Your pallets left Shenzhen, New York or Istanbul weeks ago, the container is sitting at Rotterdam, Antwerp, Le Havre or Roissy, and nothing moves. The freight forwarder writes that French customs needs an EORI number you have never heard of, the delivery to your French warehouse or your French customer is suspended, storage charges tick up every day, and somebody mentions import VAT, customs duties and a guarantee before anything is released. If you run the business from abroad with no French office, the next question is brutally practical: what exactly does France require to let your goods in, how do you pay the tax without flying to Paris, and how do you get a blocked shipment released?

This guide answers for a foreign founder or operations team importing goods into France for the first time, whether the goods stay in France or merely clear customs here before moving on. It explains the EORI identifier that French customs demands, the three ways your goods can be cleared — including the registered customs representative your forwarder keeps mentioning — and the import VAT system that has applied since 2022, with its automatic reverse charge on the French VAT return and no cash advance. It closes with what a held shipment really costs and how to challenge an assessment from abroad. French terms are translated throughout, and every decisive rule is quoted from its official source.

I. Getting your goods legally into France: the EORI number and customs representation

A. The EORI number that French customs demands before your goods can move

Nothing clears customs in the European Union without an identified operator. The EORI (Economic Operator Registration and Identification) number is the single customs identifier used across all Member States: your declarations, your guarantee, your authorisations and your VAT position on imported goods all hang off it. A company established outside the Union that imports into France needs its own EORI, and a foreign company that already holds an EORI issued by another Member State generally uses that same number in France rather than applying twice. Without a valid EORI on the import declaration, the customs system refuses the filing and the goods sit — which is the most common reason a first-time importer’s shipment is flagged as incomplete within hours of arrival.

For businesses with a French establishment, the French EORI mirrors the French business register: it is built as FR followed by the SIRET (the fourteen-digit identifier of the French establishment, combining the nine-digit SIREN of the company and the five-digit NIC of the site). The official French customs guidance explains that the number is requested online through the SOPRANO EORI service, the dematerialised channel for applying, amending or tracking the request, with one route for operators holding the customs-operator certification and a simplified-access route for the others. Since April 2023 any operator can obtain a single EORI at SIREN level, which must be used in the European customs applications, while establishment-level EORI numbers remain accepted outside those applications until their announced switch-off. A foreign company with no French establishment follows the non-resident route in the same online service and receives a French EORI usable for its French import declarations. Apply before the goods sail, not after they land: issuance takes days in a clean file and weeks if the administration asks for translations or powers, and every day of waiting at the port is a day of storage and demurrage charged by people who are not customs.

EORI is only the key to the door; the tax position behind it decides what you pay. French VAT starts from the principle in Article 256 of the CGI (Code général des impôts, the French Tax Code): “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.” Importation — bringing goods from outside the European Union into France — is one of the taxable events alongside domestic supplies, and the place rules in Article 258 of the CGI confirm the territorial logic: “Le lieu de livraison de biens meubles corporels est réputé se situer en France lorsque le bien se trouve en France” at dispatch, installation or handover as the case may be. Goods you import and then sell from a French warehouse, goods you import for installation at a French customer site, and goods you import and immediately resell to a French business are therefore French-taxed flows from the moment they cross the border, and the importer of record must be identified for both customs and VAT. This identification step belongs to the same set-up sequence as the bank account, the Kbis (the registration certificate issued by the greffe, the commercial-court registry) and the first hire described in our general walkthrough for newcomers, Setting Up a Company in France as a Foreign Founder: Bank Account, Kbis, VAT and Your First Hire — customs is simply the chapter that applies when the goods come from outside the Union rather than from another Member State.

The mirror image helps to memorise the system. Goods leaving the Union are exempt on exit: Article 262 of the CGI states that “Sont exonérées de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée : 1° les livraisons de biens expédiés ou transportés par le vendeur ou pour son compte, en dehors de la Communauté européenne ainsi que les prestations de services directement liées à l’exportation”. Export exemption on the way out, taxation on the way in, and identification in both directions — that symmetry is the whole architecture. Keep the transport documents that prove each direction from the first shipment, because the exit proof conditions a future exemption and the entry documents set the taxable base, and both will be requested years later when the audit comes.

B. Who clears your goods in France: direct, indirect and registered customs representation

A foreign company rarely files its own French import declarations. Declarations are lodged in the French customs IT systems, in French, under strict format and deadline discipline, and errors block release or create a customs debt in your name. The standard solution is customs representation: a professional established in the Union acts in your name and on your behalf. European Union law, Regulation 952 of 2013 establishing the Union Customs Code, frames this representation across all Member States, and France layers on its own registration regime for the professionals who practise it regularly. The Conseil d’État (the supreme court for administrative disputes) confirmed the solidity of that French framework on 9 October 2019, decision number 426349, in a case brought by the forwarding industry against the order of 13 April 2016 on customs representation and the registration of customs representatives, holding that “Article 1er : La requête de l’UTL est rejetée.” The challenge failed; the registered-representative system stands, with its circular on the obligations of the registered customs representative.

Three representation patterns matter in practice, and the choice changes who owes what if something goes wrong. In direct representation, the representative acts in your name and on your behalf: you remain the declarant and the customs debtor, the representative’s liability is that of an agent, and the duties and import VAT attach to you. In indirect representation, the representative acts in its own name but on your behalf: it becomes the declarant alongside you, and the customs debt can be collected from either, which is why serious forwarders price, guarantee and document this mandate carefully. The third pattern, specific to regular French practice, is the registered customs representative (représentant en douane enregistré): a professional meeting competence, reliability and guarantee conditions, recorded by the administration, whose registered status structures its obligations toward both customs and its clients. For a foreign importer with no French team, the registered representative is usually the right answer: it files, advances or secures the duties where an advance remains due, holds the powers and the EORI references, and receives the administration’s questions first.

Mandate discipline is where foreign importers win or lose future disputes. Sign a written customs mandate before the first declaration, in English and French, stating whether representation is direct or indirect, the scope of goods and flows covered, who provides the tariff classification, origin and value data, who holds the preferential-origin proofs, and how instructions and invoice flows circulate. Never let commercial staff invent customs values over the phone: the value declared sets duties and the import VAT base, and a value built on a transfer price, a royalty or a post-import rebate without a documented method becomes the core of a reassessment three years later. Keep the mandate, the commercial invoice, the transport contract, the packing list, the origin certificates and the classification analysis in one file per shipment, because the customs audit samples shipments, not years, and a complete 2026 file answered in days costs a fraction of a reconstructed one answered in months. Where your group already runs a French subsidiary alongside the foreign importer, decide explicitly which entity imports: goods imported by the subsidiary under its SIRET and EORI are its flows, goods imported by the foreign head office under its own EORI are its flows, and mixing the two numbers across declarations and invoices is one of the fastest routes to a joint audit of both.

II. Paying French import VAT without pre-paying it, then fixing a blocked shipment from abroad

A. Import VAT since 2022: the automatic reverse charge on your French VAT return

The single biggest cash-flow fact about importing into France is recent. Since 1 January 2022, the collection of import VAT moved from customs to the tax administration, and the reverse charge (autoliquidation) became mandatory and automatic for all VAT-identified businesses: the importer declares the import VAT and deducts it on the same French VAT return, the CA3 (the standard monthly or quarterly French VAT return form), with no cash advance and no prior authorisation. The official customs guidance states the mechanism plainly — simultaneous collection and deduction on the VAT return, declaration and payment made on the return instead of on the customs declaration — and adds that no prior authorisation is needed. For a foreign company this transforms the economics of a first import: instead of advancing 20 percent at the border and waiting months for a refund, a VAT-registered importer neutralises the VAT on the return, provided it is properly identified and files correctly.

Identification is therefore the precondition, and the clock from domestic VAT applies. Article 286 of the CGI requires that “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.” A foreign company with no French establishment registers with the SIEE (Service des impôts des entreprises étrangères, the tax office for foreign companies at Noisy-le-Grand near Paris); a company with a French establishment registers with the SIE (Service des impôts des entreprises, the local corporate tax office) of that establishment. Once identified, Article 287 of the CGI requires 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.” Under the standard regime that means the monthly CA3, on which the import VAT appears both as output tax and, where the deduction conditions are met, as input tax. The Paris administrative court of appeal recalled the underlying liability rule on 27 September 2023, case number 22PA02852, quoting that “1. 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.” Where the reverse charge does not apply — typically a non-taxable person importing without VAT identification — Article 1695 of the CGI warns that “Dans ces situations, la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée est recouvrée et contrôlée selon les mêmes procédures et sous les mêmes sanctions, garanties, sûretés et privilèges que les droits de douanes.” In other words, unidentified importers pay at the border under customs enforcement; identified importers self-assess on the return.

Two downstream duties follow automatically and are frequently missed. First, the onward sale: once the goods clear, selling them in France is a domestic supply under the Article 258 place rule quoted above, invoiced with French VAT by the identified importer — and Article 289 of the CGI provides 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” for each supply to another taxable person, with the names, VAT numbers, sequential numbering, price, rate and tax the French format requires. Second, the deduction: import VAT is deductible only with the import documents supporting the declared base and only on the return of the entity that is the importer of record — the foreign head office cannot deduct VAT on goods its French subsidiary imported, and neither can deduct on a declaration filed under the other’s number. Align the EORI, the VAT number and the invoicing entity on every flow before scaling volumes, then audit the template monthly: a single recurring defect repeated over hundreds of consignments becomes the backbone of a reassessment.

A short Paris and Île-de-France note organises the file geographically. Most foreign importers meet France at Roissy-CDG airport or at Le Havre outrageously often routed through Antwerp or Rotterdam under Union transit before French clearance; in all cases the French declaration, guarantee and VAT logic described here applies at the French point of import. Correspondence on the VAT side flows to the SIEE at Noisy-le-Grand in Seine-Saint-Denis, while customs questions go to the clearance office and the representative. Disputes split by nature: VAT assessments follow the administrative track — claim to the tax office, then the tribunal administratif (the administrative court), with Paris-region cases before Montreuil or Paris and appeals to the Paris administrative court of appeal — while customs disputes follow the customs litigation track with its own claim, transaction and court ladder. Keep one bilingual file per flow with the EORI letter, the mandate, the classification and valuation analysis, the monthly CA3 extracts showing the import lines, and the transport proofs: auditors from both administrations ask for exactly this, and producing it in days changes the tone of the control.

B. When the shipment is held: what release costs and how to challenge from abroad

A held shipment always has a stated reason, and the remedy depends on reading it correctly. The standard reasons are incomplete identification (no valid EORI on the declaration), documentary doubt (value, origin, classification or preferential proof questioned), guarantee shortfall (duties and taxes not covered by the representative’s or importer’s guarantee), regulatory block (prohibitions, restrictions, Sanitary and Phytosanitary or CE-marking checks for the product category), or a downstream VAT flag (importer not VAT-identified, so no reverse charge available). Ask the representative for the exact customs status code and the office’s written reason before doing anything else: paying duties to release goods held for a regulatory check wastes money, and filing a VAT registration to release goods held for origin doubt wastes weeks. The release toolkit, in order, is completion (valid EORI, corrected declaration, missing certificate), security (guarantee or cash deposit covering the maximum likely debt, releasable after the control), and, where the goods themselves are compliant but the amount is disputed, release against guarantee while the dispute runs its course.

The money at stake has three layers. First, customs duties set by the Union tariff according to classification, origin and value — with preferential zero or reduced rates only where the origin proof meets the agreement’s exact conditions, which is why a missing or defective EUR.1 or origin declaration reinstates the full rate overnight. Second, import VAT, normally neutralised on the CA3 for identified importers but payable at the border with customs enforcement for the unidentified, plus interest where deadlines slip. Third, penalties and storage: customs penalties scale with the nature of the breach from administrative fines to criminal exposure for organised fraud, and port storage, demurrage and warehouse fees accrue daily to private operators regardless of who is right on the law. The realistic worst case for a cooperative first-time importer is weeks of delay plus a full-duty bill and a fine; the realistic worst case for an obstructive one is seizure, estimated assessment and a file that follows the company across the Union through the shared operator-risk systems. Quantify early: rebuild the duty and VAT per consignment with the exact legal basis per line, because a single spreadsheet mixing import, intra-Union and domestic flows will be picked apart by whichever administration reads it.

The way out from abroad has an order that experience confirms. First, stabilise: instruct the representative in writing, top up the guarantee, and stop new shipments on the disputed classification or valuation until the analysis is fixed — every additional consignment filed on a known-wrong basis aggravates the penalty picture. Second, file the missing identifications immediately and candidly: EORI application, SIEE VAT registration with the true start date, corrected declarations where the procedure allows, because spontaneous regularisation with payment is treated very differently from the same payment after an audit notice. Third, if an assessment or collection notice arrives, use the full ladder within its stated deadlines: reasoned observations to the office, an administrative claim, escalation to the mediator or the higher interlocutor where available, and then the court — the administrative court for VAT lines with the case law quoted in this guide, the customs track for duty, value and origin lines. Fourth, align the customs and tax files with each other and with the transfer-pricing file where intragroup prices are involved: the value accepted by customs, the base declared for import VAT and the price defended for corporate tax must tell one consistent story, since each administration now reads the others’ assessments. Handled early, a blocked shipment becomes an expensive lesson in paperwork; handled late, it becomes the most expensive line of the French expansion.

Conclusion

A foreign company imports into France with three identifiers and one method: a valid EORI obtained before the goods sail, a written customs mandate — usually with a registered representative — stating direct or indirect representation, and a French VAT identification that switches import VAT to the automatic reverse charge on the CA3 with no cash advance. Goods without an EORI do not clear, goods cleared under the wrong entity or value are reassessed years later, and goods whose VAT position was never registered pay at the border under customs enforcement. When a shipment is held, read the exact reason, release against guarantee where the procedure allows, register and correct spontaneously, and challenge line by line with the statutes and court rulings quoted above. Treated as a compliance chain from the first consignment, importing into France is routine; treated consignment by consignment in a panic, it is the fastest way to fund a warehouse you never wanted.