You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore and you have just signed the articles of your French SAS (simplified joint-stock company, the flexible vehicle most foreign founders choose). The next step should be routine: open a corporate bank account, deposit the share capital, receive the deposit certificate and register the company. Instead, the bank replies that it cannot open an account for a non-resident director, asks for documents you do not have yet, or simply stops answering. Weeks pass, the capital sits in your personal account, and the commercial court registry (greffe, the clerk office of the commercial court that keeps the trade register) cannot issue your Kbis (the official registration certificate that proves your company exists) without proof that the funds were deposited. This article explains why French banks turn foreign founders away, what a refusal really costs, and the two remedies that unblock the situation from abroad: depositing the capital with a bank or a notary (notaire, the public officer who can hold formation funds) and triggering the statutory right-to-an-account procedure before the Banque de France (the French central bank that designates a bank when yours refuses). Every step can be completed without boarding a plane, provided you send the right documents in the right order and keep written proof of each refusal.<\/p>\n
A French bank is not a public counter that must accept every customer. Before opening any account, banks and most financial professionals must, under Article L561-5 of the Monetary and Financial Code<\/a>, “Identifient leur client et, le cas \u00e9ch\u00e9ant, le b\u00e9n\u00e9ficiaire effectif au sens de l’article L. 561-2-2” and “V\u00e9rifient ces \u00e9l\u00e9ments d’identification sur pr\u00e9sentation de tout document \u00e9crit \u00e0 caract\u00e8re probant”, i.e. identify the client and any beneficial owner, then verify identity against written documentary proof. The beneficial owner (beneficiaire effectif) is the natural person who ultimately controls the company, generally through more than 25 percent of the capital or voting rights. When the founder lives abroad, holds a foreign passport, and controls a company that does not yet legally exist, the bank compliance department often classifies the file as high risk: foreign beneficial owner, no French tax history, funds wired from abroad, and a director it has never met. The bank then asks for more documents, a French address, a face-to-face meeting, or simply refuses.<\/p>\n This caution has a legal root. Since the company reports its beneficial owners to the trade and companies register (RCS, registre du commerce et des societes, the official company register kept by the greffe) through the single filing portal, Article L561-46 of the Monetary and Financial Code<\/a> requires companies to declare “les informations relatives aux b\u00e9n\u00e9ficiaires effectifs”, which “portent sur les \u00e9l\u00e9ments d’identification et le domicile personnel de ces b\u00e9n\u00e9ficiaires ainsi que sur les modalit\u00e9s du contr\u00f4le que ces derniers exercent sur la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 ou l’entit\u00e9” (identification details, personal domicile and terms of control). Banks consult this register (RBE, registre des beneficiaires effectifs) and cross-check it with the passport, proof of address and source-of-funds documents the founder provides. Any mismatch, an expired document, a utility bill in another name, or a transfer coming from a jurisdiction the bank dislikes can justify, in the bank eyes, a refusal or an endless request for additional papers. Founders should understand that the bank is applying anti-money-laundering duties, not necessarily discriminating against foreigners, and the practical answer is to build a file the compliance officer can accept: certified passport copy, recent proof of home address with translation, draft articles showing the shareholding, and bank statements tracing the origin of the capital.<\/p>\n The second reason refusals hit foreign founders is structural. A company being formed has no legal personality, no SIREN number (the nine-digit identification number assigned by INSEE, the French statistics institute, upon registration), and no Kbis yet. Some branch advisers believe, wrongly, that they cannot open anything before the Kbis exists. In reality the capital deposit account (compte de depot de capital) is precisely designed for companies in formation: the funds sit in a blocked account, and the bank issues the deposit certificate that allows registration. But many high-street branches rarely handle non-resident files and prefer to decline rather than escalate. Parallel case law confirms that banks enjoy wide contractual freedom with accounts: the Paris Court of Appeal held on 10 May 2023 (RG 22\/05206, Societe Generale case) that “les \u00e9tablissements de cr\u00e9dit ont la facult\u00e9 discr\u00e9tionnaire de r\u00e9silier une convention de compte de d\u00e9p\u00f4t souscrite, comme en l’esp\u00e8ce, pour une dur\u00e9e ind\u00e9termin\u00e9e moyennant un pr\u00e9avis d’au moins deux mois fourni sur support papier” (banks enjoy discretion to terminate an open-ended deposit-account agreement on at least two months written notice), available at Cour de cassation, decision 645c88ca9925b3d0f8f8f50f<\/a>. If a bank can close an existing account on two months notice, it can certainly decline a new one, which is why founders need remedies rather than arguments.<\/p>\n Practical consequences follow. Each refusal must be documented because the right-to-an-account procedure requires written proof. Ask every bank that declines to give you a dated refusal letter or email stating that it refuses to open the account. Under the statutory scheme described below, the refusing bank must provide a refusal certificate (attestation de refus) promptly and without billing the applicant. Never accept an oral no at the counter: request the name of the person who decides, send a confirming email the same day, and keep copies. If you apply from abroad, use email and registered electronic letters so that time stamps prove diligence. Three written refusals are not legally required, one suffices to seize the Banque de France, but several refusals strengthen any later claim for damages if the delay caused a proven loss, as the Versailles case discussed in Part II shows.<\/p>\n A bank refusal is not a mere inconvenience. Without a deposit certificate, the company cannot be registered, and without registration it has no legal personality, cannot invoice, cannot hire, and cannot open the operating account that receives client payments. The commercial lease you signed for the Paris office starts running, the accountant waits for the SIREN to file anything, and the launch date slips by weeks or months. Meanwhile the founders personal exposure grows. Under Article 1843-3 of the Civil Code<\/a>, “Chaque associ\u00e9 est d\u00e9biteur envers la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de tout ce qu’il a promis de lui apporter en nature, en num\u00e9raire ou en industrie”, and “L’associ\u00e9 qui devait apporter une somme dans la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 et qui ne l’a point fait devient de plein droit et sans demande, d\u00e9biteur des int\u00e9r\u00eats de cette somme \u00e0 compter du jour o\u00f9 elle devait \u00eatre pay\u00e9e” (each shareholder owes what he promised; late cash contributions bear interest by operation of law). The capital you promised in the articles is a debt you owe the company from the agreed date, and delay converts it into an interest-bearing liability.<\/p>\n The form of the company changes the arithmetic but not the principle. In an SARL (limited liability company with strictly regulated shares, parts sociales), Article L223-7 of the Commercial Code<\/a> provides that shares must be subscribed in full by the shareholders, that cash shares must be paid up for at least one fifth on subscription, and that the balance is callable by the manager within five years of registration. In a SAS, formed under Article L227-1 of the Commercial Code<\/a> as a company whose members “ne supportent les pertes qu’\u00e0 concurrence de leur apport” (bear losses only up to their contributions), the rules borrowed from public limited companies require at least half of cash shares to be paid up on formation, with the balance callable within five years. Either way, the minimum that must be deposited before registration has to sit somewhere, and a bank that refuses to take it blocks the whole chain. Founders sometimes react by paying company expenses from personal funds, which creates undocumented shareholder advances (avances en compte courant) that later complicate the first balance sheet and the tax position.<\/p>\n The damage can become permanent if the company later fails. Commercial courts routinely order shareholders who never paid their subscribed capital to pay it to the liquidator: on 4 May 2026 the Commercial Court of Castres (2025000661) recalled that “Le jugement d’ouverture rend imm\u00e9diatement exigible le montant non lib\u00e9r\u00e9 du capital social” (the opening judgment makes the unpaid capital immediately due) under Article L624-20 of the Commercial Code, applying the Civil Code rule that each shareholder is a debtor for what he promised, as published at Cour de cassation, decision 69fc8c7ecdc6046d47ec0657<\/a>. A founder who treated the unpaid capital as optional discovers at the liquidation stage that it was a real debt all along. The lesson is symmetrical: depositing the capital quickly protects the founder as much as the creditors, and every week lost to bank refusals extends the period during which the founder remains personally debtor for the funds.<\/p>\n There is also a commercial cost that never appears in a judgment. Suppliers who ask for your Kbis and hear that the company is still unregistered hesitate to sign. The landlord who granted the lease may activate a resolutory clause. The foreign parent company that planned a cash injection at incorporation must redo its intra-group paperwork. If the founder finally obtains the Kbis months late, the first financial year is shortened, the first tax returns pile up, and URSSAF (the social security collection agency that collects employer contributions) and the tax office (service des impots des entreprises) register a company whose directors already look disorganised. None of this is inevitable: the deposit and registration steps below are designed to be completed in days once the file is complete, even from another continent.<\/p>\n The decisive fact foreign founders often miss is that the capital deposit does not have to happen at a high-street branch near the future office. The official business formalities portal states that the deposit of share capital is a mandatory step for registering a commercial company, that funds are paid into a blocked account and become available upon registration, and that the bank or the notary with whom the capital was deposited must deliver a deposit certificate (attestation de depot des fonds), the document the registration file requires, as explained on entreprendre.service-public.gouv.fr, Constituer et deposer le capital social d une societe<\/a>. Since 1 June 2021, the Caisse des depots et consignations (the public deposit institution) no longer accepts capital deposits, so the realistic depositaries for a founder abroad are a bank willing to open a capital-deposit account or a French notary who receives the funds and issues the certificate. A notary can act entirely at a distance through powers of attorney and electronic signatures, which makes this route the fastest fallback when every bank says no.<\/p>\n For companies with shares, Article L225-13 of the Commercial Code<\/a>, applicable to the SAS through the reference in Article L227-1, states that payments are recorded by a certificate drawn up by the depositary at the time of deposit, against the list of shareholders and amounts paid by each. Prepare that shareholder list before wiring a single euro: full names, domiciles, number of shares subscribed and amount paid by each founder. Wire the funds from an account in your own name so the origin is traceable, attach the bank transfer slip, and ask the depositary to issue the certificate mentioning each founder and each amount. Errors at this stage are expensive: a certificate that omits a founder or misstates an amount forces a corrective certificate and restarts the registration clock.<\/p>\n Once the certificate is in hand, registration runs through the single electronic portal. Article L123-33 of the Commercial Code<\/a> provides that “toute entreprise se conforme \u00e0 l’obligation de d\u00e9clarer sa cr\u00e9ation, la modification de sa situation ou la cessation de ses activit\u00e9s aupr\u00e8s d’une administration, d’une personne ou d’un organisme mentionn\u00e9s \u00e0 l’article L. 123-32 par le d\u00e9p\u00f4t d’un seul dossier comportant les d\u00e9clarations qu’elle est tenue d’effectuer. Ce dossier est d\u00e9pos\u00e9 par voie \u00e9lectronique aupr\u00e8s d’un organisme unique d\u00e9sign\u00e9 \u00e0 cet effet” (one electronic file with the single designated body), namely the Guichet unique (the one-stop online counter run for INPI, the National Industrial Property Institute, at formalites.entreprises.gouv.fr). The file transmitted to the single body includes, under Article R123-3 of the Commercial Code<\/a>, all information entered by the declarant, the required digitised supporting documents, and proof of payment of fees. The registration file for a company in formation typically contains the articles, the deposit certificate, proof of the registered office (domiciliation contract or lease), the beneficial-owner declaration, and identity documents for the directors. File from abroad with an electronic signature, pay the fees online, and answer any rejection notice (rejet) within days: most rejections concern a missing page or an illegible scan, not the substance of the project. Our general formation guide for foreign founders, linked in the body of this article at Setting Up a Company in France as a Foreign Founder: Bank Account, Kbis, VAT and Your First Hire<\/a>, walks through the full sequence of bank account, Kbis, VAT and first hire of which the deposit described here is the first technical step.<\/p>\n Two practical warnings complete this stage. First, keep the capital blocked until registration: withdrawing the funds before the Kbis is issued exposes the founders to a challenge of the deposit and delays release, since the depositary may only release the money against proof of registration. Second, declare the beneficial owners accurately at filing time. The RBE declaration mentioned in Part I is filed together with the creation file, and a bank that later opens the operating account will compare the register with the passports on file. A founder who holds 60 percent through a foreign holding company must trace the chain up to the natural person, not stop at the holding company name. Getting this right at formation avoids a second round of bank questions three months later when the operating account is requested.<\/p>\n French law does not leave a refused applicant without recourse. 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” (any natural or legal person domiciled in France, holding no such account, is entitled to open a deposit account with the bank of its choice). A French company with its registered office in France, once formed, is a legal person domiciled in France and can invoke this right when it holds no account. The same article organises the remedy: “En cas de refus de la part de l’\u00e9tablissement choisi d’ouvrir un tel compte \u00e0 l’une des personnes mentionn\u00e9es au I, celle-ci peut saisir la Banque de France afin qu’elle lui d\u00e9signe un \u00e9tablissement de cr\u00e9dit situ\u00e9 \u00e0 proximit\u00e9 de son domicile ou d’un autre lieu de son choix, en prenant en consid\u00e9ration les parts de march\u00e9 de chaque \u00e9tablissement concern\u00e9, dans un d\u00e9lai d’un jour ouvr\u00e9 \u00e0 compter de la r\u00e9ception des pi\u00e8ces requises d\u00e9finies par arr\u00eat\u00e9” (on refusal, the Banque de France designates a bank within one business day of receiving the required documents) In practice the refused founder sends the Banque de France the refusal certificate, an identity document, proof of domicile of the company (lease or domiciliation contract), and the articles or Kbis, and the Banque de France designates a bank within one business day of receiving the complete file. That designated bank must open the account with basic services (services de base), which under Article D312-5 of the Monetary and Financial Code<\/a> include “L’ouverture, la tenue et la cl\u00f4ture du compte”, monthly statements, bank identity details, SEPA transfers and direct debits, over-the-counter and ATM cash deposits and withdrawals, and a payment card usable for online payments and cash withdrawals in the European Union.<\/p>\n The procedure works from abroad because it is a paper and online procedure, not a hearing. File the request by post or through the Banque de France online channel, in French, with certified copies rather than originals, and designate a correspondence address in France such as the domiciliation agent or the accountant, who forwards the designation notice. Once designated, the bank opens the account for the company, and the founder administers it through online banking with electronic signature for transfers. If the designated bank drags its feet, courts enforce the obligation firmly: on 11 February 2022 the Judicial Court of Pontoise ordered the regional bank “\u00e0 proc\u00e9der \u00e0 l’ouverture d’un compte de d\u00e9p\u00f4t en ses livres au nom de M [E]” (to open a deposit account in its books in the refused applicant’s name), with “une astreinte de 50 euros par jour pendant une dur\u00e9e de trois mois, pass\u00e9 un d\u00e9lai de quinze jours \u00e0 compter de la signification du pr\u00e9sent jugement” (a 50-euro daily penalty for three months, running fifteen days after service), plus 2,000 euros for moral damage, a judgment confirmed in full on 21 December 2023 by the Court of Appeal of Versailles (RG 22\/05426), published at Cour de cassation, decision 65855e98673fa80008f8ddb4<\/a>. The message for founders is that a designation is not a recommendation the bank can ignore: it is an enforceable obligation backed by daily penalties.<\/p>\nB. What a refusal really costs: blocked capital, blocked Kbis and interest on unpaid contributions<\/h3>\n
II. How to obtain an account and your Kbis without flying to France<\/h2>\n
A. Deposit the capital with a bank or a notary, then file through the single portal<\/h3>\n
B. Trigger the right-to-an-account procedure and protect the operating account<\/h3>\n