The honest answer: it depends on one thing
"How long will this take, and what will it cost?" is the first question every creditor asks, and the honest answer turns almost entirely on a single variable: does your debtor genuinely dispute the debt, or are they simply not paying?
Those two situations look identical from your side — an invoice unpaid, emails ignored — but they lead to completely different procedures, with very different timelines. A debt nobody seriously contests can produce an enforceable court order within weeks to a few months. A genuinely disputed claim is full litigation, which often takes many months, and longer on appeal. Most B2B files, in our experience, fall into the first category and never see a full trial.
Timeline by route
Formal notice — days
Drafted and dispatched within 24 business hours, delivered in 2–3 business days, with an 8-day payment deadline. Around 30% of cases settle here. Details →
Payment order — a few months
No hearing. Once issued, the order is served, then the debtor has a one-month window to oppose (if the order was not served on the debtor in person, a later opposition remains possible, even after that window). For orders issued since 1 September 2026, it becomes enforceable only once that window has expired and two months have passed since service. Details →
Référé-provision — weeks to a few months
In a simple file, a hearing 2–6 weeks out, then an order given at the hearing or after a period of deliberation. Across the 489 proceedings in our recovery barometer (in French), the median from summons to order is 105 days (about three and a half months). Once served, the order can be enforced even if the debtor appeals — at the creditor’s risk if it is later overturned. Details →
Full action on the merits — several months, sometimes more than a year
For genuinely contested claims: several rounds of written submissions, then judgment. Count 6–12 months before a commercial court (the usual B2B forum), and allow for longer if the case is heavily contested. Add 12–18 months if either side appeals.
A pre-judgment freeze usually takes around two weeks to bite (the judge’s authorisation, then execution by a commissaire de justice) and does not delay anything else — it runs alongside whichever route above you are on. Once the freeze is executed, you have one month to start proceedings to obtain an enforceable title (payment order, référé-provision or full action). For creditors domiciled in an EU Member State (other than Denmark), the European Account Preservation Order offers a comparable freeze, limited to bank accounts, in cross-border cases.
What actually causes delay
Very little of the elapsed time in a French debt case is the court thinking. The real drivers are:
- Service on the debtor. A court order generally cannot be enforced against the debtor until it has been formally served by a commissaire de justice. A debtor who has moved, or whose registered office is a mail-forwarding address, adds weeks.
- The opposition window. After a payment order is served, the debtor has one month to oppose — and, if service was not made to the debtor in person, can still oppose until one month after the first document served in person or, failing that, after the first enforcement measure freezing its assets. An order issued since 1 September 2026 only becomes enforceable once the one-month period has expired and two months have passed since service. That time is pure calendar time and cannot be shortened.
- Opposition itself. Filed against only about 3% of orders (French Ministry of Justice figure), it converts the fast-track order into ordinary adversarial proceedings — the single largest timeline risk.
- File quality on day one. A missing signed contract or proof of delivery is the most common reason a fast route is unavailable and a slow one becomes necessary.
As a rule, a commercial claim governed by French law is time-barred 5 years after the sum fell due (article L.110-4 du Code de commerce), unless a shorter period applies — one year for claims arising from a contract of carriage, for instance, or a shorter period agreed in the contract — and if your contract is governed by another country’s law, that law sets the time limit. Waiting also raises the risk that the debtor becomes insolvent — once insolvency proceedings open, individual recovery stops and you join the queue of creditors. Speed is not just about convenience; it is about whether there is anything left to collect.
The three layers of cost
Cost in a French recovery case comes in three distinct layers, and creditors often conflate them.
1. Your attorney's fees
Flat, and strictly incremental — each step is charged only if it actually becomes necessary:
- €189 ex VAT for the formal notice — the only fee to get started
- €800 if the debtor does not reply within 8 days, or replies and a pre-litigation negotiation opens
- + €1,000 if summary proceedings (référé provision) must be filed
- + €800, optional, to freeze the debtor's bank accounts before judgment
On recovery cases a success fee applies to the sums actually recovered: 8% ex VAT up to €15,000, 7% from €15,000 to €30,000, and 6% above. French Bar rules forbid a pure contingency fee, so this always supplements a base fee rather than replacing it. Everything is fixed in a written fee agreement before work starts — the full breakdown, including VAT treatment for EU and non-EU clients, is on the fees page.
2. Court and officer costs
Generally modest and regulated: court registry fees and the commissaire de justice’s fees for serving documents follow official tariffs set by regulation (before the twelve Tribunaux des Activités Économiques, very large claimants may also owe an economic justice contribution). Certified translation, where a procedure requires it, is the one variable item worth budgeting separately.
3. What comes back to you
This is the layer creditors most often forget, and it materially changes the arithmetic:
- Late-payment penalties accrue automatically between businesses, without any reminder being necessary. The default rate is the European Central Bank's refinancing rate plus 10 percentage points, and cannot contractually be set below three times the legal interest rate (article L.441-10 du Code de commerce).
- A fixed €40 recovery indemnity, owed automatically (articles L.441-10 and D.441-5 du Code de commerce) — due for each invoice not paid on time according to the Court of Justice of the EU (20 October 2022, C-585/20), except where insolvency proceedings prevent payment on the due date — with the right to claim more if your actual recovery costs exceeded it, on proof.
- An attorney-fee award against the losing party under article 700 du Code de procédure civile. The amount is set by the court case by case. It is discretionary and must be specifically requested — never assume it is automatic.
- Enforcement costs are charged to the debtor once you hold an enforceable title (article L.111-8 du Code des procédures civiles d'exécution), except costs that were manifestly unnecessary and part of the commissaire de justice’s proportional recovery fee, which the regulated tariff leaves to the creditor save in specific cases.
Article L.111-8 shifts enforcement costs to the debtor once you hold an enforceable title. Recovery costs incurred without one stay with you in principle: between businesses, the €40 indemnity and, on proof, additional compensation can cover part of them, and the enforcement judge can leave necessary costs to a debtor acting in bad faith. Reaching a court order quickly therefore remains the most reliable way to shift costs onto the debtor.
Frequently asked questions
A formal notice that works — days, not months, and it resolves around 30% of files. Where it fails, the fastest enforceable outcome is usually a référé-provision (a median of 105 days from summons to order in our recovery barometer, faster in the simplest files) or a payment order (a few months), depending on whether the debtor has raised any objection at all.
Rarely in full. An Article 700 award is set at the court's discretion, taking into account fairness or the economic situation of the losing party, and may not cover all your costs. Enforcement costs, by contrast, are in principle charged to the debtor once you hold a title, except part of the commissaire de justice’s proportional recovery fee.
No. Fees are the same for foreign and French creditors, and the procedure is handled remotely. The only cross-border-specific cost that may arise is certified translation of documents where a procedure requires it.
Individual recovery stops. The case converts into filing a claim within the insolvency proceedings, and recovery rates fall sharply. This is why acting early matters: a pre-judgment asset freeze can help when there are early warning signs, but frozen funds are secured only if the freeze has been converted into a final attachment, with an enforceable title, before insolvency proceedings open — and a freeze made after the date the debtor stopped paying its debts can be set aside.
Below a certain size the cost-to-recovery ratio stops working, which is why the firm applies a minimum claim threshold. We will tell you plainly if your case falls below it rather than take a file we cannot serve economically.
Yes. A written fee agreement setting out scope, pricing and expected out-of-pocket costs is provided before any billable work begins; French law requires a written fee agreement in nearly all cases, so this is not just firm policy.
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