company of real autonomy is the legal standard, not the label on the contract. The facts in INSO are the facts of many foreign roll-outs. A services contract was signed on 11 October 2006, days after incorporation.<\/p>\n The same judgment<\/a>: “l’activit\u00e9 de prestations de services – conseil et distribution de logiciels – \u00e0 laquelle se livre la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 INSO, cr\u00e9\u00e9e le 29 septembre 2006, est une activit\u00e9 compl\u00e9mentaire de celle exerc\u00e9e par la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 iTAC Software AG (iTAC), soci\u00e9t\u00e9 allemande de g\u00e9nie logiciel d\u00e9sirant d\u00e9velopper son activit\u00e9 sur le march\u00e9 fran\u00e7ais”<\/p>\n The contract charged INSO, as a subcontractor, with sales, after-sales and account management. iTAC reserved the right to conclude or reject agreements at its sole discretion, required monthly reports, bought a volume of consulting days, paid a monthly fee, and took worldwide rights in the work. INSO worked almost exclusively for iTAC’s clients.<\/p>\n The court held<\/a>: “Ainsi les liens de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 INSO avec la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 iTAC caract\u00e9risent un lien de d\u00e9pendance entre les deux soci\u00e9t\u00e9s, de nature \u00e0 priver la premi\u00e8re de toute autonomie r\u00e9elle et \u00e0 en faire une simple \u00e9manation de la seconde.”<\/p>\n It added<\/a>: “L’activit\u00e9 de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 INSO constituait ainsi une extension de l’activit\u00e9 pr\u00e9existante exerc\u00e9e par la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 iTAC Software AG.”<\/p>\n The request was rejected. A foreign parent that funds a French SAS, licences the group brand, dictates the CRM, and buys 90% of the output under a services agreement is in the same legal neighbourhood, even if the cap table is later dressed with a 51% founder holding.<\/p>\n Two practical profiles follow. First, the founder-owned French SAS: individuals hold 50% or more, continuously; research spend reaches 20% of deductible charges; the company is an SME; it is under eight years; it was not created as the continuation of a foreign business already selling the same product in France through distributors, a branch or a dependent company. That profile can claim JEI. A minority corporate investor, or a named French VC vehicle without a dependency link, does not by itself destroy the status. Second, the 100% subsidiary of a foreign operating company: 4\u00b0 fails on capital, and 5\u00b0 often fails on dependence even if the capital were later opened to individuals. Relabelling the parent as a holding does not move it onto the 4\u00b0 list unless that holding itself meets the statutory description. The JEI public-procurement reserved lots discussed elsewhere on this site are a different regime; they do not repair a failed 4\u00b0 or 5\u00b0 test.<\/p>\n LegalPlace’s French guide sets out age, SME, R&D and independence for a domestic startup. Bpifrance Cr\u00e9ation and URSSAF describe the aid. Village de la Justice has covered the 2024 and 2026 finance-law changes for investors. None of those pages walk a Delaware or UK parent through the INSO dependence test, the continuous 50% list, the DSN self-application, or the three-year prescription of an URSSAF refund. That is the gap this article fills.<\/p>\n There is no JEI licence to collect from URSSAF before the first payroll. Entreprendre.service-public.fr and URSSAF both state that the employer applies the exemption itself, month by month, from the start of the financial year if it considers that the conditions are met. URSSAF states that no prior application to URSSAF is required. The DSN uses code type de personnel, CTP, personnel-type code, 734 for JEI and JEII, 735 for JEC, 402 for JEU. Self-application is not a shield. If the year-end tests fail, the exemption is lost for that calendar year. If the employer was never a JEI, the DSN under-declaration is an ordinary recovery, with late-payment increases, of the sort already mapped in the guide on an URSSAF audit, mise en demeure and contrainte<\/a>.<\/p>\n The jobs that can be exempted are not the whole payroll. URSSAF, aligning with article 1 of d\u00e9cret n\u00b0 2004-581 of 21 June 2004<\/a>, lists employees subject to unemployment insurance who take part in the R&D project: research engineers, technicians working in close collaboration with researchers, R&D project managers, lawyers in charge of industrial property and technology agreements linked to the project, staff in charge of pre-competitive tests, and staff directly assigned to prototype or pilot-plant design. The Bulletin officiel de la s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale, the BOSS, official social-security bulletin, treats the exemption for an employee as acquired once at least half of working time is devoted to one or more R&D projects. Commercial staff, the office manager and the CFO who do not manage the research project stay on the ordinary rates. The first-employee calendar (DPAE, trial period, payslip)<\/a> still applies before any JEI CTP is coded.<\/p>\n Mandataires sociaux, corporate officers, are in a separate box. Article 1, I, of d\u00e9cret n\u00b0 2004-581<\/a>: “Les mandataires sociaux mentionn\u00e9s au II de l’article 131 de la loi de finances pour 2004 susvis\u00e9e sont :”<\/p>\n The list then covers minority g\u00e9rants of an SARL, chairmen and chief executives of a soci\u00e9t\u00e9 anonyme, and presidents and directors of an SAS.<\/p>\n Article 1 of the same d\u00e9cret<\/a>: “Le mandataire social est r\u00e9put\u00e9 participer \u00e0 titre principal au projet de recherche et de d\u00e9veloppement de l’entreprise s’il exerce, en son sein, une activit\u00e9 de recherche ou une activit\u00e9 de gestion de ce projet.”<\/p>\n A pr\u00e9sident of an SAS who actually runs the research project, or manages it, is inside the presumption. A pr\u00e9sident who only signs bank documents from London is not. URSSAF lists presidents and directors of an SAS among the officers who can benefit if they take part principally in the R&D project or in prototype design.<\/p>\n The Cour de cassation, second civil chamber, 15 February 2018, appeal n\u00b0 16-22.056, published, reversed a Paris court that had put the burden on the company to prove that its officer took part principally in the research. After citing article 131 of loi n\u00b0 2003-1311 of 30 December 2003 and article 1, I, of the 2004 d\u00e9cret, the Court<\/a> held: “le mandataire social qui remplit les conditions susmentionn\u00e9es est pr\u00e9sum\u00e9 exercer son activit\u00e9 dans des conditions ouvrant droit au b\u00e9n\u00e9fice de l’exon\u00e9ration, sauf \u00e0 l’organisme de recouvrement \u00e0 rapporter la preuve contraire”<\/p>\n The inspector who wants to pull the pr\u00e9sident of an SAS out of the exemption must prove the contrary. The company that never documented the officer’s research role still hands the inspector that proof. Time sheets, laboratory notebooks, patent filings, and the minutes of the research committee are the file, not a group org chart that calls everyone R&D.<\/p>\n A demande d’avis, a request for an opinion, can be sent to the tax administration on the BOFiP model (BOI-LETTRE-000186). It is not a condition of the exemption. Article L. 80 B, 4\u00b0, of the livre des proc\u00e9dures fiscales, the LPF, the tax-procedure book, is the statutory home of that request: a good-faith taxpayer may ask, on a precise and complete written statement of facts, whether the company is a JEI within the meaning of article 44 sexies-0 A. URSSAF writes that the decision delivered within three months is opposable to URSSAF. Opposable is not the same as creating eligibility for every past month, and it is not the same as stopping time for a refund.<\/p>\n The Cour de cassation, second civil chamber, 25 January 2018, appeal n\u00b0 16-27.325<\/a>, published, rejected Innovaxiom’s claim that a tacit tax opinion of 5 September 2013 reopened the three-year period for recovering 2009 contributions. The Court held that the tax opinion “est opposable \u00e0 l’organisme charg\u00e9 du recouvrement des cotisations de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale, il ne d\u00e9termine pas l’\u00e9ligibilit\u00e9 de l’entreprise au b\u00e9n\u00e9fice de l’exon\u00e9ration des cotisations employeur pr\u00e9vue par le I du m\u00eame texte pour les jeunes entreprises innovantes, et demeure sans effet sur le cours de la prescription mentionn\u00e9e \u00e0 l’article L. 243-6 du code de la s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale”<\/p>\n Two lessons for a foreign founder. First, file the demande d’avis with a complete file, including the cap table and the research ratio, before coding CTP 734 if the structure is not obvious. Second, do not wait for the ruling before claiming a refund of months already paid.<\/p>\n Article L. 243-6 of the code de la s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale<\/a>, the CSS, the social-security code, I: “La demande de remboursement des cotisations de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale et d’allocations familiales ind\u00fbment vers\u00e9es se prescrit par trois ans \u00e0 compter de la date \u00e0 laquelle lesdites cotisations ont \u00e9t\u00e9 acquitt\u00e9es.”<\/p>\n Being up to date with URSSAF is a separate on\/off switch. Article 6 of d\u00e9cret n\u00b0 2004-581<\/a>: “Le b\u00e9n\u00e9fice du droit \u00e0 l’exon\u00e9ration est subordonn\u00e9 \u00e0 la condition pour l’entreprise d’\u00eatre \u00e0 jour de ses obligations d\u00e9claratives et de paiement \u00e0 l’\u00e9gard de l’organisme de recouvrement des cotisations de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale et d’allocations familiales mentionn\u00e9e au VII de l’article 131 de la loi de finances pour 2004 susvis\u00e9e.”<\/p>\n The condition is tested when the exemption is first applied and at each payment date. If the debt is contested, the d\u00e9cret treats the condition as met only from full payment, from a stay of proceedings, or from a payment plan. URSSAF adds that a plan d’apurement, a clearance plan, that is subscribed and respected also restores the condition. A foreign parent that lets the French payroll slip while arguing about JEI suspends the exemption for every eligible employee, not only for the disputed officer.<\/p>\n The first document is the lettre d’observations or the proposition de rectification, the proposed adjustment. For tax, the Conseil d’\u00c9tat, 9th chamber, 7 February 2018, n\u00b0 397737<\/a>, unpublished, quashed a Lyon administrative court of appeal that had treated two 2004-2005 research-ministry letters as enough motivation for later JEI reassessments. Settling the case itself, the Conseil d’\u00c9tat held that the proposals “ne sauraient \u00eatre regard\u00e9es comme suffisamment motiv\u00e9es au regard des exigences de l’article L. 57 du livre des proc\u00e9dures fiscales, d\u00e8s lors qu’elles se bornaient \u00e0 faire r\u00e9f\u00e9rence \u00e0 deux avis du minist\u00e8re de la recherche, qui n’\u00e9taient pas joints, sans en reproduire les motifs.”<\/p>\n A foreign parent that receives a one-line reference to an old research-ministry email should ask for the motives, in writing, before conceding the principal.<\/p>\n For URSSAF, the path is the observation letter, the response, the mise en demeure, the formal notice, then the contrainte, the enforceable order, then opposition before the p\u00f4le social of the tribunal judiciaire, the social division of the judicial court. The observation letter should be answered on the two tests that actually matter: 4\u00b0 capital, with a dated cap table and, where a fund is invoked, the constitutive documents that place it on the CGI list; and 5\u00b0 new activity, with the absence of a dependence contract of the INSO type, the French company’s own customers, and research that is not the parent’s preexisting product line. The R&D ratio should be rebuilt from the general ledger, using article 244 quater B costs, not from a US GAAP R&D line that includes market studies. Officer time should be evidenced in a form that meets the 2004 d\u00e9cret presumption, so that URSSAF has to prove the contrary under the 2018 Cour de cassation decision.<\/p>\n If the company was a genuine JEI but had an unpaid URSSAF debt, the recovery may be limited to the up-to-date condition rather than to a denial of status. The Cour de cassation, second civil chamber, 1 December 2022, appeal n\u00b0 21-11.997<\/a>, published in the Bulletin, dealt with a JEI in redressement judiciaire, judicial reorganisation. After citing articles L. 622-7 and L. 631-14 of the commercial code and article 6 of the 2004 d\u00e9cret, it held: “Il r\u00e9sulte de ces textes que la jeune entreprise innovante, \u00e0 laquelle il est interdit de payer les cotisations et contributions sociales aff\u00e9rentes \u00e0 la p\u00e9riode ant\u00e9rieure au jugement d’ouverture d’une proc\u00e9dure de redressement judiciaire, est, \u00e0 cette date, r\u00e9put\u00e9e, au sens de l’article 131 de la loi n\u00b0 2003-1311 du 30 d\u00e9cembre 2003 susvis\u00e9, avoir rempli ses obligations de d\u00e9claration et de paiement \u00e0 l’\u00e9gard de l’organisme de recouvrement des cotisations de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale et d’allocations familiales.”<\/p>\n The court of appeal that had required the company to complete a clearance plan running to 2026 before treating it as up to date was reversed. Insolvency of a French startup is not a reason to let the contrainte pass unopposed; it can be a reason the up-to-date switch is deemed on as of the opening judgment.<\/p>\n Refunds of contributions already paid are a different clock. Article L. 243-6 CSS runs three years from each payment. The 2018 Innovaxiom decision refuses to restart that clock on the day the tax opinion arrives. A foreign founder who discovers in 2026 that 2022 payroll should have been exempt is, for those 2022 payments, in the prescription zone. The correct sequence is: stop the bleeding on current DSN months if the conditions are met; file the demande d’avis; claim the refund for the months still inside three years; and do not treat a late ruling as a time machine.<\/p>\n Paris and \u00cele-de-France add a map, not a different statute. The demande d’avis goes to the direction d\u00e9partementale des finances publiques, the DDFIP, of the d\u00e9partement of the registered office: Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne, Essonne, Yvelines, Val-d’Oise or Seine-et-Marne. CFE and property-tax exemption requests go to the SIE of each establishment, with the Entreprendre.service-public.fr deadlines (the second working day after 1 May of the year before the exemption year, with a special calendar for a mid-year creation). URSSAF Ile-de-France handles Paris-region payroll. Opposition to a contrainte is brought before the p\u00f4le social of the tribunal judiciaire of the company’s seat; for a Paris SAS that is the Paris judicial court. The research file, the cap table and the foreign parent’s contracts should be translated where the officers will give evidence in English; the court and URSSAF work in French. A power of attorney to a Paris lawyer avoids missing the opposition period while the parent board meets in another time zone.<\/p>\n What not to do is as important as the filing. Do not code CTP 734 on a 100% industrial-parent SAS in the hope that nobody will check. Do not move 51% of the shares to a founder on paper the week before year-end without a real transfer, a real price and a real RBE update: the test is continuous holding, and a sham is a separate fraud problem. Do not sign a group services agreement that reproduces the INSO clauses (parent veto on contracts, monthly reporting, parent-owned IP, 90% of revenue from the parent) and then argue autonomy. Do not wait for the US quarterly close to answer a mise en demeure. If the structure cannot pass 4\u00b0 and 5\u00b0, budget ordinary employer charges, claim CIR if the research is real, and keep the French company as an ordinary SME. CIR and JEI are not the same door.<\/p>\n If the structure can pass, the working file is short enough to sit in one binder: Kbis and RBE; shareholders’ register showing continuous 50% on the statutory list; research ledger mapped to article 244 quater B; employment contracts and officer mandates with job descriptions; DSN and CTP history; URSSAF account statements proving the up-to-date condition; the demande d’avis and the three-month outcome; any group contract, to show it does not create dependence. That binder is what a telephone consultation can actually read. The rest is narrative.<\/p>\n JEI is a year-end qualification, not a badge sold with the Kbis. Article 44 sexies-0 A requires an SME, an eight-year clock for a 2026 incorporation, 20% research charges or a statutory substitute, a continuous 50% holding by individuals, a qualifying holding, named venture-capital vehicles, scientific foundations, another JEI or public research bodies, and a company that is not the dependent extension of a preexisting activity. A 100% foreign operating parent fails the capital list. A French vehicle that sells the parent’s product under the parent’s veto fails the INSO dependence test applied by the Versailles administrative court of appeal on 9 April 2019. Founder-owned startups that keep 50% with individuals, spend 20% on real research, and do not operate as a shop-front can apply the employer exemption themselves on DSN CTP 734, ask for a three-month L. 80 B opinion, and still must watch the three-year L. 243-6 refund clock. The Cour de cassation has put the burden on URSSAF to rebut an officer’s research role, has refused to treat a tax opinion as a restart of prescription, and has treated a JEI in judicial reorganisation as up to date on the day the judgment opens. The Conseil d’\u00c9tat has required a motivated L. 57 proposal, not a bare reference to an old ministry letter. The social exemption, capped at 4.5 SMIC per person and five PASS per establishment, is the money. Corporate-tax exemption is, on the administration’s published reading, closed for companies created from 1 January 2024. Optional CFE and property-tax relief still need a communal deliberation and an SIE filing. A foreign owner who wants the exemption should fix the cap table and the group contract before the first payroll, not after the contrainte.<\/p>\n A telephone consultation with a lawyer of the firm can be arranged within 48 hours to read the cap table, the group services agreement, the DSN history and the URSSAF or SIE letter, and to separate a failed 50% capital test from a recovery that can still be opposed.<\/p>\n Call +33 6 46 60 58 22<\/a> (Ma\u00eetre Reda Kohen) or write through the contact form<\/a>. The firm advises in Paris and \u00cele-de-France, including where the registered office, the SIE and URSSAF Ile-de-France sit in different d\u00e9partements of the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A 100% foreign industrial parent usually fails the JEI capital test and the ban on extending a preexisting activity. Founder-owned French startups can still apply the URSSAF exemption on the DSN, request a three-month tax opinion, and contest a recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251031309,"featured_media":16452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kj_source_type":"","_kj_official_id":"","_kj_official_url":"","_kj_judilibre_id":"","_kj_jur":"","_kj_lieu":"","_kj_chambre":"","_kj_rg":"","_kj_date":"","activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":""},"categories":[80314,80313],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2118683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decryptage","category-doing-business-in-france"],"yoast_head":"\nI. Can a foreign-owned French company obtain JEI status and the URSSAF exemption?<\/h2>\n
A. What are the 2026 JEI conditions, the 20% R&D test and the eight-year clock?<\/h3>\n
B. Why a 100% foreign parent usually fails: the 50% capital test and extension of the parent’s activity<\/h3>\n
II. How do I apply the exemption, get a tax ruling, and contest an URSSAF recovery from abroad?<\/h2>\n
A. How to apply JEI on the DSN, which jobs are covered, and how to request the three-month tax opinion<\/h3>\n
B. What to do when URSSAF or the SIE reassesses: deadlines, proof and opposition to the contrainte<\/h3>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
Need a quick opinion on your case<\/h2>\n