France e-invoicing from 1 September 2026: what actually changes
From 1 September 2026 every VAT-registered business in France must be able to receive structured e-invoices. Large and mid-size companies must also issue them.
The date that stopped moving
France's B2B e-invoicing reform has been postponed twice. It is not being postponed again: the DGFiP has confirmed that the first wave starts on 1 September 2026, six days from the date of this briefing.
The part that catches most businesses out is that the first obligation is not about sending. It is about receiving, and it has no size exemption at all.
Two obligations, two calendars
| Date | Who | What |
|---|---|---|
| 1 September 2026 | Every VAT-registered business established in France, including micro-enterprises and independent contractors | Must be able to receive structured electronic invoices |
| 1 September 2026 | Large enterprises (GE) and mid-size enterprises (ETI) | Must issue electronic invoices and submit e-reporting |
| 1 September 2027 | Small and medium enterprises (PME) and micro-enterprises | Issuance and e-reporting extend to them |
So a two-person consultancy in Lyon has nothing to issue until 2027, but from next week it has to be able to take in a structured invoice from a large supplier. A PDF in an email inbox will no longer be that supplier's legal invoice.
What e-reporting covers
E-reporting is the parallel duty for transactions that do not travel through the B2B e-invoicing circuit: sales to consumers (B2C) and certain cross-border transactions. The administration receives amounts excluding tax, VAT bases, transaction dates and payment information, which matters in particular for services and instalments where VAT is due on collection.
Formats and the plumbing
Invoices are exchanged in UBL, CII or Factur-X, the hybrid format that carries structured XML inside a readable PDF. Exchange runs through state-approved platforms, while the Portail Public de Facturation acts as the central directory and data hub rather than as the invoice channel it was originally meant to be.
For a business the practical question is narrower than the architecture suggests: which approved platform will you be on, and can your accounting or ERP system hand it a compliant file without someone retyping anything.
The obligation that outlives the platform
Once the invoice has been transmitted and accepted, the compliance story is not over. Invoices are accounting supporting documents under Code de commerce, art. L123-22, which requires accounting documents and supporting records to be kept for ten years from the close of the accounting year.
Ten years is longer than most software contracts, most platform relationships, and a good number of the companies that will sell you a platform this autumn. Three questions worth answering before September, in writing:
- What exactly is the legal original? It is the structured file plus the platform's proof of transmission, not the PDF a colleague printed for the file.
- How long does your platform keep it, and in what form? Approved platforms differ; some offer long-term archiving, some retain for a defined window as part of the service. Read the contract rather than assuming.
- What happens when you switch platforms? The ten-year duty stays with you. The export you can take with you is the part to check while you still have leverage, which is before you sign.
What to do in the next six days
- Confirm you can receive. This applies to you whatever your size. Ask your accounting software vendor for the specific answer, not the marketing page.
- Check which wave you are in. GE and ETI are issuing from next week; PME and micro have a year, but their suppliers do not.
- Decide where the archive lives before the first structured invoice arrives, not after ten thousand of them have.
France is not an isolated case. The same shape of obligation, transmit through a state-recognised channel and then keep the original for years, is arriving across Europe on different dates and in different formats. Our e-invoicing mandate tracker keeps the per-country dates in one place, and the retention checker carries the statutory keeping period for eighteen jurisdictions with the article each figure comes from.
