Mandatory internal regulations in France 2026: threshold, content, filing

Many employers crossing the fifty-employee mark in France are caught off-guard by the administrative obligations that follow. Internal regulations — the règlement intérieur — are one of them. This is a mandatory legal document with direct practical consequences on the employer's disciplinary power. Failing to put one in place does not make the obligation disappear; it weakens every disciplinary sanction the employer attempts to impose.

At Hayot Expertise, we regularly advise growing companies that discover, during a labour inspection or employment tribunal dispute, that they should have had internal regulations in place for months. This guide sets out the 2026 rules, the required and prohibited content, the step-by-step adoption procedure, and the practical risks to watch.

Direct answer. Internal regulations are mandatory in companies and establishments with at least fifty employees (the threshold was raised from twenty to fifty by the PACTE law of May 2019), after twelve consecutive months at or above that headcount. The document must cover health and safety, discipline (including a scale of sanctions), employees' rights of defence, and must recall the statutory provisions on harassment and whistleblower protection. Before taking effect, it must be submitted for the CSE's opinion, sent to the labour inspectorate, and filed with the labour court registry.

Yes, but not for every company. The règlement intérieur is a unilateral employer act — meaning employees do not have to agree to it for it to apply. Whether it is mandatory depends on headcount, and its content is tightly constrained by statute.

Below fifty employees, there is no statutory obligation. However, if a smaller employer chooses to adopt one voluntarily, the document binds both employer and employees in full and must follow the same adoption procedure as in larger companies. It is not a casual document.

Since the PACTE law of 22 May 2019 (article L1311-2 of the Labour Code), the threshold has been fifty employees (previously twenty). The obligation does not arise immediately: the employer has twelve consecutive months from the date the threshold is reached before it becomes mandatory, calculated using the standard employee-counting rules.

In practice, a company that crosses from forty-nine to fifty employees in March 2025 and maintains that headcount has until March 2026 to adopt internal regulations. If headcount temporarily drops below the threshold, the twelve-month clock resets.

What counts as "fifty employees"?#

Headcount is calculated under article L1111-2 of the Labour Code. Part-time employees count on a pro-rata basis. Fixed-term employees are included if their contract is running during the reference period. Agency workers placed for a peak in activity are only counted if their presence is sufficiently sustained.

The Labour Code sets a limited scope. Internal regulations must contain exclusively:

• measures implementing health and safety regulations within the company;
• the conditions under which employees may be asked to help restore protective working conditions;
• general and permanent rules on discipline, in particular the nature and scale of sanctions the employer may impose;
• provisions on employees' rights of defence (guarantees of the disciplinary procedure).

Article L1321-2 adds a mandatory recall of the statutory provisions on moral harassment, sexual harassment and sexist behaviour, and of the whistleblower protection scheme.

The scale of sanctions: the cornerstone of disciplinary power#

The scale of sanctions is the most operationally critical element of internal regulations. Without it, the employer lacks an enforceable list of sanctions. A disciplinary lay-off or a demotion imposed without a textual basis in the internal regulations can be set aside or annulled by the employment tribunal.

The scale must be graduated. It typically includes: written warning, formal reprimand, disciplinary lay-off (specifying the maximum duration), disciplinary transfer, demotion and dismissal. No financial penalty is permitted (article L1331-2): fines and any punitive pay deductions are strictly prohibited.

The scale directly frames the disciplinary procedure and edge cases such as job abandonment. It also protects employees against arbitrary treatment: a sanction not listed in the scale cannot be imposed.

Article L1321-3 sets out three categories of prohibited clauses:

1. provisions contrary to applicable laws, regulations and collective agreements;
2. clauses restricting individual or collective rights and freedoms that are neither justified by the nature of the task nor proportionate to the aim pursued;
3. provisions discriminating between employees of equal professional ability.

A clause that is too broad, poorly justified, or discriminatory is deemed unwritten. It can be set aside by the labour inspectorate without waiting for litigation.

The adoption procedure follows four steps. Failure to respect any of them makes the document unenforceable against employees.

Step 1 — Draft the document. The employer draws up a draft, strictly within the scope of article L1321-1, checking consistency with the applicable collective agreement and any in-house agreements in force.

Step 2 — Consult the CSE. The draft is submitted for the opinion of the comité social et économique (article L1321-4). The opinion is advisory, but skipping this step makes the document unenforceable. The CSE must be given a reasonable time to respond; its opinion is attached to the file sent to the labour inspectorate.

Step 3 — Notify the labour inspectorate. The regulations are sent in two copies, together with the CSE's opinion. The labour inspector may, at any time (including after the document takes effect), require the removal or modification of unlawful clauses. That decision is challengeable before the administrative court.

Step 4 — File and publish. The regulations are filed with the labour court registry (greffe du conseil de prud'hommes) for the company's or establishment's jurisdiction. They are then brought to the attention of all persons with access to the workplace and hiring premises — by any means (notice board, intranet, handout at onboarding). The document takes effect at least one month after all filing and publication formalities are completed, and the effective date must appear expressly in the text.

Yes. Any service note or internal document setting general and permanent requirements on health, safety or discipline is treated as an addition to the internal regulations (article L1321-5). It must therefore follow the same procedure: CSE opinion, labour inspectorate notification, labour court filing, publication.

This rule is frequently overlooked. An internal memo fixing permanent safety rules for all employees, circulated without these formalities, can be set aside in a dispute.

Exception: where urgency justified by personal or property safety arises, a requirement may take immediate effect, subject to simultaneous notice to the labour inspectorate.

The immediate practical risk is significant. Without internal regulations in a company that should have them:

• the employer can only issue a warning or a sanction with no impact on presence, function, career or pay;
• a disciplinary lay-off or a demotion is exposed to challenge for lack of an enforceable scale of sanctions;
• procedural defects can be raised before the employment tribunal by the sanctioned employee.

Field case. A B2B services company with around fifty employees issued a three-day disciplinary lay-off to an employee for unacceptable behaviour towards a client. The employee challenged the decision before the employment tribunal and produced evidence that the company had no properly filed internal regulations. The lay-off was annulled — not because the fault was unproven, but because the sanction had no enforceable textual basis. The company, ordered to pay wages for the three days, then had to adopt its internal regulations at short notice, with the risks of rushed drafting that entails.

Any amendment, whether partial or total, and any revocation, requires restarting the full adoption procedure: CSE consultation, labour inspectorate notification, labour court filing, publication and the one-month waiting period.

Internal regulations cannot be modified by a service note, even one signed by the employer. This rule protects employees against informal changes to their disciplinary framework.

Crossing the fifty-employee threshold triggers several concurrent obligations. Internal regulations are part of a wider compliance package best handled together:

• CSE renewal (already required from eleven employees, but with expanded powers at fifty);
• BDESE obligations (economic, social and environmental database);
• DUERP update (occupational risk assessment document, already required);
• mandatory annual negotiations on certain topics.

SME obligations for companies with 11 to 49 employees are also evolving, notably on profit-sharing. A comprehensive social compliance review at the time of crossing the threshold is more efficient than addressing each obligation reactively.

In the files we handle, difficulties around internal regulations rarely arise at initial adoption — which is usually done carefully, with legal support. They tend to appear at three specific moments.

During amendments. An employer adds a rule on mobile phones or remote working by service note, without restarting the adoption procedure. The note is unenforceable in a dispute.

During disciplinary proceedings. Challenging the internal regulations is almost standard practice in employment tribunal litigation. Poorly drafted regulations, never updated, or failing to cover certain types of misconduct create a gap the employee's counsel will exploit.

During a labour inspection or URSSAF audit. The inspector may identify an unlawful clause — an overly broad neutrality clause, for instance, or a disproportionate restriction of freedom — and order a compliance correction within a short deadline.

The most frequent confusion we observe concerns the disciplinary pre-hearing interview (a right of defence required before any sanction other than a warning, embedded in internal regulations) and the biennial professional interview (a separate training entitlement). These two mechanisms must be handled distinctly — see our guide on the professional interview.

Up to date as of 2026-06-14. This article is for information purposes and does not replace personalised legal advice. For your specific situation, consult a qualified adviser.