France

Checking a retailer established in France

France is the only one of the five countries in this directory whose company register can be queried free of charge and without an account, through the public API recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr. Anyone can therefore cross-check, in seconds, the registration number a site publishes.

131 retailer profiles in this country

One site in eighteen publishes another company's number

Across 89 French sites surveyed in August 2026, five published the number of a third party in their legal notice: two advertising agencies, a public relations consultancy, an IT provider and a professional trade body. In each case this is most likely the contractor that built the site, whose number stayed in the template. The check that catches it is the activity code: a clothing retailer carries a retail trade code, not a consultancy code.

The trading name will not find the company

Forty-one per cent of the French retailers surveyed have a legal name unrelated to their trading name. Searching by name alone therefore fails, or returns a namesake. The most instructive case found was two companies sharing an identical name, one struck off in November 2025 and one active, operating different businesses: only the number published by the site settles it, never the name.

What the law requires to be published

Article 1-1 of the French law on confidence in the digital economy, as amended in May 2024, requires every professional publisher to display its company name, registered office, registration number and a means of contact. Failure carries one year's imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros under article 1-2. References to the former article 6 III have been out of date since 2024.

Each profile cites the source consulted and the date it was collected. A missing number means it could not be verified, never that it is doubtful.

Leather goods

Jewellery and watches

Luxury multibrand

Sport

Other countries

United Kingdom Germany Spain Italy Switzerland Full directory