Foreign direct investment

Foreign direct investments (FDI) are cross-border investments made by entities residing in one economy with the objective of establishing control or significant influence on the management of an enterprise that is resident in another economy (the direct investment enterprise). By convention, a direct investment relationship is considered to exist when the investor acquires or holds 10% or more of the capital or voting power of the direct investment enterprise. Once a direct investment relationship has been established, all cross-border financial relationships (lending, borrowing, trade credit, equity investments, reinvested earnings) between the direct investor, the companies it controls, the direct investment enterprise and the companies it in turn controls, are also considered to be direct investments and are recorded as such.

Real-estate investments are included under foreign direct investment as they involve the cross-border acquisition of assets.

All foreign direct investments (by a French resident abroad or by a non-resident in France) in excess of EUR 15 million must be declared to the Banque de France within 20 working days of completion, in order to be included in the balance of payments. Declaration forms can be downloaded from the direct investment reporting page.

Statistics on intragroup cross-border lending and borrowing are collected separately via the ECO survey (on trade receivables and payables) and the EFI survey (on stocks of financial assets and liabilities).

Contact us

invest.direct@banque-france.fr