You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, you own a French SAS or SARL, and business is good enough that you need someone on the ground in France. Your first hire is the moment your French company stops being a registration certificate and becomes an employer, with monthly payslips, social charges, working-time rules and a labour court that can punish every shortcut. French employment law does not forgive foreign owners who did not know the rules: failing to file the hiring declaration before day one can reclassify your company as using concealed work, an unwritten fixed-term contract automatically becomes a permanent one, and a dismissal notified by a simple email can cost you months of salary in damages. This guide walks you through the full journey in plain English, from the DPAE pre-hiring declaration to the monthly DSN payroll return, the trial period, the mandatory payslip, the company health cover, the URSSAF audit and the prud’hommes labour court. Every key rule below is tied to the exact French statute or court decision it comes from, and every French acronym is explained the first time it appears, so you can act from abroad with the same file your Paris lawyer would build.<\/p>\n
Before your employee lifts a finger, French law imposes one formality that conditions everything else: the DPAE, the d\u00e9claration pr\u00e9alable \u00e0 l’embauche<\/em>, or pre-hiring declaration. The rule sits in Article L1221-10 of the French Labour Code<\/a>, which states: “L’embauche d’un salari\u00e9 ne peut intervenir qu’apr\u00e8s d\u00e9claration nominative accomplie par l’employeur aupr\u00e8s des organismes de protection sociale d\u00e9sign\u00e9s \u00e0 cet effet.” In plain English: no one starts work until the employer has filed a nominative declaration with the designated social protection bodies. For a standard private-sector hire, that body is the URSSAF, the Union de recouvrement des cotisations de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale et d’allocations familiales<\/em>, the agency that collects social security contributions. You file the DPAE online, most commonly through the Net-entreprises portal, no earlier than eight days before the start date and at the latest before the employee actually starts, and you must give the employee a copy of the declaration or its acknowledgement of receipt. The official employer guide on entreprendre.service-public.gouv.fr<\/a> confirms that this formality applies regardless of the nature or duration of the contract, including a one-day hire, and that the written employment contract itself can serve as proof if it names the body that received the declaration.<\/p>\n From abroad, organise this before you book anyone’s start date. If your company has no French payroll contact yet, mandate your French accountant (expert-comptable<\/em>) or your lawyer to file the DPAE under a written mandate, and keep the acknowledgement of receipt in the employee’s file. The same official guide warns that even an unintentional missing DPAE is a fifth-class offence punishable by a 1,500 euro fine, while an intentional omission becomes concealed work (travail dissimul\u00e9<\/em>), a criminal offence. The Cour de cassation, France’s supreme court for labour matters, policed exactly this boundary in a decision of 7 January 2026 (pourvoi n\u00b0 24-17.725, full text on courdecassation.fr<\/a>). A sailor hired on a fixed-term contract had received no payslips and no social declarations, and the court of appeal had dismissed his concealed-work claim without checking the DPAE. The Cour de cassation quashed that reasoning, holding expressly “Vu les articles L. 1221-10 et L. 8221-5 du code du travail”, and recalling that “l’embauche d’un salari\u00e9 ne peut intervenir qu’apr\u00e8s d\u00e9claration nominative accomplie par l’employeur aupr\u00e8s des organismes de protection sociale d\u00e9sign\u00e9s \u00e0 cet effet.” The lesson for a foreign owner is blunt: a judge will ask for your DPAE first, and “my accountant forgot” is not a defence you want to test.<\/p>\n Second building block: the written contract. France loves the CDI, the contrat \u00e0 dur\u00e9e ind\u00e9termin\u00e9e<\/em>, or open-ended contract, which is the default form of employment. A full-time CDI does not strictly require a written document, but hiring without one from abroad is reckless: without writing you cannot prove the trial period, the job title, the pay or the applicable collective agreement, and the official guide recommends giving the employee written documents covering the main terms of the relationship in every case. The CDD, the contrat \u00e0 dur\u00e9e d\u00e9termin\u00e9e<\/em>, or fixed-term contract, is the opposite: writing is mandatory and the permitted cases are closed by statute (replacement of an absent employee, temporary increase in activity, seasonal work and a few others). Article L1242-12 of the Labour Code<\/a> provides: “Le contrat de travail \u00e0 dur\u00e9e d\u00e9termin\u00e9e est \u00e9tabli par \u00e9crit et comporte la d\u00e9finition pr\u00e9cise de son motif. A d\u00e9faut, il est r\u00e9put\u00e9 conclu pour une dur\u00e9e ind\u00e9termin\u00e9e.” Miss the writing or the precise reason, and your fixed-term contract is reclassified as a permanent one, with back pay consequences and no end date to hide behind. The contract must also state the end date or minimum duration, the job position, the applicable convention collective<\/em> (the sector-wide collective bargaining agreement that sets minimum pay, notice periods and bonuses on top of the statute), the trial period if any, the full pay breakdown, and the supplementary pension fund (caisse de retraite compl\u00e9mentaire<\/em>). Identify the right convention collective on day one: a Paris tech startup, a restaurant in Lyon and a construction firm do not play by the same minimum wages, and applying the wrong agreement is one of the most expensive mistakes foreign founders make.<\/p>\n Third building block: the trial period (p\u00e9riode d’essai<\/em>), the only window where either side can walk away cheaply. It must be written into the contract or the offer letter; an oral trial period is unenforceable. Article L1221-19 of the Labour Code<\/a> caps the initial period: “Le contrat de travail \u00e0 dur\u00e9e ind\u00e9termin\u00e9e peut comporter une p\u00e9riode d’essai dont la dur\u00e9e maximale est : 1\u00b0 Pour les ouvriers et les employ\u00e9s, de deux mois ; 2\u00b0 Pour les agents de ma\u00eetrise et les techniciens, de trois mois ; 3\u00b0 Pour les cadres, de quatre mois.” Renewal is possible only once and only if an extended sector-wide agreement allows it, with hard ceilings set by Article L1221-21<\/a>: “La p\u00e9riode d’essai peut \u00eatre renouvel\u00e9e une fois si un accord de branche \u00e9tendu le pr\u00e9voit”, up to four months for workers and employees, six for supervisors and technicians, and eight for executives, renewal included. Terminating during the trial still requires a notice period (d\u00e9lai de pr\u00e9venance<\/em>) that grows with time spent, and a termination based on discrimination or\u015fek a reason unrelated to the employee’s professional abilities is unlawful. Practical tip from abroad: diarize the trial expiry date the day you sign, because a trial that silently expires converts your hire into a fully protected employee, and ending it one day late means a full dismissal procedure.<\/p>\n Two more day-one duties complete the picture. The employer must arrange the occupational-health visit: either the VIP (visite d’information et de pr\u00e9vention<\/em>, the information and prevention visit) or, for high-risk posts, a full fitness examination before assignment. Skipping it exposes you to damages if the employee later claims a health injury. And you must enter the hire in the single personnel register (registre unique du personnel<\/em>) kept at each workplace, available to the labour inspectorate on demand. None of this requires you to fly to Paris: a mandated accountant with online access to Net-entreprises and your occupational-health service (service de pr\u00e9vention et de sant\u00e9 au travail<\/em>) can complete the circuit while you sign by electronic signature from abroad.<\/p>\n Pay is where foreign founders discover that France prices labour very differently from the Anglo-Saxon world. Three layers stack on top of each other: the legal minimum wage, the working-time framework, and the payslip that must prove both. The SMIC, the salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance<\/em>, is the national minimum hourly wage, revalued by decree at least once a year. You must check the rate in force on the hiring date, because the figure moves, and your sector’s convention collective can only set a higher minimum, never a lower one. Quote the gross monthly salary (salaire brut<\/em>) for the agreed hours in the contract, verify it clears both the SMIC and the conventional minimum for the job classification (coefficient<\/em>), and keep proof of that check. An employee paid below the minimum can claim up to three years of back pay before the labour court, and the URSSAF can reassess the missing contributions on top.<\/p>\n Working time then frames what that salary buys. Article L3121-27 of the Labour Code<\/a> states: “La dur\u00e9e l\u00e9gale de travail effectif des salari\u00e9s \u00e0 temps complet est fix\u00e9e \u00e0 trente-cinq heures par semaine.” Thirty-five hours is the legal benchmark for full time, not a cap on what can be worked: hours beyond it are overtime (heures suppl\u00e9mentaires<\/em>), paid with a statutory surcharge and, beyond an annual quota (contingent annuel<\/em>), compensated with rest time as well. The surcharge rates, the quota and the rest rules are detailed by statute and very often improved by the convention collective, so read both before promising a 39-hour week in the contract. For executives, the forfait-jours<\/em> system (a yearly day-count agreement rather than an hour count) exists but requires a collective agreement and a written individual convention; do not improvise it in an offer letter. Part-time work (temps partiel<\/em>) is fully lawful but must be written, state the weekly or monthly hours and their distribution, and any regular overtime beyond the contractual hours risks reclassification to full time. Daily and weekly rest (a minimum of eleven consecutive hours per day and thirty-five consecutive hours per week), paid leave of two and a half working days per month worked (cong\u00e9s pay\u00e9s<\/em>), and public holidays complete the calendar your payroll must track from month one.<\/p>\n The payslip (bulletin de paie<\/em>, often called fiche de paie<\/em>) is the monthly document that ties pay and time together, and French law treats it as a quasi-sacred proof. Article L3243-2 of the Labour Code<\/a> provides: “Lors du paiement du salaire, l’employeur remet aux personnes mentionn\u00e9es \u00e0 l’article L. 3243-1 une pi\u00e8ce justificative dite bulletin de paie.” Every payment of wages must come with this itemised statement, showing gross pay, each contribution line, net pay (net \u00e0 payer<\/em>), net social (montant net social<\/em>), income-tax withholding (pr\u00e9l\u00e8vement \u00e0 la source<\/em>) and working-time data. Electronic delivery is allowed unless the employee objects, provided integrity, availability and confidentiality are guaranteed. For a foreign owner, the operational lesson is simple: never pay your first French employee by a foreign bank transfer with no payslip, even for a trial month. No payslip means no proof of declared hours, no proof of paid contributions, and, as the concealed-work cases show, a fast track to litigation. Your accountant’s payroll software (logiciel de paie<\/em>) generates compliant slips and files them in the employee’s personal space; subscribe before the first pay run, not after the first complaint.<\/p>\n A final pay-related trap for cross-border founders: the posted-worker shortcut. If instead of hiring under a French contract you simply send one of your existing foreign employees to work in France on your behalf, you enter the d\u00e9tachement<\/em> (secondment) regime, with a prior SIPSI declaration to the labour inspectorate, an A1 social-security certificate and French core pay rules applying from day one. That regime is legitimate for temporary assignments but using it as a permanent substitute for a French hire is exactly the abuse Article L8221-3 of the Labour Code<\/a> targets when it defines concealed work through fake secondments. If the person works durably in France under your direction, hire them under French law; the posting shortcut will not survive an inspection.<\/p>\n The DPAE does more than declare a name: it triggers your company’s registration as an employer with URSSAF, the collector of employer and employee social contributions. From that moment, every euro of gross salary generates contributions for health insurance, basic and supplementary pensions, family allowances, unemployment insurance (Assurance ch\u00f4mage<\/em>, managed with France Travail, formerly P\u00f4le emploi), work-accident insurance (accidents du travail et maladies professionnelles<\/em>, AT\/MP), the FNAL housing contribution, the CSA solidarity contribution and, above certain headcounts, the transport levy (versement mobilit\u00e9<\/em>) and the construction effort. Expect total employer charges to add roughly forty to forty-five percent on top of gross salary depending on the wage level and applicable exemptions; budget that ratio before you promise a salary, because the employee’s net pay is only about three-quarters of what the hire truly costs you each month.<\/p>\n The monthly vehicle for all of this is the DSN, the d\u00e9claration sociale nominative<\/em>, a single electronic return that replaced dozens of separate forms. Article L133-5-3 of the Social Security Code<\/a> requires that “Tout employeur de personnel salari\u00e9 ou assimil\u00e9 adresse”, to the competent collection body, “une d\u00e9claration sociale nominative \u00e9tablissant pour chacun des salari\u00e9s ou assimil\u00e9s le lieu d’activit\u00e9 et les caract\u00e9ristiques de l’emploi et du contrat de travail, les montants des r\u00e9mun\u00e9rations, des cotisations et contributions sociales et la dur\u00e9e de travail retenus ou \u00e9tablis pour la paie de chaque mois”. In practice your payroll software transmits the DSN by the 5th or 15th of the following month depending on headcount, and the same data feeds contribution recovery, employee benefit entitlements, unemployment rights and income-tax withholding. A late, missing or inconsistent DSN triggers surcharges automatically, and repeated inconsistencies flag your company for control. From abroad, the safest setup is a SEPA direct-debit mandate (mandat SEPA<\/em>) on a French business account in favour of URSSAF, so monthly payments never depend on you remembering a transfer from a foreign bank.<\/p>\n Health cover deserves its own paragraph because it surprises almost every foreign founder. Since the ANI reform, every private-sector employer must provide all employees with a company supplementary health insurance (compl\u00e9mentaire sant\u00e9<\/em>, universally called mutuelle d’entreprise<\/em>), with the employer funding at least half of the premium. Article L911-7 of the Social Security Code<\/a> states: “Les entreprises dont les salari\u00e9s ne b\u00e9n\u00e9ficient pas d’une couverture collective \u00e0 adh\u00e9sion obligatoire en mati\u00e8re de remboursements compl\u00e9mentaires de frais occasionn\u00e9s par une maladie, une maternit\u00e9 ou un accident”, meeting at least the statutory minimum basket of care, “sont tenues de faire b\u00e9n\u00e9ficier leurs salari\u00e9s de cette couverture minimale par d\u00e9cision unilat\u00e9rale de l’employeur”. The minimum basket covers the patient’s share of statutory tariffs, the daily hospital charge (forfait journalier<\/em>) and defined dental and optical costs, and the contract must be a responsible contract (contrat responsable<\/em>) to keep its tax and social-charge advantages. Add, where your convention collective requires it, the provident scheme (pr\u00e9voyance<\/em>) covering disability, incapacity and death, plus affiliation of executives to the APEC and the correct supplementary pension institutions (AGIRC-ARRCO). None of this is optional folklore: an employee who discovers after a hospital stay that they had no mutuelle will turn that discovery into a damages claim.<\/p>\n Round out compliance with three declarations founders forget. Any work accident or commuting accident must be declared to the CPAM (Caisse primaire d’assurance maladie<\/em>, the local health fund) within forty-eight hours, under penalty of fines and of the fund settling benefits without you. Salaries above the social-security ceiling (plafond de la s\u00e9curit\u00e9 sociale<\/em>, revalued each year) change contribution rates tranche by tranche, so verify the ceiling in force rather than reusing last year’s payroll template. And if your headcount reaches eleven employees, the economic and training contributions (notably the contribution unique \u00e0 la formation professionnelle et \u00e0 l’alternance<\/em>) scale up, which matters the day your “first hire” becomes a team. Your accountant’s annual social audit should certify each of these points; ask for it in writing every January.<\/p>\n Even a careful employer can be audited. URSSAF controllers may visit your premises, request payroll records remotely, or cross-check your DSN data against bank movements and client invoices. If they find undeclared hours, a missing DPAE, a wrong contribution base or a miscoded employment status, they notify a reassessment (redressement<\/em>) followed by a formal demand (mise en demeure<\/em>), and the clock for challenge starts immediately: first an appeal to the amicable appeals commission (commission de recours amiable<\/em>, CRA), then to the judicial court (tribunal judiciaire<\/em>, social division). Never ignore a mise en demeure from abroad hoping it resolves itself; limitation periods run the same whether you live in Paris or in Sydney. Instruct your accountant to alert you the day any control letter arrives, have a lawyer review the points of redressement within the appeal window, and pay under protest (sous r\u00e9serve<\/em>) where strategy requires, since voluntary payment without reservation can weaken later arguments.<\/p>\n The heaviest audit risk remains concealed work. Article L8221-5 of the Labour Code<\/a> provides: “Est r\u00e9put\u00e9 travail dissimul\u00e9 par dissimulation d’emploi salari\u00e9 le fait pour tout employeur : 1\u00b0 Soit de se soustraire intentionnellement \u00e0 l’accomplissement de la formalit\u00e9 pr\u00e9vue \u00e0 l’article L. 1221-10”, which covers the DPAE, “2\u00b0 Soit de se soustraire intentionnellement \u00e0 la d\u00e9livrance d’un bulletin de paie”, or to understating hours on it, “3\u00b0 Soit de se soustraire intentionnellement aux d\u00e9clarations relatives aux salaires ou aux cotisations sociales” Conviction exposes the company to a flat-rate URSSAF reassessment, back contributions, criminal fines, exclusion from public contracts and, in the employment relationship itself, a statutory concealed-work indemnity (indemnit\u00e9 forfaitaire pour travail dissimul\u00e9<\/em>) equal to six months’ salary under Article L8223-1, payable when the employee claims it on termination. The Cour de cassation enforces the intentional element strictly in both directions. On 7 January 2026 (pourvoi n\u00b0 24-17.725, cited above) it quashed an appeal court that had dismissed a concealed-work claim without even verifying whether the DPAE had been filed. And on 24 September 2025 (pourvoi n\u00b0 J 24-14.134, full text on courdecassation.fr<\/a>), the social chamber censured the opposite excess: an employer condemned for concealed work merely because an employee had worked during sick leave, conduct which, the Court held, does not fall within the closed list of Article L8221-5. For your company the message is symmetrical: file every declaration and deliver every payslip, and no judge can manufacture concealed work out of thin air; skip them intentionally, and the six-month indemnity will land on top of every other termination cost.<\/p>\n Individual disputes go to a court foreigners rarely know: the conseil de prud’hommes, the elected labour court that hears almost all employer-employee litigation. Article L1411-1 of the Labour Code<\/a> states: “Le conseil de prud’hommes r\u00e8gle par voie de conciliation les diff\u00e9rends qui peuvent s’\u00e9lever \u00e0 l’occasion de tout contrat de travail”, and judges cases where conciliation fails. Procedure starts with a conciliation hearing (audience de conciliation<\/em>) where settlement is encouraged, followed by a full trial if needed, with appeals to the cour d’appel. A foreign owner does not need to attend in person: representation by a French employment lawyer (avocat<\/em>) with a written power of attorney is standard, exhibits can be assembled remotely, and hearings are increasingly manageable at distance through counsel. What you cannot do is ignore the summons: default judgments (jugements par d\u00e9faut<\/em>) in prud’hommes cases routinely grant the employee’s full claims, and enforcement then lands on your French bank account by seizure (saisie-attribution<\/em>). Keep a litigation file from the first warning sign: contract, DPAE receipt, payslips, DSN records, warning letters, performance reviews and proof of paid leave, all in French or with certified translations.<\/p>\n Finally, ending the relationship from abroad follows a ritual you must respect to the letter. Apart from resignation (d\u00e9mission<\/em>), mutual separation (rupture conventionnelle<\/em>, which requires at least one meeting and administrative approval, the homologation<\/em> by the labour authority) and the end of a trial period, a dismissal (licenciement<\/em>) requires a prior meeting (entretien pr\u00e9alable<\/em>) with at least five working days’ notice, then a written notification stating precise reasons. Article L1232-6 of the Labour Code<\/a> provides: “Lorsque l’employeur d\u00e9cide de licencier un salari\u00e9, il lui notifie sa d\u00e9cision par lettre recommand\u00e9e avec avis de r\u00e9ception. Cette lettre comporte l’\u00e9nonc\u00e9 du ou des motifs invoqu\u00e9s par l’employeur.” The letter fixes the boundaries of the dispute: reasons missing from the letter cannot be added later before the judge. An employee on an open-ended contract with at least eight months’ service is entitled to a statutory severance payment (indemnit\u00e9 de licenciement<\/em>), since Article L1234-9<\/a> states: “Le salari\u00e9 titulaire d’un contrat de travail \u00e0 dur\u00e9e ind\u00e9termin\u00e9e, licenci\u00e9 alors qu’il compte 8 mois d’anciennet\u00e9 ininterrompus au service du m\u00eame employeur, a droit, sauf en cas de faute grave, \u00e0 une indemnit\u00e9 de licenciement.” On top come notice pay (indemnit\u00e9 de pr\u00e9avis<\/em>), accrued-leave pay (indemnit\u00e9 compensatrice de cong\u00e9s pay\u00e9s<\/em>) and the mandatory end-of-contract documents: work certificate (certificat de travail<\/em>), final settlement receipt (re\u00e7u pour solde de tout compte<\/em>) and the France Travail attestation that lets the employee claim unemployment benefits. An unfair dismissal without real and serious cause (cause r\u00e9elle et s\u00e9rieuse<\/em>) triggers the Macron scale (bar\u00e8me Macron<\/em>) of minimum and maximum damages according to seniority, plus possible reinstatement orders for null dismissals. If the contemplated dismissal is economic rather than personal, the obligations multiply (redeployment search, priority rights, and for larger headcounts a full job-protection plan), as our companion guide on economic dismissal from abroad<\/a> explains. The practical rule from another continent: never dismiss by email, by phone or by cutting system access; instruct your lawyer, hold the prior meeting lawfully, and send the registered letter with reasons your file can actually prove.<\/p>\n Hiring your first employee in France from abroad is entirely possible without boarding a plane, but it rewards owners who treat the formalities as the substance. File the DPAE before day one and keep its receipt; sign a written contract that names the job, the pay, the hours, the collective agreement and the trial period; respect the two, three or four-month trial ceilings and diarize their expiry; pay at or above the SMIC and the conventional minimum for thirty-five hours as the legal benchmark; deliver a compliant payslip every month; transmit the DSN and fund the mutuelle; declare accidents within forty-eight hours; and answer every URSSAF letter and every prud’hommes summons through counsel instead of ignoring them across a time difference. Each of these steps costs little when done in advance and dearly when repaired in court, as the concealed-work indemnity of six months’ salary and the automatic reclassification of unwritten fixed-term contracts demonstrate. Build the file once, with an accountant for payroll and a lawyer for the risky moments, and your first French hire becomes what it should be: the person who grows your business, not the file that threatens it. Our pillar guide on setting up your French company, bank account, Kbis and VAT from abroad<\/a> puts this hire in its full creation-to-compliance context.<\/p>\n Hiring your first employee in France while you live abroad? Get a phone consultation within 48 hours with an attorney of the firm. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22<\/a> or write via our contact page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You live abroad and your French company needs its first hire. DPAE, contract, trial period, payslip, DSN, mutuelle, URSSAF audits and prudhommes disputes, explained in English.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251031309,"featured_media":4156,"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-2124670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decryptage","category-doing-business-in-france"],"yoast_head":"\nB. Set lawful pay, working time and payslips from the very first month<\/h3>\n
II. How to pay social charges, survive an URSSAF audit and handle disputes from abroad<\/h2>\n
A. Register with URSSAF, file the DSN every month and fund the mandatory health cover<\/h3>\n
B. Challenge an URSSAF reassessment, face the prud’hommes and dismiss lawfully from abroad<\/h3>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
Need a quick opinion on your case.<\/h2>\n