Illegal employment checks in France and what the employer of foreign staff risks

Since loi n° 2024-42 of 26 January 2024, employing a foreign national without a permit is no longer sanctioned by a contribution collected by the Office français de l'immigration et de l'intégration. It is an administrative fine imposed by the minister responsible for immigration, capped at 5,000 times the hourly minimum guaranteed rate.

The change is more than a change of name. The former special contribution and the flat rate removal contribution under article L. 626-1 of the CESEDA were an agency matter. The new fine, provided for in article L. 8253-1 of the Code du travail, belongs to a minister, who sets the amount by reference to the company's financial capacity, the degree of intent and the seriousness of the negligence.

What the inspector checks on site

The prohibition sits in article L. 8251-1 of the Code du travail: nobody may employ a foreign national who is not authorised to carry out paid work in France. The inspection is run by the labour inspectorate, alone or jointly with URSSAF, the agricultural social security fund, the gendarmerie or the tax service, depending on the sector.

Four items are requested almost every time. A copy of the residence permit or work authorisation of each foreign employee. Proof of the authentication request sent to the prefecture, described in checking a residence permit before hiring. The pre hire declaration. And the staff register, cross checked against the people actually present on site.

The most common gap is not a missing permit. It is a permit valid for another job, another geographic zone or another employer. A work authorisation is issued for a defined post, and putting its holder on a different post, even with the same employer, falls under the same article as having no permit at all.

The sanctions, by category

The sanctions accumulate. They do not replace one another, and reading them by broad category is the only version useful to a board.

The 2024 law doubled the criminal amount, which stood at 15,000 euros per worker, and raised it to 200,000 euros where the offence is committed by an organised group. For a civil engineering firm employing eight people without a valid permit on one site, the administrative limb and the criminal limb together quickly exceed the year's operating result.

The non financial sanctions often weigh more. Exclusion from public procurement closes an entire order book in construction, cleaning or contract catering, and administrative closure halts a site while the fixed costs keep running.

What separates one inspection outcome from another

Three practices divide the files that end in an observation from the files that end in a fine.

The first is a traceable pre hire check. A dated acknowledgement from the prefecture is worth more than a statement of good faith. The second is permit expiry monitoring. A schedule that tracks expiry dates and triggers the renewal three months ahead avoids the grey period in which a worker is on site with a lapsed document. The third is control of the subcontracting chain, where the principal carries a duty of its own, described in contractor liability in France for a subcontractor's foreign workers.

An adverse inspection also has a delayed effect. A sanction for illegal work is among the grounds for refusing a later work authorisation, which removes the company's ability to recruit internationally and lawfully for several financial years. The most common refusal grounds across Europe are set out in why EU work permit applications are refused.

An employer recruiting in Nepal, India or the Philippines is better served by documenting compliance before the first inspection than after it, because the evidence requested is evidence that predates the hire. How responsibilities divide between Werklist and the company that remains the employer is set out on our employers page.