Opening in Paris: Sending a Chef on the Salarié en Mission

A Japanese company can send a chef who has worked in the group for three months or more to Paris on the "salarié en mission" residence permit, no separate work authorisation needed, if you pay at least €39,582 gross a year. Apply for a certificate of coverage under the Japan-France social security agreement and the secondee stays only in Japan's pension and health insurance for up to five years, which saves roughly a quarter to a third of gross pay in French employer contributions. Local pay bands, the 2025 shortage list and Paris hiring are on our Paris page.

1. Who qualifies for the intra-group transfer permit

France's "talent" residence card has a "salarié en mission" track built for exactly this situation: an employee of a company established abroad, sent to work in France at a site of the same company or an affiliated group company. According to Service-Public, the employer does not apply separately for a work authorisation.

Two things this means for your opening plan. First, choose from chefs who have worked in your Japanese restaurants for three months or more; to send someone recruited from outside the group, employ them in Japan first and let three months pass before the move. Second, the €39,582 floor is a company decision, not a formality: it is well above what an entry-level Paris cook earns, so budget it as a genuine cost line, not a technicality to clear. Use the four years to develop a local sous chef so the eventual handover is planned, not a scramble; see secondment versus local hiring for how to weigh the two against each other role by role.

2. Social insurance: the Japan-France agreement covers more than pension

The Japan-France social security agreement took effect in June 2007. Unlike the agreements with the UK, the US or Australia, which coordinate public pension only, Japan's pension service confirms this one also coordinates public health insurance and worker's compensation cover. That is the number worth acting on: a certificate of coverage does not just save pension contributions, it exempts the secondee from French health insurance charges too, which is why French employer social charges of roughly a quarter to a third of gross salary (see our Paris hiring guide for the standard-route figure) are largely avoided for a properly documented secondee, not just reduced.

• Certificate of coverage. The Japanese employer applies at a pension office; as with other agreement countries, apply from around six months before the assignment starts so the certificate is ready when the secondee arrives.
• Five years, and rarely more. The exemption runs for a maximum of five years. An extension beyond that is possible only in unforeseen circumstances, with both countries agreeing, and is generally capped at one further year, not the multi-year case-by-case extension some other agreements allow.
• A one year gap before sending someone again. If you post the same person to France a second time, the agreement expects at least a year between the end of one posting and the start of the next. Plan chef rotations with this gap in mind rather than discovering it at the second posting.
• Work injury cover. A posted employee needs to be covered by Japan's special enrolment scheme for overseas assignees (or an equivalent policy) for work injury, since the French system is not the default here.

Tax residency turns on length of stay and who bears the cost of the assignment; see tax for employees working abroad. The general mechanism for applying for a certificate of coverage is set out once in social security agreements and chefs; this section states only what is specific to the Japan-France agreement.

3. Sending the head of the French company

The same talent card has a track for a company's legal representative (mandataire social) sent from the group. It needs at least three months' service, as an employee or an officer, and gross annual pay of at least €67,212.60, three times the SMIC. If you send the head of the French entity from Japan rather than appointing locally, put this figure in the staff budget alongside the chef's.

4. Combining a transferred chef with Paris hires

10,037 Japanese nationals live in Paris, the largest such community in continental Europe among the cities Japan's foreign ministry tracks, and 43.5% of Japanese nationals in France overall are permanent residents who can be hired without any of the above. Run a local search for supporting kitchen and front of house roles in parallel with arranging the transfer, not after it: a local hire for a supporting position frees budget for the one senior chef you bring over. Local pay by grade (the HCR collective agreement, not just the SMIC) and whether cuisinier currently sits on the Île-de-France shortage occupation list are on our Paris hiring guide. Japan and France also run a working holiday programme (PVT, 1,800 places a year); it suits a junior cook or front of house hire for a fixed year, and the conversion timeline if you want to keep one beyond that is on the same Paris guide and on our France guide, and we do not repeat it here.

5. A schedule counted back from opening day

This week: confirm the candidate's exact join date against the three-month service test, and get a written salary commitment from finance before you promise €39,582 or more to the candidate.

An assignment offer you can adapt, in both languages:

General information, not legal, tax or immigration advice. Amounts and conditions were checked on Service-Public and the Japan Pension Service as of September 2026. Ask a French immigration adviser about your case and a Japanese pension office about the certificate of coverage.