Order for payment: three months to serve, or lose everything

By Maître Léa Scemama, commercial law attorney at the Paris Bar. Updated 18 September 2026. Reading time: ~3 min.

Decree no. 2026-96 cuts the service deadline to three months: what creditors must change in their pending files.

Decree no. 2026-96 of 16 February 2026, published in the Official Journal of 17 February 2026, now applies to every order for payment issued since 1 September 2026. Three changes call for creditors' immediate attention.

The deadline for having the order served by a judicial commissioner falls from six months to three. After that, the order simply becomes void: a fresh application must be filed, with no possibility of relying on the original date. In practice, a judicial commissioner must be instructed as soon as the order is received, without waiting.

The certificate of non-opposition, which the creditor previously had to request from the court registry, disappears before the civil courts. The registry now notifies the creditor of its own motion where an opposition has been filed, within the month following receipt. This change does not affect the commercial court or the tribunal des activités économiques, where notification by registered letter already existed. According to the Directorate of Civil Affairs and the Seal, only 3% of orders are opposed: the reform is intended to relieve registries of this step for the remaining 97% of files.

The direct consequence for debt recovery: if no notice of opposition is received within two months of service, the creditor may start enforcement without waiting for a certificate.

In return, where an opposition is filed, the creditor must now produce the document evidencing service of the order at the first hearing, or, where service was not effected in person, the document that started the opposition period running (article 1418 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as amended). That disclosure governs the admissibility of the creditor's claims: failing it, the judge may raise inadmissibility of its own motion, with no prior invitation to put matters right. The file must therefore be complete before the hearing, not sent to the registry afterwards.

Our full guide to the order for payment procedure sets out each step, the costs, the complete before/after table and the recent case law of the Cour de cassation on the opposition period. If you are still weighing your options, our guide to recovering an unpaid invoice compares the order for payment, the interim payment order, protective attachment and proceedings on the merits.

Legal references

• Decree no. 2026-96 of 16 February 2026, Official Journal of 17 February 2026, amending articles 1411, 1415, 1418 and 1422 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
• Presentation circular JUSC2604468C of 17 February 2026, Directorate of Civil Affairs and the Seal (the 3% opposition figure).