Your company ships machines, components, stock or samples from the United States, Britain, Switzerland, the Emirates or Asia to a customer or a warehouse in France. The container reaches Le Havre or the parcel lands at Roissy, and then everything stops. The forwarder tells you the goods cannot clear customs until import value added tax is dealt with, and asks for your French VAT number. You have none, because nobody in your team lives in France and you never registered anything there. The forwarder then asks for a cash advance of twenty percent of the cargo value, your customer refuses to pay an invoice without a proper French VAT line, and your accountant warns you that every week of improvisation adds penalties. This is the most common VAT crisis foreign sellers meet in France, and it has a strict legal frame that changed on 1 January 2022. Since that date, import VAT self-assessment, known in France as ATVAI (autoliquidation de la TVA à l’importation), is compulsory and automatic for businesses identified for VAT in France, the customs office no longer collects the tax at the border for them, and the whole control moved from customs to the tax authority. A company with no French VAT number cannot use this circuit at all. The Conseil d’Etat confirmed the logic of self-assessment on 15 November 2019 in case 420251, holding that under reverse charge the buyer both owes and deducts the same tax so that, in principle, nothing is due, while wrongly paid VAT cannot simply be deducted. This article follows the exact order of the crisis: what French import VAT hits at the border and who owes it, then how you pay without advancing cash, deduct, recover and contest when the bill is wrong.

I. Your goods entering France create French import VAT: what is taxed at the border and who owes it

A. What happens at the French border: importation, the customs declaration and the French VAT number on the form

French VAT, called TVA (taxe sur la valeur ajoutée), strikes goods the moment they enter France from outside the European Union. Article 291 of the CGI (Code général des impôts, the French General Tax Code) states the principle in one line: “Les importations de biens sont soumises à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée.” It then defines the event: “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, et qui n’a pas été mis en libre pratique”. Any machine, batch of components, consignment of stock or even samples arriving from a non-EU country and cleared in France is therefore an importation, whatever the nationality of the seller or the buyer, and French VAT becomes due on the customs value plus duties and incidental costs. Goods arriving from another Member State are not importations but intra-Community acquisitions with their own declaration logic, and goods that merely transit France under a suspensive customs procedure are not taxed until they are released for consumption. The first practical question is thus factual: where do your goods physically clear customs, because a clearance in Rotterdam or Antwerp followed by a transfer to France obeys different rules from a clearance at Le Havre, Marseille or Roissy.

The declaration itself forces the issue into the open. Every importer must enter a valid French VAT identification number on the French customs declaration, and the official customs guidance states the duty plainly on the ATVAI page of douane.gouv.fr, the site of the DGDDI (Direction générale des douanes et droits indirects, the customs authority): the declarant must show its French intra-Community VAT number in force, failing which automatic self-assessment cannot apply. Without that number, the goods do not self-assess anything: either the forwarder advances the VAT and bills it back to you with fees, or the clearance waits while you sort out your identification. This is why the forwarder’s first question is always the number, not the rate: the number decides the whole circuit. The number itself is built on the SIREN (Système d’identification du répertoire des entreprises, the nine-digit business identifier issued by INSEE, the national statistics institute), and companies with premises also use a SIRET (the fourteen-digit establishment identifier). A foreign company with no French premises receives a VAT number without opening a branch or obtaining a Kbis extract (the company identity certificate issued by the greffe, the commercial court registry): VAT identification is a tax track, completely separate from company registration with the INPI single window. Alongside it, customs work uses the EORI number (Economic Operators Registration and Identification, the EU customs identifier): your declarant needs both identifiers aligned, and a mismatch between the EORI and the VAT number is one of the most frequent causes of blocked clearances. Mixed contracts deserve attention too: equipment sold with installation, commissioning or after-sales services performed in France can combine a goods import with French-taxable services, since Article 259 of the CGI places services received by a French taxable customer in France when the customer has there its head office, the establishment receiving the services, or failing that its domicile or habitual residence. Map the goods flow and the services flow separately before you sign, because each follows its own VAT track.

B. Who pays when the seller sits outside France: the importer of record, the customer under reverse charge and the border cash trap

Once the import exists, the statute designates who hands the money over. Article 1695 of the CGI organises the collection: “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”. For importers that are neither taxable persons nor VAT-identified, the tax is still declared and collected when it becomes chargeable, and the same article adds that in these 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”, meaning VAT follows customs recovery with customs guarantees and privileges. In plain terms, a foreign seller with no French VAT number cannot self-assess: the VAT is collected at the border like a duty, cash must be advanced, and the customs administration holds the guarantees. This is the cash trap that surprises first-time importers: twenty percent of the cargo value immobilised at each shipment, plus the forwarder’s advance fees, simply because the number was missing.

The opposite circuit applies as soon as the importer is VAT-identified in France. Since 1 January 2022, management and recovery of import VAT moved from customs to the DGFIP (Direction générale des Finances publiques, the tax authority) for all VAT-identified operators, and self-assessment became compulsory and automatic: the identified importer declares the import VAT as collected tax and simultaneously as deductible tax on its next VAT return, the CA3 (the standard French VAT return, monthly or quarterly), with the administration pre-filling the amounts from customs data through the online Données ATVAI service. No cash moves. The Conseil d’Etat explained why this circuit is neutral in Conseil d’Etat, 9th and 10th chambers together, 15 November 2019, no. 420251 (Eye Shelter): “lorsque le régime de l’auto-liquidation s’applique, l’acquéreur d’un bien, qui est redevable de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée afférente à cette opération, est en droit de déduire cette même taxe, de telle sorte que, en principe, aucun montant n’est dû à l’administration fiscale.” When reverse charge applies, the buyer both owes and deducts the same tax, so in principle nothing is payable. The same decision restates the general rule of Article 283 of the CGI as quoted by the Conseil d’Etat: “La taxe sur la valeur ajoutée doit être acquittée par les personnes qui réalisent les opérations imposables, (…) / Toutefois, lorsqu’une livraison de biens (…) 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. (…)” The supplier rule and its exception sit side by side: the person carrying out the taxable transaction pays, unless a non-French supplier faces a French taxable customer holding a French number, in which case the customer self-assesses. For a foreign seller this yields three clean positions. If you are VAT-identified in France, you import under your own number and self-assess with zero cash effect. If your French customer is the importer of record and holds a French number, it self-assesses on its return and you invoice accordingly. If neither you nor anyone in the chain is identified, cash is due at the border and someone must advance it. Never let the contract stay silent on which of the three applies: the Incoterms, the named importer and the VAT numbers must all point to the same person, or the goods will wait at the port while the parties argue.

II. Paying without advancing cash, deducting and recovering: registration, self-assessment and how you fight a wrong bill

A. Getting into the self-assessment circuit: fifteen-day registration, the DGFIP foreign-companies office and the accredited representative for non-EU sellers

Self-assessment is a reward for identified operators only, so registration is the door and the clock runs fast. Article 286 of the CGI provides: “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.” Within fifteen days of starting your French operations you must file the model declaration with the designated office. For a company with no French establishment that office is the DGFIP foreign-companies service, reached through the procedure on the official page Immatriculation à la TVA on impots.gouv.fr: company identity with sworn translation of the incorporation certificate, powers of the signatory, description of the French operations with the first contracts or invoices, and bank details. Once identified, the operator enters the automatic ATVAI circuit described by customs: the import VAT appears pre-filled on the CA3 from customs data, the return is filed by the 24th of each month for import VAT operators, and collection and deduction happen simultaneously with no cash advance. Specialist VAT advisers summarise the practical consequence the same way: as specialist commentary on the 2022 reform notes, foreign companies importing in France that are not VAT registered must register and self-assess the import VAT in French returns instead of recovering it through the European or 13th Directive refund routes, and non-EU companies additionally need a customs broker setup. The doctrine of the administration is consolidated in the BOI (Bulletin officiel des Finances publiques-Impôts, the binding official tax commentary), and your declarant or representative applies it on every shipment.

The decisive fork, again, is whether your company sits inside or outside the European Union. A company established in another Member State registers directly, files its own CA3 returns and corresponds with the DGFIP itself. A company established outside the Union that owes French VAT or must complete French declaration formalities must act through an accredited fiscal representative, and the administrative court of appeal of Marseille recalls the exact statutory wording in CAA Marseille, 2nd chamber, 12 May 2022, no. 20MA04739 (Aviva Metals): “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”. Your representative must be a taxable person established in France, accredited by the tax office, who files for you and pays in your place; failing that, your French customer answers for your tax and penalties, which is why no serious customer signs with an unrepresented non-EU supplier. The Aviva case shows the price of improvising around this duty: an American group bought materials from French suppliers without a fiscal representative in France and recharged the VAT to its French affiliate through internal debit notes, and the court upheld the full reassessment over 2015-2016, finding that “seule NBM Inc pouvait déduire cette TVA” and that “la TVA devait être rappelée auprès de la société NBME”. Only the American principal could have deducted, through a representative it never appointed, so the French affiliate lost the deduction entirely. The operational lesson is blunt: appoint the representative before the first container sails, align the EORI, the French VAT number and the name on every invoice, and never deduct French VAT on documents made out to another group company. Accreditation, guarantees and invoice controls take weeks; the fifteen-day declaration period and the ship’s arrival date do not wait.

B. Deducting, recovering and contesting: the CA3 entries, wrongly paid VAT and the surcharges that punish silence

Once inside the circuit, each month follows the same mechanics: declare, deduct, pay the balance or carry forward the credit. Article 287 of the CGI sets the return duty: “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.” Every identified VAT operator files the prescribed return with its tax office within the fixed period, in practice the monthly CA3 for newly registered foreign companies, with import VAT pre-filled from the Données ATVAI data, and payment of any balance by electronic means. Deduction is what makes the system neutral. Article 271 of the CGI provides: “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.” VAT that burdened the price of a taxable transaction is deductible from the VAT on that transaction. And it fixes the timing: “Le droit à déduction prend naissance lorsque la taxe déductible devient exigible chez le redevable”, the right to deduct arises when the deductible tax becomes chargeable. Import VAT self-assessed on the CA3, VAT on French purchases, subcontracts and expenses linked to your taxable activity all reduce the VAT you remit, and a surplus becomes a credit carried forward or refunded under the statutory conditions. Three conditions are absolute: the expense must serve taxable transactions, the tax must be chargeable, and you must hold a valid invoice or customs document made out in your name with your French VAT number. Debit notes between group companies, pro forma invoices and documents addressed to another entity never open a deduction, as the Aviva reassessment demonstrates.

Errors have their own regime, and the Conseil d’Etat drew its boundaries in the Eye Shelter decision. Where reverse charge was mishandled and the buyer wrongly paid VAT to its supplier instead of self-assessing, the court held in Conseil d’Etat, 15 November 2019, no. 420251 that “lorsque l’acquéreur d’un bien a versé par erreur au fournisseur la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée mentionnée à tort sur les factures émises par ce dernier, alors que, en application du régime de l’auto-liquidation, il aurait dû, en tant que bénéficiaire d’une livraison de biens, s’acquitter directement de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée auprès des autorités fiscales, il ne peut pas se prévaloir d’un droit à déduction de la taxe acquittée à tort.” A buyer that pays wrongly invoiced VAT to its supplier when it should have self-assessed cannot deduct that wrongly paid tax. The remedy runs first against the supplier, which must refund the undue amount, and only where recovery from the supplier is impossible or excessively difficult, for instance on insolvency, can the buyer turn directly to the tax authority, which may first check that the Treasury suffered no loss because the supplier repaid the wrongly collected tax. For a foreign seller this cuts both ways: if your French customer paid you VAT it should have self-assessed, expect a refund claim and regularise quickly by credit note and repayment before the dispute hardens; if you paid import VAT in cash at the border that should have been self-assessed, claim it back through the proper channel with the customs and tax documents rather than deducting a sum you never validly bore. Late or wrong filing is punished on top of the principal. Interest for late payment runs by law, and Article 1729 of the CGI adds surcharges on recalled tax: “Les inexactitudes ou les omissions relevées dans une déclaration ou un acte comportant l’indication d’éléments à retenir pour l’assiette ou la liquidation de l’impôt ainsi que la restitution d’une créance de nature fiscale dont le versement a été indûment obtenu de l’Etat entraînent l’application d’une majoration de : a. 40 % en cas de manquement délibéré”. Inaccuracies or omissions attract a 40 percent surcharge for deliberate failure, higher for abuse of law, plus interest. When the administration sends a reassessment proposal or a demand, answer within the stated deadlines with documents and legal grounds, use the available commission opinion, then file an administrative claim and appeal to the administrative court within two months of rejection. Never ignore a French letter because it arrived in French at a foreign address: give your representative a valid contact, open the professional tax account, calendar the 24th of each month, and reply to every request, because silence turns a correction into enforced collection with bank attachment.

Conclusion

Goods stopped at the French border are a paperwork crisis before they are a money crisis. Identify the importation under Article 291, name the importer of record on the customs declaration with a valid French VAT number, and choose the right circuit: self-assessment with zero cash effect for VAT-identified operators since 1 January 2022, cash collection like a customs duty for everyone else under Article 1695. Register within fifteen days through the DGFIP foreign-companies service, have your non-EU company appoint its accredited fiscal representative before the first shipment, and align the EORI, the VAT number and the invoice names across the whole chain. File the CA3 every period, deduct only on proper documents in your name, regularise wrongly paid VAT against the supplier first as the Conseil d’Etat requires, and answer every reassessment inside its deadline before the 40 percent surcharge hardens the bill. Run in this order, importing into France becomes a routine monthly return instead of a container waiting at the port, and your French customers keep ordering because your documents carry the numbers their auditors demand.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Foreign company with goods held at French customs or a dispute over import VAT, self-assessment or deduction. Get a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm by calling +33 6 46 60 58 22. You can also write through our contact page with your customs declaration and any letter from the French tax or customs office.