The French business register: how do you check a company in the registry?

Which registers does France keep?

France keeps three records, kept by three bodies, for three purposes. The registre national des entreprises (RNE) is the general register of businesses. The registre du commerce et des sociétés (RCS) is the legal register of commercial companies. The SIRENE directory is the statistical directory that assigns the numbers. A founder meets all three on the day of registration, often without noticing.

The national register, kept by INPI

Since 2023, every business that carries on a commercial, craft, agricultural or independent activity in France is registered in a national register, the registre national des entreprises (article L123-36 of the French Commercial Code, Code de commerce, checked October 2026). It is kept by INPI, the French intellectual property office. For commercial companies, it holds all the information, deeds and documents that appear in the RCS, and for other businesses the information that used to sit in separate registers (article L123-37). Its contents are made available to the public online, at no charge, for consultation and reuse, with two exceptions: accounts covered by a confidentiality declaration and the information on beneficial owners (article L123-52).

The trade and companies register, kept by the court registries

The RCS predates the national register and keeps its legal function. A commercial company acquires legal personality on the day it is entered in it (article L210-6). The registrars of the commercial courts, the greffiers, are the only persons entitled to deliver certificates, copies and extracts of its entries (article R123-150), and the extract they issue, the Kbis, states the registration as of the day it is delivered and is taken as accurate until the contrary is proved (article R123-152).

The SIRENE directory, kept by INSEE

INSEE, the statistics institute, keeps the national directory of businesses and their establishments (article R123-220). It assigns the nine-digit SIREN to each legal unit and the fourteen-digit SIRET to each establishment (article R123-221). The SIREN is the only identification number an administration may demand from a business (article D123-235). The three numbers are explained in the guide to SIRET, SIREN and VAT numbers.

Which document does each register issue?

Each register issues its own document, and counterparties do not always ask for the right one. The official guide to business identifiers, checked October 2026, notes that the Kbis extract is no longer requested in most administrative procedures, where the extract of registration in the national register replaces it.

The differences matter when a document is required. A bank opening an account, a landlord, a notaire at a signature or a foreign partner want the Kbis, because it carries the registrar’s signature and the date of issue (article R123-152). A French administration accepts the RNE extract. A client who asks for your SIRET wants the number, which both documents display. What the Kbis is, who asks for it and how to obtain it from abroad are explained in the guide to the Kbis.

How do you check a French company online, at no charge?

Three official websites give the public record of any French company in a few seconds, without an account and without a fee, checked October 2026.

1. Annuaire des entreprises, at annuaire-entreprises.data.gouv.fr, run by the interministerial digital directorate. Search by name, SIREN, SIRET or director, and read the legal form, the registered office, the establishments, the legal representatives, the legal notices and, where filed, the accounts. The extract of registration in the national register can be downloaded from the company’s page.
2. data.inpi.fr, the public access to the national register kept by INPI. The official guide describes the search by name, company name, SIREN or SIRET, leading to the page that gathers the legal information of the business, and the extract of registration.
3. The INSEE service that issues the avis de situation SIRENE, the official statement of the entry in the directory with the numbers and the activity code.

The Kbis itself comes from the registry: through infogreffe.fr for a fee set by regulation, or at no charge for the director of the company through monidenum.fr, the identification service of the registries.

What do the records prove, and what do they not?

The register is binding in one direction. A registered person cannot rely, against third parties or against the administration, on facts and deeds that should have been registered but were not; third parties can rely on them (article L123-9). If a company changed its president and did not register the change, the old president still appears, and the company cannot argue the change against you. The same rule applies to deeds that should have been filed in the annex of the register.

What the extract states

A Kbis states the registration as it stands on the day it is issued, and it is taken as accurate until the contrary is proved (article R123-152). An extract that carries the date, the name, the signature and the seal of the registrar is authentic until it is shown to be forged. That is why a counterparty asks for a recent extract rather than any extract.

What no register shows

The record does not show debts, pending litigation, unpaid taxes or the quality of the business. It shows whether insolvency proceedings have been opened, who may sign, where the registered office is and, if the company filed them and did not opt for confidentiality, the annual accounts (article L232-25 allows the smallest companies to keep their accounts out of public view). For anything beyond that, the record is a starting point, not a verdict.

Who are the beneficial owners, and can you see them?

Every company registered in the RCS declares its beneficial owners, the natural persons who ultimately own or control it, through the single online window: their identity, their personal address and the way they control the company (article L561-46 of the French Monetary and Financial Code, Code monétaire et financier). The official guide to the declaration, checked October 2026, defines a beneficial owner as a person holding more than a quarter of the capital or of the voting rights, or otherwise controlling the company.

Access is no longer public

Until 2024 anyone could read the register of beneficial owners. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in 2022 that open public access breached fundamental rights, and France restricted access from 31 July 2024, according to the official notice updated in April 2026. The register remains open, at no charge, to the company for its own declaration, to the persons declared as beneficial owners for their own data, and without restriction to the authorities listed in article L561-46: courts, the financial intelligence unit, customs, the tax administration and the police.

Others, such as a business that wants to know who stands behind a contracting party, journalists and researchers, can ask for access by showing a legitimate interest, with a form and supporting documents sent to INPI or to the registry. The notice announces a response within twelve days from 10 November 2026 and a certificate of access valid for three years.

How do you check a company before signing with it?

A check before a signature follows the same four steps whatever the contract. Each uses a document described above.

• Existence and identity. The Annuaire des entreprises or data.inpi.fr: legal form, registered office, date of registration, legal representatives.
• Power to sign. A Kbis less than three months old, compared with the identity of the person who signs. A director who does not appear on the extract signs with a power of attorney, or not at all.
• Health. The mention of insolvency proceedings on the extract, and the filed accounts where they are public. No mention and no accounts is a question, not an answer.
• Tax identity. For an intra-EU invoice, the VAT number checked through the VIES service of the European Commission. A SIRET cannot be checked there.

The person who signs for the company, and the clauses that protect you if the record turns out to be wrong, are the work Concord does when it reviews or drafts a commercial contract. Reading the register is the first ten minutes of that work.

What if your own record is wrong?

Your own company is subject to the same rule. A change of director, of registered office, of activity or of capital that is not declared through the single online file (article L123-33) does not exist for third parties, and a bank or a client who relies on the old extract is protected by article L123-9. Giving inaccurate or incomplete information in bad faith for a registration, a change or a removal is an offence punished by a fine of 4,500 euros and six months’ imprisonment (article L123-38).

Natural persons have one protection. The national register publishes the identity of sole traders and of company representatives within the limits of article L123-52, and the official guides, checked October 2026, describe the request that a sole trader or a representative can make so that their personal data are not made public. The registration stays; the address disappears from the public view.

Keeping the record current is part of the routine described in the guide to starting a business in France, and the file that creates it in the first place is detailed in the guide to company registration in France.