Your French subsidiary has paid more value added tax than it collected, and several thousand euros of your cash now sit with the French Treasury. For a foreign founder, this is usually a surprise: in France, a value added tax credit is not lost, but it is never refunded on its own. You must claim it, in the right form, above a legal minimum, and on time. When the claim is clean, the local corporate tax office pays by bank transfer. When it is not, the office asks for documents, refuses, or stays silent, and each week of delay costs you cash flow. This guide explains the full path in English: how a foreign-owned French company claims its crédit de TVA, the monthly 760 euro route and the January annual route, the invoice file that gets paid without a fight, the corrected-invoice trap decided by the Conseil d’État in 2025, what to do when the tax office refuses or offsets your claim, the late-payment interest you can demand, and the penalties for claiming what you are not owed.

I. How do I claim a French VAT credit refund as a foreign owner

A. When France owes your company money: the 760 euro monthly claim and the January annual claim

A French VAT credit appears through a simple subtraction. Each month or quarter, your company files its VAT return, the CA3, which sets the VAT it collected on sales against the VAT it paid on purchases and expenses, called deductible VAT. Article 271 of the French Tax Code states the principle: “La taxe déductible dont l’imputation n’a pu être opérée peut faire l’objet d’un remboursement dans les conditions, selon les modalités et dans les limites fixées par décret en Conseil d’Etat.” In plain English, deductible VAT you could not set against collected VAT can be refunded, under conditions set by regulation. Exporters, companies buying equipment before selling anything, and businesses with heavy upfront costs are the typical holders of such credits.

The first choice is to carry the credit forward against future VAT due, which costs nothing and requires no form. The second choice is to ask for cash, and that request is mandatory in form: Annex II to the Tax Code provides that “Le remboursement de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée déductible dont l’imputation n’a pu être opérée doit faire l’objet d’une demande des assujettis. Le remboursement porte sur le crédit de taxe déductible constaté au terme de chaque année civile”. No request, no refund. A foreign shareholder who assumes the Treasury pays back automatically will wait forever.

For companies under the standard VAT system, the régime réel normal, which file the return described in Article 287 of the Tax Code — “Les redevables soumis au régime réel normal d’imposition déposent mensuellement la déclaration visée au 1 indiquant, d’une part, le montant total des opérations réalisées, d’autre part, le détail des opérations taxables.” — the fast track is monthly or quarterly. The regulation provides that “peuvent demander un remboursement lorsque la déclaration mentionnée au 2 de l’article 287 du code général des impôts fait apparaître un crédit de taxe déductible. La demande de remboursement doit porter sur un montant au moins égal à 760 €.” In practice, as soon as your monthly or quarterly CA3 shows a credit of 760 euros or more, you can claim it back immediately instead of waiting for year end. If your company files only once a year, the same article requires patience: “Les demandes de remboursement doivent être déposées au cours du mois de janvier et porter sur un montant au moins égal à 150 €.”

Companies under the simplified system, the régime simplifié d’imposition, claim once a year with the annual return once the 150 euro floor is reached. There is one useful exception for them: when the credit comes from buying fixed assets, equipment or premises, they can claim at the time of a half-yearly instalment, provided the claim reaches 760 euros and is backed by invoices. A foreign founder who has just capitalised a French subsidiary and bought machinery should know this exception, because it brings cash back months earlier.

New businesses get a specific favour confirmed by the Ministry of the Economy: a company starting its activity with no sales yet can claim the full deductible VAT on its launch expenses. For a foreign group setting up a French subsidiary that rents premises, hires, and buys equipment before invoicing its first client — the classic path described in our guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder — this early claim often represents the first five-figure cash recovery of the French project. If your VAT registration itself is stuck, read first our guide on French VAT registration refused or delayed, because without a VAT number there is no CA3 and no refund.

Filing is fully electronic. If your accountant works in EDI mode, the échange de données informatisé, the accountant transmits the claim files. If you file in EFI mode, the échange de formulaires informatisé, you claim from the professional account on impots.gouv.fr under “Mes services”, “Déclarer”, “TVA”, then “Effectuez une demande de remboursement de crédit de TVA”, indicating the reference period. Use form number 3519-SD for a refund during the year under the standard system, and form 3517-S for the annual claim under the simplified system. The local corporate tax office, the SIE (service des impôts des entreprises), examines the request, may ask for supporting documents, and pays by bank transfer when the decision is favourable. Make sure the bank account details, the RIB, registered with the SIE are current: refunds paid to a closed foreign account are a classic source of months of delay for companies whose founders manage cash from London, New York, or Dubai.

B. The file that gets paid: invoices, CA3 returns and the corrected-invoice trap

The SIE pays clean files and questions the rest. Deduction in France starts with the invoice. Article 289 of the Tax Code requires that “Tout assujetti est tenu de s’assurer qu’une facture est émise, par lui-même, ou en son nom et pour son compte, par son client ou par un tiers”, and Article 271 only allows deduction of VAT shown on invoices drawn up in compliance with that article. For a foreign-owned company, this means every euro of the claimed credit must rest on a compliant supplier invoice held in your records: supplier name and VAT number, date, description, price, and VAT amount. Before claiming, reconcile the claim with the CA3 returns already filed. A mismatch between the credit shown on the CA3 and the amount requested on form 3519 is the most common trigger for a document request, and a missed or late CA3 poisons the whole file — see our guide on missed French VAT returns and how to fix the penalties. If your VAT number itself shows as invalid in the European VIES register, fix that first with our guide on an invalid VIES number and reverse-charge errors, because intra-Community purchases without a valid number draw systematic attention.

Then comes the trap that cost one French group years of litigation: VAT wrongly shown on an invoice. Article 283 of the Tax Code provides that “Toute personne qui mentionne la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée sur une facture est redevable de la taxe du seul fait de sa facturation.” If your company invoiced VAT by mistake, it owes that VAT to the Treasury simply because it appears on the invoice, even if the underlying transaction was not taxable. The only way out is a correcting invoice, a facture rectificative, that removes the wrongly charged tax, booked on the return for the month of the correction.

The Conseil d’État drew the full consequences in a decision of 15 January 2025, RAGT Semences, number 473736 (official text on Légifrance). A French seed company had sold study work on plant genetic heritage in 2011 for nearly 15 million euros and paid the corresponding VAT to the Treasury. After an audit of the buyer, the tax administration took the view that the sale was not subject to VAT. The seller issued a first correcting invoice, booked the wrongly invoiced tax on its November 2016 turnover return, and claimed a VAT credit refund on 21 December 2016. The administration rejected that claim. The company then issued a second correcting invoice replacing the first, booked the amount on its March 2018 return, and filed a new refund claim on 20 April 2018, which was granted on 7 May 2018. It then claimed late-payment interest from the date of the original 2011 payment. The administrative court of Toulouse rejected the interest claim on 15 June 2020 in judgment number 1806045, the administrative court of appeal of Toulouse confirmed on 16 March 2023 in decision number 20TL22671, and the Conseil d’État rejected the appeal. The court approved the appeal judges’ reasoning that the May 2018 refund covered not the VAT collected and paid after the wrong initial invoice, but the credit born of its correction, so interest could only run from the claim that revealed the refundable credit, not from the 2011 payment. Three lessons for a foreign owner follow. First, never claim a refund of VAT you invoiced by error without issuing the correcting invoice first; until corrected, that tax is legally due. Second, each new claim opens a distinct tax case: the court held that the April 2018 request concerned a different credit and therefore “ouvrait, par suite, une instance fiscale distincte de celle qui avait été ouverte précédemment, de sorte que l’administration devait être regardée comme ayant statué sur une nouvelle demande et non comme étant revenue sur sa décision, non contestée, de rejet de la première demande”. A rejected claim you do not challenge becomes final; a second claim is a new case, not a reopening of the first. Third, interest runs from the claim, never from the original payment — the point developed below.

Practical checklist before you click “send” on form 3519: the credit equals the CA3 line for the period; every invoice above materiality is held, compliant, and in the company’s name; intra-Community acquisitions appear on the return with supplier VAT numbers validated in VIES; any wrongly charged VAT has been neutralised by a correcting invoice booked this period; the RIB at the SIE is active; and the claim reaches 760 euros, or 150 euros for a January annual claim. A file meeting these six points is usually paid without questions.

II. What if the French tax office refuses or delays my VAT refund

A. The tax office says no or stays silent: objection deadlines and the compensation defence

Refusals come in three shapes. The SIE may expressly reject the claim, it may ask for documents and then reject, or it may say nothing, which after the legal waiting period counts as an implicit rejection you can challenge. In all three cases, the first step from abroad is to identify the exact ground: below-threshold amount, missing invoices, CA3 mismatch, credit arising from exempt transactions without deduction rights, or suspicion of fraud. Ask the SIE for the written reasons and the legal basis. A refusal that cites no text is fragile; a refusal that cites a precise article tells you what evidence to produce.

Watch the clock. A rejected refund must be contested through the standard tax claim, the réclamation contentieuse, within the general time limit of the tax procedure: “Pour être recevables, les réclamations relatives aux impôts autres que les impôts directs locaux et les taxes annexes à ces impôts, doivent être présentées à l’administration au plus tard le 31 décembre de la deuxième année suivant celle” of the event giving rise to the claim, including, for taxes with no assessment notice, the payment of the contested tax. A foreign parent that discovers a refused 2024 refund during the 2027 group audit may already be out of time. Diary the deadline on the day of the refusal, not on the day someone in the group finds time to look at France.

The administration sometimes answers a refund claim with an offset: it admits part of your credit but deducts VAT shortfalls it says it found for the same period, relying on the compensation mechanism of Article L. 203 of the Book of Tax Procedures, which provides that “Lorsqu’un contribuable demande la décharge ou la réduction d’une imposition quelconque, l’administration peut, à tout moment de la procédure et malgré l’expiration des délais de prescription, effectuer ou demander la compensation dans la limite de l’imposition contestée, entre les dégrèvements reconnus justifiés et les insuffisances ou omissions de toute nature constatées dans l’assiette ou le calcul de l’imposition au cours de l’instruction de la demande.” The Conseil d’État closed this door for refund claims in a decision of 16 December 2022, La ferme enfantine, number 451343 (official text on Légifrance). A children’s farm company had claimed a 40,000 euro VAT credit for March 2012 on 20 April 2012; the claim was implicitly rejected, the administrative court of Toulon dismissed the case on 16 September 2019 in judgment number 1700650, and the administrative court of appeal of Marseille dismissed the appeal on 2 February 2021 in decision number 19MA04957. Before the appeal court, the minister had asked for compensation between the claimed refund and VAT shortfalls allegedly found for the same period. The Conseil d’État annulled the appeal decision, holding that “la compensation qu’elles prévoient ne peut être mise en œuvre ou demandée par l’administration qu’à l’occasion d’une demande de décharge ou de réduction d’imposition présentée par le contribuable”, so that, faced with a VAT credit refund claim, the court could not grant compensation for an alleged insufficiency in VAT paid for the disputed period. In short, compensation under Article L. 203 belongs to challenges against an assessment, not to refund claims. If the SIE answers your 3519 with an offset, this decision is the text to cite in the objection: the administration must assess the claimed credit on its own merits and pursue any shortfall through a proper reassessment, which you can then contest separately.

When the written objection fails, the case goes to the administrative court, the tribunal administratif, of the place of the SIE, with appeal to the cour administrative d’appel and, on points of law, to the Conseil d’État. Foreign companies litigate from abroad through a French lawyer with a signed mandate; hearings rarely require the founder’s presence. Keep every filing receipt, every SIE letter, and proof of each invoice: French tax judges decide on documents, and the file you build at the claim stage is the file you plead with two years later.

B. Late payment earns interest, false claims earn penalties: what a foreign owner risks on both sides

Money that arrives late is not just an annoyance; French law prices it. Article L. 208 of the Book of Tax Procedures provides that “Quand l’Etat est condamné à un dégrèvement d’impôt par un tribunal ou quand un dégrèvement est prononcé par l’administration à la suite d’une réclamation tendant à la réparation d’une erreur commise dans l’assiette ou le calcul des impositions, les sommes déjà perçues sont remboursées au contribuable et donnent lieu au paiement d’intérêts moratoires dont le taux est celui de l’intérêt de retard prévu à l’article 1727 du code général des impôts.” The same article adds that “Les intérêts courent du jour du paiement. Ils ne sont pas capitalisés.”

The RAGT Semences decision quoted above gives this text its precise meaning for VAT credits. The Conseil d’État held that “les remboursements de taxe sur la valeur ajoutée obtenus par un redevable après le rejet par l’administration d’une réclamation, qui ont le caractère de dégrèvement contentieux de la même nature que celui prononcé par un tribunal, doivent donner lieu au paiement d’intérêts moratoires”, and fixed the starting point: “Ceux-ci courent, s’agissant de la procédure de remboursement de crédits de taxe sur la valeur ajoutée résultant d’un excédent de taxe déductible sur la taxe collectée, pour laquelle il n’y a pas de paiement antérieur de la part du redevable, à compter de la date de la réclamation qui fait apparaître le crédit remboursable.” Two consequences matter for cash planning. First, a VAT credit refund obtained after the administration rejected your claim carries late-payment interest at the statutory late-payment rate, because it counts as disputed relief of the same nature as relief ordered by a court. Second, interest runs from the date of the claim that revealed the refundable credit, since there is no earlier payment by the taxpayer in a credit-refund procedure. A founder who waits a year before claiming therefore loses a year of interest as well as a year of cash: file early, claim interest in the objection letter, and compute it up to the payment date.

The mirror risk is claiming too much. French tax law punishes the undue collection of a tax claim severely. Article 1729 of the Tax Code provides that “la restitution d’une créance de nature fiscale dont le versement a été indûment obtenu de l’Etat” triggers a surcharge of 40 percent for a deliberate failure and 80 percent for fraudulent manoeuvres, on top of repaying the principal with late interest. A VAT refund obtained on false invoices, on purchases unrelated to taxable activity, or on credits that were already carried forward and used, falls squarely in this provision. The SIE cross-checks large claims against supplier filings, customs data for imports, and the European invoice trail; a foreign-owned company whose French bookkeeping is kept abroad in another language with approximate translations is a natural audit target. Keep the French-compliant invoices, the CA3 history, the bank proofs of payment to suppliers, and the reconciliation between the claim and the accounts for the full retention period. If an error is found internally after payment, repaying spontaneously with a corrected return almost always costs less than waiting for the audit.

One boundary must be clear, because it determines which procedure you use. Everything above concerns a company established in France — your French SAS or SARL with its siège social and SIREN number, filing CA3 returns to its SIE. A foreign company with no French establishment that paid French VAT on expenses recovers it through a different European procedure, the 8th and 13th Directives route with its 30 September deadline, which our French-language guide on VAT refunds for foreign companies not established in France explains. Using the wrong route — a 3519 for a non-established company, or a Directive claim for a French subsidiary — guarantees a refusal. Foreign groups with both a French subsidiary and direct cross-border sales into France often need both procedures in parallel, each with its own forms and deadlines.

Conclusion

A French VAT credit is real cash, but France only returns it to companies that ask properly. File the CA3 each period, claim from 760 euros a month or quarter under the standard system or each January from 150 euros for annual claims, hold compliant invoices for every euro, neutralise wrongly charged VAT with a correcting invoice before claiming, and keep the bank details at the SIE current. When the office refuses or stays silent, object in writing before 31 December of the second following year, refuse any informal offset raised under Article L. 203, and demand late-payment interest from the date of your claim. When the office pays, verify that a later audit cannot reclassify the credit, and never claim twice for the same period without treating the second filing as a new case. For a foreign owner managing France from another time zone, the discipline is simple: a clean monthly file gets paid, a neglected file becomes a dispute, and a disputed file needs a lawyer early, while the evidence is fresh and the deadlines still open.

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Get a phone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer from the firm. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write through the contact page. We assist foreign companies in Paris and across Île-de-France, in English, from the monthly VAT claim and the SIE document request to the objection, the interest computation, and the hearing before the administrative court.