Formal demand for back pay or unpaid overtime (France)
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This document is in French
The PDF you download is in French — that is the language it has to be filed in, so it is not translated. Everything on this page is here to tell you what it says.
A letter from an employee in mainland France or an overseas department other than Mayotte to a current or former employer, claiming unpaid wages, bonuses or overtime: it sets out the amounts month by month, refers to the overtime premium (articles L. 3121-28 and L. 3121-36 of the Labour Code) and gives a payment deadline before the employment tribunal (conseil de prud'hommes) is seised. Pay claims become time-barred after three years (article L. 3245-1). Send it by registered post with proof of receipt. In French.
- Made for use in France
- Last updated October 13, 2026
When to use this document
- Your employer in France has not paid all your wages or bonuses.
- You worked overtime that never appeared on your payslip.
- You left your job months ago and your former employer still owes you pay.
- You want to claim your back pay in writing, month by month, before going to the employment tribunal.
What you fill in
The details the document asks for.
- Employee
- Employee's address
- Employer
- Employer's postal address (department if any, street, postcode and town)
- City
- Date
- Position
- Claims by month (month, type of pay, gross amount)
- Unpaid overtime (dates and hours)
- Who ordered or approved the overtime, and how
- Total gross amount claimed (euros)
- Payment deadline
Preview
This document is produced for you. Your answers are typed into it and the finished PDF is yours to keep.
Common questions
- How many years of back pay can be claimed in France?
- The claim becomes time-barred three years from the day you knew or should have known the facts, in practice from each pay date. It can cover the last three years or, if the contract has ended, the three years before it ended (article L. 3245-1 of the Labour Code). A formal demand does not interrupt that period: only a claim in court, such as an application to the employment tribunal, or the employer acknowledging the debt does.
- How is unpaid overtime proved in France?
- The burden is shared (article L. 3171-4 of the Labour Code): you put forward sufficiently precise evidence of the hours worked — time sheets, a diary, late e-mails, badge records — and the employer, who must keep track of working time, answers with its own records. The hours must have been requested, or at least accepted, even implicitly, by the employer, or made necessary by the work given. Unless an agreement sets another rate of at least 10 %, the first eight overtime hours in a week carry 25 % extra and the next ones 50 %.
- What happens if a French employer does not pay after the formal demand?
- You can apply to the competent employment tribunal (conseil de prud'hommes); the case starts with a conciliation hearing. Applying costs nothing and you need not be represented. Pay claims fall under the three-year period, but a challenge to the ending of the contract itself must be brought within twelve months of its notification (article L. 1471-1 of the Labour Code). Keep the proof of receipt of the demand and your payslips.
How you can sign this document
- Print it and sign by hand. The signature lines in the document are left blank on purpose — sign on them in ink.
- Sign it yourself with a qualified electronic signature. If you already hold a QES — Evrotrust, B-Trust, StampIT, ZealiD or any qualified provider on the EU Trusted List, on a card, a USB token, in a mobile app or in the cloud — our signing guide explains step by step how to sign this exact file without invalidating it. Step-by-step help, and a way to check it worked
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