France Insolvency Check (BODACC Procédures collectives)

Check French companies and sole traders against BODACC "Procédures collectives" - the official bulletin where French commercial and judicial courts publish every insolvency judgment - by SIREN, SIRET or name. Get clean structured JSON for each judgment: what the court decided (liquidation judiciaire, redressement judiciaire, sauvegarde, plan, closure), the judgment date, the court, the debtor's SIREN, legal form and seat, and a link to the official notice.

No login, no API key, nothing to configure - just send a SIREN.

A collective proceeding is the strongest negative signal on a French counterparty. Checking for one is a standard step in KYB/KYC onboarding, supplier and customer credit checks, debt collection and counterparty monitoring.

What data do you get?

One record per insolvency judgment, newest first:

{
  "matchedQuery": "345086177",
  "publicationDate": "2021-04-25",
  "caseNumber": null,
  "court": "Tribunal de Commerce de Lille Métropole",
  "debtorName": "CAMAIEU INTERNATIONAL",
  "debtorType": "company",
  "siren": "345086177",
  "legalForm": "Société par actions simplifiée",
  "seat": "59100 Roubaix",
  "eventType": "bankruptcy_opened",
  "judgmentNature": "Jugement de conversion en liquidation judiciaire",
  "judgmentDate": "2021-04-14",
  "judgmentText": "Jugement de conversion en liquidation judiciaire désignant liquidateur ...",
  "noticeId": "A202100812603",
  "isCorrection": false,
  "correctsNoticeId": null,
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.bodacc.fr/pages/annonces-commerciales-detail/?q.id=id:A202100812603",
  "source": "BODACC (DILA), Licence Ouverte 2.0",
  "retrievedAt": "2026-10-31T00:00:00.000Z"
}

eventType sorts every judgment into one of five values, so you can filter without reading French:

eventType	Meaning
bankruptcy_opened	Liquidation judiciaire opened, or a proceeding converted into liquidation
restructuring_opened	Redressement judiciaire or sauvegarde opened
plan_confirmed	Court approved a continuation, restructuring or sale plan
proceeding_closed	Proceeding closed (for example for lack of assets)
other	Any other judgment in the proceeding (plan changes, new payment-stop date, orders)

judgmentNature and judgmentText keep the original French wording. caseNumber (N° RG) is filled only when the court published it in the notice, which is uncommon. debtorType is company or individual (sole traders - entrepreneurs individuels, commerçants, artisans).

Field	Description
matchedQuery	The SIREN or name from your input that found this judgment
publicationDate	Date BODACC published the notice (YYYY-MM-DD)
judgmentDate	Date of the court judgment (YYYY-MM-DD; older notices may give it as French text)
eventType	One of five standard values (see the table above)
judgmentNature	The judgment as BODACC names it, in French
judgmentText	The judgment wording as published, in French
court	The court that gave the judgment
caseNumber	Court case number (N° RG), when published
debtorName	Company or trader name
debtorType	company or individual
siren	9-digit SIREN of the debtor
legalForm	Legal form (for example Société par actions simplifiée)
seat	Postal code and town of the registered office
noticeId	BODACC notice id
isCorrection / correctsNoticeId	The notice corrects an earlier one, and which
sourceUrl	Link to the official notice on bodacc.fr
source	Source and licence

What is left out, on purpose:

• Procedural filings inside an existing proceeding (claims lists, distribution plans) - they are not judgments.
• Sanctions against company directors (management bans, personal bankruptcy) - they concern a person, not the business.
• Cancelled notices. A corrected notice (avis rectificatif) replaces the one it corrects and is marked isCorrection: true.

How much does it cost?

Pay per check and per judgment. You pay a small fee for each SIREN or name that BODACC answers - a "no proceeding found" answer included, because that is the answer you ran the check for - and a small fee for each judgment returned. A clean watchlist costs only the per-check fee. An invalid SIREN, or a check BODACC did not answer, is not charged. Set a maximum cost per run in the run options to cap your spend: the run stops at that limit and lists any entries it did not reach as UNKNOWN, never as clear. See the Pricing tab for current figures.

How do I use it?

Check one company by SIREN (the most precise check):

{ "siren": ["345086177"] }

Check by name (word search on the debtor name, 20 newest judgments by default):

{ "name": "Camaieu", "exactMatch": false }

Monitor a watchlist - up to 100 SIRENs, SIRETs and names mixed, ideal on a daily or weekly schedule:

{ "watchlist": ["345086177", "552 100 554", "Exemple Distribution SAS"] }

Only want recent judgments? Add "dateFrom": "2026-01-01".

Input options

Field	Type	Description
siren	array	SIREN (9 digits) or SIRET (14 digits). Spaces allowed. Check digit verified.
name	string	Company or trader name. Ignored when watchlist is set.
watchlist	array	Up to 100 entries, names and numbers mixed.
exactMatch	boolean	Keep only debtors whose name equals the query (case, accents and punctuation ignored).
dateFrom / dateTo	string	Publication date window, YYYY-MM-DD. Empty = full history.
maxResults	integer	Most judgments per SIREN or name. Default 100 per SIREN, 20 per name.

How to read the result

• Rows for a SIREN - the company has been through (or is in) a collective proceeding. Read eventType from newest to oldest to see where it stands: a proceeding_closed after a bankruptcy_opened usually means the company was liquidated and struck off.
• No rows for a SIREN - BODACC holds no insolvency judgment for it in the searched window. The run's status message says so explicitly.
• "Not checked" - BODACC did not answer for that entry. It is reported as UNKNOWN, not clear, and was not charged. Re-run it.
• "More judgments than maxResults" - common for broad names. The newest judgments are returned; use the SIREN or a date range for a complete answer.

Each run also writes an OUTCOME record to the key-value store with a machine-readable result for every entry (results, no_match, not_checked, invalid_input, and complete: false when a result was capped).

Coverage

BODACC "Procédures collectives" from January 2008 to today, for all French courts (tribunaux de commerce, tribunaux judiciaires and the Alsace-Moselle courts). New notices appear as BODACC publishes them, usually one to two weeks after the judgment. Proceedings published before 2008 are not covered, so a "no proceeding found" says nothing about earlier years.

Limitations

• Coverage starts in January 2008: proceedings published earlier are not in BODACC's open data.
• The court case number (N° RG) is published in only a small share of notices.
• Name search matches words, not the exact company: check by SIREN for a precise answer.
• Personal debt-relief cases (surendettement) and inheritance notices are not part of BODACC "Procédures collectives".
• A judgment appears once BODACC publishes it, usually one to two weeks after the court decision.

Where does the data come from, and can I use it?

All data comes from BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales), published by DILA (Direction de l'information légale et administrative) as open data under the Licence Ouverte 2.0. Every row carries the source, the licence and a link to the official notice. If you republish the data, cite "BODACC (DILA)" and the date of the data.

Notices about sole traders contain personal data. Use it for a legitimate purpose (KYB, credit risk, counterparty due diligence) and in line with the GDPR - for example, do not keep it longer than you need it. This is not a consumer credit report.

Other insolvency registers

The same kind of check exists for other countries:

• Germany Insolvency Register Search
• Austria Insolvency & Court Publications
• Czech ISIR Insolvency Register Search
• Spain Registro Público Concursal Search
• Poland KRZ National Debtor Registry

FAQ

Can I check a sole trader? Yes. Use their SIREN, or their surname as a name query. Individuals appear with debtorType: "individual".

Does a closed proceeding mean the company is fine? Not necessarily. A proceeding_closed after a liquidation usually means the company no longer exists. After a plan, it usually means the plan was completed. Read the full sequence of judgments.

Why did my name search return unrelated companies? Name search matches words, so "Martin" matches every debtor with that word in their name. Turn on exactMatch, or better, check by SIREN.