The French East India Company (French: Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales) is a commercial enterprise, founded in 1664 to compete with the English (later British) and Dutch East India companies in the East Indies.

Planned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, it is chartered by King Louis XIV for the purpose of trading in the Eastern Hemisphere.

It results from the fusion of three earlier companies, the 1660 Compagnie de Chine, the Compagnie d'Orient and Compagnie de Madagascar.

The first Director General for the Company is De Faye, who is adjoined by two Directors belonging to the two most successful trading organizations at that time: François Caron, who had spent thirty years working for the Dutch East India Company, including more than twenty years in Japan, and Marcara Avanchintz, a trader from Ispahan, Persia.