Training agreement (convention de formation) in France: mandatory clauses and template

You have found a client, agreed a price, booked a date — now the engagement needs formalising. Many training provider founders confuse quotes, contracts and agreements, and only discover the existence of precise mandatory clauses during an inspection or a Qualiopi audit. Here is exactly what French labour law requires, document by document.

Agreement or contract: who needs which document

The French Labour Code draws the line based on who funds the training.

• The training agreement (convention de formation, article L6353-1) binds the provider to a professional buyer: an employer training its staff, an OPCO, a public body, or any other institutional funder.
• The individual training contract (contrat de formation professionnelle, articles L6353-3 to L6353-7) binds the provider to an individual who funds their own training out of pocket — outside the CPF.

This distinction is not cosmetic: the required clauses and the trainee’s protections change substantially between the two.

The training agreement: mandatory clauses

Article L6353-1 requires that the agreement — or, failing that, the purchase order or invoice — contain clauses set by decree. The precise content is fixed by article D6353-1 (last updated by the decree of 27 June 2025):

Required clause	Expected content
Identification of the parties	Provider’s name, SIRET, activity declaration number (NDA), buyer’s identity
Title and objective of the action	Precise title and an operational, assessable objective
Content and resources	Programme, pedagogical, technical and supervisory resources deployed
Duration and delivery period	Number of hours, dates or expected period
Delivery arrangements	Monitoring of execution, methods for assessing results
Price and payment terms	Amount, schedule, invoicing conditions

Two recurring audit weak points: the objective must be phrased as operational and assessable (not “raise awareness of…” but “be able to…”), and the assessment methods must genuinely match what appears in your training outline.

When a purchase order or an invoice is enough

For a short training or a modest amount, a formal signed agreement is not always required: the law accepts that a purchase order or an invoice stand in for it, provided it repeats the same clauses as the table above. In practice, most independent providers standardise a single short agreement template — safer than an invoice enriched after the fact, and simpler to produce as evidence during an audit.

The individual training contract: stronger protections

When the trainee funds their own training (outside the CPF), the individual training contract regime applies (articles L6353-3 and following), which is considerably more protective for the individual. It must state in particular the nature and duration of the action, the required prior knowledge level, the pedagogical and supervisory resources, the assessment methods, the targeted outcomes, the price and payment terms, and the terms applicable in case of non-completion or withdrawal.

The withdrawal period

The trainee has a 10-calendar-day withdrawal period from signature, exercised by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt (article L6353-5), extended to 14 days if the contract is concluded remotely or off-premises. Two safeguards frame payment:

• no payment can be requested from the trainee before this period expires;
• once the period has passed, the provider cannot claim more than 30% of the agreed price before the training begins — the remainder being spread over the course of delivery.

The special case of the CPF

When training is fully funded through the Compte Personnel de Formation on EDOF, the contract automatically generated by the platform applies, with its own 14-calendar-day withdrawal period, distinct from the general rule. For the full picture on this funding route, read our article on EDOF listing and CPF funding.

What a provider risks without a compliant agreement

A missing or incomplete agreement is never a minor administrative detail:

1. With a funder (OPCO, employer), missing mandatory clauses can justify a refusal or a repayment claim if reviewed after the fact.
2. With the DREETS, as part of a vocational training inspection, a non-compliant agreement constitutes a breach that can trigger administrative sanctions.
3. With your Qualiopi certification body, the agreement is evidence expected against several indicators of the Référentiel National Qualité — notably indicator 1 on public information and indicator 5 on operational, assessable objectives. A generic or sloppy agreement almost always translates into a non-conformity during the audit.

Agreement, funding and Qualiopi: one and the same file

A single document therefore serves three audiences at once: the funder checking the action’s eligibility, the administration in case of inspection, and the Qualiopi auditor checking the traceability of your offering. That is why the best practice is to build one robust agreement template, adapted by funder type (company, OPCO, individual), rather than improvising a different document for every client. This keeps your agreements consistent with your annual BPF filing and your audit evidence when working through the audit-preparation checklist.

Three habits that keep your agreements audit-ready

• Sign before day one of training. An agreement signed after the action has already started loses much of its evidentiary value during an inspection: the principle is a contractual commitment made before delivery.
• Archive the copy signed by both parties systematically, together with the programme and the related quote — the trio an auditor or an OPCO asks for first during any review.
• Re-read your templates whenever the regulation moves. The decree underpinning article D6353-1 has already been amended several times; a template left untouched since the provider was created almost always ends up carrying an obsolete clause.

Take action

The Complete Qualiopi Kit includes agreement and contract templates already compliant with article D6353-1, ready to customise by funder type — alongside every other document expected against the reference framework’s 32 indicators (€297, 14-day guarantee, documents in French). Just starting out? The ebook Créer son organisme de formation en 30 jours walks through setting up your first contractual documents step by step, or choose the complete pack of kit + ebook.