You run your company from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore. Orders from French customers are growing, pallets are crossing the border, or a French client has just asked for an invoice with French VAT. Then comes the question that stops everything: what is your French VAT number? If you cannot answer, the consequences arrive fast. Your French business customer refuses to pay until you issue a compliant invoice, your goods sit at customs while import VAT is sorted out, and every month without registration adds potential late-filing penalties. French value added tax, known locally as TVA (taxe sur la valeur ajoutée), is not an optional extra you can settle later. It is collected on almost every sale of goods and services on French territory, and the French tax administration, the DGFIP (Direction générale des Finances publiques), expects a foreign seller to play by the same rules as a Paris company. This guide explains, in plain business English, when your foreign company becomes liable for French VAT, who actually pays the bill between you, your customer and your fiscal representative, how to register and report from abroad without opening a French office, and how to recover VAT credits and challenge unfair assessments. It is written for founders and finance teams who live outside France and sell into it.

I. Does your foreign company actually owe VAT in France, and who has to pay it?

A. When your sales become taxable on French territory

The starting point is deliberately broad. Article 256 of the CGI (Code général des impôts, 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 other words, every supply of goods and every provision of services for consideration by a taxable person acting as such falls within VAT. If you sell goods that end up in the hands of a customer in France, or you perform services consumed in France, you must assume French VAT is in the picture until a specific rule takes you out of it. Three situations cover almost every foreign founder: shipping goods to France, selling to French businesses, and selling to French consumers.

When you ship goods from abroad to a customer in France, the place of the supply is France and French VAT applies. That is true whether the goods travel from another European Union Member State or from outside the Union. For goods imported from outside the EU, the tax is caught at the border. Article 1695 of the CGI states that “La taxe sur la valeur ajoutée est déclarée et perçue lorsqu’elle devient exigible, pour les opérations suivantes : 1° Les importations pour lesquelles le redevable est une personne non assujettie et non identifiée conformément aux dispositions combinées des articles 286 ter et 286 ter A”. A dramatic court case shows what happens when import VAT goes wrong. On 17 June 2024, the Paris Court of Appeal (Pôle 5, Chambre 10, case number 22/01383) ruled in a dispute between the express carrier FedEx and the French customs investigation service, the DNRED (Direction nationale du renseignement et des enquêtes douanières). Goods sold by a non-EU company through the Amazon marketplace had been flown into France declared as low-value consignments worth less than 22 euros, which at the time allowed an import VAT exemption, while their real value was far higher. Customs assessed 1,800,797 euros of evaded import VAT plus 133,180 euros of late interest against the carrier. Recalling article 293 A of the CGI, the court noted that “Le fait générateur se produit et la taxe devient exigible au moment où le bien est considéré comme importé au sens du 2 du I de l’article 291”. The court confirmed the first-instance judgment in full, ordered FedEx Express FR to pay the court costs of the appeal, and added 3,200 euros under article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The lesson for a foreign seller is blunt: under-declared values at the French border eventually surface, and the bill includes both the tax and the interest.

Services follow a different compass rule. Article 259 of the CGI provides that “Le lieu des prestations de services est situé en France : 1° Lorsque le preneur est un assujetti agissant en tant que tel et qu’il a en France : a) Le siège de son activité économique, sauf lorsqu’il dispose d’un établissement stable non situé en France auquel les services sont fournis”. In practice, when you invoice a French company that is itself subject to VAT, the service is treated as supplied in France. That does not automatically mean you must register, because as Part I.B explains, your French business customer usually accounts for the tax itself. But it does mean the transaction sits inside the French VAT system, with French invoicing and reporting consequences.

Sales to French private consumers are where foreign e-commerce businesses most often discover French VAT by accident. Since 1 July 2021, distance sales of goods within the EU and certain digital and other services supplied to non-taxable persons are taxed in the Member State where the customer lives, once the seller passes a single Union-wide threshold. Article 258 A of the CGI organises this shift of the place of supply away from France or toward France depending on the direction of the goods, and article 259 D sets the trigger: the threshold of “10 000 € hors taxe sur la valeur ajoutée”, assessed on all such supplies to customers in Member States other than the one where the seller is established, during the current and the previous calendar year. Below 10,000 euros, a small EU seller keeps charging its home-country VAT. The day the threshold is crossed, French VAT applies to every further sale to a French consumer, and the seller must either register in France or use the EU One-Stop Shop described in Part II.A. Note the timing rule in article 269 of the CGI: “Le fait générateur de la taxe se produit : a) Au moment où la livraison, l’acquisition intracommunautaire du bien ou la prestation de services est effectué”. Each delivery or completed service fixes the VAT treatment at that date, so crossing the threshold mid-year changes the rate on the very next order, not at the next year end.

B. Who pays the bill: your customer, your company, or your fiscal representative

Owing VAT in France and paying it yourself are two different things. In business-to-business sales, French law usually moves the payment obligation onto your French customer through a mechanism called reverse charge, known in French as autoliquidation. Article 283 of the CGI first states the default rule: “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 creates the exception that matters most to foreign suppliers: “lorsqu’une livraison de biens ou une prestation de services mentionnée à l’ article 259 A est effectuée par un assujetti établi hors de 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”. Concretely, if your American or British company invoices consulting, software development, design or intra-group services to a French company that holds a French VAT number, you issue the invoice without French VAT and your customer declares both the output tax and the deduction on its own French return. The tax is neutral for a fully taxable customer, and you avoid registering. Three conditions must all hold: you are established outside France, the service falls within the listed categories, and your customer is a taxable person identified for VAT in France. Miss one of them, and the obligation falls back on you.

When no reverse charge applies, a company established outside the European Union cannot simply file from abroad. It must appoint a fiscal representative, called in French a représentant fiscal. Article 289 A of the CGI 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. A défaut, la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée et, le cas échéant, les pénalités qui s’y rapportent, sont dues par le destinataire de l’opération imposable.” This representative is a French VAT-registered person, often a specialised tax firm, accredited with the tax office. It files your returns, pays the tax on your behalf, and is jointly on the hook if things go wrong, which is why it will ask for guarantees and full documentation before accepting the mandate. The same article carves out two exemptions worth knowing. The obligation does not apply to persons established in a non-EU State with which France has a mutual assistance instrument for tax recovery similar to the EU directives, with the list of qualifying States set by order of the minister in charge of the budget, nor to non-EU persons carrying out only transactions placed under the suspensive warehousing regime of article 277 A. Since the United Kingdom left the EU, British companies are the most frequent surprise victims of this rule: they were once EU suppliers filing at home, and they are now non-EU persons who must either appoint a representative or restructure their flows.

The official tax doctrine published by the administration, the BOFIP (Bulletin officiel des finances publiques, the binding published commentary of the DGFIP), confirms the mechanism in its section on the fiscal representation of persons established outside the EU, restating the statutory duty to appoint an accredited French representative who completes the formalities and pays the tax in place of the foreign business. For certain businesses the doctrine describes a lighter route: an international agent (mandataire à l’international) operating under article 289 A bis of the CGI, which handles registration and payment formalities for non-established businesses without imposing the full representative regime. Whether the classic representative or the international agent fits your case depends on your country of establishment, the nature of your sales, and whether you make taxable supplies in France or only need to meet reporting obligations.

The FedEx case decided by the Paris Court of Appeal on 17 June 2024 carries a second warning about who pays. FedEx argued it was only the carrier, that the real recipient of the goods was Amazon, and that only the documents should designate the person liable. The court disagreed and confirmed that the carrier acting as indirect customs representative was jointly liable for the import VAT, rejecting even the request to send a preliminary question to the Court of Justice of the European Union. For a foreign founder, the practical message is that French VAT liability sticks to whoever the paperwork designates: the importer of record, the consignee on the declaration, or the accredited representative. If your logistics partner or marketplace lists your company as the importer, make sure a representative or a proper reverse-charge chain stands behind that designation before the goods land, not after the recovery notice, called an AMR (avis de mise en recouvrement), arrives.

II. How do you register, report and fix French VAT from abroad?

A. Getting identified: VAT number, fiscal representative and the OSS shortcut

There are three doors into the French VAT system, and choosing the wrong one is the most common expensive mistake foreign founders make. The first door is creating a French company, typically an SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company most foreign investors choose) or a branch. Registration runs through the Guichet unique, the single online portal that replaced the old business formalities centres, and ends with the issuance of the Kbis, the official identity card of the company delivered by the greffe, the clerk’s office of the commercial court. Once the company exists, the SIE (Service des impôts des entreprises, the local corporate tax office) handles VAT automatically. The official service-public.fr page on the intra-Community VAT number explains that the SIE sends the intra-Community VAT number to the company automatically when it is registered, and that the number must then appear on all of the company’s commercial and administrative documents, including invoices and VAT returns. If you already operate a French subsidiary, check that this number exists and appears on every invoice before chasing more exotic problems. Our formation hub for foreign founders walks through the full creation sequence, from bank account to Kbis to first VAT return, at Setting Up a Company in France as a Foreign Founder.

The second door is direct identification in France without creating any French entity. This is the route for a German, Spanish or Polish company selling goods stored in a French warehouse, and for a non-EU company that has appointed its fiscal representative. The representative applies to the tax office responsible for non-established businesses, obtains a French VAT number for your company, and becomes your single point of contact with the administration. Do not reverse the order: the accreditation of the representative comes first, because without it your application is incomplete and the penalties of article 289 A fall on your French customer or consignee instead. Article 286 of the CGI sets the pace for everyone: “Toute personne assujettie à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée doit : 1° 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.” Fifteen days from the start of your French operations is short. A company that tests the French market with a first shipment in January and waits until June to register is already late, and the late-filing penalties described in Part II.B run from the missed return, not from the day you finally apply.

The third door avoids French registration altogether for a defined set of sales: the EU One-Stop Shop, known as the guichet unique de TVA or OSS, with its import sibling IOSS (Import One-Stop Shop). The French tax portal impots.gouv.fr explains that that new place-of-supply rules for distance sales in force since 1 July 2021 make most of these transactions taxable in the Member State where the customer is located. Instead of registering in every country where your customers live, businesses can opt for an EU-wide One-Stop Shop (OSS) with its import counterpart (IOSS): businesses that opt in are released from registering with the tax administration of each Member State of consumption, and they declare and pay the VAT due through a single Member State via the one-stop portal. The scheme covers services supplied to non-taxable persons in a Member State where the supplier is not established, intra-Community distance sales of goods, and low-value import consignments delivered within the EU to non-taxable customers. An EU-established e-commerce company can therefore declare its French consumer sales through the OSS portal of its home country. But the shortcut has strict borders: it never covers goods already stocked in France, sales to French VAT-registered businesses, or import operations above the small-consignment line. A British or American seller holding inventory in a French fulfilment centre still needs a French number and, in most cases, a fiscal representative. Map your flows warehouse by warehouse before choosing OSS over registration, because VAT declared in the wrong country is treated as unpaid in the right one.

B. Filing, recovering VAT and challenging penalties from abroad

Once identified, your French VAT life follows a monthly heartbeat. Article 287 of the CGI provides that “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.” It continues: “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. La taxe exigible est acquittée tous les mois.” Newly registered foreign companies almost always start on this monthly rhythm. A lighter quarterly calendar exists, since “Lorsque la taxe exigible annuellement est inférieure à 4 000 €, ils sont admis à déposer leurs déclarations par trimestre civil”, but treat it as a reward for small, stable liabilities, not as the default. Returns are filed electronically through the professional account on impots.gouv.fr, and payment follows the same channel. From abroad, the operational risks are prosaic: nobody monitors the online mailbox, the person holding the login leaves the company, or the representative waits for your figures and files late. Give your representative a contractual deadline several days before the legal one, keep backup access to the tax account, and diary every filing date in two places.

Filing is only half the economics. Every euro of French VAT your company bears on its own costs, warehouse rent, French subcontractors, import VAT paid at the border, can in principle be recovered. Article 271 of the CGI states that “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.” The deduction works by set-off against the VAT you collected, and any excess, called a VAT credit, can be refunded. The Cour de cassation underlined how seriously French law treats this refund right in a judgment of 23 November 2022, case number 21-13.613, published in the Bulletin (ECLI:FR:CCASS:2022:CO00681). A court-appointed liquidator had wound up a company without claiming its VAT credit, and the judges held him personally liable for the loss. Endorsing article 271, the court recalled that “la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée 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”, and, following the Court of Justice (3 March 2005, Fini H, case C-32/03), that liquidation-period costs keep their direct link with the economic activity and preserve the deduction right absent fraud. If even a liquidator closing a company must claim the VAT credit or pay for the omission from his own pocket, a healthy foreign company has no excuse for leaving French VAT credits sleeping on its balance sheet. File refund claims on time, keep every supplier invoice that supports them, and never assume a credit will carry itself forward without a formal claim.

When a return is missed or wrong, the penalty scale is mechanical and steep. Article 1728 of the CGI provides that “Le défaut de production dans les délais prescrits d’une déclaration ou d’un acte comportant l’indication d’éléments à retenir pour l’assiette ou la liquidation de l’impôt entraîne l’application, sur le montant des droits mis à la charge du contribuable ou résultant de la déclaration ou de l’acte déposé tardivement, d’une majoration de : a. 10 % en l’absence de mise en demeure ou en cas de dépôt de la déclaration ou de l’acte dans les trente jours suivant la réception d’une mise en demeure d’avoir à le produire dans ce délai ; b. 40 % lorsque la déclaration ou l’acte n’a pas été déposé dans les trente jours suivant la réception d’une mise en demeure d’avoir à le produire dans ce délai ; c. 80 % en cas de découverte d’une activité occulte”. Three numbers should stay on your desk: 10, 40 and 80. File spontaneously, even late, and the surcharge stays at 10 percent of the duties. Ignore the formal demand letter, the mise en demeure, for more than thirty days and it jumps to 40 percent. Operate in France with no registration at all and get discovered, and the administration can treat the business as hidden, opening the 80 percent rate plus late interest. The FedEx figures quoted in Part I.A, over 1.8 million euros of tax and 133,180 euros of interest, show how interest compounds on large import flows. If a demand letter arrives at your representative or your French address, react inside the thirty-day window: file the missing return, pay the principal, and attach the evidence that the delay was an error rather than concealment. A spontaneous correction before any control almost always costs 10 percent; the same correction after discovery can cost four to eight times more.

If you consider an assessment wrong, challenge it with documents, not with silence. Reconstruct the chain for each disputed transaction: the contract showing where the customer is established and whether it holds a French VAT number, the transport proof fixing the place of the supply, the invoice as issued, and the return where the transaction was declared or reverse-charged. The two court cases in this guide both turned on paperwork: FedEx lost over 1.9 million euros because the import documents designated the wrong liable person and the values were understated, while the liquidator in the 2022 Cour de cassation case was condemned because he never filed the refund claim the file entitled him to make. Send a reasoned written claim to the office that issued the notice, quantify exactly what you contest, join the exhibits in an organised bundle, and continue filing current returns correctly while the dispute runs, because fresh penalties during a dispute destroy negotiating credibility. Where the amounts justify it, instruct a French tax lawyer before the administration closes the procedure: once an assessment becomes final, only a court can undo it, and courts decide on the file you built months earlier.

Conclusion

Selling into France from abroad does not exempt your company from French VAT; it only changes the door you enter through. First, locate every sale: goods shipped to France and consumer sales above the 10,000 euro threshold are taxed in France, business services to French VAT-registered customers usually fall on your customer through reverse charge, and imports are taxed at the border from the first euro. Second, appoint the right payer before trading: your French customer where reverse charge applies, a French subsidiary with its automatic SIE number where you commit long term, an accredited fiscal representative where you sell from outside the EU, or the OSS portal of your home Member State for eligible consumer sales only. Third, run the monthly discipline from day one: file and pay on time, claim every VAT credit with its invoices, and correct any omission inside the thirty-day demand window to cap the surcharge at 10 percent. The companies that pay the heaviest bills in France are rarely fraudsters; they are foreign businesses that discovered registration, representation and refund rules from a recovery notice instead of from a plan. With the map above, your French VAT position becomes what it should be: a compliance cost you control, rather than a crisis that controls you.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Do you live abroad and need your French VAT position checked before a filing or a shipment goes wrong. Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or reach us through our contact page. We assist foreign founders in Paris and across Ile-de-France with VAT registration, fiscal representation, OSS filings and tax disputes.