Are you a foreign company without an establishment in France, looking to hire an employee on French territory? To simplify your administrative procedures, URSSAF provides a dedicated service: the Foreign Firms Scheme (Titre Firmes Étrangères, TFE). Find out how it works and check whether you are eligible.
What is the Foreign Firms Scheme for?
When your company is established abroad, with no establishment in France, and you employ an employee covered by the French general social security scheme, you must declare and pay social contributions in France. The Foreign Firms Scheme (TFE) is an optional and free scheme that allows you to complete these formalities from a single declaration: pre-hire declaration (DPAE), employment contract, social declarations and payment of contributions.
The national Foreign Firms Scheme centre handles all of these procedures. In your online account, you can find your social contribution statements, download your employees’ payslips and tax certificates, and retrieve the information you need for your accounting.
Good to know: with the exception of payslips, which are exclusively in French, documents can be sent to you in French, English or German.
What are the advantages?
The TFE is optional and free. This service allows you to:
- centralise your procedures from a single declaration;
- automatically transmit your data to the French social bodies (URSSAF, supplementary pension, group health insurance and group death and disability bodies), so that your employees are correctly affiliated to the French schemes;
- pay all the contributions owed to these bodies in a single payment.
This management method makes it easier, in particular, to set up and monitor your employees’ compulsory health and death and disability cover, an essential point for any foreign company establishing itself in France.
How to join the Foreign Firms Scheme?
If you are a foreign company without an establishment in France, you must first register your company with URSSAF:
- Complete the EE0 form (registration of a foreign company without an establishment in France);
- Sign it;
- Send it to the URSSAF Foreign Firms service:
Urssaf Alsace – Service Firmes étrangères TSA 60003 38046 Grenoble Cedex 9 – France Telephone: 0806 802 633 (free of surcharge) – Email: sfe@urssaf.fr
You will then receive your SIRET number and your access to net-entreprises. Once you have obtained your SIRET, you must wait 72 hours, then:
- Join the TFE free of charge, online only, on the TFE service website;
- Declare your employees as soon as you receive your acknowledgement of membership;
- Choose to pay your contributions by direct debit or by international bank transfer.
Please note: if you opt for the TFE, you are required to declare all of your employees working in France through this scheme.
Good to know: foreign companies do not receive a K-Bis extract, as they are not entered in the French trade register. If you need to provide proof of existence, you can print your SIRENE register status notice online, using your SIRET number.
Need support with your employees’ social protection?
Beyond URSSAF formalities, establishing a team in France means setting up health and death and disability cover that complies with the regulations. MIA Assurances supports foreign companies in choosing and managing these benefits.
