Start your business
in France

No. Nothing is charged until you enter your card and confirm on the payment screen. Before that you see the full order: the one-time $10,000 SAS formation fee plus any recurring services with the cadence they bill on. Your share capital is separate. That money goes into your own company's bank account, it is not a Commenda fee, and it is not on this invoice.

We start immediately and your dashboard opens with a named point of contact rather than a ticket queue. The first step is KYC and document collection, then we draft your incorporation documents. From there we coordinate the share capital deposit and collect the bank's deposit certificate, handle the mandatory publication in the official legal journal, and file everything with the French Commercial Court. Your registration documents, tax number, and compliance calendar all land in the same dashboard.

A list of shareholders, an explanation of the business activity (its purpose, clientele, and why you are registering), and your website if you have one. For every director, shareholder, and beneficial owner holding more than 25%: two pieces of ID, proof of address and proof of telephone number dated within the last three months, full contact details, and PEP and multiple-directorship disclosures. A corporate shareholder also provides its articles of association, certificate of incorporation, register of beneficial owners, legal representative ID, proof of registered office, and an org chart if the ownership is complex. Drafting starts once these are in, so returning them quickly is the fastest lever you control.

Plan on 10 to 30 working days from filing to a registration number. Ahead of that sits KYC and document drafting, a few days, and the share capital deposit, a few days. Your tax number follows shortly after registration. The Commercial Court registry and your bank control those clocks, so we file as soon as your documents and deposit certificate are in rather than promise you a date. If you add VAT, the VAT number is issued separately and can run past entity registration.

Yes. The $10,000 covers the legal and administrative filings with the French Commercial Court and the mandatory publication in the official legal journal, with no separate government invoice arriving later for the formation itself. It also covers your tax ID registration, the share capital deposit coordination, and year 1 of your registered office domiciliation.

No. An SAS or an SARL can be 100% owned by a foreign company or a foreign individual, and no local director is legally required. One catch matters for non-EU founders: the President of an SAS who is a non-EU foreign national must hold a valid work permit. A local director is not mandatory but is highly recommended if a work permit has to be obtained or if you need an account at a physical French bank, and there is no local-director line item in the France package, so tell your contact if you want one arranged.

Yes, and the part your incorporation depends on is inside the $10,000. We coordinate your share capital deposit with an online or partner bank and obtain the deposit certificate the registry needs before the company can be registered. Opening a full local account beyond that is the bank's own process, which we help you navigate. Physical French banks may require in-person presence and additional documentation, which is where a local director helps.

The $10,000 is one-time and covers the SAS incorporation: legal and administrative filings, tax ID registration, bank account assistance, and year 1 of virtual office domiciliation. Priced separately: virtual office domiciliation renewal at $6,000/year from year 2, VAT registration at $750 one-time, and VAT filing and returns at $200/month. Business plan preparation and extended liaising with banks or accountants are additional services quoted separately. There is no payroll, bookkeeping, annual accounting, or corporate tax filing line item in the France package, so anything on that list is quoted separately too.

French obligations attach to the company, not to its revenue. Once it is on the register it has to keep a registered office in France and meet its registrar and tax obligations whether or not it trades, and no operations does not mean no obligations. If you register for VAT, the returns are due on their schedule even in months with little activity. Annual accounting and corporate tax filings are not part of the $10,000, so raise them early and we will quote them alongside the formation.

Yes. VAT registration at $750 one-time and VAT filing and returns at $200/month can be added after formation, and domiciliation renewal only begins in year 2 at $6,000/year. Recurring services bill on their stated cadence and can be changed from your dashboard. VAT is the one worth not delaying, because you need the French VAT number before you can charge VAT on invoices or reclaim it on purchases, and French suppliers and B2B customers commonly expect to see one.

The legal minimum for an SAS is 1 euro, but in practice French banks ask for around 4,000 euros as the initial deposit. That is your own money going into your own company, not a fee. The sequencing is the part people get caught by: the deposit has to happen before the company can be registered, because the bank's deposit certificate goes into the filing. We coordinate the deposit and collect the certificate, so the only thing waiting on you is funding it.

Your company gets a compliance calendar built from its jurisdiction, entity type, and fiscal year end, listing every obligation it actually owes, registrar filings and any VAT returns on their assigned frequency. We send automated reminders ahead of each due date, file what your plan covers, and post the confirmation to your dashboard. Software handles the calendar and the documents, an in-house team does the filings and the government contact, and you get one point of contact for the account. The same dashboard holds your other entities, so a multi-country structure stays on one source of truth.