Guidelines and Tips: Posting employees in France

Conditions to be met by the employer in order to post employees

1. Be regularly established in the state of origin and actually perform substantial activities there,

2. Have employees who normally work for him in the state of origin,

3. Match one of the four following cases:

- Performance of an international provision of service agreement between a service provider company established outside of France and a company receiving the service established or conducting business in France.

- Performance of services carried out in another establishment or another company from the same group of companies (Intra-company or intra-group mobility),

- Performance of a labour supply agreement between a foreign temporary employment agency (TEA) and a user company in France,

- Performance of an operation for the employer's own account.

Before posting: necessary formalities

The company posting employees must provide the labour inspectorate of the place where the service is provided with a prior declaration of posting before the start of its activity in France by using the "SIPSI" teleservice.

This declaration can be completed in French or in English (as well as in German, Italian or Spanish).

A company representative also needs to be appointed in France, unless posting happens for the employer's own account.

This representative can be any person capable of carrying out this task (one of the posted employees for example).

As an exception, the posting of employees on the employer's own account does not require any prior declaration or representative.

During posting: guaranteed rights for the posted employee

As an employer posting employees in France, you are subject to the provisions of the French Labour Code and collective agreements on several points, including remuneration ; health and safety rules ; duration of work, compensatory rest, public holidays, paid annual leave, working hours and night-work ; and maternity, paternity and childcare leave.

The employer thus has to determine which collective agreement is applicable to his activity.

When no better stipulations are put forth by the applicable collective agreement, legal provisions are as follows:

Working times: the statutory working time is 35 hours per week from 00:00 Monday to 24:00 Sunday. That statutory duration may be exceeded within the framework of overtime, whilst respecting the maximum periods.

Overtime: Any hour worked beyond the legal weekly duration gives rise to an increase in wages, or to equivalent compensatory rest where applicable.

Unless otherwise stipulated by convention, overtime is counted per civil week, from Monday 00:00am to Sunday 00:00 pm. The total amount of overtime cannot exceed 220 hours per year (in the absence of a conventional agreement on the quota of overtime).

Payment of overtime is increased as follows (unless stipulated otherwise by convention) :

- 25% for the first 8 hours over the legal duration of work (between the 36th and 43rd hour of work),

- 50% for any subsequent hours (as from the 44th hour).

Daily and weekly rest: All employees must benefit from a daily rest of at least 11 consecutive hours between two working days.

Besides, an employee should not work more than 6 days per week and should benefit from a weekly period of rest of a minimum of 35 consecutive hours. This weekly rest is normally granted on Sunday, but there are some exceptions.

Paid leave: 2.5 days per effective month of work (calculated on a pro rata basis for a period of activity of less than a month).

However, the employer has the option to choose to paypaid leave indemnities equal to 1/10th of the amounts received by his employee during the posting.

Health and safety at work: the employer must comply with the rules relating to worker safety, which involves assessing occupational risks, conducting preventive, informational and training actions for employees and introducing suitable organization and resources.