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Foreign firms without a French establishment: Who should you appoint to pay your social security contributions?
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If you are a foreign company without an establishment in France, you are considered a non-resident employer and if you want to recruit an employee operating in France, you will be liable to pay French social contributions.
The French administration requires a local contact to reply to any correspondence related to social declarations. You can designate a contact residing in France to fulfill your reporting obligations and pay social security contributions due for your employees in France.
As an employer, you may appoint a representative to fulfill these social obligations. This representative will be personally liable for the prompt declaration and payment of the amounts due.
It is worth noting that in France, the non-resident employer cannot appoint an employee of his company as a representative.
Even though Article L 243-1-2 of the Social Security Code does not provide criteria for the representative, the ruling made by the Court of Cassation on 9th February 2017 states that any agreement whereby an employer designated the obligations to an employee of his company is voided. Even if the employee is not the one paying the social contributions, the employer cannot transfer the responsibility of any obligations to him.
As a result, only a third party, independent of the company, may be appointed by a non-French employer to fulfill their social security obligations, including declaration and payment.
These declarations and payments must be made to a single collection agency, called “URSSAF du Bas-Rhin”, located in Strasbourg.
If you want to know more about this formality, please visit our service “Opening a branch in France without starting capital“ which includes URSSAF representation and our service “URSSAF representative for a non-resident employer“ if you want to appoint us as a URSSAF Representant.
Do not hesitate to contact us by telephone on +33 (0) 1 53 93 94 20 or by e-mail to [email protected], so we can work out the needs of your business. Our team of experts is here to answer any questions you may have.