Loi Influenceurs (2023-451) Complete Guide: 2026 Edition

Loi 2023-451 of 9 June 2023 — universally called the Loi Influenceurs — created the strictest influencer-marketing regime in the EU. The law applies to any influencer marketing campaign that targets a French audience, regardless of where the creator lives or where the brand is headquartered.

A Spanish brand running a campaign with a Belgian creator for a French audience is fully under the law's scope; the law's territorial reach is the audience, not the parties.

The law has been reshaped twice since enactment. The Ordonnance n° 2024-978 of 6 November 2024 simplified some provisions and clarified the scope of certain obligations.

The Décret n° 2025-1137 of 28 November 2025 added a written-contract threshold of €1,000 net — campaigns above that amount must have a signed contract with all the law's mandatory clauses embedded. Together the three texts form the operating regime in 2026.

This guide walks through the law article by article, the categories that are flat-out banned, the mandatory clauses for the contract, and the enforcement record so far. For an interactive audit that checks your specific campaign against all three texts and surfaces the gaps, see our free Loi Influenceurs compliance checker.

Ghassen Daoud, Collabios founder, observes: the single most consequential thing global brands miss about Loi 2023-451 is its territorial scope. Brands consistently read it as a "French creators only" rule.

The text is in fact audience-based — a German DTC brand briefing a Vienna-based creator whose Instagram audience is 35% French is fully inside the law from the moment the post is live, jointly liable up to €300,000. We see this misconception more than any other when onboarding brands new to the European market, which is why our matching layer filters by audience country, not creator residence.

Article 1 of Loi 2023-451 defines the regulated activity broadly: any natural or legal person who, for a fee or in-kind benefit, mobilises their notoriety with their audience to communicate online about goods, services or any cause whatsoever. The definition deliberately catches small creators (no follower threshold), gifting deals (in-kind benefit counts the same as cash), and non-product content (a creator promoting a charity or political cause is also in scope when there is consideration).

The territorial scope was extended by the Ordonnance n° 2024-978 of 6 November 2024 and is audience-based: the law applies whenever the influencer's content is targeted to a French audience, whatever the influencer's place of residence or the brand's place of establishment.

A creator based in Brussels posting in French about a German product for a French audience is under French law for the disclosure and contract obligations. A French creator posting about a French product for a Belgian audience is not.

The audience-targeting test is judged on objective indicators: language of the content, country distribution of the followers, hashtags used, geo-targeting of any paid amplification. There is no single bright line — the DGCCRF assesses the totality of indicators when investigating.

Article 4 of the law prohibits influencer promotion of certain categories outright. Even with full disclosure, even with a contract, a creator under French jurisdiction cannot promote:

• Cosmetic surgery (other than dental and implant-prosthetic services).
• Certain medical devices and aesthetic treatments listed in the law.
• Sports betting and gambling content beyond strictly regulated sub-cases (the regulated sub-cases require explicit licensing and visible age-warning).
• Crypto-asset services from non-PSAN-registered providers (PSAN is the AMF's digital-asset registration).
• Certain financial products (specifically those not regulated under the AMF or ACPR).
• Tobacco, e-cigarettes containing nicotine, and alcohol — alcohol promotion remains permitted under specific Loi Évin restrictions but is heavily constrained.
• Animal-welfare content that promotes prohibited acts under domestic animal-protection law.

Promotion of these categories carries the highest penalties under the law: criminal liability up to 7 years and €300,000 fine for the creator, and similar penalties for any agency or brand aiding or abetting the promotion. Three influencer prosecutions for crypto-promotion violations are ongoing as of early 2026.

Article 5 makes disclosure of commercial nature mandatory for any sponsored content targeting a French audience. The disclosure must:

• Be in French (not in English, not multi-language).
• Use the regulator-tested wording: "Publicité", "Collaboration commerciale", or "Partenariat rémunéré".
• Be placed at the start of the post (first line of the caption).
• Be visible from the first frame of any video content.
• Be retained on the creator's profile for a period that allows regulatory review (the contract must require retention for at least one year).

Generic English tags like #ad, #sponsored, or #brandpartnership alone are not compliant. #partenariat alone is borderline — pair it with one of the three accepted formulations to be safe. The DGCCRF has issued enforcement against creators using only English tags even where the brand and creator argued the audience was "international".

The Décret 2025-1137 of 28 November 2025 introduced a written-contract threshold of €1,000 net. Any campaign above that amount — measured per creator per brand per campaign, not aggregated annually — requires a signed written contract that includes the mandatory clauses set by the decree:

• Identification of the parties (legal entities, addresses, registration numbers).
• Description of the deliverables, including platforms, formats, and content specifications.
• The fee or in-kind value, stated in monetary terms even when consideration is barter.
• The image rights granted to the brand (scope, territory, duration).
• The mandatory disclosure clause obliging the creator to use the regulator-accepted wording.
• A clause obliging the creator to retain the content on the original publication channel for at least one year for regulatory review.
• The list of categories the campaign relates to (so any banned category is explicitly excluded).
• Termination grounds and notice periods.

Below the €1,000 threshold, a written contract is not strictly required by the decree but the disclosure obligation still applies and the DGCCRF still has jurisdiction. In practice, the marketplace standard in 2026 is to use a written contract for every campaign regardless of value — the marginal effort is low and the legal protection is large.

Article 8 sets the penalty regime: up to €300,000 fine plus criminal liability up to 2 years for a standard breach, escalating to 7 years for breaches involving banned categories or where minors are particularly affected. The brand and any intermediary agency can be held jointly liable.

The DGCCRF (Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes) is the lead enforcement body. Since the law came into force, public enforcement actions reported through the DGCCRF's official channels and trade press include:

• Several five-figure fines to creators promoting unregistered crypto services.
• Public warnings ("mises en demeure") to creators in the beauty and weight-loss niches for non-compliant disclosure.
• Joint enforcement with the AMF against creators promoting financial products outside the regulator's registered list.
• An ongoing prosecution against a celebrity-tier creator for a multi-post campaign covering both the banned-categories rule and the disclosure rule.

The trend in 2025-2026 has been broader enforcement reach — DGCCRF investigations now routinely catch micro-tier creators (10K-100K followers), not just celebrities. The agency has invested in monitoring tooling that can scan large numbers of accounts for non-compliant disclosure and trigger an investigation when the threshold is crossed.

The compliance audit for a French-targeted campaign in 2026 has four steps:

1. Confirm the audience-targeting test. Is France actually in the target audience? If less than 30% of the target audience is in France, the law typically does not apply (subject to other indicators like language and hashtags). Above that threshold, plan for full compliance.

2. Check the category against the banned list. Cosmetic surgery, certain medical devices, unregistered crypto, certain financial products, tobacco, gambling, and a few others are flat-out banned. If your category is banned, the campaign cannot run regardless of disclosure or contract.

3. Audit the contract against the mandatory clauses (Décret 2025-1137). Above €1,000 net, the eight mandatory clauses must be present. The contract must require the creator to use the accepted disclosure wording and to retain content for at least one year.

4. Audit the on-post disclosure wording. The actual language used in the caption or video overlay must match one of the regulator-tested options. English tags alone are not compliant.

The compliance checker automates these four steps in a single audit and returns a verdict (compliant / minor gaps / blocking gaps) with the exact missing clauses, the recommended language, and the citations to the relevant articles of the law plus the Légifrance source link.