Here you will find the answers to all of your questions regarding France’s new business-to-business invoicing reforms, a topic that is all the more confusing for businesses as implementation of the law has recently been postponed until 2026 and 2027. This article explains how the transition to electronic invoicing will affect your business in the years to come.
What’s in this article?
- What is paperless invoicing?
- What is e-invoicing?
- What does the new invoicing reform involve?
- Who is affected by mandatory electronic invoicing?
- When will electronic invoicing become mandatory?
- What are the objectives behind the reform?
- How do you create an electronic invoice?
What is paperless invoicing?
Paperless invoicing refers to the transition from paper-based documentation to electronic formats. This transition marks the start of a fully digital invoicing process that complies with the regulations imposed by the tax office in Article 289 of the French General Tax Code. The new reform requires a gradual switch to electronic invoicing, also known as e-invoicing.
What is e-invoicing?
Electronic invoicing is the process of sending or receiving invoices in a standardised, machine-readable electronic format as opposed to unstructured formats such as email-delivered PDFs or paper invoices. Incorporating e-invoicing into billing processes allows for more systematic and consistent tracking of invoices across buyers and sellers.
What does the new invoicing reform involve?
According to Article 26 of the 2022 French Amending Financing Law no. 2022-1157, all business-to-business (B2B) invoices subject to French value-added tax (VAT) will have to be issued electronically from 2026 onward. This electronic invoicing system has already been mandatory for suppliers to government entities since 2020.
The businesses concerned will also be required to submit additional information about their business operations to the tax office (such as their transaction and payment data). This process is known as e-reporting.
Who is affected by mandatory electronic invoicing?
Any business established in France and subject to French VAT that sells goods and services to another business also subject to French VAT will be under the obligation to abide by electronic invoicing. Government entities and their private vendors already submit their invoices electronically.
Businesses subject to French VAT that sell goods and services to an individual (B2C or “business to consumer” transactions) will have to submit information about their transactions online to the tax office. The same goes for French businesses selling goods and services internationally.
It should be noted that certain commercial operations will be completely exempt from electronic invoicing: these include healthcare services; education and training services; property; banking and financial operations; insurance and reinsurance services; as well as not-for-profit services.
When will electronic invoicing become mandatory?
Electronic invoicing will be mandatory from 2026 onwards, depending on the size of the business and its annual sales revenues. Large businesses (with over 5,000 employees and annual sales revenues of over 1.5 billion euros) as well as medium-sized enterprises (that have between 250 and 5,000 employees and annual sales revenues between 50 million euros and 1.5 billion euros) will be required to issue their invoices electronically from 1 September 2026.
Microbusinesses (or sole traders) and very small businesses (with fewer than 10 employees and annual sales revenues of less than 2 million euros), as well as medium-sized enterprises (with fewer than 250 employees and annual sales revenues of between 2 million and 50 million euros), will be able to wait until 1 September 2027 before their invoicing operations will have to go paperless. It should be noted that the transition to electronic invoicing was originally scheduled for 2024 and 2025.
What are the objectives behind the reform?
The tax reform has several objectives (and benefits): first, paperless documentation will allow invoice management to be modernised and simplified. Second, switching to electronic invoicing will reduce the administrative burden of invoicing, as well as the overall cost of processing, through the elimination of any physical documentation.
VAT returns will also be easier to complete and transmit online thanks to advanced prefilling functions, simplifying end-to-end administrative operations for the business. In addition, electronic invoicing will allow the tax office to identify VAT fraud more quickly.
How do you create an electronic invoice?
There are multiple options available for creating electronic invoices that comply with the new law, including using one of the paperless “dematerialisation” platforms that is partnered with the tax office (there are several of these), or you can choose to send your invoices and your additional information via the public invoicing portal Chorus Pro.
Partner dematerialisation platforms (PDPs) are intermediary services registered by the tax office that issue, transmit, and receive electronic invoices and their associated transaction and payment data.
The mandatory information on the invoice will generally remain the same. You will receive invoices from your suppliers in the same way (via a dematerialisation platform or the Chorus Pro portal).
How to use Stripe Billing for e-invoicing with third-party App Marketplace providers
Although Stripe Billing and Stripe Invoicing do not directly generate or send e-invoices, the Stripe App Marketplace offers multiple options that allow you to use third-party providers to support these e-invoicing needs. Depending on the third-party provider and geography, providers might also support e-reporting requirements in addition to e-invoicing (i.e. forwarding e-invoices to tax authorities in addition to your customer). If your business requires e-reporting, review the provider’s details to ensure it can support your specific business needs.
To get started, visit our Stripe App Marketplace to discover and select a third-party app provider, such as Billit (see supported countries). When installing a third-party app from the App Marketplace, you might be subject to the third-party provider’s separate terms of use, privacy policies, and additional fees.
After installing your e-invoicing app of choice, you can configure the app to either automatically or manually send e-invoices to your customers from the Stripe Dashboard.
E-invoicing apps automatically convert Stripe invoices into formats compatible with e-invoicing networks, send e-invoices through their network access point to your customers, and then relay status updates in both the Stripe Dashboard and invoice metadata.
Learn more in our e-invoicing guide or watch a video demonstration of the app functionality.
The content in this article is for general information and education purposes only and should not be construed as legal or tax advice. Stripe does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, adequacy, or currency of the information in the article. You should seek the advice of a competent lawyer or accountant licensed to practise in your jurisdiction for advice on your particular situation.