You run your business from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, and France is your next market. You have goods to ship, services to invoice, and perhaps a French subsidiary or branch to open. Then comes the question that blocks payments, deliveries and contracts: where is your French VAT number, and is it actually active? In France, value added tax (taxe sur la valeur ajoutée, known as TVA) applies to every supply of goods and services made for consideration by a taxable person. Without a valid French VAT identification number, your customers cannot apply the intra-European Union exemption, your import declarations stall at the border, and surcharges start running from the first missed return. This guide is written for a business reader who manages a French operation from abroad. It explains how a foreign company obtains a French VAT number, when it must appoint a French tax representative, how the monthly or quarterly CA3 return works, how input VAT is recovered, when the reverse charge shifts the tax to the customer, and which penalties apply when a deadline is missed. Every rule below is anchored in the French Tax Code (Code général des impôts, known as the CGI) and in court decisions showing what happens when the number printed on the invoice turns out to be wrong. If you are still choosing the vehicle for your French presence, read first our overview of setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, then use this article as your VAT operating manual.

I. Getting a French VAT Number From Abroad: Registration, VIES Activation and the Non-EU Tax Representative

A French VAT number is not a formality. It is the key that lets your company charge French VAT, recover the VAT it pays to suppliers, receive goods without VAT from other European Union countries under the exemption, and clear imports through French customs. Foreign founders often discover this too late, when a customer refuses to pay an invoice, a supplier adds 20 percent to the price, or the tax office sends a formal notice. This first part explains who must register, where and how fast, and the two traps that catch companies run from abroad: the missing French tax representative for non-European businesses, and the inactive number in the European VIES database.

A. How a Foreign Company Obtains Its French VAT Identification Number

French VAT starts with a broad net. Article 256 of the CGI provides that supplies of goods and services made for consideration by a taxable person acting as such are subject to VAT. Article 256 A of the CGI adds that any person independently carrying on an economic activity is a taxable person, whatever its legal form and whatever its position as regards other taxes. A British limited company, an American LLC or a Gulf-based company selling into France therefore enters the French VAT system as soon as it carries on taxable transactions on French territory, even if it has no office, no staff and no French bank account. Employees bound by an employment relationship are excluded from independence, but a foreign company acting on its own account is not.

The clock starts immediately. Article 286 of the CGI requires every person liable for VAT to file a declaration with the designated tax office, providing that this declaration must be made in these terms: “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 plain English, the company has fifteen days from the start of its operations to declare itself. A company that starts selling, storing goods or performing services in France and waits several months to register is already late, and that delay will matter when penalties are computed.

In practice, where the declaration is filed depends on the situation of the company. A company that creates a French subsidiary registers through the Guichet unique, the single online business registration portal operated by the INPI (Institut national de la propriété industrielle, the French intellectual property and business registration office). The new company receives a SIREN number from the national business register, and the local business tax office (Service des impôts des entreprises, known as the SIE) issues the VAT identification number, which is built as FR followed by two check digits and the nine-digit SIREN. The company then appears on the Kbis extract, the official certificate of registration issued by the greffe, the registry office of the commercial court, which foreign partners often ask to see before signing. A foreign company with no French establishment follows a different path and registers directly for VAT purposes with the competent tax office for foreign businesses, as explained on the official page of the French tax administration dedicated to VAT registration (immatriculation à la TVA). In both cases, the number is individual. Article 286 ter of the CGI provides that every taxable person carrying out transactions that give a right of deduction is identified by an individual number, and the same applies to businesses making intra-Community acquisitions or liable for VAT on imports. One company, one number, used on every invoice, every VAT return and every customs declaration.

Obtaining the number is only half the job. For transactions inside the European Union, the number must also be active in VIES, the electronic VAT number validation system shared by the Member States, which allows any business to check whether a customer VAT number is valid for cross-border operations. The French administration describes this check on its official service-public page for verifying an intra-Community VAT number through VIES. A number that exists in the French files but is not activated for cross-border transactions behaves, for a foreign supplier, exactly like no number at all. The supplier cannot grant the intra-Community exemption, charges the VAT of its own country instead, and the French customer pays the difference. The judgment examined in the next section shows the damage in hard numbers. The practical lesson for a company run from abroad is simple: register within fifteen days, confirm in writing which tax office holds the file, test the number in VIES before the first cross-border invoice, and re-test it before every large transaction, because a number can be deactivated after a missed return or an unanswered letter from the tax office.

B. When France Requires a French Tax Representative and a Verified Number for European Deals

Companies established outside the European Union face an additional layer. Article 289 A of the CGI provides that where a person not established in the European Union is liable for VAT or must complete reporting obligations, that person must have an accredited representative established in France who undertakes to complete the formalities and, for taxable transactions, to pay the tax in its place. The exact wording is as follows: “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.” If no representative is appointed, the VAT and any related penalties are payable by the recipient of the taxable transaction, which means the French customer carries the risk. Limited exceptions exist where France has a mutual assistance instrument with the non-EU country, but a company from the United States, China, the Gulf or most of Asia must assume that a representative is required, and it should appoint one before the first taxable sale, not after the first audit.

The representative is not a mailbox. In a judgment of 17 July 2025 (Tribunal judiciaire de Bobigny, case number 23/03226), a French advisory firm acting as fiscal representative of a Chinese e-commerce company challenged a recovery notice issued by the customs administration and argued that its role was purely declarative, so that it could not be treated as liable for the VAT. The court rejected the argument. It held that the representative accredited under Article 289 A must complete the formalities of the foreign principal and pay the tax in its place for taxable transactions, confirmed the recovery notice sent personally to the representative, and recalled the settled administrative position that the fiscal representative of a person not established in the European Union is always liable for the tax debt, a solution already accepted by the Conseil d’État in its decision of 24 July 2009 (Leuchtturm, number 304672) for control, reassessment and penalty procedures conducted against the representative. For a foreign group, the message is direct: choose the representative carefully, sign a mandate that allocates duties, document flows and exchange of information, because the French Treasury will collect from the representative first and ask questions later. The mirror message matters for French customers of non-EU suppliers: if your supplier has no accredited representative, the administration can turn to you as recipient of the transaction.

Inside the European Union, the trap is different but just as costly. Article 262 ter of the CGI exempts from VAT supplies of goods dispatched or transported to another Member State where the customer is identified for VAT purposes in a Member State other than the state of departure and has communicated its VAT identification number to the supplier. The statute states: “Sont exonérés de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée : 1° Les livraisons de biens expédiés ou transportés sur le territoire d’un autre Etat membre de l’Union européenne à destination d’un autre assujetti ou d’une personne morale non assujettie qui est identifié aux fins de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée dans un autre Etat membre que celui du départ de l’expédition ou du transport et a communiqué au fournisseur son numéro d’identification à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée.” The exemption also fails where the supplier has not filed the recapitulative statement of customers, known as the état récapitulatif, required by Article 289 B of the CGI, or where that statement lacks the required information. Three conditions must therefore coincide: a valid number, communicated before the sale, and a correct recapitulative statement afterwards. Miss one, and the exemption collapses.

A judgment of 27 November 2025 (Tribunal judiciaire de Bourg-en-Bresse, case number 24/00255) puts a price on that collapse. An Italian company sold a second-hand mechanical digger to a French rural land group for 28,000 euros excluding tax. The French buyer had communicated a French VAT number, but a check in the VIES system showed that the number was not valid for cross-border transactions. The Italian seller therefore issued a corrected invoice adding Italian VAT at 22 percent, an extra 6,160 euros, which it had already paid to the Italian Treasury, and sued for the balance. The French buyer objected, arguing for French reverse-charge treatment and blaming the seller for a mistake of law. The court sided with the seller. It recalled that the exemption under Article 262 ter requires the buyer to hold a valid intra-Community VAT number, found that the number communicated was invalid on VIES, noted that the buyer had taken no step with the French tax administration to activate it, and ordered the buyer to pay the 6,160 euros plus interest from the formal demand. The court added that merely defending a lawsuit is not an abuse of process, so no extra damages were awarded, but the core debt stood in full. For a foreign founder, the reading is unforgiving and useful: verify the customer number on VIES before quoting a price excluding tax, print and keep the VIES confirmation with the invoice, file the recapitulative statement, and never treat a French number copied from an email signature as proof that the exemption applies.

II. Filing French VAT From Abroad: CA3 Returns, Deduction, Reverse Charge and Penalties

Registration opens the file. Returns keep it alive. French VAT is a declared tax: the company computes the VAT collected from customers, subtracts the VAT paid to suppliers, and pays the balance to the Treasury with a return called the CA3. A company managed from abroad fails here more often than at registration, because returns are monthly, deadlines are short, and the paperwork sits in Paris while the decision-maker sits in another time zone. This second part explains the filing rhythm, the recovery of input VAT, the reverse charge that moves the tax from a foreign supplier to its French customer, and the surcharges that punish late or missing returns.

A. Filing the CA3 Return and Recovering the VAT Paid to Suppliers

The standard regime is monthly. Article 287 of the CGI requires every taxable person identified for VAT to file with its tax office a return in the prescribed form, and specifies for businesses under the normal regime: “Les redevables soumis au régime réel normal d’imposition déposent mensuellement la déclaration visée au 1 indiquant, d’une part, le montant total des opérations réalisées, d’autre part, le détail des opérations taxables.” The VAT due is paid every month with the return. Businesses whose annual VAT bill is below 4,000 euros may file quarterly, by calendar quarter, which is a useful simplification for a holding company or a lightly active subsidiary. Larger operations stay monthly, and extensions granted by the administration remain the exception, not the rule. A foreign director should therefore organise the accounting chain before the first sale: who collects the invoices, who prepares the return, who signs the payment, and what happens when each of them is on holiday. Most missed French VAT deadlines in foreign-run companies come from this organisational gap, not from a dispute about the tax itself.

The return has two sides. On one side, output VAT collected on sales; on the other, input VAT paid on purchases, which the company deducts. Article 271 of the CGI states the principle: “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.” The right of deduction arises when the deductible tax becomes chargeable, and it is exercised by setting it against the tax due for the month in which the right arose. In practice, three conditions decide whether the VAT on a supplier invoice is recoverable: the purchase must serve taxable transactions, the company must hold a valid invoice, and the supplier must be identified. This is why invoicing discipline matters so much. Article 289 of the CGI requires every taxable person to ensure that an invoice is issued for supplies made to another taxable person, with the mandatory particulars including the VAT numbers of both parties, the price, and the tax. A company run from abroad should impose a simple internal rule: no compliant invoice, no deduction claimed, and any doubtful invoice is checked with the accountant before the CA3 is filed, because deducting VAT on an irregular invoice is one of the most common grounds for reassessment.

Two court-tested points deserve attention from foreign managers. First, VAT follows the economics of the contract even when the contract collapses. In its decision of 8 February 2023 (Cour de cassation, Commercial Chamber, appeal number 21-16.874), the court held that, combining the rules on restitution after resolution of a contract with Article 256 of the CGI, the value to be restored for a service performed under a resolved contract must include the VAT to which that service is subject. A telemarketing company whose service contract had been resolved at its own fault had argued for restitution computed without VAT; the court quashed the appeal judgment and required VAT to be included. Applied to a foreign company terminating a French distribution, service or works contract, the lesson is concrete: refunds, price reductions and settlements after cancellation must state whether amounts are excluding or including VAT, and the VAT treatment of the original supply governs the restitution, not the convenience of the parties. Second, books and records must survive the people who kept them. Article 286 of the CGI already requires traders without full accounts to keep a numbered day book recording each transaction with its date, description and price, and the Book of Tax Procedures requires those books, registers and supporting documents, including purchase invoices, to be kept for six years. A director living abroad who changes accountants, software or registered address must ensure the six-year archive moves with the company, because an auditor who cannot see the records will simply disallow the deductions.

B. Imports, Reverse Charge and the Price of Missing a Deadline

Goods entering France from outside the European Union trigger VAT at the border of the tax system. Article 293 A of the CGI provides: “A l’importation, le fait générateur se produit et la taxe devient exigible au moment où le bien est considéré comme importé”. The person liable is, as a rule, the person designated as the real consignee of the goods on the import declaration, while a customs declarant acting under an indirect representation mandate is jointly and severally liable with that consignee. The Cour de cassation confirmed this architecture in its decision of 11 February 2026 (Commercial Chamber, appeal number 24-18.748), concerning parcels shipped from the United States by an online seller, carried and customs-cleared by an express transport group, and declared as negligible-value consignments so that they wrongly benefited from an import VAT exemption. After an investigation covering December 2013 to May 2017, customs notified the carrier of false-declaration infringements and issued a recovery notice, which the carrier challenged. The court answered by recalling Article 293 A of the CGI together with the Community and Union Customs Code provisions then applicable, and held that at importation the chargeable event occurs and VAT becomes due when the goods are treated as imported, that the tax must be paid by the person designated as the real consignee on the import declaration, and that the tax is jointly owed by the customs declarant acting under indirect representation. For a foreign company selling into France through a logistics provider, the consequences are direct. First, the name entered as consignee on the customs declaration decides who owes the import VAT, so the company must control what its carrier declares in its name. Second, undervaluation schemes and misuse of low-value reliefs, once detected, produce recovery notices years later, with the carrier then turning to the foreign principal for reimbursement under their contract. Third, the mandate given to the customs broker should state expressly whether representation is direct or indirect, because that single contractual word decides whether the broker shares the tax debt.

A second mechanism moves VAT in the opposite direction inside France. Where a supply of goods or a service covered by Article 259 A of the CGI is made by a taxable person not established in France, Article 283 of the CGI shifts liability to the customer: where a supply of goods or a service covered by Article 259 A is made by a taxable person not established in France, the French VAT-registered customer acting as a taxable person pays the tax instead of the foreign supplier. This is the reverse charge (autoliquidation): the foreign supplier invoices without French VAT, and the French VAT-registered customer declares both the output tax and the matching deduction on its own CA3. The mechanism is neutral in cash terms when the customer fully deducts, but it only works if both sides play their part. The supplier must verify that the customer is genuinely VAT-registered in France and keep proof of that status; the customer must actually self-assess the tax instead of simply recording a purchase with no tax charged. Foreign suppliers often misunderstand this point and issue invoices mentioning French VAT they are not entitled to charge, or no VAT with no reference to reverse charge, and both errors give the auditor an opening. The safe invoice states the customer French VAT number, cites the reverse charge, and matches the recapitulative statement where one is due.

Finally, deadlines have teeth. Article 1728 of the CGI attaches surcharges to any return filed late: “Le défaut de production dans les délais prescrits d’une déclaration ou d’un acte comportant l’indication d’éléments à retenir pour l’assiette ou la liquidation de l’impôt entraîne l’application, sur le montant des droits mis à la charge du contribuable ou résultant de la déclaration ou de l’acte déposé tardivement, d’une majoration de”. The surcharge is 10 percent where no formal notice was sent or where the return is filed within thirty days of a formal notice, 40 percent where it is filed more than thirty days after the notice, and 80 percent where an undisclosed business activity is discovered. Interest for late payment runs on top. A company directed from abroad typically drifts from 10 to 40 percent by ignoring a mise en demeure written in French and sent to an unattended Paris address, which is why every foreign-run company needs a monitored French correspondence address, a calendar of CA3 deadlines with a backup owner, and an instruction to its accountant to file a return even for a month with no turnover, because a missing nil return counts as a missing return. Where a deadline has already been missed, the order of operations is to file the outstanding returns immediately to stop the clock, pay or request a payment plan, reply to any formal notice within thirty days to stay at 10 percent, and only then argue the substance, since penalties are computed on procedure first and merits second.

Before the conclusion, a compact operating checklist for the director who lives abroad brings the two parts together. First, register within fifteen days of starting French operations and confirm the competent tax office in writing. Second, appoint an accredited French tax representative before the first sale if the company is established outside the European Union. Third, test every customer and supplier VAT number in VIES before quoting prices excluding tax, and archive the confirmations. Fourth, file the recapitulative statements for intra-Community supplies and services alongside the CA3. Fifth, run a monthly CA3 routine with a named owner and a deputy, quarterly only where the annual tax is below 4,000 euros. Sixth, claim input VAT only on compliant invoices tied to taxable activity, and keep the six-year archive intact across changes of accountant and software. Seventh, control the consignee box and the representation mandate on every import declaration. Eighth, answer every French tax letter within days, and never let a formal notice age past thirty days.

Conclusion

French VAT rewards companies that treat it as an operating discipline and punishes those that treat it as paperwork. The system is logical once its sequence is understood: determine whether the company is a taxable person in France, declare within fifteen days, secure an individual number that is active in VIES, appoint a French representative where the company sits outside the European Union, then file every CA3 on time, deduct only on compliant invoices, self-assess the reverse charge where the law requires it, and designate the right consignee on imports. Each step has a statutory anchor and a judicial illustration. The Italian seller that recovered 6,160 euros from its French buyer, the fiscal representative held liable for its Chinese principal, the carrier caught by a recovery notice for misdeclared American parcels, and the service company ordered to include VAT in its restitution all tell the same story: French courts apply the VAT texts as written, and the company that cannot show a valid number, a filed return or a compliant invoice pays. A foreign founder does not need to master every article of the CGI, but does need three things in place before the first French invoice goes out: a monitored French tax address, a monthly filing routine with a deputy, and counsel able to read the next formal notice in French and act within thirty days. With those three in place, VAT becomes what it should be for a growing business, a neutral pass-through tax rather than a source of surprises.

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