You sell software from New York, machine parts from London, wine storage from Singapore, or consulting from Dubai, and France suddenly sends you a VAT bill, a frozen parcel at Roissy, or a customer who refuses to pay your invoice because it shows no French VAT number. This guide explains, in plain business English, how a foreign founder or foreign company gets a French VAT number, when France forces a non-EU business to appoint an accredited fiscal representative, how VAT returns work in practice, and what penalties apply when registration or payment comes late. Every French acronym is explained on first use.
French VAT is called TVA, taxe sur la valeur ajoutée. The business register is the Registre national des entreprises, held by the commercial court clerk called the greffe of the tribunal de commerce. The official company identity card is the Kbis extract. The business gazette that publishes creations and moves is the BODACC, Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales. The social security collector for employers is URSSAF, Unions de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales. The tax office for foreign businesses is the Service des impôts des entreprises, SIE, and the non-resident tax office in Noisy-le-Grand is the SIE des non-résidents. The customs authority is the Direction générale des douanes et droits indirects. With these names in mind, the VAT path becomes readable.
This article covers both situations: you already have a French company, typically a SAS, société par actions simplifiée, or a SARL, société à responsabilité limitée, owned from abroad, and you wonder when it must charge French VAT; and you have no French entity at all but you sell, store, install or import goods or services in France and wonder whether you must register for French VAT from abroad, with or without a fiscal representative. Our starting point for the whole set-up remains our pillar guide on setting up a company in France as a foreign founder: bank account, Kbis, VAT and first hire, which describes the creation sequence, while this guide goes deep on the VAT number, the fiscal representative and the penalty machinery.
I. How does a foreign company get a French VAT number and file VAT in France?
A. When does your foreign business need French VAT registration and a French VAT number?
French VAT applies to supplies of goods and services made for consideration by a taxable person acting as such. The statute states:
“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.” This is Article 256 of the General Tax Code, Code général des impôts, CGI. If you deliver goods in France, install equipment in Lyon, store stock in a French warehouse, sell at a French trade fair, or perform services used in France, you are in principle inside this definition even when your head office sits in Delaware, London or the United Arab Emirates.
Three practical triggers catch most foreign businesses. The first is a taxable presence in France without necessarily incorporating: a warehouse, a consignment stock, an installation team, distance sales stored in France, or imports cleared in France. The second is intra-EU movement: goods shipped from Germany or Italy to French customers, or goods you buy in France for resale. The statute extends VAT to intra-Community acquisitions in Article 256 bis of the General Tax Code, which taxes acquisitions of movable tangible goods made for consideration by a taxable person when the seller is itself a taxable person in another Member State. The third trigger is services: since the place-of-supply reform, business-to-business services are generally taxed where the customer is established. French law states:
“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” under Article 259 of the General Tax Code. In plain terms, when your French business customer receives your consulting, SaaS maintenance, engineering or marketing service, the place is France and French VAT rules decide who pays.
Identification follows from liability. France gives every relevant trader an individual number described in Article 286 ter of the General Tax Code: “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”. The official guidance on entreprendre.service-public.gouv.fr confirms that a business located outside the European Union which carries out taxable transactions in France must appoint a fiscal representative, and the tax office then issues the French intra-Community VAT number starting with FR. The customs authority says the same on its page on identification and fiscal representation: the fiscal representative, established and taxable in France, undertakes to complete the formalities and, where relevant, to pay the VAT in place of the non-EU trader. The BOI tax commentary adds that after registration with the national statistics institute, the SIE responsible for the fiscal representative assigns each non-EU business its own VAT identification number.
A frequent question from founders is whether the small-business exemption helps. For traders established in France, Article 293 B of the General Tax Code grants a franchise that relieves them from paying VAT while their French turnover stays below statutory ceilings, currently 85,000 euros for the prior calendar year for most sales of goods and 37,500 euros for most services other than restaurant and accommodation services, with higher current-year tolerance thresholds. This franchise is reserved to traders established in France. A company with no French establishment cannot claim the French franchise on French domestic sales, and a newly created French SAS or SARL can only use it while it stays under the ceilings and files the right option. Do not assume that low turnover exempts a foreign seller holding French stock: it does not.
Another frequent misunderstanding concerns distance selling and platforms. Goods stored in France and sold to French consumers are domestic French supplies, not distance sales from abroad. Goods shipped from another EU country to French consumers fall under the One-Stop Shop, OSS, guichet unique, with EU-wide thresholds, but goods located in France at the time of sale remain under the French VAT number of the seller. Marketplaces deemed suppliers under the e-commerce rules still leave the underlying foreign seller exposed when it imports or holds the stock. If your model is import, clear in Rotterdam, truck to a French fulfilment centre, then sell on a marketplace, you need French VAT identification before the first French consumer delivery, not after the first reminder from the SIE.
For services, the mirror question is the reverse charge, autoliquidation. When a supply mentioned in Article 259 A is made by a trader not established in France, French law provides that “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” under Article 283 of the General Tax Code. The computation is identified on the return described in Article 287. Similarly, “Lorsque les prestations mentionnées au 1° de l’ article 259 sont fournies par un assujetti qui n’est pas établi en France, la taxe doit être acquittée par le preneur.” In practice, your US or UK company invoices without French VAT, states reverse charge by the customer, and the French customer self-assesses French VAT. This only works when the customer is a French VAT-identified taxable person and the service indeed falls under the rule. Sales to French consumers, admission to events, restaurant services, short-term equipment hire, work on immovable property in France and many on-the-spot services do not follow the same path and may force you to charge French VAT directly.
Registration timing matters. French domestic law still frames the start of activity as a declaration duty. Article 286 of the General Tax Code 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.” In real life for a foreign business this means mandate the representative or tax agent early, gather apostilled company documents, translated articles, proof of foreign VAT status, warehouse or carrier contracts, and expected French turnover, then file for the FR number before the first taxable operation. Banks, marketplaces and French customers increasingly ask for the FR number before they release funds or shelf space, and customs brokers refuse to clear imports under your name without it.
B. How do you register, declare and pay French VAT from abroad?
The file is administrative but strict. A non-EU business acts through its accredited fiscal representative for registration, returns and payment. An EU business without a French establishment may register directly with the SIE des non-résidents or appoint a tax agent, mandataire fiscal, which is lighter than full fiscal representation. A foreign-owned French SAS or SARL registers like any French company at creation through the single business formality window, Guichet unique managed by INPI, Institut national de la propriété industrielle, then receives its SIREN number from INSEE, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, its Kbis from the greffe, and its FR VAT number from the SIE. Keep these numbers distinct: SIREN identifies the company, the FR VAT number identifies it for VAT, and the EORI number identifies it for customs. One does not replace the other.
The core return obligation is monthly or quarterly depending on the regime. Article 287 of the General Tax Code states: “Tout redevable de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée identifié conformément aux dispositions combinées des articles 286 ter et 286 ter A est tenu de remettre au service des impôts dont il dépend et dans le délai fixé par arrêté une déclaration conforme au modèle prescrit par l’administration.” Taxpayers under the normal real regime file the CA3 return each month showing total transactions on one side and deductible VAT on the other, with payment of the net amount. Smaller businesses under the simplified regime file annually with instalments, but they switch to monthly filings as soon as they make intra-Community acquisitions, imports, or removals from suspensive warehousing regimes, and in any event when the yearly VAT payable exceeds 4,000 euros they file quarterly. On cessation or sale of the business, the return must be filed within thirty days, sixty days under the simplified regime.
The return is detailed. It must separately show exempt intra-Community supplies, goods installed in another Member State, intra-Community acquisitions under Article 256 bis, goods installed in France, supplies where the customer is designated as liable under Article 283, imports and removals from the suspensive regimes of Article 277 A distinguishing taxable and non-taxable flows, transfers under Article 257 bis, and services for which the customer accounts for VAT. Errors in these boxes trigger automated cross-checks: the French VAT listing, the European VIES system, the customs Delta system and the SIE ledger are reconciled. A US exporter who reports zero French acquisitions while its carrier déclarés imports in its name, or a UK consultant who forgets to report French reverse-charge receipts, will receive a request for explanations within months.
Deduction is the reward for compliance. A business identified under Article 286 ter deducts input VAT on French purchases, imports, intra-Community acquisitions and qualifying overheads, provided it holds valid invoices meeting Article 289 A and Article 289 of the General Tax Code invoice rules, the expense is used for taxed outputs, and the right to deduct has not expired. Foreign companies often lose deduction by paying French suppliers in cash without invoices, by using pro-forma invoices, by missing the import VAT certificate, or by billing from the wrong entity. After Brexit, UK businesses learned this the hard way: VAT paid at a French hotel or trade fair is only recovered through a proper French return or the EU refund portal for EU claimants, or the Thirteenth Directive refund claim for non-EU claimants, with strict deadlines and original evidence.
Imports deserve special attention because they combine customs and VAT. At import, the taxable event occurs when the good is treated as imported and VAT becomes chargeable at that moment. The Court of Cassation recalled the rule in its FedEx judgment of 11 February 2026, pourvoi No. Z 24-18.748, stating:
“à l’importation, le fait générateur se produit et la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée devient exigible au moment où le bien est considéré comme importé et la taxe doit être acquittée par la personne désignée comme destinataire réel des biens sur la déclaration d’importation.” Full decision at Cour de cassation, chambre commerciale, 11 février 2026, No. 24-18.748. The Court added that “cette taxe est solidairement due par le déclarant en douane qui agit dans le cadre d’un mandat de représentation indirecte”. For founders this means the name entered as real consignee on the customs declaration decides who owes import VAT, and the forwarder acting as indirect representative can be held jointly liable. Never let a forwarder enter a wrong consignee to save time, and never declared low-value consignments as negligible-value shipments when they are commercial stock: the 2026 FedEx case arose from Apple products shipped from the United States, declared as negligible-value consignments, which had benefited from an import VAT exemption, followed by a 1,940,162 euro recovery notice against the carrier.
Since 2022, import VAT for most French VAT-identified traders is no longer paid at the border but self-assessed on the VAT return, autoliquidation of import VAT. This is cash-flow friendly but unforgiving: the trader must report both the base and the deductible amount in the same return, and any mismatch between the customs pre-filled data and the return blocks the deduction. Non-EU traders only access this flow through a valid FR number and, in practice, through their fiscal representative. Keep every month the customs import statements, the representative’s calculation sheet, the purchase ledger, and the bank proof of net payment. The SIE asks for them as a bundle.
Ongoing compliance is calendar-driven. Monthly CA3 by the date set by ministerial order, generally between the 15th and 24th of the following month depending on the SIE; European sales listings, état récapitulatif, for intra-EU supplies of goods and certain services; Intrastat-type statistical responses when thresholds are exceeded; annual accounts filing at the greffe for French entities; and corporate income tax return in May. A foreign-owned SAS that files its corporate tax but forgets its monthly nil VAT returns will still be fined for each missing return. Nil does not mean exempt from filing.
II. How do you appoint a fiscal representative in France and avoid VAT penalties?
A. When must a non-EU company appoint an accredited fiscal representative in France?
The dividing line is establishment inside or outside the European Union. The statute 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.” This is Article 289 A-I of the General Tax Code. Failing 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.” Your French customer becomes liable for your VAT, which explains why experienced French buyers insert a clause requiring your FR number and representative details before signing.
The same article lists two narrow exemptions. It does not apply to persons established in a non-EU State with which France has a mutual assistance instrument similar to Directive 2010/24/EU on recovery assistance and Regulation 904/2010 on administrative cooperation in VAT matters, the list being set by ministerial order, nor to non-EU persons carrying out only transactions placed under the suspensive warehousing regime of Article 277 A or certain supplies of gas, electricity, heat or cold where the buyer accounts for VAT under Article 283(2 quinquies). The United States, China, the United Arab Emirates and most commercially relevant countries are not on the assistance-equivalence list for this purpose, so a Delaware corporation, a Shenzhen exporter or a Dubai consultancy with French taxable sales must in practice appoint a representative. An EU company, for example a German GmbH, an Irish Ltd or a Spanish SL, does not need a full fiscal representative; it registers directly or appoints a lighter tax agent.
Accreditation is not a mailbox. The representative must be a taxable person established in France and must meet solvency, organisation and probity conditions. The statute requires that neither the representative nor, for legal entities, any of its directors has committed serious or repeated tax offences, has incurred the sanctions of Articles L.651-2, L.653-2 and L.653-8 of the Commercial Code in the prior three years, or is subject to an ongoing prohibition, that it has the administrative organisation and human and material resources to perform the mission, and that it shows financial solvency in line with its representative obligations or a financial guarantee for one quarter of the sums arising from those obligations, given by a mutual guarantee company, collective guarantee body, insurance company, bank or authorised financial institution. The tax office grants and withdraws accreditation by decision, under conditions set by decree in Conseil d’Etat. In plain terms, choose a professional firm that already handles non-resident VAT, not a friend with a Paris address.
The courts treat the representative as a real debtor, not a postbox. The Tribunal judiciaire de Bobigny, 17 July 2025, RG No. 23/03217, dismissed the claim of SARL Logefi Services, acting as fiscal representative of the Chinese company Shezhenshi Wenxuanyou, which sought annulment of recovery notice No. 783/22S60 and denial of joint liability. The tribunal recalled that:
“Lorsque le comptable poursuit le recouvrement d’une créance à l’égard de débiteurs tenus conjointement ou solidairement au paiement de celle-ci, il notifie préalablement à chacun d’eux un avis de mise en recouvrement à moins qu’ils n’aient la qualité de représentant ou d’ayant cause du contribuable, telle que mentionnée à l’article 1682 du code général des impôts.” Full judgment at Tribunal judiciaire de Bobigny, 17 juillet 2025, RG No. 23/03217. It then applied Article 289 A: “en cas d’opérations imposables, à acquitter la taxe à sa place”, and cited the official customs circular of 16 March 2015: “Conformément aux dispositions précitées [article 289 A-I du CGI], la personne désignée en qualité de représentant fiscal par une personne qui n’est pas établie dans l’Union européenne, est toujours redevable de la dette fiscale.” The tribunal added that under established case law, “l’administration est fondée à conduire, avec le représentant fiscal, les procédures de contrôle et de redressement des déclarations ainsi que, le cas échéant, la procédure d’établissement de pénalités en rapport avec les opérations de la personne redevable”, referring to Conseil d’Etat, 24 July 2009, Ste Leuchtturm Albenverlag GmbH, No. 304672. The lesson for founders is direct: your representative pays if you do not fund the VAT, and it will ask for a deposit, a bank guarantee or direct debit authority before accepting the mandate.
Draft the mandate carefully. It should identify the represented foreign company, its foreign company number, its FR VAT number once issued, the scope of operations in France, the power to file and pay, the handling of audits and recovery notices, the fee, the provision for VAT and penalties, the duration and termination notice, and the document flow: sales data, purchase invoices, customs statements, contracts and bank statements by the 5th of each month. Attach the accreditation letter once obtained. Inform your warehouse, carrier, marketplace and French customers of the representative’s details so that import declarations, invoices and VIES data align. Misalignment is the most common source of reassessment: goods imported under the representative’s number but sold under a different number, or services invoiced from the US entity while the FR number sits idle.
Do not confuse the fiscal representative with other French roles. The customs registered declarant, declarant en douane, handles the customs declaration and may be jointly liable as indirect representative, but does not replace the VAT fiscal representative. The tax agent for EU businesses files VAT without paying in place of the principal as a solidary debtor in the same way. The domiciliation agent provides a registered address but has no VAT liability. The statutory auditor, commissaire aux comptes, certifies accounts but does not file VAT. The payroll provider handles URSSAF and payslips but not VAT. Each role needs its own engagement letter.
B. What happens if you bill without VAT, file late or ignore the VAT debt in France?
Three failures recur: no registration although French taxable sales exist, late or missing returns, and unpaid VAT after filing. Each has its own price.
Late filing triggers automatic surcharges. Article 1728 of the General Tax Code provides: “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”. The rate rises to 40 percent when the return is not filed within thirty days of a formal notice, and to 80 percent where an occult activity is discovered, meaning undéclaréd business carried on in France. Interest for late payment accrues on top, currently 0.20 percent per month, plus the SIE may assess ex officio, taxation d’office, when returns remain missing after notices. For a foreign e-commerce seller with 200,000 euros of French sales at 20 percent VAT, a single year of missing returns can therefore turn 40,000 euros of VAT into 56,000 euros with the 40 percent surcharge plus interest, before any penalty for inaccurate invoices.
Billing without VAT when VAT was due creates a second layer. The customer that should have been charged will refuse to pay the supplement, the SIE will claim it from you or, for non-EU sellers without a representative, from the French customer under Article 289 A, and the customer will then turn against you under the contract. Corrective invoices, avoirs and debit notes must be issued, with sequential numbering, reference to the original invoice, and the FR VAT number now shown. The representative or the French entity must régularisée through amended returns, not through a quiet credit in the next month’s ledger. Keep proof that the customer received the correction: the statute of limitations and the right to deduct for the customer depend on it.
Operating without any French VAT number while holding stock or importing in France exposes you to the occult-activity qualification. Customs data, marketplace reports under DAC7, warehouse landlord statements and URSSAF hiring data all feed the SIE. Once qualified as occult, the 80 percent surcharge applies, the limitation period extends, and directors face joint liability and potential criminal referral for tax fraud, fraude fiscale, above certain thresholds. The Bobigny line of cases shows that the representative will be pursued first when one exists, but without a representative the SIE will pursue the French consignee, the warehouse keeper or the marketplace payments, freezing cash while the dispute lasts. Regularising spontaneously before any audit notice keeps you at 10 percent and preserves the right to argue good faith; waiting for the recovery notice pushes you to 40 percent or 80 percent.
Audit procedure is formal and must be used, not feared. The SIE sends a notice, examines the file at the representative’s office or the French company’s premises, holds a contradictory meeting, then issues a proposed reassessment, proposition de rectification, with legal bases and amounts. You have thirty days to respond, longer with an appointed adviser, then the SIE confirms or drops, and issues a recovery notice, avis de mise en recouvrement. The Bobigny judgment confirms that the notice may be addressed personally to the fiscal representative as debtor, without a separate notice to the foreign principal, because the representative is not a third party but the designated debtor. Challenge the notice before the tribunal judiciaire for customs VAT or the tribunal administratif for SIE VAT depending on the tax, within the stated deadline, and pay or guarantee the disputed amount to stop enforcement unless a stay is granted. Missing the deadline validates the worst assessment.
Prevention is cheaper than litigation. Open the FR number before the first French sale, fund a VAT provision account, file even nil returns, reconcile VIES, customs and accounting monthly, keep invoices ten years as Article 286 of the General Tax Code requires through the bookkeeping and L.102 B record-keeping rules, and close the number cleanly when you exit France with a final return within thirty days and a deregistration request. When you acquire a French target, check its VAT account on day one: unfiled CA3s, unreported intra-EU acquisitions and unreversed import VAT survive the share purchase and become the buyer’s cash problem. When you close a French SAS from abroad, the liquidator must file the final VAT return and pay the balance before the strike-off, radiation, is published in the BODACC; otherwise the greffe blocks the file and the SIE pursues the former directors.
Paris and Ile-de-France add practical points. The SIE des non-résidents in Noisy-le-Grand handles many foreign files and replies faster when the representative files electronically with French bank details, RIB, and a clear activity code. The Paris commercial court greffe issues the Kbis within days when the INPI single-window file is complete, but VAT numbers for foreign-owned SAS often take longer because the SIE verifies the lease, the beneficial owners registered in the Registre des bénéficiaires effectifs, and the identity of the president. The Paris customs offices at Roissy and Orly detain parcels with undervalued declarations within hours. Budget two to six weeks from mandate to FR number in straightforward cases, longer when accreditation of a new representative is needed.
Conclusion
A foreign business does not need a French company to owe French VAT, but it always needs a French VAT number when it makes taxable supplies in France, and a non-EU business generally needs an accredited fiscal representative who will file and pay in its place. Articles 256, 256 bis, 259, 283, 286, 286 ter, 287, 289 A, 293 B and 1728 of the General Tax Code set the frame, the FedEx ruling of 11 February 2026 and the Bobigny judgment of 17 July 2025 show that the consignee on the import declaration and the fiscal representative are treated as real debtors, and the service-public and customs guidance confirm the registration path. Register before selling, file every month even when nil, reconcile customs and VIES data, fund the VAT, and keep invoices for ten years. The cost of anticipation is a mandate and a calendar; the cost of delay is a 40 to 80 percent surcharge, joint liability of the representative or the French customer, and detained stock. With the number, the representative and the calendar in place, France becomes an ordinary market to serve from abroad.
Need a quick opinion on your case
Foreign founder or foreign company with French VAT, a blocked FR number, or a recovery notice in France? Get a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm. Call 06 46 60 58 22 (Maître Reda Kohen) or write via our contact page. Office in Paris, assisting clients across Paris and Ile-de-France and founders operating from abroad.