France e-invoicing: dates, platforms, formats

Yes. The tax administration states that micro-entrepreneurs, including those under the VAT franchise, must both receive and issue e-invoices. You need an approved platform to receive invoices since 1 September 2026, and you must issue e-invoices to French business customers by 1 September 2027. Your invoices keep the mention "TVA non applicable, article 293 B du CGI". If you only bill consumers, you have no e-invoices to issue, but you still send summary data through e-reporting.

An approved platform (plateforme agréée, formerly called PDP) is a private provider registered by the tax administration after checks on tax compliance, security and interoperability. It issues, transmits and receives your e-invoices and extracts the data the tax office needs. You choose it freely, can use several and can switch at any time. Your existing invoicing software can stay if it is a compatible solution connected to at least one approved platform. The official list is on impots.gouv.fr.

A plain PDF sent by email is not an e-invoice under the reform. Once you are required to issue, invoices to French business customers must go through an approved platform in UBL, CII or a mixed format such as Factur-X. A PDF you receive after 1 September 2026 can still be processed, paid and its VAT deducted if it matches a real sale and holds the required details. The administration expects the sender to regularise it through the electronic circuit as soon as possible.

E-reporting is the transmission to the tax office of data on sales that are not e-invoiced: sales to consumers and transactions with foreign businesses. For consumer sales you send daily totals per period, and for foreign business customers you send data invoice by invoice, through your approved platform. If your VAT is due on receipt of payment, as for most services, you also report payment data. Frequency depends on your VAT regime: every two months under the franchise, up to three times a month under the monthly normal regime.

The law provides a fine per invoice for failing to issue electronically, and separate penalties for missing e-reporting data. The administration says it will not apply them automatically during the start-up phase to businesses with real, documented difficulties that are actively moving towards compliance. For receiving, a formal notice comes before any penalty. This leniency is not a postponement: the 2026 and 2027 dates still apply.