Mandatory Postings for a French Training Organisation: The Complete Checklist

An auditor walking into a French training organisation (organisme de formation, OF) for a Qualiopi audit, or a prospective learner browsing its website before enrolling, are both looking for the same thing first: is the information visible, up to date and consistent? Many founders of training organisations discover late that “posting” isn’t limited to the internal rules taped near the door — several distinct pieces of French legislation, from the Labor Code to the Consumer Code, each impose their own required mentions. Here is the complete checklist, with the relevant texts and penalties.

Two distinct obligations: premises and website

Depending on whether training takes place in a physical room or entirely remotely, the medium changes, but not the substance. A training organisation without its own premises — a common case among independents who rent a room occasionally or train via videoconference — carries the same information over to its website, learner portal or commercial documents. What matters, for the law as for Qualiopi, isn’t the medium — it’s whether the information is genuinely accessible before the learner enrolls.

1. The internal rules (règlement intérieur)

This is the best-known obligation, set out in Article L6352-3 of the French Labor Code: every training organisation, including a sole trader with no employees, must draw up internal rules applicable to trainees within three months of starting activity (Articles R6352-1 and R6352-2), and bring them to trainees’ attention before final enrollment — by posting them in the training room or handing them over with the enrollment file. Failure to do so, or an incomplete document, exposes the organisation to a fine of up to €4,500 (Article L6355-8). Our dedicated article details the mandatory content and three-month deadline for the internal rules.

2. Prices: a posting obligation in its own right

This is the most commonly overlooked requirement, since it doesn’t stem from training law but from consumer law. The Order of 3 December 1987 on consumer price information requires every service provider, training organisations included, to display prices including all taxes legibly, visible from the area where clients are normally received — a single document listing all services and their price. Without premises open to the public, publishing a clear, up-to-date price list online serves the same purpose. Non-compliance is sanctioned under Article L.131-5 of the Consumer Code: up to €3,000 in fines for an individual, €15,000 for a legal entity. Our guide on pricing for a professional training course explains how to build and publish it.

3. The activity declaration number

Once assigned by the Dreets (regional labor authority), the activity declaration number (numéro de déclaration d’activité, NDA) must appear on all contractual and commercial documents: training program, agreement or contract, quote, invoice. No single text imposes it as a posting requirement per se, but its absence from contractual documents is routinely flagged during audits and reads as unprofessional to funders. See our article on the activity declaration and Cerfa form 10782 for the full procedure.

4. The nine pieces of information under Qualiopi indicator 1

Indicator 1 of the National Quality Framework requires publishing, on a medium accessible before any enrollment (website, brochure, commercial proposal), nine pieces of information for each course:

• Prerequisites;
• Learning objectives;
• Duration;
• Access modalities and timeframes;
• Prices;
• Contacts;
• Methods used;
• Assessment modalities;
• Accessibility for people with disabilities.

Auditors review your materials before the on-site audit even begins: an outdated brochure, a training calendar still showing last year’s dates, or prices that differ between the website and the PDF catalog are enough to trigger a non-conformity — often the very first one flagged during the audit.

5. The disability contact person and access timeframes

Indicator 26 requires that the disability contact person’s (référent handicap) details be clearly stated on your documents and information materials, so a candidate with a disability can immediately identify who to contact. This naturally goes alongside information on access timeframes and modalities (accessibility of premises, possible pedagogical adjustments), which is part of the nine pieces of information under indicator 1.

6. The complaints procedure

Indicator 31 requires handling complaints and unforeseen incidents, which assumes trainees know how to raise one. Unlike the internal rules, no text requires physically posting this procedure, but it must be communicated — in the welcome booklet, on the website, or in the training agreement. Our article on handling complaints and unforeseen incidents details the procedure and log expected by auditors.

7. Safety instructions, if you have your own premises

An organisation that owns or rents its own premises remains subject to the general safety-posting requirements applicable to any establishment open to the public: evacuation plan, fire safety instructions, emergency numbers. This obligation, distinct from training law, falls under the Labor Code and public-establishment regulations; it disappears when training takes place at a client’s premises, who then remains responsible for their own safety postings — the organisation’s internal rules can simply refer to them.

Law or Qualiopi: who requires what?

Obligation	Text or origin	Penalty
Internal rules	L6352-3, R6352-1/2, L6355-8	Fine up to €4,500
Price posting	Order of 3 Dec. 1987, Consumer Code L.131-5	Up to €3,000 (€15,000 for legal entities)
9 public information items	Qualiopi indicator 1	Non-conformity, risk of withdrawal
Visible disability contact	Qualiopi indicator 26	Non-conformity
Communicated complaints procedure	Qualiopi indicator 31	Major non-conformity

This distinction matters, because the two logics stack without overlapping: complying with the Labor Code and the Consumer Code doesn’t exempt you from meeting Qualiopi indicators, and vice versa. A study by F. Trebbi, M. B. Zhang and M. Simkovic published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (2022) quantifies the weight of these documentary and disclosure obligations for small structures: regulatory compliance costs weigh proportionally heavier on small businesses than on large ones, due to a lack of economies of scale on administrative tasks — a finding directly applicable to sole-trader training organisations who must handle postings, internal rules and indicators alone.

Most common mistakes

• Displaying prices excluding tax: the 1987 order requires prices including all taxes, the only amount actually paid by the client.
• An up-to-date website but internal rules forgotten in a drawer: the two obligations are independent, and meeting one never compensates for missing the other.
• Disability contact details nowhere to be found: a single line in the training program is enough to satisfy indicator 26, yet it is very often missing.
• Outdated calendar or prices online: for an auditor, an unmaintained document is equivalent to no information at all.

Beyond mere compliance with the texts, how readable this information is also shapes trainees’ trust: a study published in the Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (Hoque et al., 2022) shows, in a university setting, that effectively disseminating safety and operational information measurably improves people’s understanding and practices — a principle that carries over to postings in a training organisation, where information only has value once it is actually seen and understood, not merely produced.

Take action

Gathering all these mandatory mentions — internal rules, prices, declaration number, indicator 1 information, disability contact details — before an audit or a simple inspection takes a method. The Complete Qualiopi Kit provides ready-to-customize templates and the list of evidence expected for all 32 indicators, including those related to postings and public information (€297, 14-day guarantee). If you’re just starting out, the ebook Create Your Training Organisation in 30 Days places these obligations within the chronological order of the process, or choose the complete pack that combines both resources.