Register a Company in India from France: Process, Cost and Timeline (2026)

## The France to India Corridor in 2026

French businesses have been quietly building an India strategy for years, and 2026 is the year many of them convert that intent into a legal entity. India remains one of the few large economies growing at a pace that justifies a direct presence rather than a distributor arrangement, and French mid caps and startups alike are now asking the same practical question: how do we register a company in India from France, cleanly, without a wasted quarter chasing paperwork.

The corridor itself is well trodden. France and India have a long standing bilateral relationship, a functioning double tax treaty, and enough precedent transactions that the mechanics are known. What trips people up is not the concept but the sequence: which entity, which documents, which apostille, which bank steps, and which tax rate actually applies once the structure is live. This guide walks through that sequence in the order a French promoter will actually need it, from entity choice through to the ongoing compliance calendar.

We write this from the Indian side of the table, having taken French parents through this exact process. Nothing here is theoretical. It is the checklist we use internally, adapted for a founder or CFO reading this from Paris, Lyon or Toulouse.

## Entity Choice: SAS or SARL Parent, Indian Private Limited Subsidiary

For nearly every French parent entering India, the answer is the same: keep the French holding structure as it is, whether it is an SAS or a SARL, and set up a wholly owned Indian private limited company underneath it as a subsidiary. This is the structure Indian company law is built around, it is the one Indian banks and regulators recognise instantly, and it lets the French entity hold up to 100 percent of the shares without a local partner.

An SAS parent works well because its flexible governance maps easily onto board resolutions the Indian subsidiary will need to pass regularly. A SARL parent works too, the gerant simply signs in place of a board chair where required. Neither form creates a problem on the Indian side, what matters is that the French entity is properly incorporated, in good standing, and able to produce a certificate of incorporation and constitutional documents that Indian authorities can verify.

Branch offices and liaison offices exist as alternatives, but for a company planning to actually trade, invoice, hire and hold assets in India, the wholly owned subsidiary route is almost always the right call. It ring fences liability, it is straightforward to fund and repatriate profit from, and it is the structure Indian tax and FEMA rules are least ambiguous about. Our [foreign subsidiary setup service](/services/foreign-subsidiary.html) is built specifically around this SAS or SARL to Indian private limited pattern, and it is the starting point for nearly every French mandate we take on.

## Step by Step Incorporation: DSC, Name Reservation, SPICe+, MoA

Once the entity choice is settled, incorporation itself follows a fixed sequence under Indian company law.

- Digital Signature Certificate (DSC): every proposed director, including any nominee resident director, needs a DSC issued in India before any form can be filed. For French directors this typically means video verification and identity documents processed remotely.
- Name reservation: the proposed company name is checked and reserved through the RUN or SPICe+ Part A service, with two name options submitted in order of preference and checked against existing trademarks and company names.
- SPICe+ filing: this is the single integrated form that covers incorporation, PAN and TAN allotment, EPFO and ESIC registration, and in most states GST registration in one filing. The Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association are drafted and attached at this stage, along with the subscriber sheet showing the French parent as the sole shareholder.
- Certificate of Incorporation: once the Registrar of Companies approves the filing, the company is legally born, with its own PAN, TAN and CIN.

Done properly, this whole sequence takes roughly 30 to 45 days from a clean starting point, and most of the delay sits in document preparation on the French side rather than processing time in India.

## Documents and the Apostille Chain in France

France is a member of the Hague Apostille Convention, and that single fact simplifies this step considerably compared to countries that require full consular legalisation. For a French parent, the process is: notarise the relevant corporate documents in France, then have them apostilled by the competent French authority. No Indian consular legalisation is required once the apostille is affixed.

The documents typically needed include the French parent's certificate of incorporation or equivalent extrait, its constitutional documents, a board or gerant resolution authorising the Indian subsidiary and naming the authorised signatory, and identity and address proof for the directors and the ultimate beneficial owners. Each of these needs to be notarised first and apostilled second, in that order, not the reverse.

The practical failure point here is timing. Apostille processing in France can take longer than founders expect, and if the documents are dated before the resolution authorising the Indian entity, or if the apostille is missing on even one page of a multi page document, the Registrar of Companies in India will raise a query and the whole filing stalls. Getting this chain right the first time is worth the extra week it takes to check every document against the checklist before it goes to the notaire.

## The Resident Director Rule

Indian company law requires that every private limited company have at least one director who has stayed in India for a minimum period in the previous calendar year, commonly referred to as the resident director requirement. A newly formed French subsidiary, whose founders and directors are all based in France, cannot satisfy this on day one with its own people.

The standard solution is a nominee resident director, provided as a service, who fulfils the statutory residency requirement while the French parent retains full operational and voting control through its own appointed directors on the board. The nominee does not run the business, set strategy or hold shares. Their role is narrowly defined by a nominee agreement that spells out what they can and cannot do, and it is a standard, well understood arrangement for foreign owned Indian subsidiaries.

This is not a workaround or a grey area. It is exactly how Indian law expects foreign parents to structure their first year of operations, and it is built into our [foreign subsidiary setup service](/services/foreign-subsidiary.html) as a matter of course.

## Banking and Capital Remittance

Once the Indian subsidiary is incorporated, the French parent needs to fund it, and this is where FEMA reporting becomes important alongside the banking mechanics.

Capital is remitted via SWIFT transfer from a French bank account into the Indian subsidiary's newly opened current account. The receiving Indian bank issues a Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate, the FIRC, which is the primary evidence that the money entering India is genuine share capital and not a loan or an unexplained credit.

Against that FIRC, the company must file Form FC-GPR with the Reserve Bank of India through the FIRMS portal, reporting the allotment of shares to the French parent. This filing is due within 30 days of the date of allotment, not the date of remittance, and missing that window creates a compounding offence under FEMA that has to be regularised later, usually at a cost in time and sometimes in penalty. Getting the FC-GPR filed on time, correctly valued and correctly documented is one of the more common places we see foreign subsidiaries stumble, which is why [FEMA compliance](/services/fema-compliances.html) sits alongside incorporation as a core part of what we manage for French clients from day one.

## Corridor Taxes: What a French Parent Actually Pays

Tax is where a lot of assumptions from France do not translate cleanly to India, so it is worth being precise.

An Indian private limited subsidiary pays corporate tax at 25 percent under the standard regime, or it can elect into the concessional 22 percent regime available to companies that give up certain exemptions and incentives. Goods and Services Tax, GST, applies at 18 percent on most services and a range of rates on goods, and needs to be tracked from the first invoice raised.

On cross border payments back to France, the India France Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement caps withholding tax on dividends at 10 percent and on royalties at 10 percent as well, which is materially better than the domestic withholding rate absent the treaty. One point every French parent needs to hear directly: since the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in the Nestle case, there is no automatic most favoured nation lower rate available under the India France treaty just because India has agreed a lower rate with another OECD country in a separate treaty. That MFN argument, which many groups relied on for years to push withholding rates down further, no longer works without a fresh notification from the Indian government. Any tax planning built on the old MFN assumption needs to be revisited before repatriation planning is finalised. Where intercompany charges are material, our [transfer pricing advisory](/services/transfer-pricing-advisory.html) team documents and defends the pricing. We cover the practical mechanics of getting money back to France, dividends, royalties and structured alternatives, in our guide on [repatriation of profits from India](/insights/repatriation-of-profits-from-india-to-a-foreign-parent-the-2026-strategic-guide).

## Ongoing Compliance Calendar

Incorporation is the easy part relative to what follows. An Indian subsidiary of a French parent has a recurring compliance calendar that does not pause just because the French head office is focused elsewhere.

- The annual Foreign Liabilities and Assets (FLA) return is due by 15 July each year, filed directly with the Reserve Bank of India, reporting the subsidiary's foreign liabilities and assets as of the end of the previous financial year.
- Annual filings with the Registrar of Companies, including the financial statements and the annual return, are due on a fixed statutory timeline each year and cannot be skipped even in a dormant company.
- GST returns are filed monthly, or quarterly under certain schemes, and TDS, tax deducted at source on salaries, vendor payments and cross border payments to the French parent, is deposited and reported monthly as well.

Miss any of these and the penalties are not trivial, and repeated defaults can affect the subsidiary's standing and the directors personally. This is the calendar our [virtual CFO service](/services/ecfo.html) is built to manage on an ongoing basis, so the French head office gets a clean monthly reporting pack rather than a scramble every deadline.

## French GAAP to Indian Books, and IFRS Consolidation

French parent companies usually report under French GAAP or, for listed groups, under IFRS at the consolidated level. The Indian subsidiary, however, must maintain its statutory books under Indian Accounting Standards, or Ind AS where applicable, and file its tax returns and GST returns against those Indian books.

This creates a translation step every reporting period. Chart of accounts mapping, revenue recognition timing differences, and depreciation methods can all differ between French GAAP and Ind AS, and if the French parent consolidates under IFRS, there is a second mapping layer on top of that. Getting this wrong does not just create an accounting headache, it distorts intercompany pricing and can create transfer pricing exposure if the numbers used for group reporting do not match what is filed with Indian tax authorities.

The practical fix is to build the Indian subsidiary's chart of accounts with the group consolidation format in mind from day one, rather than retrofitting it after the first year end. Our team handles this dual reporting requirement directly, and where intercompany transactions are material, we coordinate with our [transfer pricing advisory](/services/transfer-pricing-advisory.html) work to make sure the pricing used between the French parent and the Indian subsidiary is documented and defensible.

## Timeline and Fees

For a French parent starting with clean, apostilled documents, incorporation of the Indian subsidiary takes 30 to 45 days from filing to Certificate of Incorporation. Add banking setup, the SWIFT remittance, FIRC issuance and FC-GPR filing (a [FEMA compliance](/services/fema-compliances.html) requirement we handle end to end), and the subsidiary is typically revenue ready, meaning it can invoice, hire and operate, within 45 days of the process starting.

We quote a fixed fee before any engagement is signed. There is no hourly billing, no scope creep charged by the form, and no surprise invoice for the FC-GPR filing that should have been included from the start. A French CFO or founder should know the full cost of getting to a revenue ready subsidiary before committing a single euro, and that is how we structure every corridor engagement.

## Why French Companies Pick Krystal7

French companies working with us are not taking a bet on a firm learning as it goes. We bring over 10 years of cross border practice, with more than 10,000 startups and founders advised across India and five continents through exactly this kind of entry into India.

We respond to a first query within 4 business hours, not days, because a French founder waiting on an incorporation query should not lose a week to time zone drift and slow email chains. And every engagement is quoted on a fixed fee basis before signing, so there is no ambiguity about what registering a company in India from France actually costs.

Most parents land on the wholly owned route; the [wholly owned subsidiary in India guide](/insights/wholly-owned-subsidiary-in-india) explains why, and the [fixed fee registration service](/services/foreign-subsidiary.html) covers scope and pricing.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Can a French company own 100 percent of an Indian subsidiary

Yes. A French SAS or SARL can hold 100 percent of the shares of an Indian private limited company as a wholly owned subsidiary, subject to sector specific foreign investment conditions that apply to a small number of restricted industries. For most services, manufacturing and technology businesses, 100 percent ownership is straightforward under the automatic route.

### How long does it take to register an Indian company from France

With clean, apostilled documents ready in advance, incorporation itself takes 30 to 45 days from filing to Certificate of Incorporation. Factoring in bank account opening, capital remittance and FC-GPR filing, most subsidiaries are revenue ready within 45 days of starting the process.

### Which documents need apostille in France

The French parent's certificate of incorporation or equivalent extrait, its constitutional documents, board or gerant resolutions authorising the Indian subsidiary, and identity and address proof for directors and beneficial owners all need to be notarised and then apostilled in France. No further Indian consular legalisation is required once the apostille is affixed.

### What is the dividend withholding rate under the India France treaty

Dividends paid from the Indian subsidiary to the French parent are subject to withholding tax capped at 10 percent under the India France Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement. Note that since the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in the Nestle case, there is no automatic most favoured nation lower rate available under this treaty without a specific government notification.

### Do I need to travel to India to incorporate

No. Digital Signature Certificates can be issued through remote video verification, documents can be notarised and apostilled in France and couriered or submitted digitally, and the entire incorporation filing can be completed without a director or founder travelling to India.

### What does it cost to set up an Indian subsidiary from France

Costs depend on the scope of work, including incorporation, nominee director services, bank account setup and initial FEMA filings, but a fixed fee should always be quoted and agreed before signing any engagement, with no hourly billing or hidden charges added later.