A French company can often sell goods to a business customer in another European Union Member State without charging French value added tax (VAT). For a foreign founder, however, the difficult question is rarely the headline rule. The real question is whether the company can prove, months later, that the customer was genuinely identified for VAT, that the goods physically left France, that the invoice and VAT return were consistent, and that the French company filed the required recapitulative statement. A missing transport document, an inactive customer number, or a late declaration can turn a planned VAT-free sale into a taxable French transaction.

This article addresses the sale of physical goods dispatched from France to a VAT-registered business customer in another EU Member State. It is written for a foreign founder operating a French SAS (société par actions simplifiée), SARL (société à responsabilité limitée), branch or subsidiary. The legal form does not decide the VAT treatment. The customer’s status, the movement of the goods, the evidence and the declarations do. Services, sales to private consumers, imports from outside the EU, exports to the United Kingdom and goods subject to special schemes require a separate analysis. The framework below is the position to apply on 25 August 2026, including the transitional timetable affecting French VAT reporting rules.

I. When is a sale from France to an EU business exempt from French VAT?

A. Is the customer’s VAT number enough to invoice without French VAT?

No. A customer’s VAT number is necessary in the ordinary business-to-business case, but it is not sufficient by itself. The French company must be able to connect the number to a real customer, a real sale and a real movement of goods from France to another EU Member State. The exemption is a legal regime with cumulative conditions, not a commercial discount that the seller may apply whenever a foreign customer asks for an invoice without VAT.

The starting point is the French General Tax Code. Article 256 treats deliveries of goods made for consideration by a taxable person acting as such as transactions within the scope of VAT. Article 256 bis defines an intra-Community acquisition by reference to the buyer obtaining the power to dispose of movable tangible property transported to France from another Member State. The two provisions explain the basic allocation of the tax: the French seller may make an exempt intra-Community supply, while the buyer accounts for the acquisition in the Member State of arrival. The statutory references are available in Article 256 bis of the French General Tax Code and the related territoriality provisions.

For a French company dispatching goods to an EU business, the usual conditions are these:

• The transaction is a genuine sale for consideration, and the French seller acts as a taxable person in the course of its economic activity.
• The goods are dispatched or transported from France to another EU Member State. A foreign invoice address is not a substitute for a cross-border movement.
• The buyer is a taxable person, or a non-taxable legal person who is identified for VAT in another Member State and has communicated that identification number to the supplier.
• The buyer’s identification number is connected to the legal entity purchasing the goods, not merely to an associated company, a logistics provider or a person who placed the order.
• The French company includes the transaction in the relevant VAT records and files the required recapitulative statement of customers.
• The circumstances do not show that the French seller knew, or could not have been unaware after appropriate checks, that the transaction formed part of a VAT fraud or that the alleged customer had no genuine economic activity.

The central exemption is found in Article 262 ter, I, 1° of the French General Tax Code. The official wording begins: “Sont exonérés de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée”. It then requires goods to be transported to another EU Member State for a customer identified for VAT in a Member State other than the State of departure, with the customer having communicated its number to the supplier. The provision also links the exemption to the recapitulative statement. A seller that omits that filing cannot treat the omission as irrelevant merely because the goods did in fact arrive abroad.

The French VAT identification rule is set out in Article 286 ter of the French General Tax Code. It covers taxable persons making supplies giving a right to deduct input VAT and, in relevant cases, businesses carrying out intra-Community acquisitions or receiving services subject to reverse charge. A foreign founder should therefore obtain and record the French company’s own VAT number before the first cross-border transaction, then record the customer’s Member State number on the order, invoice and accounting file. The customer’s legal name and address should match the number’s registration details.

Verification through VIES, the European Commission’s VAT Information Exchange System, is a prudent control. The French Ministry of the Economy recommends checking the customer’s number and retaining proof of the result. Its current guidance on the intra-Community VAT number also explains that the number should appear on commercial documents and that evidence of verification may be requested during an audit. VIES is not a magic certificate of transport or solvency. It is one part of a due-diligence file.

Do not confuse a customer who is VAT-registered with a consumer. If the buyer is a private person, or an organisation that does not act as a taxable person for that acquisition, the B2B exemption does not automatically apply. The sale may be an intra-Community distance sale. Article 258 A of the French General Tax Code moves the place of taxation in certain distance-sale situations once the relevant EU threshold or an option is engaged. The Article 258 A rules must be examined with the One Stop Shop or local registration consequences. The frequently quoted EUR 10,000 threshold is not a universal permission to issue every consumer invoice without French VAT.

The franchise in base is another trap. Article 293 B can relieve a small French taxable person from charging VAT on qualifying domestic operations, but Article 262 ter excludes deliveries made by taxable persons covered by the French franchise rules from the ordinary intra-Community delivery exemption. The current Article 293 B text should be read with the company’s actual tax regime, its French turnover and the applicable transitional dates. A foreign founder whose newly incorporated company is not yet charging VAT should ask the Service des impôts des entreprises (SIE), meaning the French business tax office, whether a VAT number is required and how the cross-border sale must be declared. The invoice should not use the phrase “Article 262 ter exemption” merely because the buyer supplied an EU number.

The United Kingdom also requires a precise boundary. Great Britain is a third country for EU goods VAT after Brexit. A sale from France to a customer in England, Scotland or Wales is generally an export, not an intra-Community delivery. Northern Ireland has a specific goods regime and a different treatment from services. The contractual Incoterm, customs status, EORI number and proof of exit must be checked separately. A French company that uses the intra-Community wording for a British shipment risks creating a false tax trail even if the customer is a genuine business.

Finally, the company should distinguish an intra-Community supply of goods from a service connected with goods. Installation, assembly, repair, valuation, software access and consulting may have different place-of-supply rules. A foreign founder should identify the object of the contract before instructing the accountant to apply a zero-rate code. The invoice description, transport record and VAT return should all describe the same legal operation.

B. What evidence proves that the goods actually left France?

The decisive practical issue is often physical movement. A French company may have a signed order, a foreign customer and an apparently valid VAT number, but still lose the exemption if it cannot demonstrate that the goods left France. The evidence must be assembled at the time of dispatch. Reconstructing it after a tax audit is slower, less reliable and often impossible when the carrier, customer or warehouse has changed systems.

The evidence file should normally contain, in a single indexed folder, the purchase order or contract, the invoice, the customer’s full legal identity, the VAT-number verification, the packing list, the carrier instruction, the transport document, the delivery confirmation and the accounting record of payment. For a carrier shipment, a CMR consignment note, carrier invoice, tracking history, proof of delivery and a document showing the consignee’s address should be linked to the invoice number. For a customer collection, the company should obtain a signed collection document, the identity of the person collecting the goods, the vehicle or carrier details, the destination and later evidence of arrival. A simple statement saying “goods delivered abroad” is weaker than a consistent chain of contemporaneous records.

Article 45a of the EU Implementing Regulation on VAT creates a rebuttable presumption in defined circumstances where the seller or buyer organises the transport and the seller holds qualifying documents from independent parties. The text and its evidential categories can be consulted in Article 45a of Implementing Regulation (EU) No 282/2011. The presumption is helpful, but it is not a substitute for checking whether the documents refer to the same goods, customer, route and date. Conflicting documents can destroy the reliability of the presumption.

French administrative case law illustrates the point. In Conseil d’État, 27 July 2005, no. 273619, the court held that a taxable person with transport evidence and the customer’s VAT number benefits from a presumption of an exempt intra-Community supply, while allowing the administration to prove that the supplies did not occur. The decision is useful because it confirms both sides of the rule: a coherent file helps the seller, but the presumption is not an immunity against evidence of fictitious transactions or an inactive customer.

In Conseil d’État, 25 February 2011, no. 312290, the seller’s exemption was challenged where invoices lacked transport evidence, carrier invoices did not identify the customer and the alleged customer’s activity did not match the goods. The official decision states that the circumstances could have required the seller to make “les diligences nécessaires” and that the right to exemption could be challenged if the seller knew, or could have known after appropriate checks, that the supply led to VAT fraud. This does not create a general rule that every seller must consult the VAT database for every order. It does create a serious warning against ignoring obvious inconsistencies.

In Conseil d’État, 6 March 2014, no. 362827, the court examined orders, invoices, transport correspondence and courier invoices. It accepted that no single additional defect automatically proved that no delivery had taken place, but it upheld the refusal of the exemption because the file as a whole did not establish the physical flow of the goods. The official decision records that the documents did not establish “le flux physique des marchandises” and noted the missing customer VAT numbers, the absent statutory wording on the invoices and the late exchange-of-goods declarations. That is the right audit lesson: several small gaps can become decisive when combined.

The same approach appears in Conseil d’État, 1 July 2009, no. 295689, which restates that the goods must have been transported to another Member State and that the buyer must have the required taxable or legal-person status. The seller should not treat the customer’s registered office as the destination merely because the invoice was addressed there. If a warehouse, drop-shipment location, subcontractor or resale customer is involved, the contractual chain and the physical route must be documented.

For a foreign-owned French company, the cleanest process is to appoint one person to own the evidence checklist. The sales team verifies the buyer and destination. The warehouse records the parcels and carrier. The finance team matches the invoice to the transport document and the VAT statement. The director or authorised representative approves exceptions. A shared folder should use a stable naming convention, such as customer VAT number, invoice number and dispatch date. The evidence should remain readable for the statutory retention period and should be exportable if the accounting platform changes.

Payment is useful corroboration but not proof of transport. A bank transfer from a foreign account supports the commercial reality of the transaction, yet a fictitious or misdirected shipment can also be paid. Likewise, a signed customer confirmation is helpful but should not be the only proof where the seller arranged the transport. The safest file combines independent evidence: carrier data, warehouse data, customer data and accounting data.

When the buyer collects the goods, the risk is higher. The seller should record the date and time of collection, the identity and authority of the person receiving the goods, the vehicle or carrier, the destination, the invoice reference and a written undertaking to transport the goods to the customer’s Member State. The later proof of arrival should be requested promptly. If the customer refuses to provide it, the French company should suspend the use of the exemption for subsequent shipments until the reason is understood.

Internal controls must also identify triangulation. A French seller may ship directly to a German customer while invoicing a Spanish intermediary, or a foreign parent may arrange the transport on behalf of a French subsidiary. The chain transaction rules in Article 262 ter can allocate the exempt movement to a particular leg, depending on who transports the goods and which VAT number the intermediary communicates. The invoice, customer contract and transport instructions must be reviewed together. A generic “EU customer” label is not a legal analysis.

II. What must a foreign founder file, keep and correct after the sale?

A. Which invoice, VAT return and recapitulative statement must be filed?

The invoice is the first visible part of the compliance chain. Under Article 289 of the French General Tax Code, a taxable person must ensure that an invoice is issued for the relevant business supplies, including exempt intra-Community deliveries. The invoice should identify the seller and buyer, state both VAT numbers, describe the goods accurately, give the quantity and price, identify the date of supply or invoice date, state the payment terms and contain the legally appropriate exemption wording. For the usual intra-Community supply, the invoice should not show French VAT as a tax amount. It should state that the delivery is exempt under Article 262 ter, I, of the French General Tax Code.

Article 289 also provides a specific timing rule: for goods exempt under Article 262 ter, the invoice may be issued no later than the fifteenth day of the month following the month in which the chargeable event occurred. That deadline is not a reason to delay the evidence file. The company should create the dispatch record when the goods leave, not when the invoice is eventually generated. A credit note or replacement invoice must refer specifically to the original document and explain the correction. An invoice in English may be commercially convenient, but Article 289 allows the French tax service to request a French translation for control purposes, under the conditions referred to in Article 54 of the French General Tax Code.

The invoice should not say “reverse charge” without explaining the transaction. For a normal intra-Community supply of goods, the French seller’s legal position is an exemption, while the buyer generally accounts for the intra-Community acquisition under its Member State rules. “VAT exempt—Article 262 ter, I, of the French General Tax Code” is more precise than a generic reverse-charge label. If the operation is actually a service, a domestic reverse charge, a chain transaction or a distance sale, the wording must change.

The French company must also report the transaction on its VAT return in the appropriate exempt-supply section. The exact box depends on the form and the applicable tax regime, so the finance team should use the current CA3 or CA12 instructions rather than copy a box number from an old template. The accounting entry should reconcile to the invoice total, the dispatch date and the recapitulative statement. A foreign founder who runs the accounts from abroad should require the French accountant to send a monthly exception report listing invoices with missing VAT numbers, missing proof of delivery or mismatched amounts.

The recapitulative statement is not optional housekeeping. Article 289 B of the French General Tax Code requires an identified taxable person to file a statement of customers, including the customer VAT number, for goods delivered under Article 262 ter. The statement must contain the supplier’s identification number, the customer’s number in the Member State of arrival and the total value of the supplies for the relevant period. The current statutory text is affected by the 2025 tax-code transition, with provisions maintained during the transition until their replacement in the new code framework. That transition does not justify treating the August 2026 filing as optional.

The implementing rules are found in Articles 96 J to 96 M of the French General Tax Code Annex III. Article 96 K of Annex III requires the statement to be transmitted to the customs administration no later than the tenth working day of the month following the month concerned. The statement is transmitted electronically through the relevant customs system. It is therefore not enough to include the sale in the accounting software and assume that the tax office will infer the information.

A late or incomplete statement should be corrected rather than hidden. Article 96 M provides for a corrective recapitulative statement when omissions or inaccuracies are identified, and it requires the correction to be filed without delay within the statutory period. The company should retain the original submission, the error report, the corrected file and a short written explanation of the cause. If the error concerns the buyer’s VAT number, the company should also retain the VIES results and correspondence with the buyer showing when the correct number was obtained.

The seller should keep the documents supporting the statement for six years from the relevant transaction, subject to any longer period that applies to the company’s accounting, customs or contractual records. A cloud folder is acceptable only if access, integrity, date and readability can be demonstrated. The director should ask whether the accountant’s platform preserves the carrier attachments and whether a foreign parent can access the records without altering them.

The French Ministry of the Economy’s current guidance confirms that a VAT number must appear on invoices and on declarations concerning intra-Community goods and services. The same guidance recommends preserving the VIES verification result. A company can use the guidance on the French VAT system as an operational starting point, but the General Tax Code and the company’s facts control the legal treatment. Government guidance does not replace the analysis of a special product, chain sale, consignment stock or consumer transaction.

French e-invoicing reform should be kept separate from the intra-Community customer statement. The fact that a French business will progressively use electronic invoicing and electronic transmission of transaction data does not mean that a transport document, VAT-number check or recapitulative statement disappears. Article 289 continues to require a reliable link between the invoice and the underlying supply. The company should therefore configure its accounting system so that an international goods invoice cannot be marked “complete” until the customer VAT number, country of arrival, transport evidence and declaration status have been recorded.

B. What happens when the VAT number, transport proof or declaration is missing?

The correct response depends on the missing item. A missing document is not the same as a fictitious sale, and a late statement is not necessarily the same as a deliberate fraud. The company should classify the defect, preserve what exists, correct it promptly and avoid creating retrospective documents that do not reflect the facts.

If the customer has not communicated a valid VAT number, the seller should not simply issue a VAT-free invoice and hope that the number will be activated later. The company should verify whether the customer is actually identified for VAT on the date relevant to the transaction, ask for the correct number and confirm the legal buyer. If the evidence cannot be obtained, the seller should consider charging French VAT or obtaining a written tax analysis before applying the exemption. If the number is later corrected, the company may need a credit note and replacement invoice. It must not backdate a number or alter an invoice without an audit trail.

If the goods did not leave France, the intra-Community exemption is unavailable. The same is true if the goods were delivered to a French customer even though the buyer’s group has a registered office abroad. A foreign bank account, a foreign domain name or a foreign signatory does not prove that the goods were delivered in another Member State. The place of dispatch, the destination and the customer acquiring the goods must be analysed separately.

If the buyer is a consumer, the company should stop using the B2B exemption and test the distance-sale rules. It should aggregate relevant sales across the EU, determine whether the threshold or an option changes the place of taxation and consider the One Stop Shop. A B2C sale cannot be converted into a B2B sale by inserting a company VAT number that belongs to a different entity.

If transport proof is incomplete, the company should contact the carrier and customer immediately. Obtain the signed CMR, proof of delivery, warehouse release, tracking history or other contemporaneous evidence that actually exists. A later customer declaration can supplement the file, but it should identify the order, goods, dates and destination and explain why the original document was unavailable. It should never state that a delivery occurred if the customer cannot confirm it. Where the facts remain uncertain, the company should ask the accountant whether a VAT adjustment is needed rather than preserve a zero-rate invoice unsupported by evidence.

If the recapitulative statement was omitted or contains a wrong customer number, file a corrective statement without delay. Article 262 ter expressly connects the exemption to the filing and information in the statement, although it allows the supplier to justify a failure to the administration in appropriate circumstances. The company should prepare a short corrective file: original invoice, corrected invoice if any, transport evidence, customer number verification, original statement, corrected statement, reason for the error and the internal control introduced to prevent repetition.

If French VAT was shown on an invoice by mistake, Article 283, paragraph 3, provides a strict warning: a person who mentions VAT on an invoice is liable for it merely because it was invoiced. The wording of Article 283 of the French General Tax Code means that a seller should not leave a wrongly charged tax amount in circulation while privately assuming that the transaction was exempt. A properly documented credit note and corrected invoice may be required, together with the corresponding VAT-return correction and customer communication.

Invoice defects can also generate specific fines. The current Article 1737 of the French General Tax Code provides an amende of 15 euros for an omission or inaccuracy in an invoice or substitute document, subject to the statutory cap per invoice. More serious conduct, such as issuing an invoice that does not correspond to a real supply, can trigger the 50% sanction provided by the same article. The 15-euro fine should not be confused with the tax itself, interest or a penalty for a fictitious transaction. The company must identify which defect the administration alleges.

The jurisprudence also limits overreaction. In Cour administrative d’appel de Marseille, 22 November 2011, no. 08MA05156, the court considered a situation where the alleged intra-Community delivery had not actually occurred and the invoice created a VAT risk. In contrast, Conseil d’État, no. 362827 shows that one missing item is not automatically conclusive when the entire evidential record is assessed. The practical strategy is therefore neither to ignore a defect nor to assume that any defect makes the case hopeless. It is to establish the facts and repair the specific failure.

When a French company receives an audit notice, the director should preserve the original electronic records before changing any accounting entry. The first response should list each invoice under review, the customer, VAT number, dispatch route, carrier, statement month and available evidence. The company should then identify contradictions: a delivery address different from the invoice, a carrier that never handled the goods, a number belonging to another entity, a return to France, a late statement or a payment from an unrelated account. These contradictions should be explained with documents, not with general assurances.

A foreign parent or overseas finance team should not reply directly to the French tax administration without coordinating with the French company’s director and tax adviser. The French entity is the taxpayer and the evidence holder. Its French SIE, customs service and, where relevant, the Direction des impôts des non-résidents must receive a consistent explanation. The company should also check the accounting treatment of any tax adjustment in the parent’s consolidation, because a French VAT reassessment can affect the commercial price, intercompany margin and cash forecast.

Prevention is less expensive than correction. Before the first EU shipment, the company should approve the customer, obtain the VAT number, test the destination, select the transport evidence, configure the invoice code, identify the CA3 or CA12 treatment, assign the recapitulative statement owner and decide who reviews exceptions. A quarterly sample of completed files should test whether an independent person can reconstruct the transaction without asking the sales employee who created it. If the answer is no, the process is not audit-ready.

Conclusion

A French company selling goods to a VAT-registered customer in another EU Member State may usually invoice without French VAT only when the legal conditions and the evidence line up. The company must identify a real taxable customer, record and verify the customer’s VAT number, prove that the goods left France, issue an accurate invoice, report the operation in the correct VAT return and submit the customer recapitulative statement. The exemption is not secured by the customer’s foreign address or by a VAT number copied into an accounting system.

For a foreign founder, the safest approach is to build one transaction file that connects the contract, customer identity, VIES check, invoice, warehouse record, carrier evidence, payment, VAT return and statement. If a document is missing, correct the weakness promptly and preserve the explanation. If the operation is B2C, a UK export, a service, a chain transaction or a franchise-in-base transaction, stop and reclassify it before issuing the invoice. That discipline protects cash, preserves the company’s relationship with the French tax administration and gives the director a defensible record if the transaction is reviewed years later.

For the broader steps involved in establishing and operating a French company, see our French company formation and corporate compliance page and our guide to VAT registration in France for a foreign company.

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