Where we work · France
France gives a status first, and pays in cash second.
The French state does not weigh a project here. It tests the company once a financial year — most often on an accounting ratio, though there are now four routes in — grants a status on it, and then, for a company young enough, repays the research credit in cash rather than holding it against future tax. Both halves of that are inside a founder's control, which makes the budget shape a decision rather than a fact. We work with French founders remotely from Hyderabad, in English, with no office and no company registered in France.
A ratio, a rate, and a filing date earlier than you think.
20% of charges
The research-spending test for jeune entreprise innovante status, raised from 15% by the 2025 social-security financing law. Not a share of revenue and not a headcount — a share of tax-deductible charges, recomputed every financial year. BOFiP, ACTU-2025-00073
30%
The research tax credit, on eligible spending up to EUR 100 million, falling to 5% above it. In the overseas departments the lower band is 50%. service-public.gouv.fr, CIR
40%
The flat rate for other operating costs, applied to personnel costs, alongside 75% of depreciation. Cut from 43% by the 2025 finance law, for expenses incurred from 15 February 2025. BOFiP, ACTU-2025-00073
EUR 240,300
The annual ceiling on the employer social-contributions exemption, per establishment, with the exempt salary portion itself capped at EUR 8,401.58 a month. service-public.gouv.fr, JEI
Eight years
How long the status lasts for a company created from 1 January 2023, lost in the year of the eighth anniversary. Companies created earlier had eleven. service-public.gouv.fr, JEI
+6.2%
Growth in new incorporated companies in the third quarter of 2026 — against +16.0% for business creations overall, a headline driven by sole-trader registrations. Insee, 16 Oct 2026
That last pair is worth separating. A founder reading "business creation up 16%" and a founder reading "incorporations up 6.2%" are looking at two different markets, and only one of them is the market a venture-backed company competes in.
What the ratio buys, and what it stopped buying.
The status is held or not held for a whole financial year, so losing it is not a partial outcome.
- The conditions are cumulative. Fewer than 250 people, and turnover below EUR 50 million or a balance-sheet total below EUR 43 million; at least half the capital held by individuals, another qualifying young company, a research or higher-education institution, a recognised scientific body or an investment company; and a genuinely new activity rather than one inherited by merger, restructuring or takeover. service-public.gouv.fr, JEI
- There is not one route in, there are four. The research test at 20% of tax-deductible charges is the main one. A young university company qualifies instead through its people and an agreement with a higher-education institution, with no percentage at all. A growth company qualifies on a lower research share plus growth indicators. And a fourth category, added in February 2026, pairs a lower research share with social-economy criteria. BOFiP, BOI-BIC-CHAMP-80-20-20-10 (15 Apr 2026)
- The newest route has an expiry date written into it. The impact category took effect on 21 February 2026, is assessed at the close of financial years ending from that date, and is repealed on 1 January 2029. A company planning around it is planning around something with a published end. BOFiP, ACTU-2026-00067
- The profit-tax exemption is gone for new companies. It survives for companies created before 31 December 2023. A company created from 1 January 2024 does not get it. service-public.gouv.fr, JEI
- What remains is mostly the social-contributions exemption. Employer social-insurance and family-allowance contributions, for companies created before 31 December 2028, capped per establishment per calendar year. For an early research team this is usually the largest single item. service-public.gouv.fr, JEI
- And two reliefs that are the local authority's to grant. Relief from the property tax on built premises and from the local business tax are both optional: the commune or its intercommunal body has to have decided in favour. Each lasts seven years, and each has its own declaration deadline — before 1 January of the first exempt year for the property tax, and generally by early May of the preceding year for the business tax. service-public.gouv.fr, JEI
- Both were extended by three years, to the end of 2028. The 2026 finance law prorogued them. Worth knowing because it is the second time these reliefs have been given a finite life and then renewed: the current date is an expiry that has moved before, not a settled feature. BOFiP, ACTU-2026-00067
This is the only market on this site where the same statute gives two companies different answers because of their address. It makes where the establishment sits a first-year decision with a deadline attached, and a missed declaration loses a relief that was there to be had.
For a young company the credit is money now, not money later.
- A qualifying young innovative company can ask for the credit to be repaid directly. So can a company created less than two years ago, on producing documents proving the expenses were incurred. service-public.gouv.fr, CIR
- Everyone else waits three years. The credit is set against tax due, and any unused balance is refunded after three years. For a pre-revenue company that is the difference between a cash inflow and a balance-sheet asset. service-public.gouv.fr, CIR
- The filing date is earlier than most founders assume. The claim form is due by the fifteenth of the fourth month after the financial year closes. For a 31 December year end that is mid-April, before many seed companies have finished their first serious conversation with an auditor. service-public.gouv.fr, CIR
- Above certain thresholds the reporting grows. Past EUR 10 million a second form reports the share of doctorate holders, their full-time equivalents and their average pay; past EUR 100 million, more detail again on the research, its progress and where it is done. service-public.gouv.fr, CIR
- Subcontracted research counts, through named routes only. Work carried out by approved firms or approved engineering and design offices is eligible, as is work entrusted to public research bodies, higher-education institutions awarding master's-level degrees and approved private research organisations. service-public.gouv.fr, CIR
The operational consequence is a record-keeping discipline that starts in month one rather than at the filing: the direct-repayment route for a company under two years old explicitly turns on producing evidence the expenses were incurred. We are not tax advisers and we do not file anything; your expert-comptable does both.
Where French seed companies get stuck.
| Problem | What it looks like | What we work on |
|---|---|---|
| A hire that costs the status | The first commercial hire, or a bigger marketing line, pushes research below 20% of charges. Nothing about the research changed, and the status, the contributions exemption and the right to immediate repayment all go with it. | Modelling the ratio alongside the hiring plan, so the status is a choice taken with its cost visible rather than a consequence noticed at the year end. |
| A refund modelled in the wrong year | A plan assumes the research credit arrives as cash, and the company turns out not to qualify for direct repayment — so the money is a tax asset that lands three years later, in a forecast that needed it now. | Checking which repayment route the company is actually on, and building the runway on that rather than on the headline rate. |
| A relief nobody claimed | The local reliefs are the commune's decision and have their own declaration dates. A company that qualifies, in a commune that voted in favour, still gets nothing if the declaration was not made in time. | Putting both declaration dates in the operating calendar alongside the company's own filings, and establishing early whether the commune has in fact decided in favour. |
| A figure taken from a guide | The early French grant most founders ask about first is widely quoted at three different ceilings by three different advisory sites. Planning a first year around the largest of them is planning around a number nobody has published. | Naming the instruments that exist and their shape, and being explicit about which figures we have not been able to confirm at source. We would rather give you a smaller certain number than a confident wrong one. |
Sources: service-public.gouv.fr, JEI · service-public.gouv.fr, CIR
Hours, language, tax and data.
- Hours
- India is 3.5 hours ahead of France in summer and 4.5 hours ahead in winter. A 09:00 Paris start is early afternoon in Hyderabad.
- Language
- English, and here that needs saying plainly rather than glossing over. The statutes are in French, the forms are in French, and your own accountant and lawyer work in French. We work in English and plan around what they confirm; we do not draft in French and do not pretend to.
- VAT
- France is in the EU, so for business services bought from outside it the French recipient accounts for the VAT itself. We do not advise on tax and we quote no rate here. Your expert-comptable confirms the treatment.
- Data
- France is in the EU, so the European regime applies directly and the CNIL is the supervisory authority. We act as a data processor under a written agreement, and founders' work in Founder OS is stored in the EU.
- Invoices
- In EUR, from our Indian company.
- Presence
- None. No office, no local company, no staff in the country.
Status, refunds and the things we do not do.
Did you read the tax code itself?
Not in its own text, and we would rather say so. Legifrance refused every automated request while this page was built. What we did read is the tax administration's published doctrine, which is its binding interpretation, carries a version date and names both the code articles and the laws that amended them — and which corrected this page: it set out four routes into the status where an earlier draft of ours described one.
Which route should we be aiming at?
That depends on who owns the company, where the research sits and what the cost base looks like, and it is worth settling before the first financial year closes rather than after. We work through it with you. The determination itself is your expert-comptable's, and the newest of the four routes is already legislated to end.
Does this page cover the régions?
No. The régions run their own innovation support alongside the national agency, and we have not surveyed it. What is here is the national layer, and the regional one is worth asking your own advisers about.
Can you tell us whether our spending counts as research?
No, and you should be careful with anyone who answers that quickly. The definition is narrow, the ratio is tested on charges across the whole financial year, and the determination is your expert-comptable's. What we work on is the operating decision underneath: how the team and the budget are shaped, and what that costs or saves.
Why is there no amount for the early-stage grant?
Because four credible-looking sources give three different ceilings and the agency's own page would not load for us. Every figure on this site carries a dated primary source, so a figure we cannot source does not appear. We name the instrument and describe its shape instead.
Do you advise on French tax?
No. We are not tax advisers and we are not registered to give tax advice in France or anywhere else. We flag the ratio and the repayment timing because they change commercial sequencing; your expert-comptable prices them and files.
Do you have an office in France?
No. We work with French founders remotely from Hyderabad, in English, and we would rather say that than imply a local presence we do not have.
Figures on this page were last checked on .
Start with the ratio, then the calendar.
A 45-minute call with Dineshwara, scheduled in Paris time.