The friction nobody warns you about
A French business account is rarely just an account. Register as a SARL or SAS and you must deposit share capital before the greffe issues your Kbis — and that capital needs a place to sit. Branch banks handle the step well, but you book a rendez-vous with a conseiller first. Advisers in Paris, Lyon or Bordeaux are often booked out a week or two, and activation afterwards routinely takes another seven to fifteen business days. Add notaire time and the statutory announcement, and a plain company creation lands somewhere between four and eight weeks.
Documents trip up more founders than banks do. Proof of address dated within three months, a sworn translation for any foreign ID, evidence of where the company is domiciled. Micro-entrepreneurs working from a spare room often need an attestation de domiciliation before anyone will open a file. Then comes the follow-up email: a client contract, a supplier invoice, an explanation of a first deposit that arrived from a personal account.
French counterparties still look for a RIB with a French IBAN. Marchés publics and most prélèvement SEPA arrangements quietly assume one. A Lithuanian or Irish IBAN functions perfectly well; you will simply spend time explaining it to a trésorier who has never seen one.
Directors living outside France hit a fourth wall. Several online providers will not onboard them at all, and branch behaviour varies by region. There is a legal backstop worth knowing: the droit au compte procedure at the Banque de France can designate an institution that must then open a basic account. It is slow and document-heavy, but the route exists.
Where the main providers actually land
| Provider | Entry price | Best fit | What works well | Where it strains |
|---|
| Qonto | from €9/month excluding tax on annual commitment | TPE, PME, mixed teams | French IBAN, Mastercard Business, roughly 30 transfers, share capital deposit handled in-platform, accountant read-only access | Per-item fees once you pass the included volume |
| Shine | €0 monthly on the entry tier | Sole traders, auto-entrepreneurs | French IBAN, invoicing built in, five SEPA transfers monthly then small unit charges | Not a bank — fewer treasury tools, lower included volume |
| Revolut Business | around €10/month | Importers, exporters, multi-currency | Flat fees on international transfers, multi-currency balances, clean app | Local transfer allowances run out quickly at volume |
| Indy | €0 monthly base | Uncomplicated independent work | French IBAN, unlimited transfers, invoicing and quotes in-app | Thin fit once you hire or hold stock |
| Branch bank (BNP Paribas, Société Générale, LCL) | roughly €30–€40/year in maintenance fees before cards and transfers | Businesses needing a known adviser | Relationship manager, credibility with landlords and lenders, capital deposit support | Appointment delays, incident fees, slower onboarding |
Qonto sits at the fuller end. The Basic tier covers a French IBAN, a Mastercard Business card and about thirty transfers a month from €9 excluding tax on an annual commitment; higher tiers add cards, transfer volume and priority support. Share capital deposit for a new company can be completed inside the platform, with the certificate landing within a few days — handy when the greffe is waiting on you. Camille, a translator in Lyon who set up as a société, put her €1,000 deposit through that route and had her Kbis inside two weeks.
Shine suits the independent route. Its entry tier carries no monthly subscription charge and includes a French IBAN, a basic Mastercard and five SEPA transfers, with small per-transfer charges beyond that. It is built around invoicing rather than treasury management. Shine operates as a payment institution supervised by the ACPR, not as a bank: client funds sit at Société Générale, outside Shine's own balance sheet, and the deposit guarantee scheme applies up to €100,000 if the underlying bank fails. For a consultant issuing twenty invoices a month, that is usually enough.
Revolut Business earns its place when foreign currency is in the mix. The Basic plan runs around €10 a month with a modest allowance of local transfers and per-item charges after that, while international payments carry a flat fee instead of a percentage. A Bordeaux wine négociant invoicing UK and US buyers feels that difference across a dozen payments a month. A Marseille marketplace seller cashing out to three currencies notices it even faster.
Branch banks are not the villain of this story. Annual maintenance at the large networks typically lands between €30 and €40 before cards, transfers and incident fees. What you buy is a conseiller who knows your file and a balance sheet that reassures a landlord, a factoring partner or a comité d'engagement.
Building the file so it clears first time
Fix the legal form before you shop for an account. Capital deposit requirements, the statutes you must upload and the Kbis timeline all follow from that choice, and switching later means reopening everything. Then assemble the pack in one sitting: ID, proof of address under three months old, statutes, domiciliation evidence, and a short description of what the business actually sells. Providers reject incomplete files far more often than they reject unusual ones.
Choose on payment flow, not on the headline price. Count your monthly transfers, note whether clients pay by SEPA, cheque or card, and check whether you need multi-currency. A €9 plan with thirty transfers beats a €0 plan with five if you invoice thirty times. Ask specifically about encaissement de chèques, since French clients still hand them over more than you would expect.
Spend ten minutes on e-invoicing. Since September 2026 every French business must be able to receive electronic invoices, and issuing becomes compulsory for smaller firms from September 2027. Confirm your provider connects to an approved plateforme de dématérialisation, otherwise you will be bolting one on later.
Local help exists and it is free to consult. Chambres de commerce branches run creation desks in most départements, French Tech hubs in Nantes, Lille and Toulouse hold regular founder sessions, and the Banque de France publishes the droit au compte route in plain language. An expert-comptable will usually review your provider choice for a small fee, and read-only accountant access saves a fortnight of reconciliation at year end.
Start with your transfer count and your currency mix, then pick the plan that matches. The account is a tool, not a milestone. Once the IBAN is live, the work that matters is the first invoice that gets paid on time, and the second one that arrives without a reminder. Get that far and the banking decision has already done its job.
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