Shareholder Loan Accounts in an SCI

Shareholder loan accounts in an SCI: how they work and the rules that apply

The shareholder loan account - the compte courant d'associé - is one of the most used and least understood tools in an SCI (société civile immobilière). It is simply a way for a member to lend money to the company, or to leave sums owed to them inside it, without going through a capital increase. The member becomes a creditor of the SCI, repayable in principle at any time, and the account can carry interest. But it comes with rules that are easy to get wrong: on who can demand repayment and when, on what happens to the account when shares are sold, on the tax of any interest, and on how the account is treated for wealth tax. This guide sets out how a current account works and the rules that govern it.

The account matters because it is where most of the money in a typical SCI actually sits. Many SCIs are formed with a modest capital and funded, for the property purchase and beyond, by members' advances booked to their current accounts. That makes the account central to the company's financing, to the value that will pass on a transfer, and to the members' own tax - and it makes getting the documentation and the clauses right far more than a formality. The flexibility that makes the current account attractive is exactly what makes the rules around it worth knowing.

What a shareholder current account is

To improve the SCI's cash - to help finance the property, for instance - the members can leave inside the company sums that are normally due to them, such as fees or shares of profit, treating them as loans; and to meet a need for liquidity they can advance sums by paying money into an account opened in their name in the company's books. These payments into the company's coffers are widely used because of their flexibility, and because they avoid the formality of a capital increase. Being a debt of the company towards the members, the advances and loans are recorded on the balance sheet under a liability account headed "current account". The member then becomes a creditor of the company, and the sums paid in do not increase the number or the value of their shares.

That last point is the essence of the tool and the source of most misunderstandings. Money put into a current account is a loan, not a contribution: it does not buy shares, does not change the members' respective stakes, and sits on the company's books as a debt owed back to the member. It is the opposite of capital, which is frozen in the company - the current account is money the member has lent and can, in principle, recover. Unlike the position in commercial companies, a member's current account in an SCI can even run into debit, meaning the member owes the company, though that raises its own issues and is not the usual case.

Used well, the current account is what lets an SCI be formed with a small capital and financed by the members as the property requires, rather than locking a large sum into fixed capital at the outset. It is flexible to fund and flexible to unwind, and - as our guide to financing an SCI purchase explains - a structure of modest capital plus current-account advances is often cheaper to set up and cheaper to exit than one built on a large fixed capital. But that flexibility depends on the account being properly documented and on the rules below being understood.

Repayment: due at any time, unless blocked

The defining feature of a current account is that the holder can get their money back. The holder of a current account has the right to repayment at any time, unless a special provision of the articles says otherwise (Cass. civ., 3e ch., 12 November 2014, no. 13-16182). This is a real right, not a matter of the company's goodwill: absent a clause to the contrary, a member can call for their advance to be repaid whenever they choose, and the company must pay if it can.

Because that right is valuable, it cannot be taken away without the holder's agreement. Blocking a current account - agreeing that it will not be repayable for a period - requires the holder's consent, and a unanimous decision is needed, because blocking the account is treated as an increase of the members' commitments (Cass. com., 24 June 1997, no. 95-20056). A majority cannot impose a freeze on a member's account against their will. In practice, a blocking convention (convention de blocage) is agreed where the company or a lender needs the advances to stay in place - a bank financing the SCI will often require the members' current accounts to be blocked for the term of its loan - but it is a matter of agreement, entered into by the member, not a decision that can be forced on them.

This tension between the on-demand nature of the account and the company's need for stable funding is where careful drafting matters most. A well-advised SCI decides at the outset whether and how the current accounts are to be blocked, records it in the articles or a separate convention, and aligns it with any bank financing - so that the members' repayment rights and the company's funding needs are settled in advance rather than colliding when someone asks for their money back at an inconvenient moment.

What happens to the account when shares are sold

A frequent and costly misunderstanding is to assume that selling the shares carries the current account with them. It does not. The transfer of shares does not carry the transfer of the current account standing in the transferor's name (Cass. com., 11 January 2017, no. 15-14064): the account remains the property of the seller, who can still claim repayment from the company at any time. So a buyer of the shares does not automatically acquire the seller's loan to the company, and a seller who forgets their current account can find they have parted with their shares while still being owed the balance - or, worse, has left money in a company they no longer control. Where the company has the cash, the account can be repaid at the moment of the sale; where it does not, a blocking convention can defer the repayment. Either way, the current account has to be dealt with expressly in the share transfer, not assumed to follow the shares.

The tax treatment reinforces the separation. For the capital gain on a transfer of SCI shares, the amount of the current account is not taken into account to determine the sale price, and equally the sums paid into the current account do not add to the acquisition price of the shares (CAA Douai, 7 March 2019, no. 17DA01004). The share gain is computed on the value of the shares alone; the current account is a separate debt, repaid at its face value. And a gift of the shares does not sweep up the account either: a donation-partage of a member's shares, without more, does not extend to the credit balance of the donor's current account in the absence of a specific clause (Cass. civ., 3e ch., 18 November 2009, no. 08-18740). The registration duty follows the same logic - the 5% share-transfer duty (with no fixed abatement for a property-dominant company) bears on the value of the shares, while the part of the price representing the current account transferred is treated separately. In short, the account and the shares are distinct assets, and each has to be addressed in its own right whenever shares change hands.

How does a shareholder current account work in your SCI?

The current account raises different questions at different moments. Pick yours - the check explains it.

Interest: deductibility and the tax you pay on it

A current account can carry interest, and the interest has two tax sides - a deduction for the company and a charge for the member. On the deduction side, interest on the sums a member leaves in the company by way of current account, over and above their capital contribution, is deductible in the same way as interest on debts contracted for the acquisition, construction, repair, improvement or conservation of the property (CGI Art. 31, I, 1°, d), provided a sufficient correlation is established between the borrowing and that purpose. So a current account genuinely funding the property gives the SCI an interest deduction like a bank loan would.

Two well-known limits on that deduction - that the share capital be fully paid up, and that the interest rate not exceed a capped reference rate (the average rate charged by credit institutions for variable-rate business loans of more than two years) - do not apply to a pure property-income SCI. They apply only to companies subject to corporation tax, or to income-tax companies carrying on a commercial, industrial, artisanal or agricultural activity taxed on their actual profits. For a corporation-tax SCI, both limits apply: the interest is deductible only if the capital is fully paid up, and only up to the capped rate, with any excess reintegrated into the taxable result - and, in a corporation-tax company, excess interest reintegrated for want of meeting the rate limit is taxed in the member's hands as a distribution rather than as interest. A family SCI at income tax escapes these two mechanical limits, but still needs a rate and a correlation it can justify.

On the charge side, the interest a member receives on their current account is, for them, income from receivables, deposits and current accounts, taxed at income tax. It falls under the flat tax - the prélèvement forfaitaire unique - at 30%, comprising 12.8% income tax and 17.2% social levies, unless the member makes the global election for the progressive scale instead. The company operates a compulsory 12.8% levy at source as an advance on the member's tax, which is then set against the final liability; a member whose household reference income of the year before last was below €25,000 (for a single person) or €50,000 (for a couple taxed jointly) can ask to be dispensed from that advance. So current-account interest is not a way of taking money out tax-free - it is deductible for the company but taxable for the member, and the two sides should be weighed together.

The rules on your current account

Each rule around the account has a practical consequence. Pick the point you want to check - the check explains it.

The wealth-tax point and why documentation matters

A final rule surprises owners who are liable to the real-estate wealth tax (impôt sur la fortune immobilière, IFI). It might be assumed that a large current account, being a debt of the company, would reduce the value of the shares for IFI in the way a bank loan does. It does not: a shareholder current account used to fund the property is not deductible in valuing the shares for the IFI, under the anti-abuse rules that restrict the deduction of loans made by the taxpayer or their circle to a company holding the taxable property. So the account does not bring the IFI value of the shares down, and an owner who structured their SCI on the assumption that it would can face an IFI bill larger than expected. Where IFI is in point, the financing has to be planned with this rule in mind rather than around an assumption that any company debt reduces the taxable value.

All of this is why a current account should be documented properly rather than run as an informal running balance. The account should be recorded in the company's books; where it is to carry interest, the rate and the correlation with the property should be set and justifiable; where the account is to be blocked, the convention should be agreed by the member and aligned with any bank financing; and on any transfer of shares, the account should be dealt with expressly rather than left to follow the shares it does not follow. The current account is a genuinely useful and flexible tool, but its usefulness depends on treating it as what it is - a real loan between the member and the company, with real consequences on repayment, on a sale, in the members' tax and for the IFI - and drafting and recording it accordingly.

The shareholder current account - at a glance

Frequently asked questions about shareholder loan accounts in an SCI

This article is for general information only and states French law and tax rules as published in the sources available at the date shown above, including the flat-tax rate current for 2026. It does not constitute legal or tax advice. The treatment of a current account depends on the SCI's regime, the drafting and the member's position. Always seek qualified legal and tax advice before relying on a shareholder current account.