Hiring in France (even without legal entity)

You are a foreign company that wishes to hire an employee in France but you do not wish to create a subsidiary or a legal structure in France.

We are here to help you. Our firm takes care of all the steps from the drafting of the employment contract, the registration of the employee with the various organisations in France to the pay slips.

Do not hesitate to contact us for a quote.

Posting of employees

If your company wants to post employees temporarily in France, you must comply with several requirements and apply certain provisions specified in the French Labour Code, particularly regarding employees’ pay, working time and working conditions.

These regulations apply in situations where an employer, regularly based outside of France, gives its employees a specific assignment that must be carried out in France, with the intention that, once the assignment has been completed, the employees will return to their home country to work.

The rules for foreign-based companies’ transnational posting of workers to France apply to categories defined as follows:

• Provision of services: The term "services" includes all activities of a commercial, industrial or agricultural nature carried out under a contract between a service provider and a beneficiary for an agreed upon price. It is especially applicable to all subcontracting operations (construction work, for example).

• Intracompany mobility: Provision of staff for non-pecuniary purposes between subsidiaries of the same company or departments within the same company, for carrying out an assignment or for a period of training, for example.

• Provision of employees for temporary work: A temporary employment agency, usually established abroad, may post employees to a user company in France.

• Work on the company’s behalf: For example, a foreign company that owns fields in France temporarily posts its employees for harvesting crops.

Formalities

Before providing the service, the employer must send a pre-assignment declaration in French to the “direction départementale du travail” (local labour authority) in the area where the service will be provided (or the first place of business, if the service will be provided in several places), by registered letter, fax or email.

Legal Representative

Appointing a Representative in France is compulsory. Said representative will be on French soil for the duration of the posting and shall liaise with inspection agents,holding certain documents at their disposal, and which he may disclose to them in paper or electronic format.