A company must have a registered office , as this is a prerequisite for its existence.
When you set up your company, and more specifically when it is registered, you will be asked to choose your company's address.
This address will then be the address of your company's registered office, but will also define its tax domicile!
A company's registered office is its administrative address, in other words the address of its registered office.
The location of a company's head office defines its nationality as well as its tax domicile, and consequently :
- The laws on which it depends ;
- How it will be taxed;
- And the territorial jurisdiction of courts in the event of disputes.
A company's tax domicile and nationality are determined by the location of its registered office. For example, a company based in Lyon will be French and its tax domicile will be in France. The same applies to a company based in a foreign country, which will take the nationality of that country as its tax domicile.
In other words, to be domiciled for tax purposes in France, you need to carry on a business in France. However, domiciliation for tax purposes does not necessarily correspond to the place where the company's business is based!
Finally, you can change your company's tax domicile by transferring its registered office. This formality, which is quite common, will require modification of the company's articles of association.
As you can see, a company's tax domicile in France presupposes that its registered office is in France.
However, there are several domiciliation solutions for a company. Here are the main ones:
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Subscribe to a commercial domiciliation contract with a domiciliation company such as SeDomicilier, or with a business center. The advantage of this solution is that, in addition to domiciliation, the company can benefit from additional services such as telephone permanence, secretarial services, office rental, etc.
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Register the company at the personal address of its legal representative by providing a certificate of domicile. However, you will need to check that there are no legal provisions or regulations to the contrary, notably in your rental contract and co-ownership regulations.
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Domicile the company in commercial premises that it owns or leases. However, the company director must be able to prove that he or she is using the premises for business purposes.
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Join a business incubator, where you can obtain premises and domicile your company.
A company domiciled abroad will benefit from the rights and nationality of the foreign country in which it establishes its head office.
It will then be submitted :
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the laws of the country concerned ;
- to its corporate tax system ;
- and the territorial jurisdiction of its courts in the event of disputes.
Depending on the country in which you are based, a foreign domiciliation may enable you to :
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benefit from tax advantages or lower taxation, particularly on VAT. For example, Ireland has a corporate tax rate of 12.5%, compared with 33% 1/3 in France. So you can see why GAFA and many other multinationals don't set up their European headquarters in Ireland just for the beauty of the scenery;
- to protect its assets and, in some cases, limit its liability, with some countries offering more protective corporate forms.
Some domiciliation companies specialize in setting up offshore and onshore companies. They can offer you tax domiciliation in the UK, Cyprus, the Seychelles, Mauritius or Gibraltar.
Please note: Choose a domiciliation company with prefectoral approval to avoid signing domiciliation contracts with dubious companies.
Now you know everything there is to know about corporate domiciliation, it's up to you to make your choice!
Written by our expert Maxime Ravier
November 9, 2017
