Injonction de Payer: France Payment Order Explained

An injonction de payer (a payment order) is the main fast-track route a creditor uses in France to turn an unpaid debt into an enforceable title. It is a summary court procedure: the creditor applies to a judge on paper, and if the claim looks well-founded the judge issues an order without a hearing. The debtor is then served and given a window to contest it.

This is a distinct stage from actually collecting the money. The injonction de payer produces the title; enforcement measures such as wage garnishment come afterwards and only once the title is final. Keeping the two stages separate is the single most useful thing to understand about French debt procedure. This page is part of the RecordingLaw guide to French consumer and debt rights, within our coverage of law in France.

Information last verified on 22 July 2026. This page presents general legal information, not legal advice.

What an injonction de payer is

The injonction de payer is a simplified procedure for recovering a fixed, certain sum of money. Under article 1405 of the Code de procédure civile, it is available where the debt has a contractual basis or arises from a statutory obligation and the amount is determined, or where it results from an accepted bill of exchange or a promissory note.

Its appeal to creditors is speed and cost. There is no hearing at the outset: the creditor files a written request (requête) with supporting documents, and a judge decides on the papers alone whether to issue the order. Because the debtor is not heard at this stage, the law builds in a right to contest afterwards, which is central to how the procedure stays fair.

Which court issues it

The competent court depends on the nature of the debt. For most civil debts, the request goes to the president of the tribunal judiciaire. For consumer credit and unpaid rent, it goes to the juge des contentieux de la protection, the judge dealing with protective litigation.

Where the debt is a commercial one between businesses, the request goes to the president of the tribunal de commerce (with a specific arrangement in the Alsace-Moselle departments). Filing with the wrong court can delay or defeat a request, so the venue is chosen according to the debt, not the creditor's preference.

The procedure: request, order, service

The procedure runs in three steps. First, the creditor lodges a requête, a written application setting out the debt and attaching the evidence, such as invoices or a signed contract. Second, the judge examines the file and, if satisfied, issues an ordonnance portant injonction de payer, the payment order. The judge can also reject the request in whole or in part.

Third, and crucially, the creditor must have the order formally served on the debtor by a commissaire de justice. This service (signification) is what starts the debtor's time to react. An order that is issued but never properly served does not progress to enforcement, and the creditor must generally act within a set period after the order or it lapses.

The debtor's move: opposition within one month

Once served, the debtor has a defined window to challenge the order. Under article 1416 of the Code de procédure civile, opposition must be filed within one month of service of the order. This is the debtor's chance to be heard, which the summary stage did not provide.

Filing an opposition converts the matter into an ordinary contested case: the court then examines the dispute in the normal way, with both sides present, and rules on whether the debt is actually owed. If service was not made to the debtor in person, article 1416 preserves the right to oppose until the first act served in person or the first enforcement measure affecting the debtor's assets, which protects a debtor who never actually received the papers.

If you do nothing: the order becomes enforceable

Silence has consequences. If the debtor files no opposition within the one-month window, the creditor can ask the court registry for a certificate of non-opposition. The order is then endowed with the formule exécutoire and becomes a titre exécutoire, a full enforceable title.

At that point the creditor can move to enforcement through a commissaire de justice: measures such as wage garnishment, a bank account seizure, or seizure of movable property. This is why the deadline matters so much. A debtor who disputes the debt but lets the month pass can lose the chance to argue it before enforcement begins.

Not the same as the small-claims recovery procedure

The injonction de payer should not be confused with a separate simplified procedure for small debts. That other route, the simplified recovery of small claims (procédure simplifiée de recouvrement des petites créances), is limited to debts up to 5,000 € and is run by a commissaire de justice without a judge, based on the parties' agreement.

The injonction de payer, by contrast, is a court procedure with no maximum amount and produces a title through the court even without the debtor's consent, subject to the debtor's right of opposition. Both aim at recovering money, but the venue, the amount limits, and the role of the debtor's agreement differ.

Why the two stages matter for a debtor

Seeing the injonction de payer as the title stage, and enforcement as a later and separate stage, changes how a debtor should read a demand. A letter announcing an injonction de payer is not yet a seizure. It is an order that can still be challenged, and the one-month opposition window is the moment when the debt can be argued on the merits before a judge who actually hears both sides.

Once that window closes without an opposition, the position hardens. The order becomes a titre exécutoire, and the debtor's opportunity to dispute the underlying debt has largely passed. From then on the questions shift from whether the debt is owed to how it will be collected, through measures such as wage garnishment carried out by a commissaire de justice. That is why the practical advice built into the procedure is to react to the served order within the month rather than to wait for enforcement.

A debtor who genuinely cannot pay, rather than disputing the debt, faces a different question again. French law provides a separate over-indebtedness route through the Banque de France for individuals overwhelmed by debts they cannot meet, which is distinct from contesting any single claim on its merits.