You formed your French company from abroad, the Kbis arrived in your inbox, and you felt the hard part was over. The Kbis is the official extract issued by the greffe, the registry office of the commercial court, and it proves your company legally exists. So you did what any founder would do: you sent your first invoice to your first French client, adding 20% VAT with a French VAT number built from your SIREN. Then the client refused to pay. Your accountant turned pale. The number does not validate on VIES, the European database where anyone can check an intra-Community VAT number, and the SIE, the service des impôts des entreprises or local corporate tax office, has never heard of you as a VAT payer. You have a company, a bank account, a SIRET, and still no working VAT number. This article explains the activation chain most foreign founders miss, what you may and may not put on an invoice while you wait, how to reclaim the VAT you paid on start-up costs, and how to fight back from abroad when the administration blocks you or bills you. Every French acronym is explained, every decisive statement is backed by the exact statute or court decision linked below, and every procedure is described as it works in 2026 for a founder who does not live in France.
I. Why your Kbis does not mean you can charge VAT yet: the activation chain foreign founders miss
A. How a French VAT number is really issued after the Kbis, and why it takes weeks
Company formation and VAT registration are two separate tracks in France, and the second starts only when the first finishes. When you file on the Guichet unique, the single online filing portal run by the INPI, the French intellectual-property and business-registry office, your file travels to the greffe, which registers the company and issues the Kbis. The INSEE, the national statistics institute, then assigns the SIREN, the nine-digit company identifier, and the SIRET, the fourteen-digit identifier of each business premises. None of this assigns a VAT number. The VAT number, called the numéro de TVA intracommunautaire, is issued afterwards by the SIE of the registered office, andpinned to the SIREN in the form FR XX 123456789. Foreign founders routinely discover this gap the painful way: the pillar guide for setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, Setting Up a Company in France as a Foreign Founder: Bank Account, Kbis, VAT and Your First Hire, describes the full formation chain, but even founders who follow it step by step often wait weeks between the Kbis and the first working VAT number.
The statute organises this sequence explicitly. Article 286, I, 1° of the Code général des impôts (CGI), the French tax code, requires every VAT taxpayer: “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”, meaning that within fifteen days of starting operations you must file the declaration of existence with the designated tax office. In practice for a newly formed SAS or SARL, the SIE opens the VAT account on the basis of the creation file transmitted by the Guichet unique, supplemented by that declaration, and then issues the individual number provided for by article 286 ter of the CGI: “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”. An assujetti is a taxable person, namely anyone who independently carries out an economic activity. If your company only holds assets and does nothing, it may never need the number; the moment it sells goods or services giving a right to deduct, the individual number becomes mandatory. Companies with no establishment in France follow a parallel track through the SIEE, the service des impôts des entreprises étrangères in Noisy-le-Grand, which is the dedicated office for foreign businesses, as explained on the official page Modalités d’immatriculation au SIEE. The general registration mechanics are described on Immatriculation à la TVA and on the Service-Public business portal at Numéro de TVA intracommunautaire.
Three practical consequences follow. First, the delay is structural, not a malfunction: two to eight weeks between the Kbis and an active VIES entry is ordinary, longer when the SIE orders a substance check because the president lives abroad, the registered address is a domiciliation company, and the file shows no French bank movement yet. Second, the number must be tested, not assumed: type it into the European VIES validator before invoicing, and ask your SIE for written confirmation of the opening of the VAT account, because some clients run the check and freeze payment on any invalid reply. Third, keep every proof of the filing date, the SIE correspondence, and the VIES screenshots: if a dispute later arises about when you became liable or entitled, the paper trail decides it. The commercial-court registration itself travels through the file described by article R. 123-3 of the Code de commerce, the French commercial code, which lists what the single-organisation file contains, and that file is what the tax office works from, so any error in the declared activity code or start date propagates straight into the VAT account.
The BODACC, the Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales where company creations are published, confirms existence to the market, but it never confirms VAT status. Only the SIE confirmation and a green VIES reply do. Founders who confuse the two layers invoice too early, and that is where the second trap snaps shut.
B. The three traps that turn an inactive number into a tax bill: inventing a number, charging VAT under franchise, and botching the invoice
Trap one is inventing a VAT number from the SIREN. A number you assemble yourself, however logical it looks, is a false number on a legal document. The client who validates it on VIES sees an invalid reply, suspects fraud, and withholds payment; the administration sees an invoice carrying VAT that was never declared through the account required by article 287 of the CGI: “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”. A redevable is the person liable to pay the tax, and the CA3, the standard periodic VAT return, is the return that provision refers to. VAT shown on an invoice without a matching declared account is the worst of both worlds: the client cannot deduct it, and you may still be held to pay it.
Trap two is charging VAT while your company qualifies for the franchise en base, the small-business exemption that releases qualifying companies from charging and deducting VAT. Article 293 B, I of the CGI states: “Pour leurs livraisons de biens et leurs prestations de services, les assujettis établis en France bénéficient d’une franchise qui les dispense du paiement de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée”, provided turnover stays below the statutory ceilings, currently 85,000 euros for sales of goods and 37,500 euros for most services for the previous calendar year, with higher current-year tolerance thresholds. Many foreign founders tick the franchise box at formation to simplify life, then charge 20% VAT on the first invoice out of habit, which destroys the exemption for that transaction and can push the company into the standard regime by contagion. Conversely, founders who need the number precisely because they exceed the ceilings sometimes keep invoicing without VAT for months, absorbing a cost they could have passed on and losing the right to reclaim input VAT in the meantime. The choice between franchise and standard regime is a strategic fork, not a default, and it should be reviewed with the accountant before the second month of activity, because crossing a threshold mid-year changes the invoicing rules for the rest of the year.
Trap three is the non-compliant invoice. Article 289, I, 1 of the CGI provides: “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”. Every invoice to another taxable person must therefore exist, be complete, and carry the mandatory mentions, including the individual VAT numbers of supplier and customer for intra-Community supplies, the precise description of the goods or services, and the rate and amount of VAT. Missing or wrong mentions do not just annoy the client: they expose the issuer to the penalty scale of article 1788 A of the CGI, whose first paragraph warns that it “Entraîne l’application d’une amende de 750 €” for each failure to produce the statements required, rising to 1,500 euros after a formal notice goes unanswered, with 15 euros per omission or inaccuracy capped at 1,500 euros. Commercial competitors’ guides such as generic commercial VAT guides describe the registration steps in general terms, but none of them carries the statutory penalty scale, which is why founders who rely on them alone underestimate the cost of a sloppy invoice.
A special case deserves its own warning: purchases from suppliers established outside France. Article 283, 1 of the CGI organises the autoliquidation, the reverse-charge mechanism under which the French customer, not the foreign supplier, accounts for the VAT: when the supply “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”, with the amount entered on the return provided for by article 287. Without your own active identification number, you cannot operate the reverse charge cleanly, which means cross-border purchases stall at exactly the moment the young company needs its foreign equipment, software licences, and intra-group services most. The import side of the same problem, with the reverse charge at customs, is treated in our companion piece on import VAT for foreign-owned companies, and the two articles should be read together by any founder moving goods across the border.
II. How to invoice, reclaim and defend your VAT position while you live abroad
A. What to put on paper while the number is inactive: lawful invoicing, deposits, corrections, and the first CA3
The governing reflex is simple: never print a VAT number you have not verified, and never charge VAT you are not yet entitled to collect. While the SIE file is pending, three lawful paths exist. First, wait and invoice once, late but clean: French law does not require the invoice on the day of delivery in every case, and a single compliant invoice issued after activation beats three incorrect ones. Second, issue a genuine facture pro forma, clearly headed as pro forma and carrying no VAT number and no VAT amount, to let the client start its internal payment circuit, then convert it into a final invoice the day the number validates. Third, collect an acompte, a deposit, documented as such: the deposit creates its own VAT event under article 269 of the CGI, since “Le fait générateur de la taxe se produit : a) Au moment où la livraison, l’acquisition intracommunautaire du bien ou la prestation de services est effectué”, and for services the tax on a deposit generally becomes chargeable on collection, so the deposit invoice must already be right. In all three paths, warn the client in writing that the VAT number is pending SIE attribution, keep the VIES printouts, and diarise the correction: any invoice issued without VAT that should have carried it must be followed by a corrective invoice once the number is live, because the client can only exercise its own deduction on a regular document.
The deduction side is where the waiting period actually pays. Article 271, I, 1 of the CGI states the foundation: “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”, and the same article fixes the starting point: “Le droit à déduction prend naissance lorsque la taxe déductible devient exigible chez le redevable”. Translation: the VAT you paid on lawyers’ fees, domiciliation rent, laptops, software, and the accountant’s set-up bill is not lost because your number was inactive when you paid it; it becomes deductible once the right is born, and it is exercised by set-off against the VAT you owe for the month the right arose. Concretely, gather every supplier invoice from day one, check that each one is addressed to the company with its SIREN, and hand the complete stack to the accountant for the first CA3 rather than cherry-picking. Founders who throw away pre-activation invoices donate 20% of their start-up costs to the Treasury for no reason.
The first CA3 deserves preparation, not improvisation. The return is filed with the SIE, monthly under the standard réel normal regime unless quarterly filing has been authorised, and it reports total operations, taxable operations in detail, deductible input VAT, and the net payable or the credit carried forward. Calendar discipline matters because late filing draws penalties automatically, and a founder living abroad cannot plead distance: the return is filed online through the professional account on impots.gouv.fr, and a French accountant with a mandate can file and pay for you. If the company opted for the franchise at creation and turnover now justifies the standard regime, exercise the option for the standard regime before the invoicing volume makes the switch painful; if it stayed in franchise by inertia, model both paths with real figures, because voluntary taxation sometimes pays when start-up input VAT is heavy. Either way, align the accounting software with the chosen regime on the day of the switch, since software that keeps printing the old mentions manufactures one defective invoice per sale.
Two operational details close the loop. First, intra-Community supplies and acquisitions add a second declaration, the état récapitulatif, the recapitulative statement of intra-Community supplies, alongside the CA3; missing it triggers the 750-euro fine scale quoted above even when the CA3 itself is perfect. Second, mandatory electronic invoicing is being phased in for French VAT taxpayers, which raises the bar on invoice data quality: structured data leaves less room for the approximate mentions that paper tolerated. A founder who builds clean master data now, exact legal name, registered-office address, SIREN, verified VAT numbers for every customer, will cross that threshold without rework.
B. Getting your money back and fighting the administration from abroad: unpaid invoices, blocked refunds, refusals, and remedies
Start-up VAT almost always means a VAT credit before it means VAT payable: you paid 20% on everything and collected little. That credit is claimed on the CA3 and carried forward or refunded according to the applicable repayment rhythm. When the SIE delays the refund with repeated document requests, answer fast, in French, through the professional messaging channel, with numbered exhibits: Kbis, SIE attribution letter, supplier invoices, bank statements showing payment, and the lease or domiciliation contract proving real activity. Substance checks target precisely the profile of the foreign-held SAS with no employees and a domiciliation address, so the file must show economic reality: contracts signed, website live, business correspondence, and, where possible, the first French hires or service providers. The URSSAF, the social-security collection agency, is a different administration from the SIE, but inspectors talk to each other in practice, so keep the social and tax files consistent on headcount, premises, and activity description.
Unpaid customer invoices create the second battlefield. French law gives the supplier a way out: article 272, 1 of the CGI provides that “La taxe sur la valeur ajoutée qui a été perçue à l’occasion de ventes ou de services est imputée ou remboursée dans les conditions prévues à l’article 271 lorsque ces ventes ou services sont par la suite résiliés ou annulés ou lorsque les créances correspondantes sont devenues définitivement irrecouvrables”, adding that “Toutefois, l’imputation ou le remboursement de la taxe peuvent être effectués dès la date de la décision de justice qui prononce la liquidation judiciaire”. An irrécouvrable claim is one definitively unrecoverable, and the refund requires proof that the original invoice was first corrected with the customer. The Cour de cassation, the supreme court for civil and commercial matters, applied this machinery recently in a factoring dispute: Cass. com., 22 October 2025, No. 24-19.201 holds that “lorsque les créances correspondantes sont devenues définitivement irrécouvrables, il n’est pas fondé, sauf stipulation contraire du contrat d’affacturage, à réclamer au créancier la taxe dont celui-ci a obtenu le remboursement par application de l’article 272-1 du code général des impôts”. A factor, the finance company that buys invoices, cannot claw back from its client the VAT the client lawfully recovered on definitively unpaid invoices unless the contract says otherwise. Founders who assigned their receivables before a customer collapse should read their factoring contract against that sentence before paying anything back.
When the administration says no, the remedy chain is accessible from abroad and should be used in order. First, the réclamation contentieuse, the formal tax claim filed with the SIE, which suspends enforced collection when paired with a demande de sursis de paiement, a request to defer payment while the claim is examined. The Cour de cassation recalled the power of that pairing in a company-liquidation case: Cass. com., 15 May 2019, No. 18-14.309, noting of a claim filed with a deferral request that it “laquelle suspend l’exigibilité de l’impôt”, meaning it suspends the enforceability of the tax. Second, if the SIE rejects the claim expressly or by silence after six months, appeal lies to the tribunal administratif, the administrative court of the registered office, within two months of the rejection, with representation by a French avocat and, for most founders, no obligation to appear in person. Third, parallel enforcement action, the avis de mise en recouvrement followed by seizure, can itself be challenged before the same court with a request for suspension. At every stage, deadlines run in calendar days and against the company, not against the founder’s travel schedule, so mandate the accountant to forward every SIE letter within 48 hours and the avocat to diary every recourse date on receipt. Distance never extends a time limit, but organisation neutralises it.
Refusals of registration deserve the same method. If the SIE refuses the VAT number, demands endless additional documents, or leaves the VIES entry red for months, escalate in writing: registered letter to the SIE head with the full exhibit list, complaint to the médiateur des entreprises or the tax mediator for persistent blockage, and, where a constituted right is denied, claim and court action as above. For companies with no French establishment dealing with the SIEE, route every filing through a représentant fiscal, a tax representative accredited in France, when the law requires one for the country of residence, because a file without the required representative is rejected without examination of the merits. Keep the commercial proof alongside the tax proof throughout: signed customer contracts, purchase orders, delivery notes, and payment records transform a thin file into a credible business and shorten every check. The administration doubts files, not people, and a documented founder abroad beats an undocumented founder in Paris every time.
Conclusion
A French Kbis without an active VAT number is a car without plates: real, paid for, and going nowhere on the public road. The founders who cross the gap fastest do four things in order. They file the fifteen-day declaration and chase the SIE confirmation until VIES turns green instead of assuming the SIREN suffices. They choose consciously between the small-business franchise and the standard regime instead of drifting into the wrong one. They invoice lawfully while waiting, with pro-forma documents, documented deposits, and corrective invoices, instead of printing an invented number. And they reclaim every euro of input VAT from day one while building the paper file that unlocks refunds and wins disputes. The statutes quoted above give you the skeleton; the procedures described give you the muscles. If your number has been red for more than a month, if a client froze payment on a VIES mismatch, or if the SIE just billed you on figures you dispute, treat this week as the deadline, not next quarter. Organise the file, mandate the accountant, and have the claim drafted before the next CA3 falls due. Your company was built to trade, and trade starts the day the VAT number works.
Need a quick opinion on your case?
Running a French company from abroad is manageable when the VAT file is clean and costly when it is not. Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with an attorney of the firm to review your VAT number, your invoices, and your next deadline. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write through our contact page with your Kbis, your SIE letters, and the disputed invoices. Early review routinely saves the 20% that sloppy invoicing gives away.