Hiring foreign employees not residing in France

There are two possible scenarios.

The first is a foreign employee already living in France, and the second is a foreign employee living in his or her country of origin, whom you wish to bring to work for your company in France.

Obviously, this does not include cases where the foreign employee lives in the European Union or the European Economic Area, or in Andorra, Cyprus, Switzerland or Monaco.

Let’s move on to the second scenario. In other words, you have a foreign employee living in his or her country of origin whom you would like to bring to France to work for your company.

In this case, we’re dealing with a special procedure for the introduction of a foreign employee into France.

First of all, I suggest you check whether you have a bilateral agreement between the employee’s country of origin and France, because if you do, there will necessarily be specific provisions to facilitate his or her entry into French territory.

If you don’t fit into this framework, we’ll switch back to the general framework. So you’ll need to apply to bring the foreign employee to France, which ultimately involves applying for a work permit.

I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that this request will be made online, and you’ll be able to find out whether the employment situation, as we saw earlier, will be used against you or not.

And if it’s opposed, as it was earlier, you’ll have to publish a job advert for three weeks, with no applications.

And this is an important point, since you’ll need to justify your status as a foreign employee as part of your introduction application.

Other items will be listed in the usual way on the dedicated website, and will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. This introduction procedure takes about two months.

If your application is accepted, OFII will take over and complete the formalities required to bring the foreign employee to France. OFII will then take over and introduce the foreign employee into France.

He will then proceed with the medical examination. In this respect, it is important to know that OFII is present in a number of different countries. The medical examination can therefore be carried out at an OFII in the employee’s country of origin, which can save time.

OFII will also check which visa or residence permit is required for the foreign national to come to France.

Then, as usual, it’s up to you to carry out the formalities involved in hiring a new employee, including checking that he or she is registered with the Social Security system.

It’s also important to know that this application for a special work permit is subject to a flat-rate tax, the amount of which varies according to the employee’s duties and the duration of his or her employment contract.

As you will have understood, these two procedures, and particularly the last one, concerning the introduction of foreign employees who are in their country of origin in France, are particularly lengthy.

So, of course, we urge you to anticipate your labor needs so that you have enough time to complete the formalities, should you decide to call on foreign labor.