How to Register an SCI in France

How to register an SCI in France: the Guichet unique and what follows

Registering an SCI (société civile immobilière) is the step that brings the company into legal existence. Signing the articles creates the agreement between the members, but the company only acquires legal personality - the capacity to own the property, hold a bank account and act in its own name - from its registration in the trade and companies register (registre du commerce et des sociétés, RCS). Since 1 January 2023, that registration is carried out through a single electronic channel, the Guichet unique at formalites.entreprises.gouv.fr, which replaced the former business-formality centres. This guide sets out the sequence: the legal notice published before filing, the online dossier at the Guichet unique, the registration by the registry within one business day, the SIREN number that follows, the beneficial-owner declaration, and the BODACC publication that completes the process.

The order of the steps matters, because some cannot be done out of sequence. The legal notice has to be published before the dossier is filed; the registration cannot happen until the dossier is complete; and legal personality - with everything that depends on it - dates only from the entry in the register. Getting the sequence and the contents right is what turns a signed set of articles into a functioning company, and it is where a filing most often stalls when a document is missing or a mandatory statement is left out.

Registration is what gives the SCI legal personality

The central point to understand is that a civil company only enjoys legal personality from its registration in the trade and companies register. Until that entry, the signature of the articles is merely a step in the process of forming the company: it fixes the agreement between the members and marks the starting point of the company, but it does not by itself create a legal person able to own property or act in its own name. The SCI is a company in formation until the register brings it to life.

This has concrete consequences. Before registration, acts done for the account of the company in formation are governed by special rules, and the company can take them over once it exists, so that they are treated as having been its acts from the outset. But a civil company that is never registered does not acquire legal personality at all, holds no assets of its own, and cannot act in court - a property it was meant to hold would fall into indivision between the members rather than belonging to the company. Registration is therefore not a formality to be treated lightly: it is the event that separates a genuine SCI, owning its property as a distinct person, from an arrangement that never became a company in law.

Because personality dates from registration, the timing is legally significant. The courts have confirmed that a company acquires legal personality only from its entry in the register, so acts and events before that date cannot be attributed to a company that did not yet exist. For anyone forming an SCI to hold a property, the practical message is that the purchase and the company's other commitments should be timed and structured around the registration, with pre-registration acts handled through the rules that allow the company to adopt them once it is registered.

The first step: the legal notice

Before any approach to the Guichet unique, a notice of the company's formation must be published. After the articles have been signed and any registration of them completed, a notice is inserted in a medium authorised to carry legal announcements in the department of the registered office. This publication has to be made before the electronic filing at the Guichet unique - it is a precondition of the registration dossier, not a step that can follow it.

The legal notice gives public notice that the SCI is being formed and sets out its essential features - its name, legal form, object, registered office, capital, duration, the manager, and the registry where it will be registered, among the required particulars. The proof of publication is then part of the dossier submitted for registration. Because the notice must come first, a couple or an investor forming an SCI should treat it as the opening move once the articles are settled, rather than discovering at the filing stage that the registration cannot proceed without it.

Filing the dossier at the Guichet unique

Since 1 January 2023, companies must carry out their formalities electronically through the Guichet unique, which replaced the former business-formality centres (C. com. Art. L. 123-33). The formalities for forming the company are completed directly on the Guichet unique website, formalites.entreprises.gouv.fr, through a dynamic form completed online. This single portal is now the route for creating an SCI; the paper and multiple-office routes that preceded it no longer apply.

The Guichet unique also feeds the national business register (registre national des entreprises, RNE), which since 1 January 2023 has replaced most of the former registers and centralises the economic and legal information about companies (ord. 2021-1189 of 15 September 2021; C. com. Art. L. 123-50). The trade and companies register kept by the registrars of the commercial courts continues to exist alongside it, and it is the RCS entry that confers legal personality. During the roll-out of the Guichet unique a temporary continuity procedure allowed certain formalities to be made by the former means where the portal malfunctioned; that continuity procedure has since ended, and the Guichet unique is now the sole functional channel for creating a company.

The dossier assembled on the portal brings together the articles, the proof of the legal notice, the information on the members and manager, the declaration of beneficial owners and the other required particulars. Completing it accurately is what allows the registry to register the company without coming back for missing items - the most common cause of delay. Because the form is dynamic and the required documents depend on the situation, an SCI with a property contribution, non-resident members or a complex holding will have more to provide than a simple cash SCI, and getting the dossier right the first time is where advice makes the difference.

Where are you in the registration process?

Pick the point you have reached - the check shows what comes next and what it needs.

Registration, the SIREN number and the one-business-day rule

Once the dossier is filed, the whole formation file is transmitted by the Guichet unique to the competent commercial-court registry. The registrar then has one business day, after receiving the request transmitted by the Guichet unique, to make the entries in the RCS (C. com. Art. R. 123-97). Where the dossier is incomplete, the registrar has one business day to ask, through the Guichet unique, for the missing information or documents. And where the complexity of the file calls for particular examination, the registrar notifies the applicant, within one day and through the Guichet unique, that the registration or its refusal will be notified within a clear period of five days. A clean dossier is therefore registered quickly; a defective one is where the days are lost.

On completion of the registration the SCI is given a unique nine-digit identification number - the SIREN - usable in all its dealings with the administration and other bodies. The company receives this number automatically as soon as the registration request is accepted, and it is then accessible in its personal space on the Guichet unique website (C. com. Arts. R. 123-224 and R. 123-232). The SIREN is the company's identifier for its bank, the tax authorities and its counterparties, and its issue is the practical sign that the SCI now exists as a legal person. From this point the company can hold its bank account, complete its property purchase in its own name, and act as the owner of the property it was formed to hold.

What does your SCI registration dossier need?

A registration stalls when a required element is missing. Pick the item you want to check - the check shows what it is and why it matters.

Beneficial owners and the BODACC notice

Two further steps complete the picture. The first is the declaration of beneficial owners. Non-listed companies must produce a document relating to their beneficial owners, stating their name and address and the way in which they exercise control over the company. An SCI is a non-listed company, so this declaration is part of its registration: it identifies the natural persons who ultimately own or control the SCI and how that control is exercised. It is a requirement that a foreign-owned SCI in particular should not overlook, since the ownership chain has to be traced to the individuals behind it, and the declaration is kept current as the shareholding changes.

The second is the BODACC publication. Within eight days that follow the registration of the company, the registrar must publish, on their responsibility, a notice in the BODACC - the official bulletin of civil and commercial announcements - containing the particulars laid down by the Commercial Code, in particular the references of the registration, the company name, the amount of capital, the address of the registered office, and the names of the members who are indefinitely and jointly liable for the company's debts (C. com. Art. R. 123-161). This is done by the registrar rather than by the members, and it is the last public step of the formation: from the registration and its BODACC notice, the SCI is fully constituted and its existence is a matter of public record. The mention of the RCS registration, with the town of the registry, must then appear on the company's acts - a sale by an SCI whose identification omits it can be rejected.

The steps to register an SCI - at a glance

Frequently asked questions about registering an SCI

This article is for general information only and states French law and registration practice as published in the sources available at the date shown above. It does not constitute legal advice. Registration requirements and the Guichet unique procedure evolve, and the documents a given SCI must provide depend on its situation. Always seek qualified legal advice before registering an SCI.