A US LLC changes nothing for as long as France treats you as resident. Here is what the French tax authorities still claim when you go, the order in which to leave, and what it costs when a step is missed. The rules quoted here come from the tax administration's published guidance (BOFiP, DGFiP notices) and from decisions of the Conseil d'État.
When France still treats you as resident
Under article 4 B of the French tax code (CGI), as the administration reads it, you are tax-domiciled in France if:
- your home (foyer) or your main place of stay is in France;
- you carry on a professional activity there, employed or self-employed, unless you can show it is ancillary;
- your centre of economic interests is there.
Any one of these is enough. Your foyer is where you normally live on a permanent basis. It stays your foyer even if work keeps you elsewhere for most of the year, as long as your family goes on living there. As a general rule, more than six months in France in a given year puts your main place of stay in France. Your centre of economic interests is where you made your main investments, where your business is based, where you manage your assets from, or where you derive most of your income. Spouses and PACS partners are in principle taxed jointly in France as soon as either of them meets one criterion.
How France looks at your LLC: the Carmejane ruling
France does not treat an LLC as "transparent" by default. With any foreign company, the court first works out, from all of its features and the law governing it, which type of French company it resembles, and then applies that type's tax regime. The method goes back to the Artémis decision (Conseil d'État, 24 November 2014, no. 363556), which concerned a Delaware general partnership.
On 12 November 2025 (no. 502894, Carmejane LLC, listed in the tables of the Recueil Lebon, which gives it precedent weight), the Conseil d'État applied it to an LLC:
- flexible management and clauses protecting the family character of the capital do not stop an entity being treated as a capital company;
- limiting members' liability to their contributions is what sets the SARL, SA and SAS apart from the partnership-type entities of article 8 CGI; the appeal court was wrong to treat it as secondary;
- the LLC was comparable to a French SAS and therefore liable to corporate tax by reason of its form, without any need to look at whether its activity was profit-making.
Note what the case was about. It concerned a California LLC with two individual members (50.5 % and 49.5 %) that owned a property complex in Ménerbes (Vaucluse) made available free of charge. The tax office added the foregone rent to its profits and assessed corporate tax for 2011 and 2012, by ex officio assessment after the LLC obstructed the tax audit. The ruling does not decide the case of a single-member LLC: applying it there is an inference, not a decided rule. The risk is that the same reasoning, which rests on limited liability, is applied to yours.
On the France-US tax treaty, the administration accepts that a single-member LLC, not being a taxpayer in the United States, cannot claim the treaty itself: only its sole member can, if that member is a resident within the meaning of article 4 of the treaty. For article 7 §4 (partnerships), an LLC only counts if it is actually treated as transparent in the US and can prove that status to the French administration.
Article 155 A: fees your LLC invoices
Article 155 A can apply to anyone who provides services to a person or entity established outside France. It singles out entities under a privileged tax regime: not taxable in their state, or taxed at least 40 % less than they would have been in France. Even where your LLC is not in that position, the fees can be taxed in your name if the LLC is under your control, or if it does not mainly carry on an industrial or commercial activity other than your services.
Control can be legal (a significant share of the capital, management functions) or de facto (you behave as the real master of the entity and alone set the terms and pay for your work). You then have to show that the payments reward a genuine intervention by the LLC itself. The LLC is jointly liable for the tax, up to the amounts it received. The scope of the rule was widened by the 2024 finance law (law no. 2023-1322 of 29 December 2023, art. 10).
Once you have left, article 155 A only covers sums paying for services rendered in France.
Article 123 bis: an LLC that mainly holds investments
Article 123 bis targets French tax residents who hold at least 10 % of a foreign entity under a privileged tax regime (no tax, or tax at least 40 % below the French tax), where more than 50 % of the entity's assets are securities, receivables, deposits or current accounts; all of its income is then caught. Holdings of your spouse, PACS partner, parents and children count towards the 10 %, wherever they live. Below 10 %, the rule does not apply. An LLC that manages a portfolio rather than a business is the most exposed for as long as you are resident.
The article 167 bis exit tax
Leaving can trigger tax on unrealised gains on your shares. The figures below are those of the official notice 2074-ETD-NOT no. 51602#14, which covers moves made in 2024.
The exit tax applies if you were tax-domiciled in France for at least six of the ten years before you leave (counted date to date) and, together with your tax household, you hold at the date of the move:
- either at least 50 % of the profits of one company (the gain on that holding is taxed);
- or shares and securities worth more than EUR 800,000 in total (the gain on the whole portfolio is taxed).
The rate is a flat 12.8 % on the gains, or the progressive scale on option, plus social levies. Your move is deemed to happen the day before the day from which you stop being taxable in France on your worldwide income.
Automatic deferral applies if you move to an EU state, or to a state that has signed with France both an administrative-assistance convention against tax fraud and evasion and a mutual recovery-assistance convention, and is not a non-cooperative state. The administration's list for moves from 1 January 2024 includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, Iceland, Japan and Monaco among others; check your destination against the full list in the notice. For French nationals, moving to Monaco is not a transfer of tax domicile out of France.
Deferral on request is the only route for other destinations, where the tax is in principle payable at once: you must file form 2074-ETD within the 90 days before the move, appoint a tax representative in France and give the non-residents' tax office guarantees of 12.8 % of the total gains and receivables.
Discharge comes after 2 years if your shares were worth less than EUR 2.57 million at the date of the move, or 5 years if they were worth more, provided you still hold them at the end of the period. Events that end the deferral or trigger the discharge are reported on form 2074-ETS3, in the year after the event.
Leaving in the right order
Before you go: check the three article 4 B criteria and look up your destination in the list in notice 2074-ETD-NOT. Not on the list: file the 2074-ETD within the 90 days before the move. When you leave: give your new address to your last tax office (centre des finances publiques), online through your espace Finances publiques. In the following year: file a 2042 return for your income from 1 January to the date you left, and a 2042-NR for French-taxable income received between your departure and 31 December. No French-source taxable income left: say so expressly in the additional information section of the return. Automatic deferral: the 2074-ETD exists only on paper. File it in the year after the move, at the tax office of your former French home, together with the 2042 and 2042 C. After that: report every event that ends the deferral or triggers the discharge on form 2074-ETS3.Your former tax office keeps your file until the return for the year of departure has been processed. The non-residents' tax office (SIPNR) only takes over if you then have French-source income taxable in France.
What goes wrong when a step is missed
- Your family stays in France: you remain resident and taxable on your worldwide income, and your LLC stays exposed to the Carmejane reasoning and to article 155 A.
- You miss the 90-day window for a destination not on the list: the exit tax is in principle payable at once.
- You sell the shares before the 2 or 5 years are up: the condition for the discharge is no longer met.
- You keep working in France for clients your LLC invoices: article 155 A still covers those services.
Sources
Checked 26 October 2026. Légifrance could not be accessed, so French rules are quoted from the administration's official guidance and from Conseil d'État decisions.
- Conseil d'État, 12 November 2025, no. 502894, Carmejane LLC: conseil-etat.fr
- Conseil d'État, 24 November 2014, no. 363556, Société Artémis SA: conseil-etat.fr
- BOFiP BOI-IR-CHAMP-10 (article 4 B CGI): bofip.impots.gouv.fr
- BOFiP BOI-IR-DOMIC-30 (article 155 A CGI): bofip.impots.gouv.fr
- BOFiP BOI-RPPM-RCM-10-30-20-10 (article 123 bis CGI): bofip.impots.gouv.fr
- BOFiP BOI-INT-CVB-USA-10-20 and BOI-INT-CVB-USA-10-20-20 (France-US tax treaty): bofip.impots.gouv.fr and bofip.impots.gouv.fr
- DGFiP, notice 2074-ETD-NOT no. 51602#14 (article 167 bis CGI, moves made in 2024): impots.gouv.fr
- impots.gouv.fr, "Je pars vivre à l'étranger, quelles démarches dois-je accomplir ?": impots.gouv.fr
- DGFiP / DINR, press kit "Impôt sur les revenus 2025, non-résidents", March 2026: impots.gouv.fr
Your own case
This page is general information, not advice on your case. Your own situation is checked in a consultation, held in English.
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