A creditor with an unpaid invoice from a debtor in France may seek an order for payment (injonction de payer). The creditor files an application (requête) with the court registry, and the judge rules on the documents without hearing the debtor. Orders made on or after 1 September 2026 must be served within three months of their date; earlier orders keep six months.
The order for payment covers a fixed-amount contractual or statutory debt, or a debt under a bill of exchange or promissory note
Article 1405 of the French Code of Civil Procedure (Code de procédure civile) opens the order for payment to two kinds of claim: a debt with a contractual or statutory cause and a fixed amount, or a commitment arising from a bill of exchange, a promissory note or an accepted transfer of business receivables.
The first limb sets two cumulative conditions. The claim must have a contractual cause or result from a statutory obligation, and it must amount to a fixed sum. For contracts, the amount is determined “under the terms of the contract including, where applicable, the penalty clause” (our translation). An unpaid invoice issued under a contract is one example.
A contractual claim whose amount remains to be determined therefore falls outside Article 1405, and the creditor turns to ordinary proceedings.
The second limb covers the acceptance or drawing of a bill of exchange (lettre de change) and the signing of a promissory note (billet à ordre). It extends to the endorsement or guarantee (aval) of either instrument, and to an accepted transfer of business receivables under the 1981 “Dailly” law.
Article 1405 sets conditions on the claim, not on where the creditor is based.
The creditor files an application with the court where the debtor lives, and the judge decides on the documents
A creditor seeking an order for payment applies to the court registry (greffe), addressing the application, depending on the subject matter, to the juge des contentieux de la protection or to the president of the tribunal judiciaire or tribunal de commerce where the debtor lives, and the judge decides on the documents without hearing the debtor.
Article 1406 names these three judges “within the limits of the subject-matter jurisdiction of these courts” (our translation). The tribunal judiciaire is the judicial court, the tribunal de commerce the commercial court.
Territorial jurisdiction belongs to the judge of the place where the debtor, or one of the debtors pursued, lives. Article 1406 makes these rules a matter of public policy: any contrary clause is deemed unwritten, and the judge must raise lack of jurisdiction of its own motion. A contract clause choosing another French court therefore has no effect on the application.
The creditor, or any representative, hands or sends the application to the registry. Besides the particulars required by Article 57, Article 1407 requires the precise amount claimed, with a breakdown of its components, and the basis of the claim. Supporting documents are listed and attached. A creditor based abroad may have a French lawyer prepare and file the application.
Under Article 1408, the application may also ask that, if the debtor opposes the order, the case be sent at once to the court the creditor considers competent.
No hearing takes place at this stage. The judge rules “in view of the documents produced” (Article 1409, our translation), so the debtor learns of the order when it is served.
The judge grants the order in full or in part, and the creditor cannot appeal a rejection
Under Article 1409, the judge makes an order for payment (ordonnance portant injonction de payer) for the sum the judge accepts when the application appears well founded in whole or in part, and a rejection leaves the creditor no remedy except ordinary proceedings.
A rejection closes this route. Article 1409 states that the decision “is without remedy for the creditor, except for the creditor to proceed by the ordinary means of law” (our translation), for example by a summons (assignation).
A partial grant is equally without remedy for the creditor, who may instead decide not to serve the order and to proceed by ordinary means. A creditor who refuses the reduced sum therefore leaves the order unserved.
The registry keeps the application and the order on file (Article 1410). On a grant, the registry hands the applicant a certified copy of the application and of the order bearing the enforcement formula (formule exécutoire), and returns the documents produced; after a rejection, the application and the documents go back to the applicant. The formula does not yet make the order an enforceable title (titre exécutoire), because service and further time limits come first.
An order made since 1 September 2026 must be served within three months, or it has no effect
At the creditor’s initiative, a judicial officer (commissaire de justice, formerly huissier de justice) serves on each debtor a certified copy of the application, the list of supporting documents and the order bearing the enforcement formula; an order made on or after 1 September 2026 has no effect unless served within three months of its date.
The judicial officer makes the supporting documents available to the debtors electronically, under arrangements set by order of the Minister of Justice. If that proves impossible for a reason outside the judicial officer’s control, the judicial officer attaches them to the copy of the application served.
The sanction closes Article 1411: “The order for payment is of no effect if it has not been served within three months of its date” (our translation). The French term is non avenue.
Decree No. 2026-96 of 16 February 2026 cut this period from six months to three. The new wording came into force on 1 April 2026, but it applies to orders made on or after 1 September 2026. The test is the date on which the order is made, not the date of the application. An order made earlier keeps the former six-month period.
The Cour de cassation applied the former six-month rule in Cass. 2nd civ., 17 October 2019, No. 18-18.759. An order made in 2001 had not been served in time, and the creditor sought enforcement years later. The court of appeal treated the debtor’s voluntary payments to the judicial officer as acquiescence. The Cour de cassation quashed: the order, not served in time, was of no effect, and those payments did not change that.
Article 643 does not extend this three-month period for service. It does lengthen the time to oppose for a debtor abroad, before a court sitting in metropolitan France.
The debtor has one month from service to oppose the order, and two more months when living abroad before a court in metropolitan France
A debtor may oppose a French order for payment within one month of its service, by filing the opposition at the registry of the court that made the order, by declaration against a receipt or by registered letter; Article 643 adds two months for a debtor who lives abroad, when that court sits in metropolitan France.
The right to oppose comes from Article 1412, the one-month period from Article 1416. A debtor not served in person may oppose until one month after the first document served in person or, failing that, the first enforcement measure making all or part of the debtor’s assets unavailable.
On pain of nullity, the service document states very visibly the time limit, the court and how to oppose, and warns that a debtor who does not oppose in time loses any remedy and may be compelled to pay (Article 1413).
The debtor may act through an agent, who needs a special power unless the agent is an avocat (a French lawyer). The opposition must state the debtor’s address, on pain of nullity. For orders made on or after 1 September 2026, Article 1415 adds a duty: except before the commercial court, the registry informs the creditor or its representative of the opposition within one month of receipt, by any means giving a certain date. The text does not specify the sanction if that notice is omitted.
Article 643 adds two months for a debtor abroad, before a court in metropolitan France
Before a court sitting in metropolitan France, Article 643 adds two months to several time limits for persons who live abroad. The text names opposition among them. A debtor living abroad therefore has three months from service to oppose, subject to Article 1416 where service was not personal.
For a company, the test is the registered office. A company whose registered office is abroad “lives abroad” under Article 643, even when represented in France by a general agent, as insurance law required of the foreign insurer in that case (Cass. 2nd civ., 21 December 2023, No. 21-21.140, our translation).
The list is exhaustive: Article 643 did not extend the period for bringing a case before the court of referral after cassation (Cass. 2nd civ., 4 February 2021, No. 19-23.638). Article 643 therefore does not extend the creditor’s period for serving the order (Article 1411), which is not among the time limits it lists.
An opposition first brings the whole dispute before the court that made the order
An opposition to a French order for payment refers the creditor’s original claim and the whole dispute to the court that made the order (Article 1413), subject to referral under Article 1417; the judgment given on the opposition replaces the order (Article 1420).
Within its subject-matter jurisdiction, the court also hears incidental claims and defences on the merits (Article 1417). If it declines jurisdiction, or in the case provided for by Article 1408, the case is sent to the competent court under Article 82.
The procedure then depends on the court (Article 1418, as applicable to orders made on or after 1 September 2026). Before the commercial court and the juge des contentieux de la protection, the clerk summons the parties by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt. The same applies before the tribunal judiciaire in the matters listed in Article 817. In other matters, the tribunal judiciaire follows the ordinary written procedure. The creditor must formally appoint an avocat (constituer avocat) within fifteen days of the notification. As soon as formally appointed, the creditor’s avocat informs the debtor, by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt, that the debtor must also appoint one within fifteen days. At the hearing, the creditor must produce the act of service, or its claims are inadmissible. If service was not personal, an act listed in Article 1416 takes its place.
Article 1419 sets two cases of extinction. The first arises before the commercial court, the juge des contentieux de la protection and the tribunal judiciaire in Article 817 matters. There, the court records the extinction of the proceedings if neither party appears. In other matters before the tribunal judiciaire, the president records it if the creditor fails to formally appoint an avocat in time. In both cases, extinction “renders the order for payment of no effect” (our translation). This cause of non avenue is distinct from late service under Article 1411.
Before the commercial court, costs follow Article 1425. The claimant deposits the costs within fifteen days of the application, or the application lapses (caducité). The clerk then invites the claimant without delay, by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt, to deposit the costs of the opposition at the registry. The deposit is due within fifteen days, on the same sanction. Lapse strikes the application, whereas non avenue strikes the order itself.
The judgment can be appealed when the amount claimed exceeds the court’s last-instance limit (Article 1421).
An unopposed order becomes an enforceable title no earlier than two months after service
Under Article 1422, as applicable to orders made on or after 1 September 2026, an order for payment constitutes an enforceable title only once the causes suspending enforcement have ended and two months have passed since service; the order then has all the effects of a jugement contradictoire.
The same article provides that “whatever the method of service, the time limit for opposition provided for in the first paragraph of Article 1416 suspends enforcement” (our translation). That time limit is the one month of Article 1416, and a timely opposition also suspends enforcement. Where a judgment is given on the opposition, that judgment replaces the order (Article 1420). Where the proceedings are extinguished, the order is of no effect (Article 1419).
For an unopposed order meeting these conditions, Article 1422 provides for no declaration of enforceability. The order is not open to appeal, even if it grants the debtor time to pay.
The enforcement formula on the copy handed over by the registry does not make the order enforceable before that deadline; see what makes a title enforceable in France.
Article 1422 adds a further rule, to be read with the conditions stated above. The creditor may pursue enforcement if, within two months of service, it has received neither the registry’s notice of an opposition (Article 1415) nor the invitation to deposit costs (Article 1425). The title then gives access to the French enforcement measures that reach the debtor’s assets, and Solent Avocats can have the order enforced in France.
The European order for payment is a separate procedure for cross-border claims between EU Member States
The European order for payment is an instrument distinct from the French injonction de payer: Regulation (EC) No 1896/2006 of 12 December 2006 created it for cross-border cases between EU Member States, and a separate section of the French Code of Civil Procedure, opening with Article 1424-1, governs it in France.
One difference is written into Article 1425: the lapse that sanctions unpaid costs before the commercial court does not apply to a European order for payment.
Our dedicated guide explains how the European order for payment works in France.