Before, never after

La Fournée is hiring its first employee at 2 100 € gross a month, and plans to do the paperwork on the Monday after he starts on the Saturday. The order of operations is precisely the point on which the labour code does not bend. Before you read: when must the declaration be sent, and where is its deadline actually written?

Hiring cannot take place until after

Article L1221-10 of the labour code lays the rule down in one sentence: the hiring of an employee cannot take place until after a named declaration has been made by the employer to the social protection bodies designated for that purpose.

Everything hangs on the words until after. The text does not say the hiring must be declared, which would leave the question of timing open. It says the hiring cannot take place before the declaration has been made.

The difference is the one between a formality and a condition. A formality is carried out within a deadline; a condition has to be met for the act to be regular. The prior declaration belongs to the second category.

The second paragraph extends the reach: the employer makes this declaration in every workplace where employees are employed. A secondary site is therefore not covered by the declaration made at head office.

At the earliest eight days before

The filing window has one bound expressed as a figure, and only one. Article R1221-4 provides that the prior declaration of hiring is sent at the earliest within the eight days preceding the expected date of hiring.

The text speaks of an expected date, not a certain one. It therefore accepts that at the moment of declaring, the hiring may not yet be settled in detail: that is in fact the ordinary situation of a declaration made in advance.

Eight days is short. A business recruiting a month ahead cannot declare as soon as the offer is signed: it has to wait until it enters the window, which means keeping a reminder rather than dealing with the matter once and for all.

The window is narrow at one end and open at the other, which is an unusual shape for a deadline. Most administrative duties push you to act early; this one refuses an early filing and then leaves the closing moment to the rule of order alone.

A deadline written in no figure

One often hears a due date quoted: the day before the hiring. It is practical and it gives the right reflex, but it is not stated as such by either of the two articles just cited.

The late bound is inferred from the rule of order. Since hiring cannot take place until after the declaration, the declaration must have been sent before the start date — with no figure specifying how long before.

That reading changes how you protect yourself. A deadline expressed as a figure is managed with a calendar; a condition of precedence is managed with a procedure: nobody starts work until the acknowledgement of receipt is on file.

It also explains why the rule survives the unexpected. An employee who starts a day earlier than planned does not create a late declaration: he creates a hiring that took place before the declaration, which is a different irregularity.

• The declaration is named: one per employee, never one for a group.
• It is sent to the social protection bodies designated for that purpose.
• It is made in every workplace where employees are employed.
• It cannot be sent more than eight days before the expected hiring date.
• It must have been sent before the hiring takes place, with no other figure given.