Setting up and running a company in France
Founders arriving from a common-law system tend to make the same assumption: that once the company exists, someone whose job it is will keep it compliant. In France there is no such person.
Setting up a company in France is administratively straightforward and is done through a single online gateway, the guichet unique des formalités des entreprises operated by the INPI, which forwards the file to the registry of the commercial court and to the tax and social authorities. What is not straightforward is what happens afterwards. France has no statutory office of company secretary, unlike the United Kingdom, Hong Kong or Singapore; the obligations that such an officer would discharge exist in full, but they are distributed between the director, the accountant, the lawyer and the registry, and nobody is appointed to notice when one is missed.
Three questions therefore have to be answered separately, and answering the first without the other two is how foreign founders end up with a compliant incorporation and a non-compliant company two years later.
- Which corporate form, chosen for the director's social security position and for who will join the capital later, rather than for the tax rate.
- Who will actually perform the recurring obligations: approving and filing accounts, maintaining the statutory registers, updating the beneficial ownership register, and filing changes of director, address or capital.
- How the company sits alongside your personal position: remuneration against dividends, the impatriate regime if you qualify, and how the shares are treated for wealth tax and on a sale.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a company secretary in France?
There is no such office in French law, so the question cannot be answered as asked. France has no statutory officer corresponding to a UK, Hong Kong or Singapore company secretary, and no register on which such a person would be recorded. The obligations that office discharges elsewhere all exist here, distributed between the director, the accountant, the lawyer and the registry. The practical consequence is that unless you assign them deliberately, they belong to you by default and nobody will remind you.
How long does it take to set up a French company?
The incorporation itself is a matter of days once the file is complete, since it is submitted through the single online gateway operated by the INPI and forwarded to the registry and the tax and social authorities. What determines the real timetable is the bank account. Depositing the share capital requires an account, and opening one for a company whose director is newly arrived, or not yet resident, routinely takes far longer than every other step combined. Begin with the bank; the articles can come after.
Can I run a French company without living in France?
Yes, and it raises questions worth settling in advance rather than discovering later. Directing a company from abroad can affect where the company is regarded as managed, which bears on where it is taxed, and it complicates the banking relationship considerably. Separately, your own tax residency is decided by article 4 B of the French tax code, one criterion of which is where the centre of your economic interests lies, so a substantial French company is a fact that counts in that analysis.
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Also worth reading: the White paper — Private Equity 2026 published by Private Equity Valley — Unlisted assets: selection, risks, access.
Written by Stéphane Molère, Président d'Éthique et Patrimoine — page last reviewed on 2026-08-30 — rules quoted are those in force at that date.