France's e-invoicing reform for foreign suppliers

From 1 September 2026, every VAT-liable business established in France must be able to receive e-invoices, and large and mid-sized companies must issue them; smaller ones issue from September 2027. Suppliers without a French establishment generally stay outside the e-invoicing duty but may have to report sales data.

France has been preparing this reform for years, and the start date is now weeks away. If you sell to French businesses from another country, most of the change happens on your customers' side, but not all of it. This guide sets out the dates, how invoices will travel, and the questions worth checking for your own situation. It summarizes the official French guidance from impots.gouv.fr and economie.gouv.fr; for a decision about your business, read those pages or ask an adviser.

The timeline

Date	Who	What changes
1 September 2026	Every business established in France and liable to VAT	Must be able to receive e-invoices
1 September 2026	Large and mid-sized companies	Must issue e-invoices and send e-reporting data
1 September 2027	Small and medium-sized companies and micro-businesses	Must issue e-invoices and send e-reporting data

The split matters: receiving comes for everyone at once, issuing comes in two waves. So a small French customer may keep sending you ordinary invoices for another year, yet from September 2026 it must already be able to accept structured ones.

How invoices will travel

The French model is built around approved platforms, called plateformes agréées. Each business picks one. The platform sends and receives its invoices, checks them, and passes the required data to the tax administration. A platform is registered by the tax administration for three years at a time, and the list of approved platforms is published on impots.gouv.fr.

A public directory, the annuaire, records which businesses are covered and which platform each one uses to receive. That is how a sender's platform knows where to deliver an invoice.

The reform names three base formats for the invoice itself: UBL, UN/CEFACT CII, and Factur-X, which is a PDF with the structured data embedded in it. A plain PDF without that data is not an e-invoice, for the same reasons explained in why a PDF invoice is not an e-invoice.

If you know the Peppol network, note the difference. Belgium and several other countries rely on Peppol for exchanges between businesses, as Belgium's 2026 mandate shows. France routes invoices through its approved platforms instead; some of those platforms also connect to Peppol, but the platform is the piece French rules require. Peppol basics are in what Peppol is.

E-invoicing and e-reporting are two duties

• E-invoicing covers sales between businesses established in France that are subject to French VAT. The invoice itself is structured and exchanged through the platforms.
• E-reporting covers transactions that are not domestic invoices between businesses, such as sales to consumers and transactions with foreign partners. Here the business sends transaction data, not the invoice, to the tax administration through its platform. It follows the same calendar as e-invoicing.

What it means for suppliers outside France

The official guidance for foreign companies without a permanent establishment in France makes three points:

1. The e-invoicing duty does not apply to you. A business with no establishment in France is outside the e-invoicing obligation itself.
2. E-reporting may. If you make supplies that are located in France and subject to French VAT, you may have to report transaction data through an approved platform. Exports and intra-EU supplies are excluded. The guidance gives the same two dates by size: large and mid-sized businesses from September 2026, smaller ones from September 2027.
3. Your French customers report too. Generally, from September 2027, French businesses report data on purchases from foreign suppliers, whatever their size. Expect some of them to ask you for cleaner invoice data than before.

In practice, start by finding out whether you charge French VAT on any of your sales, and whether you have anything in France that could count as an establishment. Those two answers decide most of what follows. Then ask your French customers how they will want to receive your invoices once their platform is in place.

How France fits the bigger European picture

France is not alone. Germany has its own timeline, built on the European standard rather than one network: see Germany's e-invoicing timeline. At EU level, the VAT in the Digital Age package moves cross-border trade toward e-invoicing too, covered in ViDA explained. A supplier selling into several countries will deal with several systems for some years, so structured invoice data that you can send in more than one format is worth having.

Frequently asked questions

Does the French e-invoicing reform apply to a supplier based outside France?

Generally not the e-invoicing duty itself, which concerns businesses established in France. A foreign supplier making sales located in France and subject to French VAT may still have e-reporting duties. Check the official guidance for foreign companies on impots.gouv.fr.

What is a plateforme agréée?

An approved platform registered by the French tax administration to send and receive e-invoices for businesses and to pass invoice and transaction data to the administration. Every business covered by the reform uses one.

Which file formats does the French reform accept?

The base formats are UBL, UN/CEFACT CII and Factur-X. Platforms may offer other formats to their own users, but those three are the common ground.

Can a small French business still send PDF invoices after September 2026?

Generally yes: for small and medium-sized companies, the duty to issue e-invoices starts in September 2027. They must, however, be able to receive e-invoices from September 2026.