You run your business from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, and France is your next market: you invoice French customers, store goods in a French warehouse, or you have just created a French subsidiary. Within weeks, the same questions come back every time: do I need a French VAT number? Which tax office handles my file when I live abroad? How often must I file, and what happens if I file late or if the administration refuses my refund? French VAT (TVA, taxe sur la valeur ajoutée) is a self-assessed tax. You charge it on your sales, you deduct the VAT you paid on your purchases, and you send the balance to the tax administration with a periodic return. The mechanism is logical, but the entry points are completely different depending on whether your business is established inside the European Union or outside it, and the penalties for a missing return or a missing recapitulative statement add up quickly. This guide follows the practical order of a real project. First, when French VAT applies to a foreign-owned business and how you obtain your French identification number. Second, how you file, pay, recover overpaid VAT and defend yourself when the administration reassesses you. Each key rule below is tied to the exact article of the French Tax Code (CGI, Code général des impôts) currently in force, so you or your adviser can check every statement against the official text on Légifrance and manage the whole process from abroad with a clear calendar.

I. When your foreign-owned business owes French VAT and how you get a French VAT number

Before any filing question, you must answer two prior questions: are your transactions caught by French VAT at all, and through which door do you enter the French system? A French company owned from abroad (typically a SAS, société par actions simplifiée, or a SARL, société à responsabilité limitée) is a French taxable person like any other once it is registered with the trade register. A foreign company with no French entity follows a separate registration track. Getting this starting point wrong is the most expensive mistake, because it leads either to charging no VAT when you should, or to registering for a regime you do not need.

A. Taxable sales in France, intra-EU arrivals, reverse charge and the small-business franchise

The basic rule is broad. Article 256 of the French Tax Code provides that “Sont soumises à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée les livraisons de biens et les prestations de services effectuées à titre onéreux par un assujetti agissant en tant que tel.” In plain terms, any supply of goods or services for consideration by a taxable person acting as such falls within VAT. If your French subsidiary sells products, bills consulting hours, rents equipped premises or licenses software to French customers, it is performing taxable transactions in France from day one, even if its shareholders and directors live abroad.

A second charging rule matters enormously to foreign groups: goods arriving from another EU Member State. Article 256 bis of the French Tax Code states that “Sont également soumises à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée les acquisitions intracommunautaires de biens meubles corporels effectuées à titre onéreux par un assujetti agissant en tant que tel ou par une personne morale non assujettie lorsque le vendeur est un assujetti agissant en tant que tel et qui ne bénéficie pas dans son Etat du régime particulier de franchise des petites entreprises.” Suppose your German company ships stock to your French warehouse, or your French SAS buys equipment from an Italian supplier. Those intra-community acquisitions (acquisitions intracommunautaires) are themselves taxable in France and must appear on the French VAT return, with VAT simultaneously declared and, in most cases, deducted. Many foreign founders discover this rule only when their accountant asks why French VAT appears on purchases from abroad.

The third mechanism to master is the reverse charge (autoliquidation), which shifts the burden of paying the VAT from the supplier to the customer. The starting point, article 283 of the French Tax Code, first recalls that “La taxe sur la valeur ajoutée doit être acquittée par les personnes qui réalisent les opérations imposables, sous réserve des cas visés aux articles 275 à 277 A où le versement de la taxe peut être suspendu.” It then provides the rule every non-established supplier must know. For supplies covered by article 259 A made by a supplier established outside France, “la taxe est acquittée par l’acquéreur, le destinataire ou le preneur qui agit en tant qu’assujetti et qui dispose d’un numéro d’identification à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée en France.” The amount due is then shown on the return described in article 287. In practice, if your US or UK company bills services to a VAT-registered French client, you generally invoice without French VAT and your French client self-assesses it. A parallel rule covers services: For services of the kind described in article 259(1°) supplied by a business not established in France, “la taxe doit être acquittée par le preneur.” This is why your contract wording matters: identifying your French customer and checking its French VAT number before invoicing determines whether you charge VAT or apply reverse charge.

Finally, small turnovers may escape payment altogether under the small-business franchise (franchise en base de TVA), which exempts you from charging VAT but also blocks any deduction. Article 293 B of the French Tax Code provides that “Pour leurs livraisons de biens et leurs prestations de services, les assujettis établis en France bénéficient d’une franchise qui les dispense du paiement de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée lorsqu’ils n’ont pas réalisé en France un chiffre d’affaires, évalué dans les conditions prévues à l’article 293 D, excédant les plafonds suivants”, with the table “Année civile précédente 85 000 37 500 Année en cours 93 500 41 250”, meaning 85,000 euros for sales of goods and 37,500 euros for most services as the previous-year ceilings. Two warnings for foreign readers. First, the franchise is reserved to businesses established in France (“assujettis établis en France”): your French SAS can use it, but your foreign head office billing directly into France generally cannot. Second, exceeding the threshold mid-year pushes you into VAT from the first day of the month of the overrun, so a fast-growing subsidiary must monitor turnover monthly rather than discovering the breach at year-end. The official business portal describes each regime and its thresholds in its guide to declaring and paying VAT, which is the natural companion to the code articles cited here.

B. Getting identified from abroad: single portal, competent tax office and the non-EU fiscal representative

Once you know you are liable, you need a French VAT identification number (numéro individuel d’identification à la TVA, an FR-prefixed number used on every invoice and return). The obligation to come forward is fast. Article 286 of the French Tax Code commands: “Toute personne assujettie à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée doit :”, and first among those duties, “Dans les quinze jours du commencement de ses opérations, souscrire au bureau désigné par un arrêté une déclaration conforme au modèle fourni par l’administration.” The fifteen-day clock runs from the start of your taxable activity in France, not from the moment you feel ready, which is why registration should be prepared in parallel with company formation rather than after the first invoice.

The number itself is governed by article 286 ter of the French Tax Code: “Est identifié par un numéro individuel :” notably “Tout assujetti qui effectue des livraisons de biens ou des prestations de services lui ouvrant droit à déduction”. In practice the number is issued after your business exists for tax purposes: a newly formed French SAS or SARL is entered in the trade and companies register (registre du commerce et des sociétés) through the single online portal (Guichet unique, operated by the INPI, Institut national de la propriété industrielle), receives its Kbis certificate (the official identity card of the company, issued by the greffe, the commercial court registry) and is assigned to its local business tax office (SIE, service des impôts des entreprises). If you have not yet created that vehicle, our formation guide for foreign founders on bank account, Kbis, VAT and first hire walks through the incorporation sequence that must come first.

Companies with no French establishment follow a different track, and here nationality of establishment changes everything. If your business is established in another EU Member State, or in one of the listed third countries that cooperate with France on VAT recovery, you do not appoint a fiscal representative; you register directly and may simply use an agent (mandataire) to deal with the administration. The tax administration’s VAT registration page for foreign businesses explains which office is competent according to your place of establishment and the nature of your transactions. If instead your business is established outside the EU in a country without such mutual assistance, representation becomes compulsory. Article 289 A of the French Tax Code provides: “Lorsqu’une personne non établie dans l’Union européenne est redevable de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée ou doit accomplir des obligations déclaratives, elle est tenue de faire accréditer auprès du service des impôts un représentant assujetti établi en France qui s’engage à remplir les formalités incombant à cette personne et, en cas d’opérations imposables, à acquitter la taxe à sa place.” That representative (représentant fiscal) must itself be established in France and liable for VAT there, it files and pays in your name, and your competent tax office will be the office where the representative already files its own returns. The detailed duties of that representative are spelled out in the administration’s official doctrine on fiscal representation of non-EU businesses. One practical tip from the registration page is worth following immediately: provide French bank details (relevé d’identité bancaire) or, if your account is abroad, an original foreign bank certificate from the moment you register, because that document will condition how fast any future VAT credit is refunded to you. Businesses that only carry out intra-community acquisitions in France without transactions requiring full VAT returns may be registered for identification only, but as soon as you invoice French VAT to private individuals or non-registered customers from France, full periodic returns on form CA3 become mandatory.

II. How you file, pay and recover French VAT, and how you fight a reassessment from abroad

Registration is only the entrance ticket. French VAT then runs as a monthly or quarterly discipline of returns, invoices and cross-border statements, with a symmetrical right: when you paid more VAT than you collected, the administration owes you the difference. Foreign-owned businesses most often fail on three points: returns filed late because the accountant abroad never received the documents, invoices missing mandatory particulars, and recapitulative statements forgotten on intra-EU sales. Each of these has its own penalty scale, and each can still be fixed or contested if you act within the deadlines.

A. Returns, invoices, EU statements, deduction and refunds: the monthly discipline that protects your cash

The return is the heart of the system. Article 287 of the French Tax Code states: “Tout redevable de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée identifié conformément aux dispositions combinées des articles 286 ter et 286 ter A est tenu de remettre au service des impôts dont il dépend et dans le délai fixé par arrêté une déclaration conforme au modèle prescrit par l’administration.” The standard regime is monthly: “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.” Smaller payers get breathing room: “Lorsque la taxe exigible annuellement est inférieure à 4 000 €, ils sont admis à déposer leurs déclarations par trimestre civil.” Below those levels sits the simplified regime (régime réel simplifié), where the business pays two instalments during the year and files one annual return reconciling the balance; the official service-public guide to declaring and paying VAT details the turnover bands that assign you to each regime and the instalment mechanics. Returns are filed and paid online through the professional tax account, and the VAT due is paid at the same time as the return. From abroad, the operational lesson is simple: give your French accountant or representative a fixed monthly cutoff for sending sales and purchase data, because a return cannot be filed on time if invoices arrive six weeks late.

Invoices are your evidence for both the VAT you charge and the VAT you deduct, so their content is regulated. Article 289 of the French Tax Code provides: “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”. Every invoice between taxable persons must show the parties’ VAT numbers, the nature and quantity of the goods or services, the price, the applicable rate and the VAT amount, and since the generalization of electronic invoicing, issuance and transmission follow structured electronic formats whose mandatory mentions the administration checks automatically. For a foreign group this has a concrete consequence: intercompany invoices between the foreign parent and the French subsidiary must be as rigorous as invoices to third parties, because the subsidiary’s deduction depends on them, and transfer-pricing documentation does not replace VAT-compliant invoicing.

Cross-border sales inside the EU add a second declaration layer that foreign businesses constantly overlook. Article 289 B of the French Tax Code requires: “Tout assujetti identifié à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée doit déposer, dans un délai et selon des modalités fixés par décret, un état récapitulatif des clients, avec leur numéro d’identification à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée”. If your French company ships goods VAT-exempt to a German customer or bills intra-EU services under reverse charge, those customers and their VAT numbers must be listed on the recapitulative statement (état récapitulatif, the former DEB/DES system now filed as the EMEBI survey and European statements). Missing this statement while correctly filing the CA3 return is the classic trap: the VAT itself is right, but the information obligation is breached, and the fine follows automatically. E-commerce sellers making distance sales to consumers in other Member States can simplify the geography through the EU One-Stop Shop (OSS, guichet unique TVA européen), declaring the VAT of all destination countries in a single return filed in their state of identification, with a parallel Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) for low-value imports; if your model includes online sales across borders, ask your adviser whether OSS reporting replaces some French registrations before multiplying local VAT numbers.

The reward for this discipline is the right to deduct and to be refunded. Article 271 of the French Tax Code states the principle: “La taxe sur la valeur ajoutée qui a grevé les éléments du prix d’une opération imposable est déductible de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée applicable à cette opération.” Timing follows exigibility: “Le droit à déduction prend naissance lorsque la taxe déductible devient exigible chez le redevable.” Each month, the VAT you paid on rent, equipment, stock, professional fees and intra-community acquisitions is set against the VAT you collected; if the balance is positive you pay it, if it is negative you hold a VAT credit (crédit de TVA). That credit is first carried forward onto the next returns, and when it cannot be absorbed, you claim the refund on the return itself. Exporters, newly formed subsidiaries investing heavily before their first sales, and holding structures with little output VAT live on these refunds, so the bank-details advice given at registration matters: the administration pays refunds to the account on file, and as the registration page warns, supplying a French RIB or an original foreign bank certificate from the start facilitates the processing of your future credit refunds. Keep every purchase invoice and, if your business does not keep full accounts allowing turnover to be determined, remember that article 286 of the French Tax Code still expects a day-by-day numbered ledger distinguishing taxable from non-taxable transactions, because a refund claim without supporting documents is a reassessment waiting to happen.

B. Late filings, penalties, audits and contesting a reassessment without living in France

When a deadline slips, the sanction is mechanical. Article 1788 A of the French Tax Code opens with the headline: “Entraîne l’application d’une amende de 750 €”. The first target is information reporting: “Le défaut de production dans les délais des états prévus à l’article 289 B.” In other words, each missing or late recapitulative statement on intra-EU customers costs 750 euros, raised to 1,500 euros if you still have not filed thirty days after a formal notice (mise en demeure), with an additional 15 euros per omission or inaccuracy capped at 1,500 euros. Late VAT returns and late payments attract their own surcharges and late interest on top of the tax itself, and persistent failure to file lets the administration assess you automatically (taxation d’office) on an estimated base that is always harder to overturn than a return you filed yourself. The BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales, the official gazette where company events are published) will not show your VAT debt, but the Treasury’s recovery machinery, from formal notice to seizure, does not require your presence in France to operate against French bank balances, receivables or stock.

Audit pressure on foreign-owned structures typically takes two forms. A desk audit (contrôle sur pièces) asks for documents by correspondence and questions specific lines of your returns, often the deduction of foreign invoices or the application of reverse charge. A full on-site audit (vérification de comptabilité) examines the accounts at the French establishment and ends, if adjustments are envisaged, with a formal reassessment proposal (proposition de rectification) that you can answer within thirty days. Because you live abroad, two reflexes decide the outcome. First, keep a reachable French contact point, your accountant, your fiscal representative or your lawyer, designated to receive and date-stamp every letter, since most appeal deadlines run from notification and the administration validly notifies the French address on file. Second, never let an information request go unanswered while preparing the perfect reply: ask for a short extension in writing, send what you have, and complete the file afterwards, because silence converts a routine check into an estimated assessment.

If the administration maintains the reassessment, contesting follows a strict two-stage path that works perfectly well from abroad. You start with an administrative claim (réclamation contentieuse) sent to the competent tax office, setting out the facts, the legal grounds with the exact code articles, and attaching the invoices, contracts and proof of payment that support your position. The deadline is longer than most foreign founders expect but absolutely rigid. Article R*196-1 of the Tax Procedures Book provides: “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”, running from the collection or notification event the article then details. Miss that New Year’s Eve date and the claim is inadmissible, however strong the merits. If the administration rejects the claim expressly or stays silent for six months, you move to the second stage: an appeal before the administrative court (tribunal administratif) of the tax office’s district, filed by a lawyer admitted in France, with the whole file translatable into a written procedure where your physical presence is not required. Throughout, separate the roles clearly: your accountant rebuilds the figures and the audit trail, your lawyer frames the legal argument around the articles cited in this guide and the evidence, and neither URSSAF (the social-security collection body, which handles payroll charges, not VAT) nor the commercial court registry has any part in the dispute. Interest and collection are suspended only if you file a formal suspension request alongside the claim and, where required, provide guarantees, so ask for that protection expressly instead of assuming the claim alone stops enforcement.

Conclusion

French VAT rewards foreign businesses that treat it as a calendar, not as an annual chore. Determine first whether your transactions are taxable in France under the supply, intra-community acquisition and reverse-charge rules, and whether your French subsidiary can claim the small-business franchise. Then enter through the right door: Guichet unique and Kbis for a French company, direct registration for an EU-established business, accredited fiscal representative for a non-EU business, with bank details supplied from day one. Then hold the monthly rhythm: returns on time, compliant invoices, recapitulative statements for every intra-EU customer, deduction claimed only on genuine supporting documents, and VAT credits recovered through the return. If a penalty or reassessment arrives, check the exact article, answer information requests before the thirty-day windows close, file the administrative claim before the 31 December deadline of the second year, and take the dispute to the administrative court with a complete file rather than letting an estimated assessment stand. Run that sequence and France becomes what it should be for a foreign founder: a large market with predictable tax mechanics, managed from anywhere in the world.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Do you need to register for French VAT, recover a VAT credit, or answer a reassessment from abroad? Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm. Call 06 46 60 58 22 (Maître Reda Kohen) or write through our contact page with your invoices, returns and any letter from the tax office, and you will receive a clear action plan for your French VAT position.