Before expanding or moving a business overseas, it can be helpful to create an office in the destination country to represent your business, raise brand awareness and make connections. How is this done, and what documents will you need? This article will look at the situation in France, including requirements for notarisation and legalization.
The most common route to moving a business into France is through the establishment of a representative office (bureau de representation or bureau de liaison). A representative office is only able to perform a limited range of activities. It should not carry out any commercial activities, nor should it form contracts or complete any other activities which require licences in France. It can, however, liaise with potential partners and clients, analyse and survey the local market, and carry out certain marketing activities [1]. This office can be run either by a newly hired French employee or by an existing British employee, though, in the latter case, it will also be necessary to obtain a visa for the employee, as the UK is no longer part of the EU.
Depending on the duration of their employment in France, the employee may need to demonstrate certain public documents in support of their visa application [2]:
- Degree certificate or other relevant qualifications,
- Birth certificate(s), personal and of any dependants,
- Marriage certificate, if applicable.
Degree certificates will generally require certification by a solicitor or notary, while birth and marriage certificates, being original or duplicates with wet ink signatures, should not need to be certified. All three types of documents may require legalisation (apostilles) – it is advisable to check with the relevant French authorities to avoid application delays or rejections.
The parent company may also need to present certain commercial documents to the Centre de formalités des Entreprises (CFE) in order to obtain a SIREN/SIRET number and register with the URSSAF (Unions de Recouvrement des Cotisations de Sécurité Sociale et d’Allocations Familiales – this is the French organisation which manages social security contributions). This identification number is required before any financial activity can be carried out in France, including the filing of taxes and social security payments, hence, although a representative office may not carry out any commercial activity, they may still require a SIREN if they are hiring employees in France [3]. This step will also facilitate the representative office’s transition to a fully operating branch when the parent company is prepared to expand.
This will not necessarily be required if the parent company does not intend to hire any new employees or permanently assign existing employees to the representative office – for instance, if they only intend to send their representative(s) over for short (under 90 days) assignments. In this particular instance, the company may simply inform the CFE that they will not be carrying out any taxable activities [1].
If the parent company does need to acquire a SIREN/SIRET, the paperwork may include [4]:
- Articles of association (original and translation),
- Certificate of incorporation.
Because these documents are British public documents, issued by Companies House, they will likely need to be apostilled before they can be submitted to the CFE. An apostille is an international legal certificate which allows a document to be used abroad. In the UK, apostilles are issued by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). Previously, documents from the UK did not require apostilles in order to be used in France, due to the EU’s regulations on public documents. However, since the UK left the EU in January 2021, EU countries are increasingly asking for apostilles on British documents.
We know that this recent change can present complications, even for those otherwise familiar with doing business in the EU. Fortunately, we’re here to help. We offer an express service for apostilles which can see your documents legalised same day or next working day depending on drop-off time, ensuring that any extra steps that may come up due to Brexit do not delay you moving your business abroad.
[2] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/travel-to-france-for-work#long-ict