{"id":2156106,"date":"2026-10-24T03:59:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T01:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.fr\/2026\/10\/24\/foreign-company-france-dormant-mise-en-sommeil-pause-costs-reactivation-abroad\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T03:59:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T01:59:48","slug":"foreign-company-france-dormant-mise-en-sommeil-pause-costs-reactivation-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.fr\/en\/2026\/10\/24\/foreign-company-france-dormant-mise-en-sommeil-pause-costs-reactivation-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"Pause Your French Company From Abroad Instead of Closing It: Dormant Status (Mise en Sommeil), Costs, Limits and Return to Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your French venture is stalling. Revenue has dried up, the local partner has stepped back, or the group has decided to freeze its expansion while you stay abroad. Closing the company outright feels premature, yet keeping a fully active structure burning cash makes no sense either. French law offers a middle path that many foreign shareholders overlook: the temporary cessation of activity, known as mise en sommeil<\/em>, which puts the company into a dormant state without dissolving it. The company keeps its legal personality, its registration number (SIREN) and its name, but it stops trading while you decide what comes next. This article explains, for a non-French reader running the business from abroad, how to put a French SAS (soci\u00e9t\u00e9 par actions simplifi\u00e9e, the flexible joint-stock company most foreigners use) or SARL (soci\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 responsabilit\u00e9 limit\u00e9e, the limited liability company) to sleep, what it really costs to keep it dormant, what happens at the end of the two-year clock, and how to wake it up or close it properly. Every French acronym is explained on first use: the RCS (Registre du commerce et des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s, the trade and companies register), the greffe<\/em> (the registry office of the commercial court), the Kbis (the official registration certificate that proves the company exists), BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, the gazette where corporate events are published), the Guichet unique (the single online filing portal run by the INPI, the French intellectual property and business formalities institute), URSSAF (the social security collection agency), and the CFE (cotisation fonci\u00e8re des entreprises, the local business tax). The formalities described here are filed online on the Guichet unique, as explained on the official business portal for the temporary cessation of activity of a company (mise en sommeil)<\/a>, and the registry effects are governed by the Commercial Code (Code de commerce<\/em>).<\/p>\n

I. Putting your French company to sleep from abroad: decision, filing and immediate effects<\/h2>\n

French founders living in Paris can walk into an appointment and sign papers the same day. When you live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, every step has to work at a distance: the shareholder decision, the online filing, the proof of identity and the follow-up with the registry. Dormancy is well suited to distance management because the procedure is light, fully electronic and reversible. But it only protects you if each step is done in the right order, because third parties, creditors and the tax administration only recognise what has been published on the register.<\/p>\n

A. How foreign shareholders vote the temporary cessation and file it on the Guichet unique from abroad<\/h3>\n

The decision to suspend activity belongs to the shareholders, acting under the articles of association (statuts<\/em>). In an SAS, the most common vehicle for foreign investors, the articles freely organise decision-making: the sole shareholder (associ\u00e9 unique<\/em>) records the decision alone, while in a multi-shareholder SAS the articles usually require a collective decision taken by videoconference or written consultation, which suits shareholders spread across countries. The Commercial Code confirms this flexibility for the SAS, providing that a simplified joint-stock company may be formed by one or more persons whose liability is limited to their contributions<\/a>, and that where the company has a single member that member exercises the powers of the collective body (Article L227-1 of the Commercial Code<\/a>). In a SARL, the decision is taken by the shareholders at a meeting or, where the articles allow it, by written consultation, with the majority the articles or the statute require for management decisions. There is no court involved and no liquidator to appoint, which is precisely what distinguishes dormancy from dissolution: the company is not wound up, it is merely recorded as having totally ceased its activity while keeping its legal personality intact.<\/p>\n

Once the decision is taken, the company files a modification entry (inscription modificative<\/em>) declaring the temporary cessation of activity. Since the 2023 reform of business formalities, that filing is made exclusively on the Guichet unique, the single portal that replaced the former network of business formalities centres, and it can be completed entirely online from abroad with electronic signatures and scanned identity documents. The official guidance on the procedure is published on the French administration business portal, which walks through the declaration of temporary cessation of activity (mise en sommeil)<\/a>, the supporting documents and the resulting entry on the trade and companies register. Practically, the file contains the minutes of the shareholder decision, the updated details of the company and its directors, and a declaration of the date on which activity stopped. The registry office (greffe<\/em>) of the competent commercial court checks the file, records the cessation on the RCS (Registre du commerce et des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s, the trade and companies register), and the mention is published to make it enforceable against third parties. A new Kbis (the official registration certificate) can then be ordered showing the cessation of activity, which is the document banks, landlords and counterparties will ask for as proof that the company is dormant.<\/p>\n

Distance creates three traps that foreign shareholders should anticipate before filing. First, the legal representative (dirigeant<\/em>, meaning the pr\u00e9sident of the SAS or the g\u00e9rant of the SARL) must remain reachable and able to sign: the registry, the bank and the tax office continue to write to the registered office (si\u00e8ge social<\/em>) in France, and unanswered registered letters (lettres recommand\u00e9es avec avis de r\u00e9ception<\/em>) are the classic trigger for the ex officio strike-off described below. Many non-resident founders solve this by keeping a domiciliation address with mail forwarding or by giving a formal power of attorney to a person in France. Second, identity and authority documents issued abroad sometimes need translation or legalisation before the registry accepts them, so the file should be prepared before the chosen cessation date rather than after. Third, the cessation date declared on the filing determines the boundary between the active period and the dormant period for tax and accounting purposes, so it should match the real stop of invoicing, not the date the paperwork happened to be ready. None of these difficulties is a reason to skip the filing: an undeclared stop of trading leaves the company fully exposed, while a properly registered dormancy freezes its commercial life in an orderly, published way. If you originally came to France through a full incorporation, the companion guide on setting up a company in France as a foreign founder<\/a> describes the mirror image of these steps and helps you understand what the registry expects at each end of the process.<\/p>\n

The contrast with dissolution is worth understanding at this stage, because founders abroad sometimes confuse the two and file the wrong procedure. Dissolution opens liquidation: under Article L237-2 of the Commercial Code<\/a>, the company enters liquidation from the moment of its dissolution, its name must be followed by the words “soci\u00e9t\u00e9 en liquidation”, and its legal personality survives only for the needs of the liquidation until closure. Dissolution produces effects against third parties only from publication on the register, since the dissolution of a company produces effects with regard to third parties only from the date on which it is published on the trade and companies register<\/a>. Dormancy involves none of that machinery: no liquidator, no realisation of assets, no creditor opposition period, no closing accounts of liquidation. The price of that simplicity is that the company and its obligations survive, as Section II explains. Case law underlines how demanding the liquidation path is by comparison: in a widely noted ruling on amicable liquidation, the Commercial Chamber of the Court of Cassation held that amicable liquidation of a company requires the full settlement of liabilities, with disputed claims guaranteed by a provision until ongoing proceedings end<\/a> (Court of Cassation, Commercial Chamber, 11 March 2026, appeal no. 24-21.461, holding that “la liquidation amiable d’une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 impose l’apurement int\u00e9gral du passif, les cr\u00e9ances litigieuses devant, jusqu’au terme des proc\u00e9dures en cours, \u00eatre garanties par une provision”). Where the assets are insufficient, the same ruling recalls that the liquidator must defer closing the liquidation and, where appropriate, request the opening of collective insolvency proceedings. Dormancy spares the foreign shareholder that entire process, which is exactly why groups use it as a breathing space while they decide whether the French market deserves a second chance.<\/p>\n

B. What dormancy changes on day one: Kbis, contracts, employees, bank and VAT<\/h3>\n

From the date the cessation is recorded, the company must stop trading: no new invoices, no new client contracts, no commercial canvassing. The registration itself does the heavy lifting vis-\u00e0-vis third parties, because anyone checking the company sees the cessation on its record. The Kbis, which is the snapshot of the company’s registry status that every French counterparty knows how to read, will reflect that the company has ceased activity, and counterparties are entitled to rely on it. The Commercial Code organises this publicity through registration: companies with their seat in a French department are registered on their declaration (Article L123-1 of the Commercial Code<\/a>), and the register exists precisely to bring entries to the knowledge of the public. For a founder abroad, the practical consequence is straightforward: the dormant company cannot credibly sign, and should not be allowed to sign, new business while the mention stands. Existing contracts do not vanish automatically, however. Commercial leases, loans, insurance policies and supplier agreements continue until they are terminated or renegotiated under their own terms, and the rent on the French premises keeps running until the lease is lawfully ended. Dormancy is not a magic wand that erases contracts; it is a published statement that the company has stopped its business, and each contract must still be dealt with on its own terms.<\/p>\n

Employment is the area where foreign employers make the costliest mistakes. A dormant company cannot keep employees with nothing for them to do: salaries, social contributions collected by URSSAF (the social security collection agency) and payroll filings continue as long as the employment contracts survive, and dismissing or transferring staff from abroad must follow French dismissal procedure in full, including notice, severance where due and the applicable justification. Keeping one employee “just in case” while declaring total cessation sends a contradictory signal to the registry and to URSSAF, and it destroys the savings dormancy was supposed to deliver. The clean approach is to settle the employment position before or at the same time as the cessation filing: terminate lawfully, transfer where a transfer is genuinely possible, and close the payroll account for the dormant period. Directors (mandataires sociaux<\/em>) are a different category from employees: the pr\u00e9sident or g\u00e9rant stays in office throughout the dormancy, because someone must represent the company, sign the annual accounts, answer the registry and keep the registered office alive. That continuing role matters for liability, as explained below, and it should be priced into the decision: dormancy without a willing, reachable director is a drifting ship.<\/p>\n

Banking, VAT and day-to-day administration also need an immediate tidy-up. The corporate bank account should be kept open but moved to a low-cost, low-activity footing, because the registry letters, tax notices and any residual payments still need a functioning account, and closing it entirely makes reactivation or proper liquidation harder later. For VAT (value added tax, taxe sur la valeur ajout\u00e9e<\/em>), a company with no taxable transactions files nil or no-VAT returns according to the regime the tax office assigns it after the cessation is declared, and distance sellers using EU simplification schemes should update or close their registrations rather than let inconsistent filings accumulate. None of this requires a trip to France: banks accept instructions from the authorised signatory with updated KYC documents, accountants receive paperwork electronically, and the tax office corresponds through the professional online account (espace professionnel<\/em>). The discipline that matters is centralisation: one person, whether the director or a mandated adviser, must own the mailbox, the calendar and the filings for the whole dormant period. Companies that scatter these tasks between the departed local manager, the foreign shareholder and an accountant nobody calls are the ones that discover the two-year letter from the registry too late.<\/p>\n

II. Living with a dormant company and waking it up: costs, the two-year clock and return to business<\/h2>\n

The most persistent myth about the dormant company is that it costs nothing. It costs less than an active company, often much less, but it is not free, and the obligations that survive are exactly the ones foreign shareholders tend to forget when nobody in France is watching the mailbox. This second part puts a price on dormancy, explains the two-year mechanism that ends it automatically if you do nothing, and maps the two exits: waking the company up or closing it for good. Understanding these three elements in advance is what turns dormancy from a slow drift into strike-off into a controlled strategic pause.<\/p>\n

A. The costs that survive dormancy: accounts, tax filings, CFE, director liability and the two-year registry clock<\/h3>\n

Accounting comes first, because it surprises foreign shareholders the most. A dormant company must still keep books and prepare annual accounts. Article L123-12 of the Commercial Code<\/a> requires every natural or legal person with merchant status to record movements affecting the assets of the business, to verify by inventory at least once every twelve months the existence and value of the asset and liability items, and to draw up annual accounts at year-end comprising the balance sheet, the profit and loss account and notes forming an inseparable whole, since the article provides that any natural or legal person having merchant status must record the movements affecting the assets of its business<\/a>. The accounts of a dormant company are short and cheap to prepare, but they must still be approved by the shareholders and filed with the registry each year, and the filing fees and accountant’s bill continue. Skipping the accounts two years in a row is one of the fastest ways to convert a cheap pause into an expensive dispute with the registry, and approval from abroad is entirely possible by written consultation or videoconference where the articles allow it.<\/p>\n

Tax does not disappear either. A company subject to corporate income tax (imp\u00f4t sur les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s<\/em>, IS) remains within the scope of that tax while it exists, since the General Tax Code makes companies of the relevant forms liable to corporate income tax regardless of their object (Article 206 of the General Tax Code<\/a>), even if a dormant year with no profit produces little or no tax to pay; the returns must still be filed and the absence of activity documented. The local business tax deserves special attention: the CFE (cotisation fonci\u00e8re des entreprises) is due each year by persons habitually carrying on a non-salaried professional activity (Article 1447 of the General Tax Code<\/a>), and dormant companies regularly discover that a minimum contribution remains payable depending on the premises retained and the municipality’s rates, which should be verified with the tax office or the accountant before budgeting the dormant period. VAT returns continue on the assigned frequency, even if nil, and the social regime of the director continues: a director affiliated as a self-employed worker (travailleur non salari\u00e9<\/em>) or as an assimilated employee keeps the corresponding status and contributions framework, while directors within the general scheme remain covered by the affiliation rules that apply to the persons listed for compulsory coverage (Article L311-3 of the Social Security Code<\/a>). None of these charges is dramatic on its own; together they define the real annual price of the pause, typically a few thousand euros once accounting, domiciliation, filings, minimum taxes and insurance are added up. That figure should be compared honestly with the cost of a full liquidation and re-incorporation later, because dormancy is only good value if the company is genuinely likely to restart or to be sold.<\/p>\n

Two legal mechanisms punish founders who treat dormancy as abandonment. The first is the registry clock. Where the registrar (greffier<\/em>) who registered a legal person that may be dissolved observes, after total cessation of activity, that no modifying entry recording a resumption has been filed, the Commercial Code provides that when the registrar who carried out the principal registration of a legal person that may be dissolved finds, at the end of a two-year period after the entry of total cessation of activity, the absence of any modifying entry relating to a resumption of activity, he may proceed, after informing the legal person by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt sent to its registered office, to strike that person off ex officio<\/a> (Article R123-130 of the Commercial Code<\/a>). The two-year period runs from the published cessation, the warning goes to the French registered office, and the strike-off is brought to the knowledge of the public prosecutor, since the same article adds that any ex officio strike-off carried out under it is brought to the knowledge of the public prosecutor. A founder living abroad who closed the Paris mailbox and ignored the forwarding address can therefore lose the company without ever reading the letter. The mirror provision offers a way back: a person struck off ex officio may, once it shows it has regularised its situation, ask the registrar to reverse the strike-off (Article R123-138 of the Commercial Code<\/a>), which provides that where a person has been struck off ex officio under this section, that person may, as soon as it shows that it has regularised its situation, ask the registrar to reverse that strike-off<\/a>. Reversal is not automatic and refusal can be referred to the supervising judge within short time limits, so the safe strategy is never to need it: diary the two-year anniversary from day one and decide months ahead whether to resume, extend by resuming, or close properly.<\/p>\n

The second mechanism is director liability, which dormancy does not switch off. The director in office during the dormant period remains answerable for management faults, for the failure to file accounts or tax returns, and, if the drift ends in court-ordered liquidation with insufficient assets, for the shortfall where a management fault contributed to it. Article L651-2 of the Commercial Code<\/a> provides that where the court-ordered liquidation of a legal person reveals insufficient assets, the court may, where a management fault contributed to that shortfall, order that all or part of it be borne by some or all of the de jure or de facto directors who contributed to the fault, since the article states that where the court-ordered liquidation of a legal person reveals insufficient assets, the court may, in the event of a management fault having contributed to those insufficient assets, decide that all or part of those insufficient assets is to be borne by all the de jure or de facto directors, or by some of them, who contributed to the management fault<\/a>. Foreign, unpaid or inactive directors sometimes imagine that distance or the absence of pay shields them. The Court of Cassation has closed that escape route: ruling on a claim for contribution to insufficient assets, the Commercial Chamber held that the civil-code rule giving unpaid agents lighter liability does not apply to directors pursued on this special statutory ground, and that the liability of such a director is assessed on the basis of that special provision in the same way, whether or not the director is remunerated<\/a> (Court of Cassation, Commercial Chamber, 9 December 2020, appeal no. 18-24.730, holding that “l’article 1992, alin\u00e9a 2, du code civil, selon lequel la responsabilit\u00e9 g\u00e9n\u00e9rale du mandataire est appliqu\u00e9e moins rigoureusement \u00e0 celui dont le mandat est gratuit, ne concerne pas la situation du dirigeant d’une personne morale en liquidation judiciaire poursuivi en paiement de l’insuffisance d’actif de celle-ci sur le fondement de l’article L. 651-2 du code de commerce, la responsabilit\u00e9 de ce dirigeant s’appr\u00e9ciant, sur le fondement de ce texte sp\u00e9cial, de la m\u00eame mani\u00e8re, qu’il soit r\u00e9mun\u00e9r\u00e9 ou non”). The lesson for dormancy is blunt: staying formally in office while ignoring the filings combines the worst of both worlds, continued exposure with no control. Either organise a genuinely monitored dormancy with a reachable director and a professional handling the calendar, or change the director and close the company cleanly.<\/p>\n

B. Waking the company up or closing it for good: reactivation, dissolution-liquidation and striking off<\/h3>\n

Reactivation (reprise d’activit\u00e9<\/em>) is the happy ending dormancy was designed for, and it is also filed from abroad on the Guichet unique as a modifying entry. The shareholders record the resumption, the company updates its business details, the registry publishes the return to active status, and operations restart under the same SIREN number, the same name and the same contracts that survived. Commercially, that continuity is the great advantage over liquidation followed by re-incorporation: the Kbis history is unbroken, the bank account and credit history persist, and counterparties see a company that paused rather than one that died and was reborn. Three checks should precede the filing. First, verify that the registered office, the domiciliation contract and the director’s details are still current, because anything that lapsed during the sleep must be fixed in the same filing. Second, confirm that the accounts for the dormant years were approved and filed, since a gap in the filings will surface the moment anyone audits the company for a contract or a financing. Third, re-register for VAT and payroll where needed before invoicing or hiring again, so that the first active month is compliant from day one. None of these steps requires physical presence in France, but each of them benefits from being sequenced by one person holding the full file, because the registry processes a clean, complete resumption far faster than a file that mixes resumption with three years of late corrections.<\/p>\n

Where the market verdict is negative, the orderly exit is voluntary dissolution followed by amicable liquidation, still manageable from abroad with proper representation. The shareholders vote early dissolution, appoint a liquidator (often the former director), publish the dissolution, realise any remaining assets, settle or provision for every liability, approve the liquidation accounts and request the strike-off (radiation<\/em>). The Civil Code organises the comparable fast track for sole-shareholder companies, providing that dissolution in that setting entails universal transfer of the assets to the sole shareholder without liquidation, and that creditors may oppose the dissolution within thirty days of its publication (Article 1844-5 of the Civil Code<\/a>), which states that creditors may oppose the dissolution within thirty days of its publication<\/a> and that in the event of dissolution, it entails universal transfer of the company’s assets to the sole shareholder, without liquidation<\/a>. The general causes of a company’s end, from expiry of its term to early dissolution decided by the shareholders or ordered by the court, are listed in Article 1844-7 of the Civil Code<\/a>. The 2026 ruling quoted in Part I sets the standard the liquidator must meet: full clearance of liabilities, disputed claims secured by provisions until proceedings end, closure deferred where assets are insufficient, and recourse to collective proceedings where required. A foreign shareholder should therefore never vote a liquidation over a disputed debt in the hope that the dispute dies with the company; it does not, and the liquidator’s personal exposure under Article L237-12 of the Commercial Code<\/a>, which provides that the liquidator is liable, both to the company and to third parties, for the harmful consequences of faults committed in the performance of his duties<\/a>, makes a hasty unsupervised liquidation the most dangerous exit of all. Done properly, with the liabilities mapped before the dissolution vote and the opposition periods respected, the company is struck off, the file is closed, and the founder keeps a clean record for any future French venture.<\/p>\n

Between reactivation and liquidation lies a third option some groups prefer: selling the dormant company rather than waking it or killing it. A dormant SAS with a clean Kbis, filed accounts and no hidden liabilities can be an attractive shelf vehicle for a buyer entering France, and the sale takes the form of a share transfer rather than an asset deal. The discipline here is disclosure: the seller must be able to prove the dormant years were compliant, produce the approved accounts, show the tax filings, confirm that no creditor opposition or employee claim is pending, and warrant that no ex officio strike-off proceedings are under way. Buyers and their counsel will check the registry history, and any gap in the filings becomes a price reduction or a deal-breaker. Whether the ending is resumption, sale or liquidation, the principle is the same: the registry only knows what was filed, so the company that files everything on time keeps every option open, while the company that files nothing discovers at the worst moment that its options have already been chosen for it by the registrar.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

Dormancy is the right tool when the French project is paused rather than abandoned: a published temporary cessation, a reachable director, approved and filed accounts each year, tax returns maintained, and a diary entry months before the two-year registry anniversary. That discipline costs a fraction of an active structure and preserves everything worth preserving: the name, the registration history, the bank relationship and the freedom to restart, sell or close on your own timetable. What it does not do is absolve anyone: the director stays liable, the liabilities stay payable, and the registrar stays entitled to strike off a company that files nothing for two years. Foreign shareholders who internalise that bargain use the dormant period well, either returning with a compliant vehicle or exiting through a clean liquidation with fully settled liabilities. Those who treat the dormant company as a company that no longer exists learn the opposite lesson, usually by registered letter, that in French law a sleeping company is still a company, and it must be managed as one until the register says otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running your French SAS or SARL from abroad while business stalls? 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