Chartered Accountant for Family Offices

A family office manages wealth that standard accounting cannot steer on its own. A patrimonial holding, SCIs, a securities portfolio, operating stakes: the issue is bringing a set of entities into coherence to serve a family. The chartered accountant brings consolidation, tax steering and reporting.

Our firm supports complex wealth structures alongside our owner wealth management service and our holding taxation expertise.

Quick answer. A family office structures and steers the wealth of one family (single family office) or several (multi family office). In France it has neither a professional order nor its own tax regime: its form is free (SAS, SARL, or a department of a family holding). The chartered accountant brings the consolidation of multiple entities (patrimonial holding, SCIs, securities portfolio, operating companies), tax steering (parent-subsidiary regime, tax grouping), consolidated performance reporting and succession preparation. Depending on the activity actually carried out, a financial-investment-adviser status (CIF, ORIAS registration, AMF-approved association) may be required.

A single family office serves one family: it internalises wealth management (administration, reporting, adviser coordination). A multi family office shares these services across several families. For the accountant, the accounting logic is the same (consolidation, tax steering), but the fee organisation and internal billing differ. A purely family single family office may escape regulated statuses, whereas advisory or third-party management implies oversight.

Family wealth almost always comprises several entities: a patrimonial or animating holding, one or more SCIs, a securities portfolio, sometimes operating companies. Steering them separately gives a fragmented view.

Our approach is to establish consolidated reporting that aggregates assets and performance at family level, eliminates intra-group flows (upstreamed dividends, inter-entity loans, rebillings), and produces a readable wealth view: asset value, net return, exposure by asset class. Consolidation is the basis of this exercise.

Tax steering of structured wealth rests on mechanisms we implement daily: the parent-subsidiary regime (articles 145 and 216 of the French tax code), which exempts dividends upstreamed to the holding by 95%, with a 5% share of costs and charges remaining taxable; tax grouping where the scope allows; and optimising cash outflows (the trade-off between remuneration and dividends). The aim is not a scheme, it is overall coherence, secured and documented, alongside our tax expertise.

Loans between family entities, service agreements (management fees) and intra-group rebillings must rest on written contracts, market conditions and real substance. This is a major tax watch point: management fees with no real consideration or poorly documented related-party flows expose you to a reclassification risk. Our role is to make these flows reliable and to document them.

A common case in our files: a family consults us with a holding, several SCIs and a securities portfolio kept separately, with no consolidated view or regular reporting. The work consisted of setting up quarterly consolidated reporting, making the parent-subsidiary treatment of dividends reliable, documenting intra-group agreements and preparing succession ahead. No figure from this case can be generalised: each family has its own asset structure and objectives.

• Substance of intra-group flows: written contracts, market conditions, documentation of management fees.
• Regulated status: check whether investment advice triggers a CIF status (ORIAS, AMF association).
• Parent-subsidiary regime: secure holding conditions and the share of costs and charges.
• Succession: plan wealth-transfer arrangements in advance.

The starting point is a conversation about your actual situation: number and nature of entities, reporting needs, succession horizon. We offer an initial meeting to frame the scope and priorities.

Updated 20 June 2026. Informative content reviewed by a chartered accountant registered with the Île-de-France Chartered Accountants Board. A decision specific to your situation requires examination of your entities, your documents and the regulations in force.