Article 155 A France salary stories fail for a simple statutory reason. Paying the invoice to a company in another country does not, by itself, move the tax out of France when the work was done by a person who is in France, or when the services were rendered in France. Article 155 A of the Code général des impôts is an anti-avoidance rule aimed at that split: the human or the work sits in France, the cash sits in a foreign letterbox. Kitchen-table plans that call the letterbox an “offshore salary” are describing the fact pattern the article was written to catch, not a product.
This note is general information for education. It is not a ruling, a mandate, or personalised tax advice. Whether 155 A applies depends on control, on the foreign recipient’s real activity, on whether that recipient sits in a privileged tax regime, and on counsel who can read the contracts against the CGI and the BOFiP comments in force.
Vellum Finance works as a fee-only multi-family office. The useful question is not “which island invoices.” It is who rendered the service, from where, who controls the company that cashed the cheque, and whether that company has a real industrial or commercial activity other than recycling the fee. Families who skip those facts will discover that article 155 A taxes the sums in the name of the person who actually did the work.
Article 155 A France salary: the split the statute refuses
The current wording of article 155 A CGI on Légifrance (as amended, including by the 2024 finance law) looks at sums received by a person domiciled or established outside France in return for services, or for the commercial exploitation of certain rights, rendered or granted by one or more persons domiciled or established in France. Those sums are taxable in the name of the French persons in three alternative cases. Alternative means one is enough. The administration does not have to prove all three.
BOFiP comments on the device sit in the domicile series, including BOI-IR-DOMIC-30 on taxpayers who assist persons established outside France. The comments are longer than this article. The family-office translation is short. If the talent is in France and the invoice is not, 155 A is on the checklist. It is not a rare clause for entertainers only. It is a general services rule that now also names image, name, voice, copyright, neighbouring rights, and industrial or commercial property.
The three alternative tests
First, control. The sums are taxable in the name of the French service-provider when that provider controls, directly or indirectly, the foreign person who receives the money. A consultant who owns the Dubai or Singapore company, a family holding that owns the offshore personal-services company, or a trust that the consultant effectively controls, is the textbook case. Control is a facts test. A nominee shareholder and a “independent” director on a one-year mandate do not usually complete it in the taxpayer’s favour.
Second, absence of a predominant other activity. Even without control, 155 A applies if it is not established that the foreign recipient carries on, predominantly, an industrial or commercial activity other than the activity of collecting those sums. A company whose only revenue is the French principal’s fees, with no staff, no other clients, and no other trade, is not saved by a trade licence. The statute asks for a predominant activity other than the conduit. A genuine foreign operating company that buys French freelance work as one input among many is a different fact pattern. A letterbox that exists to receive the French fees is not.
Third, privileged tax regime. In any event, 155 A applies when the recipient is domiciled or established in a foreign state or territory where it enjoys a privileged tax regime within the meaning of article 238 A CGI. The 238 A comparison is the administration’s low-tax test, not a travel-brochure test. Families who pick a jurisdiction “because the rate is low” are often picking the third alternative on purpose. One alternative is enough. Choosing the third does not make the first two irrelevant. It makes the discussion shorter.
Services rendered in France, and the 2024 extension
Paragraph II of article 155 A extends the same logic to persons who are themselves domiciled outside France, for services rendered in France or for rights exploited or used in France. A non-resident talent who performs in France, or whose image is exploited in France, while a foreign company invoices the French client, is inside the second paragraph even if the talent claims not to be a French resident. Residence is a different file. Article 155 A II is a source file. Mixing them is how a “I am not a French resident, so my offshore company can invoice Paris” story fails twice.
The finance law for 2024 (article 10 of law n° 2023-1322) extended the article’s scope to sums received for the commercial exploitation of rights attached to image, name, or voice, and to the use of copyright, neighbouring rights, or industrial or commercial property and similar rights. BOFiP recorded that extension in its 2024 actualité on article 155 A. Those comments apply to income received from 1 January 2024. A 2026 family-office file that still treats 155 A as “only consulting invoices” is out of date. Image rights, brand licences, and IP parked in a low-tax company while the person lives or performs in France are now in the same sentence as the classic personal-services company.
Why “offshore salary” stories fail
They fail because they describe the mischief. The story usually has four beats: the person works from Paris, Neuilly, or a French second home; a foreign company invoices the client or the family office; little or no salary is taken in France; someone says the rest is a foreign dividend or a foreign salary that France cannot see. Article 155 A answers the third and fourth beats. The sums received abroad are taxable in the name of the person who rendered the services. The foreign recipient is jointly liable, up to those sums, for the tax due by the person who did the work (paragraph III). If the foreign company later pays the French person a salary or a dividend out of the same sums, paragraph IV treats the corresponding French tax as already paid, to avoid a cartoon double charge. That is a regularisation mechanic. It is not a reason to run the structure.
They also fail because reporting and exchange of information exist. CRS on the foreign company’s accounts, French employer withholding if there is a French salary, and the interest-limitation and substance files on any holding that finances the arrangement, all sit on the same desk. Article 155 A is not the only tool. It is the tool aimed at the split invoice. CFC rules, the privileged-regime add-back, and the general anti-abuse rule can sit beside it. Families who already live with ATAD interest limitation in holding companies should not treat 155 A as a separate planet. A HoldCo that invoices “management fees” to a French operating company while the people sit in Toulouse is a 155 A fact pattern as much as an interest fact pattern.
Employment law and social security fail the story a second time. A French-based individual who works under the authority of a French client is often a salarie for Urssaf even if the invoice is foreign. Article 155 A is tax. Urssaf is contributions. Winning neither file is the usual outcome of an “offshore salary” slide. This article does not invent contribution rates. It notes that the tax win the slide promised is not the win the CGI writes.
Treaties, substance, and what does not erase the article
A tax treaty can affect how France taxes a non-resident. It does not, by a slogan, delete article 155 A when the statutory tests are met. BOFiP comments discuss treaty interaction; they do not replace it with “treaty equals silence.” Substance in the foreign company (people, premises, other clients, genuine trade) is relevant to the second alternative. Substance is not a logo and a mail-forwarding contract. If the only person who can describe the company’s trade is the French resident who also does the client work, the second alternative is already in trouble, and the first may be too.
Entertainers, sportspeople, fund principals, and digital creators are frequent 155 A files because their work is easy to locate and their invoices are easy to move. Family-office principals who “bill the family from a foreign advisory company” while living in France are in the same statute, without a stage name. The client being a related family company does not help. It usually supplies the control test.
What a family office should map
List every individual who works for the family or the group from France, even part-time. List every foreign company that invoices for that person’s time, image, name, or IP. For each company, write who owns it, who directs it, where the people sit, and what other trade it has. Flag 238 A jurisdictions. Flag contracts with French counterparties. Then read article 155 A, paragraphs I to IV, and the BOFiP comments, not a forum post about “offshore payroll.”
The Vellum Finance services model is fee-only coordination among tax counsel, employment counsel, and the family: one map of who works where, who invoices, and which article the cash actually meets. That map is also useful for the IFI and succession files when the same people own the same companies; see the live inventory of IFI 2026 taxable wealth. A personal-services company that owns a Paris flat is two statutes, not one clever island.
The same three misses still dominate: treating a controlled foreign company as a third-party employer, treating a letterbox as a predominant commercial activity, and treating a low-tax jurisdiction as a feature rather than as article 238 A inside 155 A’s third alternative.
Conclusion
Article 155 A France salary anti-avoidance taxes, in the name of the person who did the work, sums paid to a foreign recipient for services or certain rights when control, conduit, or a privileged regime is present, and it extends to services rendered in France even when the talent is a non-resident. The 2024 extension brought image, name, voice, and IP into the same sentence. Offshore salary stories fail because they are the fact pattern. Read Légifrance and BOFiP, map who works where, and let facts and counsel decide whether any foreign invoice still has a purpose other than the split the statute refuses.
Discretion. Stability. Prosperity.
Team Vellum
A team of passionate professionals who combine their expertise to bring knowledge through Vellum Finance & Patrimoine blog articles. Each member writes about their own field of expertise, cross referencing with our colleagues own fields to ensure the highest quality of information possible in all our content.
