You run your company from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, and your first French clients are ready to sign. Then the purchase order comes back with questions you did not expect: what is your French VAT number, will you invoice with or without French VAT, and who pays the tax if you have no office in France. Get these answers wrong and the consequences arrive fast: the client refuses to pay the invoice, the goods sit blocked at the border, or the French tax administration treats your travelling sales team as a taxable presence and charges years of VAT plus an 80 percent penalty.
This guide answers the three questions every foreign founder asks before invoicing France: when French VAT applies to sales made from abroad, how to obtain a French VAT identification without moving to France, and how to invoice, declare and deduct the tax without creating a costly dispute. It is written for a business reader, it explains every French acronym the first time it appears, and every decisive rule is tied to the exact article of the French Tax Code (Code général des impôts, usually shortened to CGI) or to a court decision you can open yourself. For the wider incorporation journey, from the company bank account to the Kbis extract and the first hire, our broader guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder remains the companion to this VAT-focused article: Setting Up a Company in France as a Foreign Founder: Bank Account, Kbis, VAT and Your First Hire.
A first vocabulary note will save you hours. In France, a taxable person is called an assujetti. A price excluding tax is hors taxe (HT) and a price including all taxes is toutes taxes comprises (TTC). Your intra-Community VAT number (numéro de TVA intracommunautaire) is the individual identification number under which you are known to the French VAT system, distinct from your company registration number. The SIREN is the nine-digit identifier of a company registered in France, the SIRET identifies each of its establishments, the RCS (Registre du commerce et des sociétés) is the trade and companies register kept by the clerk of the commercial court (greffe), the Kbis is the official extract proving that registration, and the BODACC (Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales) is the gazette where company registrations are published. The DGFIP (Direction générale des finances publiques) is the French tax administration, the SIE (Service des impôts des entreprises) is the corporate tax office your file depends on, and the DSN (Déclaration sociale nominative) is the monthly payroll return, which is outside the scope of this article.
I. Do you need a French VAT number to invoice French clients from abroad?
The short answer is that it depends on what you sell, to whom, and from where. French VAT follows the transaction, not your passport or the location of your headquarters. A company with no office, no employee and no registration in France can still owe French VAT, while in other configurations it can invoice without any French VAT number at all because the French customer accounts for the tax itself.
A. When French VAT applies to your sales: goods, services and imports
The starting point is Article 256 of the CGI, which 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” (Article 256 of the Code général des impôts). In plain English: supplies of goods and services made for consideration by a taxable person acting as such fall within French VAT. If you sell software subscriptions, consulting days, machinery or inventory to French customers in the course of your business, you are within the scope of the tax, and the only remaining question is which country taxes the transaction.
For goods, the place-of-supply rule of Article 258 of the CGI looks at where the goods are. The place of the supply of movable goods is deemed to be in France, among other cases, when the goods are in France at the time of dispatch or transport to the buyer, when the seller assembles or installs them in France, or when they are made available to the buyer in France without transport (Article 258 of the Code général des impôts). A machine shipped from a warehouse in Lyon to a French buyer, equipment installed by your technicians in a Paris factory, or stock handed over at a French trade fair therefore points to French VAT. Goods shipped from outside the European Union are a separate case examined below: they are imports, not domestic supplies.
For services sold to business customers, the rule most foreign founders meet first is Article 259 of the CGI. The place of a supply of services is in France where the customer is a taxable person acting as such and has in France the seat of its economic activity, or a fixed establishment (établissement stable) to which the services are supplied, or, failing those, its domicile or habitual residence (Article 259 of the Code général des impôts). In practice, when your customer is a French company with its head office in France, the service is subject to French VAT even if you perform every hour of work from abroad. That single sentence explains why a London consultancy, a New York design studio or a Dubai IT firm invoicing a Paris company cannot simply stamp “no VAT” on the invoice and move on: French VAT is due somewhere, and the invoice must say who pays it.
Exceptions exist, and Article 259 A of the CGI lists supplies whose place is fixed differently by derogation: short-term hiring of means of transport, services connected with immovable property, passenger transport, catering, and access to cultural or sporting events, among others (Article 259 A of the Code général des impôts). If you lease vehicles to French users, renovate a building in Bordeaux, or sell tickets for an event in Paris, read Article 259 A before Article 259, because the exception displaces the general customer-location rule. Services connected with a French building, for instance, are taxed in France regardless of where the customer sits.
Imports follow their own track. Article 291 of the CGI provides that “I. – 1. Les importations de biens sont soumises à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée. 2. Est considérée comme importation d’un bien : a. l’entrée en France d’un bien, originaire ou en provenance d’un Etat ou d’un territoire n’appartenant pas à l’Union européenne” (Article 291 of the Code général des impôts). Goods entering France from the United States, the United Kingdom, China or the Gulf are therefore subject to French VAT at import, and Article 293 A of the CGI designates who bears it, starting with the person carrying out the supply where the goods are the subject of a supply located in France (Article 293 A of the Code général des impôts). The practical consequence is immediate: a foreign e-commerce brand shipping parcels to French consumers, or a manufacturer sending components to its French distributor, must organise import VAT before the goods reach the border, not after the customer complains about a blocked delivery.
One figure frames everything that follows. Article 278 of the CGI states: “Le taux normal de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée est fixé à 20 %” (Article 278 of the Code général des impôts). Reduced rates exist for specific categories, but the standard 20 percent rate is the default assumption on which your pricing, your cash planning and your contracts should be built whenever French VAT applies and no reduced rate has been positively confirmed for your product.
B. Getting your French VAT identification from abroad
French VAT identification is an administrative formality you complete with the tax administration, and it is separate from incorporating a French company. You can be identified for VAT in France while keeping your existing foreign company, with no share capital to deposit, no articles of association to file at the greffe, and no Kbis to obtain. The confusion between the two tracks is the most frequent and the most expensive mistake: founders either incorporate a full subsidiary they do not need, or sell for months without any VAT identification they do need.
The entry point is Article 286 of the CGI. Every person liable for VAT must, within fifteen days of starting operations, file a declaration with the office designated by order: “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” (Article 286 of the Code général des impôts). The fifteen-day period runs from the start of your taxable operations in France, and the declaration must be renewed if the business ceases. A declaration is therefore due within fifteen days of starting taxable operations, a rule the text states expressly and which leaves no room for a grace period invented by practice. The same article requires the trader to keep day-by-day records of operations and to preserve books and supporting documents under the conditions of Article L. 102 B of the Livre des procédures fiscales (the tax procedure code), so your invoicing system should be designed for audit from day one.
Identification itself runs through Article 286 ter of the CGI, which provides that an individual number identifies, among others, every taxable person carrying out supplies of goods or services giving a right to deduct: “Est identifié par un numéro individuel : 1° Tout assujetti qui effectue des livraisons de biens ou des prestations de services lui ouvrant droit à déduction” (Article 286 ter of the Code général des impôts). This individual number is your French intra-Community VAT number, the number your French customers will check, the number that appears on your invoices for intra-Community trade, and the number under which you file French VAT returns. If you only sell to French private consumers with goods already located in France, you will generally need it; if your French sales are exclusively services to French taxable customers under reverse charge, the next paragraph may dispense with it.
Article 286 ter A of the CGI then narrows the obligation in a way many advisers overlook. Taxable persons carrying out only certain operations are not required to obtain the individual number, including “Des livraisons de biens ou prestations de services pour lesquelles la taxe est due par le destinataire” (Article 286 ter A of the Code général des impôts). Supplies for which the tax is due from the recipient, which is exactly the reverse-charge situation described in the second part of this article, can therefore be made without French VAT identification, provided they are the only French operations and the supplier files nothing else in France. The exemption is narrow and conditional, but where it fits, it saves a registration and the recurring return cycle that comes with it.
Companies established outside the European Union face one more layer. Article 289 A of the CGI requires a person not established in the European Union who owes French VAT or must complete reporting obligations to have an established taxable representative accredited with the tax office, who undertakes to complete the formalities and, for taxable operations, to pay the tax in its place: “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” (Article 289 A of the Code général des impôts). Failing that, the same article warns that “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”. A non-EU supplier without a French representative therefore does not escape the tax; it transfers the burden and the irritation to its French customer, who will either renegotiate the price or find another supplier. The article provides exemptions where France has a mutual assistance instrument with the third country, but those exemptions turn on treaty analysis, not on assumption, and the representative remains the default for American, Gulf, Asian and post-Brexit British businesses with direct French VAT debts.
The decision tree for a foreign founder is therefore the following. First, locate each stream of French sales under Articles 258, 259, 259 A and 291: goods in France, services to French taxable customers, exceptional services, and imports. Second, determine who pays under Article 283 or the import rules, examined in the second part. Third, identify only if the rules require it: declaration within fifteen days and individual number under Articles 286 and 286 ter, possible dispensation under Article 286 ter A for reverse-charge-only activity, and accredited representative under Article 289 A for non-EU businesses. Fourth, invoice and declare as the second part explains, because identification without correct invoicing still produces penalties.
II. How do you invoice and pay French VAT correctly from abroad?
Once the place of taxation and the question of identification are settled, execution decides everything. French VAT disputes between foreign suppliers and French customers rarely concern the principle of the tax; they concern the invoice. A missing mandatory mention, a VAT number that should not have been charged, or a return filed one quarter late is what transforms a routine cross-border sale into an assessment, and the courts show little sympathy for suppliers who invoiced first and read the rules later.
A. Reverse charge, import self-assessment and the exact words on your invoices
The mechanism that governs most foreign-to-French business services is the reverse charge (autoliquidation). Article 283 of the CGI provides that where a supply of goods or a service covered by Article 259 A is made by a taxable person not established in France, the tax is paid by the buyer, recipient or customer acting as a taxable person holding a French VAT identification number, with the amount identified on the return mentioned in Article 287: “Toutefois, 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. Le montant dû est identifié sur la déclaration mentionnée à l’ article 287 .” (Article 283 of the Code général des impôts). The same article adds that where the services mentioned in Article 259 are supplied by a taxable person not established in France, the tax must be paid by the customer. Your American SaaS company, your British consultancy or your Emirati agency therefore issues its invoice without French VAT, and the French client declares the French VAT itself.
The official English-language guidance of the French administration describes the invoicing consequence in operational terms. Where the supply is subject to French VAT, everything turns on whether the seller holds a French VAT number: a seller identified in France bills the French VAT to the French customer, who receives a TTC invoice, while a seller without a French VAT number must bill an HT amount, with the VAT self-assessed by the client company, and the invoice must carry the mention “reverse charge” (French administration guidance on VAT for services exchanged between two EU Member States). The guidance continues that the buyer established in France collects the French VAT on behalf of the tax authorities and reports it, and that where it holds a right to deduct, it deducts the self-assessed amount in its VAT return. Three practical duties follow for the foreign supplier: verify that the French customer is genuinely a taxable person with a valid VAT number, invoice HT rather than adding a foreign VAT rate by reflex, and print the exact mention “reverse charge” (autoliquidation) on the invoice, because that mention is what allows the customer to process the invoice without calling your finance team.
That mention is not a courtesy formula. The administration’s fact sheet points to Article 242hA of Annex II to the CGI as the source of the mandatory invoice mention for reverse charge (Article 242hA of Annex II to the Code général des impôts). The general invoicing duty itself sits in Article 289 of the CGI, which requires every taxable person to ensure that an invoice is issued for supplies to another taxable person: “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” (Article 289 of the Code général des impôts). An invoice between businesses without the proper VAT treatment is therefore not a minor formatting issue; it is the breach of an express statutory duty, and the penalty section below shows what that costs.
Imports work differently but converge on the same logic of self-assessment. Since 1 January 2022, self-assessment of import VAT has been compulsory and automatic for all businesses identified for VAT in France, as the Ministry of the Economy explains: import VAT is no longer paid at the border to customs but declared and deducted on the VAT return (Ministry of the Economy guidance on import VAT self-assessment). The foreign supplier that is itself the importer, or whose French customer imports the goods, must therefore coordinate in advance who holds the VAT number under which the import is self-assessed, because the carrier will otherwise advance the VAT and recharge it with fees.
A Rennes Court of Appeal decision of 11 February 2025 shows what happens when that coordination fails. A French electronics company imported components from China and the United States through an international carrier, which paid import VAT and re-invoiced it. The importer objected that it held a self-assessment authorisation and had informed the carrier. The court recorded that “La société Cordon justifie de l’autorisation d’autoliquidation de la TVA due à l’importation en tant qu’assujettie établi dans le territoire douanier de l’Union européenne délivrée par la Direction générale des douanes et droits indirects” and concluded: “En conséquence, les factures relatives à la TVA à l’importation ne sont pas dues par la société Cordon” (Rennes Court of Appeal, 11 February 2025, No. 24/02101). The judgment was reversed in full against the carrier: “Infirme le jugement du tribunal de commerce de Saint-Malo en toutes ses dispositions soumises à la cour” and “Rejette l’intégralité des demandes de la société Fedex express FR”. For a foreign founder, the lesson is contractual as much as fiscal: confirm in writing, before the first shipment, who self-assesses import VAT and under which number, notify the carrier with proof of the authorisation, and keep that proof, because the carrier’s invoice is not conclusive once a valid self-assessment position is established.
Non-EU suppliers should re-read Article 289 A at this stage. Where no accredited representative has been appointed and the operation does not qualify for an exemption, the French recipient owes the tax and any related penalties. Commercially, this means your French customer becomes your tax collector of last resort, a position no procurement department accepts twice. Either appoint the representative, restructure the flow so the customer knowingly operates under reverse charge, or accept that sophisticated French buyers will walk away.
B. Filing returns, deducting VAT and surviving a French tax audit
Identification and correct invoices lead to the recurring discipline: returns, payment, and deduction. Article 287 of the CGI sets the standard cycle. Every person liable for VAT identified under Articles 286 ter and 286 ter A must file a return with the tax office on which it depends within the period fixed by order. Taxpayers under the normal (réel normal) regime file monthly, showing total operations and taxable detail, and pay the tax due each month: “Les redevables soumis au régime réel normal d’imposition déposent mensuellement la déclaration visée au 1” and “La taxe exigible est acquittée tous les mois” (Article 287 of the Code général des impôts). Where the annual tax due is below 4,000 euros, the same article allows quarterly filing: “Lorsque la taxe exigible annuellement est inférieure à 4 000 €, ils sont admis à déposer leurs déclarations par trimestre civil”. The monthly return and monthly payment are therefore the default; quarterly filing is an option conditioned on the 4,000 euro threshold stated in the article, not a right the business can simply assume.
Deduction is where foreign businesses most often lose money they thought was safe. French VAT on your French expenses, rent, subcontractors, equipment, is deductible only where the formal conditions are met, and the administration checks arithmetic, not intentions. In a 9 December 2022 decision, the Marseille Administrative Court of Appeal upheld the refusal of input VAT where the amounts recorded by the company in its accounts did not match the invoices: “Dès lors, c’est à bon droit que l’administration a pu refuser la déduction de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée figurant à hauteur du surplus de la différence entre le montant des opérations enregistré par la SCI dans ses documents comptables et celui figurant sur ces factures” (Marseille Administrative Court of Appeal, 9 December 2022, No. 21MA00040). A foreign founder running French books from abroad should read this as a warning about sloppy reconciliations: every euro of deducted VAT must trace to an invoice for the same amount recorded in the accounts, and a spreadsheet prepared for the occasion, without a certain date and without a proven link to the invoices, proves nothing.
The heavier risk is structural: operating in France through people and premises while believing you have no presence. In a 10 November 2022 decision, the Marseille court examined a Polish company supplying temporary staff to French user companies, which argued it had no fixed establishment in France and that its French clients had already self-assessed the VAT. The court recalled the European test, citing the Court of Justice case law, that an establishment can fix the place of services only where “il présente un degré suffisant de permanence et une structure apte, du point de vue de l’équipement humain et technique, à rendre possibles, de manière autonome, les prestations de services considérées” (Marseille Administrative Court of Appeal, 10 November 2022, No. 21MA05016). Applying that test to the human and technical resources the company permanently held in French premises, the court held the French VAT assessments well-founded and rejected the claim in full: “La requête de la société Intérim A… SP Zoo est rejetée”. Because the company had filed no returns and registered nowhere, neither with a business formalities centre nor with the commercial court registry, the administration added the hidden-activity surcharge of Article 1728 of the CGI, under which late or missing returns trigger an increase of “80 % en cas de découverte d’une activité occulte” (Article 1728 of the Code général des impôts). A sales representative working permanently from a Paris desk, a stock of spare parts in a French warehouse, or a local manager signing contracts in France can therefore convert a clean reverse-charge model into several years of French VAT plus an 80 percent increase, and the decision shows the courts will sustain both where the establishment test is met and no return was ever filed.
Penalties for invoicing breaches complete the picture and they are severe by design. Article 1737 of the CGI punishes with a fine of 50 percent of the amount, among other cases, disguising the identity of suppliers or customers, issuing invoices that do not correspond to a real supply, and failing to issue an invoice or to record the transaction: “Entraîne l’application d’une amende égale à 50 % du montant : 1. Des sommes versées ou reçues, le fait de travestir ou dissimuler l’identité ou l’adresse de ses fournisseurs ou de ses clients, les éléments d’identification mentionnés aux articles 289 et 289 B et aux textes pris pour l’application de ces articles ou de sciemment accepter l’utilisation d’une identité fictive ou d’un prête-nom ; 2. De la facture, le fait de délivrer une facture ne correspondant pas à une livraison ou à une prestation de service réelle ; 3. De la transaction, le fait de ne pas délivrer une facture ou la note prévue à l’article 290 quinquies et de ne pas comptabiliser la transaction. Le client professionnel est solidairement tenu au paiement de cette amende, qui ne peut excéder 375 000 € par exercice.” (Article 1737 of the Code général des impôts). The business customer is jointly liable for the fine within a cap per financial year, which is why French groups audit their foreign suppliers’ invoices: your error becomes their contingent liability. Note that these figures come from the articles cited alongside them; the broader penalty landscape, interest for late payment and criminal exposure for fraud, requires a case-by-case analysis that no general article can replace.
Finally, a foreign founder should know that a French tax dispute can begin with officers at the door, not with a letter. Article L. 16 B of the Livre des procédures fiscales provides that where the judicial authority finds presumptions that a taxpayer is evading the establishment or payment of taxes, including taxes on turnover, through transactions without invoices or knowingly inaccurate accounting, “elle peut, dans les conditions prévues au II, autoriser les agents de l’administration des impôts, ayant au moins le grade d’inspecteur et habilités à cet effet par le directeur général des finances publiques, à rechercher la preuve de ces agissements” (Article L. 16 B of the Livre des procédures fiscales). Dawn raids under that article are therefore authorised by a judge where the statutory presumptions exist, and they can target premises occupied by or connected with a foreign company operating in France. The Marseille fixed-establishment case itself arose after such a visit, and the court recalled the safeguards surrounding it: “Un procès-verbal relatant les modalités et le déroulement de l’opération et consignant les constatations effectuées est dressé sur-le-champ par les agents de l’administration des impôts”, and “Les originaux du procès-verbal et de l’inventaire sont, dès qu’ils ont été établis, adressés au juge qui a autorisé la visite” (Marseille Administrative Court of Appeal, 10 November 2022, No. 21MA05016). Keeping complete, reconcilable VAT records available in France, as Article 286 requires, is therefore not only an accounting virtue; it is the first line of defence when officers arrive, because a file that reconciles invoices, returns and payments answers most questions before they become assessments.
The operational checklist that follows from this second part is short. Invoice HT with the “reverse charge” mention whenever the French taxable customer self-assesses, and never add French VAT by default. Coordinate import self-assessment in writing before the first shipment and keep the authorisation proof. File the French return on the cycle Article 287 assigns to you, monthly by default, and pay with it. Reconcile every deducted euro to a matching invoice and accounting entry. And treat any permanent human or technical presence in France as a potential fixed establishment from day one, because the administration will, and the Marseille case shows the courts may agree, with the 80 percent surcharge attached where no returns were filed.
Conclusion
Selling to French clients from abroad does not require a French company, but it always requires a French VAT analysis. Locate each sale under the place-of-supply rules: goods where they are, services where the taxable customer sits, exceptional services and imports under their special provisions. Identify where the law demands it, within fifteen days and under your individual number, appoint a representative where a non-EU position requires one, and claim the dispensation where reverse-charge-only activity allows it. Then execute without improvisation: HT invoices carrying the reverse-charge mention, import VAT self-assessed under the correct number since the 2022 reform, monthly returns and payment as the default, and deductions reconciled euro for euro. The decisions cited here reward the businesses that document each step and punish those that invoice first and verify later, whether the sanction is a lost deduction, a requalified establishment, or an assessment increased by 80 percent. A founder who runs this sequence before the first French invoice signs clients faster, keeps carriers and customers out of disputes, and meets any audit with a file that already contains the answers.