You live in London, Dubai, New York or Singapore. Your French company \u2014 usually a SAS (soci\u00e9t\u00e9 par actions simplifi\u00e9e, the flexible joint-stock company foreigners favour) \u2014 runs its business from Paris, Lyon or Bordeaux. Then an email or a registered letter arrives from your French bank: the account is being closed. Sometimes you get thirty or sixty days. Sometimes the letter says the closure is immediate. Your next payroll is due in ten days, the URSSAF (the French social-security collection agency) takes its direct debit every month, your VAT refunds land on that same account, and your suppliers only know that one RIB (relev\u00e9 d’identit\u00e9 bancaire, the French bank-details slip). Panic is understandable. Closing the company is not the answer, and flying to Paris tomorrow changes nothing by itself. This article explains, step by step, how to test whether the closure is legal, how to keep money moving while you live abroad, and how to open a replacement account \u2014 including by forcing one open through the Banque de France (the French central bank) if every bank says no. It is written for foreign founders, directors and finance managers who run a French company from another country.<\/p>\n
Start with the document most foreign directors never read: the account agreement. Under Article L312-1-1 of the French Monetary and Financial Code<\/a>, the management of a deposit account is governed by a written agreement between the client and the bank, and that agreement must set out the general and pricing conditions for opening, operating and closing the account. Your first task, workable entirely from abroad, is therefore to download or request that agreement and read the termination clause. It tells you the notice period your bank promised you, the accepted notification method, and any fees charged on closure. If the bank shortens its own contractual notice, the closure is already vulnerable on contract grounds alone, before any statute is even discussed.<\/p>\n Where the account supports a credit facility, the statute adds a hard floor. Article L313-12 of the same Code<\/a> provides: “Tout concours \u00e0 dur\u00e9e ind\u00e9termin\u00e9e, autre qu’occasionnel, qu’un \u00e9tablissement de cr\u00e9dit ou une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de financement consent \u00e0 une entreprise, ne peut \u00eatre r\u00e9duit ou interrompu que sur notification \u00e9crite et \u00e0 l’expiration d’un d\u00e9lai de pr\u00e9avis fix\u00e9 lors de l’octroi du concours. Ce d\u00e9lai ne peut, sous peine de nullit\u00e9 de la rupture du concours, \u00eatre inf\u00e9rieur \u00e0 soixante jours.” In plain English: any open-ended, non-occasional credit facility granted to a business \u2014 typically an overdraft line attached to the current account \u2014 can only be reduced or cut off by written notice and after a notice period agreed when the facility was granted, never less than sixty days, on pain of nullity of the termination. Many foreign directors confuse the deposit account with the overdraft attached to it. The bank may be entitled to close a plain credit-balance account on contractual notice while remaining legally unable to pull the overdraft for at least sixty days. Read the letter carefully: does it terminate the account, the facility, or both, and does each termination respect its own notice rule?<\/p>\n Even beyond credit facilities, you have a right that survives the notice period. The Cour de cassation (France’s supreme court for civil and commercial matters) held on 30 November 2022, in case number 21-17.703, that: “Il r\u00e9sulte de l’article L. 313-12 du code mon\u00e9taire et financier que l’entreprise qui subit la r\u00e9duction ou l’interruption d’un concours bancaire peut, m\u00eame apr\u00e8s l’expiration du d\u00e9lai de pr\u00e9avis, en demander les raisons \u00e0 la banque et qu’\u00e0 d\u00e9faut de r\u00e9ponse, la banque est susceptible de voir sa responsabilit\u00e9 engag\u00e9e.”<\/a> In other words, the company that suffers the reduction or interruption of a banking facility may ask the bank for its reasons even after the notice period has expired, and a bank that does not answer risks liability. The practical lesson for a director abroad is immediate: reply to the closure letter in writing, before the deadline, asking for the precise reasons for the closure and keeping proof of dispatch. That single letter costs nothing, works from any country, and creates the paper trail on which any later claim for abrupt or unexplained termination will rest.<\/p>\n A closure without any stated reason is not automatically unlawful \u2014 a bank is generally free to end an open-ended relationship on notice \u2014 but an unexplained, sudden or discriminatory closure that causes concrete damage (bounced payroll, lost contracts, emergency refinancing costs) can support a damages claim before the commercial court. French judges look at the notice actually given, the company’s dependence on the account, and whether the bank left a viable business unable to pay its staff and creditors overnight. Your written request for reasons, the bank’s answer or silence, and a dated log of every consequence (rejected transfers, penalty invoices, replacement financing quotes) form the file. If the relationship included credit facilities, the sixty-day rule gives you breathing room by operation of law; use it to move flows rather than to argue by email. And throughout, keep the account provisioned during the notice period: a debit balance at closure converts a termination dispute into a debt-collection dispute, which you will lose faster.<\/p>\n One structural point matters for foreign owners. If your company was set up through the standard foreign-founder path \u2014 incorporation, capital deposit certificate, registration with the greffe (the registry office of the commercial court) via the INPI one-stop shop, issuance of the Kbis (the official company identity extract) \u2014 your operating account is the heart of that structure, as explained in our guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder<\/a>. Losing it does not cancel the company, but it paralyses it: without an account, you cannot pay salaries, settle URSSAF contributions or receive VAT refunds. That is why the legal test comes first and the rescue plan second \u2014 you need to know how many days you truly have before you reorganise everything around that deadline.<\/p>\n There are three situations in which a French bank can shut the door immediately, and a director living abroad must be able to recognise each of them, because the remedy is completely different in each case. The first is the designated-account scenario. When a company obtained its account through the right-to-account procedure \u2014 the Banque de France designates a bank that must open an account with basic banking services \u2014 the bank can still terminate that agreement without notice if the client deliberately used the account for operations it has reason to suspect pursue illegal ends. The Cour de cassation said so expressly on 30 June 2021, in the widely commented BNP Paribas case number 19-14.313: “Il r\u00e9sulte de ce texte que l’\u00e9tablissement de cr\u00e9dit peut r\u00e9silier unilat\u00e9ralement la convention de compte assorti des services bancaires de base, ouvert en application du droit au compte, lorsque le client a d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9ment utilis\u00e9 son compte pour des op\u00e9rations que l’organisme a des raisons de soup\u00e7onner comme poursuivant des fins ill\u00e9gales, auquel cas il est dispens\u00e9 de lui accorder un pr\u00e9avis.”<\/a> The court added that deliberately using the account includes, for its holder: “le fait, pour son titulaire, d’en communiquer les coordonn\u00e9es \u00e0 un cocontractant afin qu’il effectue un paiement par virement sur ce compte.”<\/a> In that case, a company working with an Iranian partner had given its bank details so a transfer could arrive through an intermediary, and the bank closed the designated account without notice. Foreign founders should read this precedent carefully: if your business touches sanctioned countries, dual-use goods or opaque intermediaries, an immediate closure may be legally solid, and your energy is better spent on the replacement account and on documenting the commercial legality of your flows than on fighting the closure itself.<\/p>\n The second immediate-closure scenario is the anti-money-laundering break. Under Article L561-5 of the Monetary and Financial Code<\/a>, banks must identify their client and, where relevant, the beneficial owner \u2014 the natural person who ultimately owns or controls the company \u2014 and verify those identities with probative written documents. Under Article L561-8<\/a>: “elle n’ex\u00e9cute aucune op\u00e9ration, quelles qu’en soient les modalit\u00e9s, n’\u00e9tablit ni ne poursuit aucune relation d’affaires et peut transmettre la d\u00e9claration pr\u00e9vue \u00e0 l’article L. 561-15 dans les conditions pr\u00e9vues \u00e0 cet article” When the bank cannot satisfy its identification duties, it performs no transaction and establishes or continues no business relationship. Concretely, if you changed director, moved the registered office, restructured the shareholding, or let the beneficial-owner declaration lapse, and then ignored the bank’s requests for updated documents, the bank is not being difficult \u2014 it is legally barred from keeping your account running. The fix is documentary, not litigious: send a complete, current KYC file (valid passports, proof of address under three months old, up-to-date Kbis, current articles of association, shareholder register, beneficial-owner declaration) and ask in writing whether the relationship can continue once identification is complete.<\/p>\n The third scenario is the freeze, which looks like a closure but is not one. When a bank files a suspicious-activity report, the French anti-money-laundering unit TRACFIN (Traitement du renseignement et action contre les circuits financiers clandestins, the intelligence and anti-clandestine-finance unit) can oppose execution of a not-yet-executed transaction. Article L561-24<\/a> allows that opposition to extend, by anticipation, to any linked transaction involving sums held by the bank, with operations postponed for ten working days from notification; the president of the Paris judicial court can extend the delay or order provisional sequestration. Banks must also file reports under Article L561-15<\/a> whenever they know, suspect or have good reason to suspect that funds come from an offence punishable by more than one year of imprisonment or are linked to terrorist financing. During such a freeze, transfers bounce, the online portal may go dark, and the branch will tell you nothing \u2014 the law forbids tipping off the client. Do not confuse this silence with a closure: keep paying what you can through other channels, do not attempt roundabout transfers that look like structuring, and have your lawyer contact the bank’s compliance department in writing. A freeze ends; a panicked reaction (emptying the account to a personal account abroad, for instance) creates the very suspicion you need to dispel.<\/p>\n To summarise part one: a closure on proper notice with stated reasons is usually lawful and must be managed, not fought; an immediate closure is lawful only in narrow cases (deliberate illicit use of a designated account, impossible identification, court-ordered measures); and a freeze is temporary and must be endured without suspicious moves. Everything that follows assumes you have classified your letter into one of these boxes. If your letter gives no reason at all, send the written request for reasons immediately \u2014 the 30 November 2022 precedent above makes that request a right even after the notice expires \u2014 and meanwhile execute the rescue plan below as if the shortest deadline applied.<\/p>\n The fortnight after the closure letter decides whether your company merely changes banks or suffers lasting damage. Work from a simple principle: money flows first, arguments later. List every flow attached to the closing account \u2014 incoming client payments, outgoing salaries, URSSAF direct debits, VAT payments and refunds via your professional account on impots.gouv.fr (the French tax authority portal), supplier transfers, loan repayments, commercial rent \u2014 and re-route them one by one. For each flow, record the creditor or debtor, the mandate reference, the next due date and the new RIB once available. This inventory, kept in a dated spreadsheet, later proves your diligence if a missed payment is ever disputed.<\/p>\n Salaries come first. French payroll cannot wait for banking disputes: late wages trigger employee claims before the conseil de prud’hommes (the French employment tribunal) and automatic penalties. If the new account is not yet open, ask your payroll provider whether salaries can be paid from a temporary channel \u2014 some providers can execute SEPA transfers from a transit account, and a short-term arrangement with your accountant’s CARPA-style escrow is sometimes possible for regulated professions, though not for ordinary companies. At minimum, inform employee representatives in writing that a bank change is under way and confirm the exact value date of the next payroll. Never use your personal foreign account to pay French salaries without advice: the payments would lack proper payslip traceability and could confuse URSSAF audits later.<\/p>\n URSSAF and the tax authorities come second. URSSAF contributions are collected by direct debit on the RIB registered in your online employer account; update that RIB the day the new account opens, and if a debit is due during the transition, fund the old account sufficiently or pay by the exceptional means URSSAF indicates on its site. A rejected URSSAF debit generates surcharges automatically, and repeated rejections flag the company for control. The same applies to VAT: update the bank details in your impots.gouv.fr professional space so refunds go to the right place, and calendar every filing deadline so that the bank change never becomes an excuse for a late return. Corporate income-tax instalments, the CFE (cotisation fonci\u00e8re des entreprises, the local business tax) and withholding at source on salaries all follow the same logic \u2014 the creditor does not care about your banking problems, only about value dates.<\/p>\n Suppliers and clients come third. Notify regular suppliers of the new RIB by signed letter or secure message as soon as it exists, and confirm by phone for the largest ones: RIB fraud \u2014 fake bank-detail change messages \u2014 spikes during reorganisations, and your suppliers know it. Ask key clients to pause automatic payments to the old account and re-register the new mandate. Keep the old account open and funded until the last domiciled payment has migrated; closing it early to “make a point” turns pending direct debits into defaults. Finally, preserve evidence: every letter to and from the bank, every bounced-transfer notice, every surcharge, every replacement-financing quote. If the closure was abrupt or unexplained, this file supports a claim for damages or, where credit facilities were cut with less than sixty days’ notice, an action for nullity of the termination. If the closure was lawful, the same file shows the greffe, future banks and auditors that the directors acted diligently \u2014 which matters when you open the replacement account.<\/p>\n One warning specific to foreign directors: do not try to centralise French operations on a foreign account permanently. French salaries, URSSAF debits and VAT flows practically require a French or at least SEPA-zone account in the company’s name, and counterparties distrust transfers from personal or third-country accounts. The rescue phase is a bridge, not a destination. The destination is a new account in the company’s name \u2014 which is the subject of the next section.<\/p>\n Open the replacement account in parallel with the rescue, not after it. Target two tracks at once: a voluntary application to one or two new banks, and preparation of the Banque de France designation file in case of refusal. For the voluntary track, build the file a compliance officer wants to see. Identity: valid passports of the legal representative and of any individual holding, directly or indirectly, more than 25 percent of the capital or voting rights. Address: proof of address under three months old for the company (lease, domiciliation contract) and for the director, even abroad. Company: Kbis extract under three months old obtained from the greffe via the INPI one-stop shop, current articles of association, shareholder register, beneficial-owner declaration receipt, and the latest approved accounts if the company is more than a year old. Activity: contracts, invoices, website, business plan \u2014 anything proving real economic activity in France. Origin of funds: the capital-deposit certificate from incorporation, recent bank statements, loan agreements. A foreign director who sends this complete file with the first email gets answered; one who sends a passport photo and asks “can I open an account remotely” gets ignored. Many traditional banks still want a physical meeting, but several French online business banks and payment institutions open professional accounts fully remotely for foreign residents \u2014 compare their pricing, transfer limits and cheque facilities, since some exclude cheques, cash or foreign-currency operations your business may need.<\/p>\n If a bank refuses, French law gives you a structured second chance. Article L312-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code<\/a> opens with the principle: “A droit \u00e0 l’ouverture d’un compte de d\u00e9p\u00f4t dans l’\u00e9tablissement de cr\u00e9dit de son choix, sous r\u00e9serve d’\u00eatre d\u00e9pourvu d’un tel compte en France : 1\u00b0 Toute personne physique ou morale domicili\u00e9e en France”. A company registered in France and holding no other deposit account in France therefore holds a right to the opening of a deposit account. The procedure is concrete: request the refusing bank’s written refusal letter stating the reasons \u2014 the bank must provide it free of charge \u2014 or, if the bank has not answered within fifteen days, treat that silence as a refusal, as the official service-public.fr guidance confirms. Then file with the Banque de France: the refusal letter, a valid identity document, proof of domicile, and a sworn statement that you hold no other deposit account in France. The Banque de France designates a bank near your home or another place of your choice, which must open a deposit account with basic banking services within a few working days. That designated account covers everyday essentials \u2014 RIB issuance, incoming transfers, SEPA direct debits, a debit card, cheque deposits \u2014 though not overdrafts or chequebooks, so calibrate your operations accordingly.<\/p>\n Two limits must be stated honestly. First, the designation does not override anti-money-laundering law: the same Article L561-8<\/a> that lets a bank end a relationship it cannot identify applies to a designated bank too \u2014 if your file is incomplete or your explanations incoherent, even the designated bank will refuse, lawfully. Second, a designated account closed for deliberate illicit use, as in the 30 June 2021 precedent, leaves you without a quick second designation for the same behaviour. The right to an account is a right to banking inclusion, not a right to consequence-free operations. Companies whose flows are lawful but unusual \u2014 crypto-adjacent activity, high-risk jurisdictions, complex group structures \u2014 should present those features upfront with supporting documents rather than letting compliance discover them mid-relationship: a second unexplained closure destroys more credibility than a frank first application.<\/p>\n From abroad, three practical points make or break the application. First, language: write to compliance departments in French or bilingual format; English-only files move slower. Second, signatures: most banks now accept qualified electronic signatures on account agreements from a non-resident director, but verify before assuming \u2014 an unsigned agreement is an unopened account. Third, timing: start the new application the day the closure letter arrives, not the day the old account closes. A company that applies while still banked, with clean statements and no unpaid incidents, is fundable; a company that applies after closure, with rejected debits and a Banque de France record, is merely includable. The difference shows up in overdrafts, pricing and patience.<\/p>\n A bank-closure letter received from abroad is a management crisis, not a death sentence. Test the letter first: read the account agreement required by Article L312-1-1, check the sixty-day floor of Article L313-12 for any credit facility, demand written reasons as the Cour de cassation allows even after the notice expires, and classify your case honestly \u2014 lawful closure on notice, lawful immediate closure for illicit use or unidentifiable client, temporary TRACFIN freeze, or vulnerable abrupt closure. Then rescue the flows in strict order \u2014 salaries, URSSAF and tax deadlines, suppliers and clients \u2014 while documenting every cost. Finally, rebank on two tracks: a complete voluntary application that a compliance officer can approve without asking twice, and a ready-to-file Banque de France designation under Article L312-1 if refusal comes. Companies that follow this sequence usually change banks within weeks and keep payroll, contributions and VAT untouched; companies that argue first and organise later pay surcharges, lose suppliers and arrive at the new bank with a damaged file. Your French company can survive its bank \u2014 provided its director acts like a banker for a month: notice periods counted, reasons demanded in writing, every flow re-routed, every document dated.<\/p>\n A telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm, to review your closure letter and organise the rescue. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22<\/a> or use our contact page<\/a> and describe your deadline: notice date, payroll date and next URSSAF debit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Your French bank is closing your company account while you live abroad. Notice rights, 60-day credit rule, rescue plan for payroll URSSAF and VAT, and the Banque de France right-to-account fix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251031309,"featured_media":16529,"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-2126206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decryptage","category-doing-business-in-france"],"yoast_head":"\nB. When can a French bank close your company account with no notice at all?<\/h3>\n
II. How to Keep Your French Company Running and Open a New Account Without Flying to Paris<\/h2>\n
A. How do you rescue payroll, URSSAF, VAT and supplier payments in the first two weeks?<\/h3>\n
B. How does a foreign director open a replacement account or force one open through the Banque de France?<\/h3>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
Need a quick opinion on your case<\/h2>\n