Checking a foreign worker's residence permit before hiring in France

In France the employer has to prove it checked the work authorisation. Article R. 5221-42 of the Code du travail requires it to send a copy of the document to the prefecture of the department where the hire takes place at least two working days before the contract takes effect. The prefecture has the same period to answer.

This duty is separate from the work authorisation application. It covers the worker who already holds a document allowing employment, whether a residence card, a long stay visa acting as a residence permit, or a work authorisation issued on its own. The employer does not simply look at the document. It has the administration that issued it confirm that it exists.

What the Code du travail requires, and in what time

Article L. 5221-8 sets the principle. Before the contract is signed, the employer satisfies itself that the foreign national it proposes to hire holds a work authorisation. Article R. 5221-41 states that the check covers lawful residence, and article R. 5221-42 sets the mechanics.

The request goes to the prefect of the department where the hire takes place, by registered letter or by email, with a copy of the document produced by the candidate. It has to leave at least two working days before the start date. The prefect notifies a reply within two working days of receiving it. If no reply arrives in that period, the employer's obligation is treated as discharged, which protects the recruiter without excusing it from having written.

Two working days are not two calendar days. A message sent on Friday evening for a Monday morning start does not meet the text. For volume recruitment the practical consequence is straightforward: the check is triggered when the start date is fixed, not the day before the worker reaches the site.

The cases where no check is required

Article R. 5221-43 removes the duty in two situations. The first covers a candidate who evidences registration on the France Travail jobseeker list, because the public employment operator has already verified the document. The second refers to the categories listed in article R. 5221-2, those exempt from work authorisation altogether.

Article R. 5221-44 deals with temporary work. Once a temporary work agency has run the check for a worker, it holds good for the validity of the permit and for every assignment given afterwards. An agency placing the same welder on four consecutive sites queries the prefecture once, until the permit expires.

That expiry is where the real operational problem sits. The exemption covers the life of the document and nothing beyond it. A permit that runs out in the middle of a ten month contract puts the employer back at the start, and the period during which the worker waits for a renewal at the prefecture is when files become fragile. The renewal calendar belongs to the employer as much as to the worker, and the European logic behind this control is set out in right to work verification checks across the EU.

What a missed check costs

Article L. 8251-1 prohibits employing a foreign national who is not authorised to work. Since loi n° 2024-42 of 26 January 2024 the financial sanction takes the form of an administrative fine imposed by the minister responsible for immigration under article L. 8253-1 of the Code du travail, capped at 5,000 times the hourly minimum guaranteed rate and raised to 15,000 times for a repeat offence. That fine replaced the special contribution and the flat rate removal contribution previously collected by the Office français de l'immigration et de l'intégration.

The criminal limb sits on top of the administrative one. Article L. 8256-2 punishes the employment of a foreign national without a permit with five years' imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros per worker, multiplied by five for a legal person under article 131-38 of the Code pénal, so 150,000 euros. Administrative closure of the establishment, exclusion from public procurement and repayment of public aid follow from the same finding.

The employer's defence is an acknowledgement of receipt. The email sent to the prefecture, its date, and the reply or the absence of a reply are the proof that the obligation was met. Without that trace the employer argues good faith in front of an inspector who has a precise text in hand. What follows an inspection is set out in illegal employment checks in France.

France issues most of its work related permits as a single document carrying both residence and work, on the logic described in the single permit explained. That does not remove the check. A combined document is still a document to authenticate.

An employer recruiting several dozen profiles a year is better served by folding this request into its standard hiring procedure than by handling it file by file. What Werklist takes on at that stage, and what stays with the company as the contracting employer, is set out on our employers page.