How Long Does It Take to Get Your French NDA? The New 2-Month Deadline and Regulator Silence

Two months. That has been the deadline for French authorities to review a training provider’s activity declaration (déclaration d’activité, the filing that produces the NDA registration number) since summer 2025 — not 30 days, as many guides still say, stuck on the old rule. This change, introduced by Decree n° 2025-728 of July 29, 2025, affects how anyone starting a training organization in France should plan their launch, invoice their first clients, and react if the regional authority stays silent. Here is exactly what changed, what the French Labor Code now says, and what to do if the deadline passes with no answer.

What the July 29, 2025 decree changes

Decree n° 2025-728 of July 29, 2025, on the registration of training providers’ activity declarations, changes three elements of the procedure:

1. The review period goes from 30 days to two months. The regional control service (SRC) within the DREETS now has two months from receipt of a complete file to make a decision.
2. An identity document is added to the file. The declaration must now be accompanied by a copy of the director’s identity document, or a state-certified digital identity proof — a reinforcement of anti-fraud checks.
3. Micro-businesses get a lighter file. Providers under the micro-social regime with annual revenue not exceeding €77,700 excluding tax must submit fewer supporting documents.

This text is part of the broader tightening of controls that followed France’s anti-fraud law of June 25, 2026, already discussed in our article on whether the NDA is mandatory: entry into the system stays declarative and free, but it is now better verified.

The exact deadline, article by article

The regime is set out in Articles R. 6351-4 to R. 6351-6 of the French Labor Code:

Step	Deadline	Reference
DREETS receives the complete file	Starting point of the countdown	Article R. 6351-5 lists the required documents
Request for additional documents (if the file is incomplete)	The provider has 12 working days to respond	Common practice of the regional control service
Issuance of the receipt with the NDA, or notification of a motivated refusal	2 months from the complete file	Article R. 6351-4
Administrative silence beyond that deadline	Equivalent to registration of the declaration	Article R. 6351-4

One essential point, too often overlooked: between the filing of a complete file and the issuance of the receipt (or notification of refusal), the provider is already “deemed declared.” This is not a mere administrative tolerance — the law itself creates this intermediate status, precisely so a slow review does not block an activity that has already started. If you have just filed your file, our guide to Cerfa form 10782 details the documents to gather to avoid any back-and-forth that would restart the clock.

What to do if the DREETS does not respond within two months

Three steps, in order:

1. First check that your file is actually complete. A request for additional documents from the DREETS resets the clock once you respond — a file left incomplete for weeks is not a case of administrative silence, it is a file still waiting on you. Check your “Mon Activité Formation” account to confirm.
2. Do not assume anything before the two-month mark. The deadline runs from receipt of the complete file, not from the date you first clicked “submit.” Plan generously: between possible document exchanges and actual processing, obtaining the receipt in practice often takes several weeks longer than the legal minimum.
3. Past two months with no answer, you are registered. Administrative silence is equivalent to registration: you can act as a registered provider. In practice, keep a dated proof of when the complete file was received (electronic acknowledgment, correspondence with the DREETS) — that date is what matters if a client or an OPCO asks for confirmation before the physical receipt arrives.

Be careful not to mistake this mechanism for an unconditional guarantee: if your file actually falls under a refusal ground (see below), the authority remains free to notify that refusal at any point within the two-month window, even after a long review.

The refusal grounds stay unchanged

The 2025 decree does not change the grounds for refusing registration, set out in Article L. 6351-3 of the French Labor Code. There are still four:

• the services described in the first training agreement or contract do not correspond to professional training actions within the meaning of Article L. 6313-1 (coaching, consulting, or facilitation disguised as training, for instance);
• the way these actions are implemented does not comply with the applicable rules (mandatory clauses in the agreement, withdrawal period, etc.);
• for an apprenticeship training center, the bylaws do not provide for the required apprenticeship activity;
• the file remains incomplete despite a request for additional documents.

A refusal decision must be motivated and state the available appeal routes. In practice, correcting and re-filing the application is almost always faster than litigation before an administrative court.

What this actually changes for your timeline

For anyone setting up a training organization, the longer deadline has a direct effect on planning: expect up to two months between filing a complete file and receiving the registration receipt, compared with four to six weeks in practice before the reform. Two adjustments to make now:

• File as soon as your first contract is signed, without waiting for the three-month limit set by Article L. 6351-1 — that is the subject of our article on signing your first training contract before the NDA. The earlier you file, the more manageable the uncertainty around timing becomes.
• Plan around the funding schemes that require an actual NDA. Being “deemed declared” is enough to deliver and invoice training, but not to obtain the training-related VAT exemption or access OPCO or CPF funding, which in practice require the number to have been issued. If your first clients depend on this funding, warn them about the realistic timeline.

A longer deadline that echoes a well-documented economic concern

A longer review period is never neutral for someone waiting on a regulatory green light to grow their business. The economics literature on entry regulation documents this cost precisely: a study by Bruhn, published in 2011 in the Review of Economics and Statistics, analyzes a Mexican reform that shortened business-registration timelines and procedures, and finds a measurable increase in the number of registered businesses in the affected municipalities (License to Sell: The Effect of Business Registration Reform on Entrepreneurial Activity in Mexico). The “silence means acceptance” rule under French law, even with a deadline now extended to two months, plays the same shock-absorbing role: it keeps a longer review time from mechanically translating into a blocked business for the applicant.

Take action

The new two-month deadline is best managed upstream: a complete file on the first try — identity document included since 2025 — avoids the follow-up requests that reset the clock. The ebook Create Your Training Organization in 30 Days walks through building the Cerfa 10782 file and filing it on Mon Activité Formation step by step, and the full NDA registration number guide recaps every step and deadline from the NDA to Qualiopi certification.