You live in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, and your French company has just started trading. The first invoice with 20 percent French VAT (TVA, taxe sur la valeur ajoutée, the French value added tax charged on almost every sale of goods and services) has gone out, a supplier asks for your French VAT number, or a notice from the SIE (service des impôts des entreprises, the local corporate tax office that collects VAT) lands in your inbox. This guide explains, in plain English and for a founder who does not live in France, when your French business must charge French VAT, how to get identified and file from abroad, when your customer rather than you pays the tax through the reverse charge (autoliquidation, the mechanism under which the buyer self-assesses the VAT instead of the seller), how imports work since self-assessment became automatic in 2022, and what happens if you file late or face an audit. Every French acronym is explained on first use, every decisive rule is quoted from its official text with a link you can check, and three recent court decisions show how judges apply these rules to foreign businesses operating in France. For the earlier choice between a SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible joint-stock company), a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the classic limited liability company), a subsidiary (filiale) and a branch (succursale), see our companion guide on choosing the right French vehicle from abroad; this article takes over where that choice ends, at the moment VAT becomes your problem.

I. When your French business must deal with French VAT: taxable sales, French VAT number and reverse charge

A. Do your French sales carry French VAT and how do you get your French VAT number: taxable transactions, place of supply, identification and the establishment trap

The starting point is broad on purpose. Article 256 of the CGI (Code général des impôts, the French General Tax Code) provides that “Sont soumises à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée les livraisons de biens et les prestations de services effectuées à titre onéreux par un assujetti agissant en tant que tel” (Article 256 of the CGI). In English: supplies of goods and services made for consideration by a taxable person acting as such fall within French VAT. If your French company sells goods or provides services to customers in France for payment, the presumption is that VAT applies, and the standard rate is set by Article 278 of the same Code in one short sentence: “Le taux normal de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée est fixé à 20 %” (Article 278 of the CGI). Reduced rates exist for specific categories such as food, restaurants, renovation work and books, but a foreign founder selling standard goods or services should budget on 20 percent and check the reduced-rate schedule only for the exact category concerned, because applying the wrong rate is one of the most frequent grounds for reassessment.

For services, the decisive question is where the service is deemed supplied, because that decides which country taxes it. Article 259 of the CGI states the business-to-business rule as follows: “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, sauf lorsqu’il dispose d’un établissement stable non situé en France auquel les services sont fournis”. In practice, when your French company bills a French business customer, the place of supply is France and French VAT applies; when it bills a business customer established in another European Union country, the reverse charge described below usually shifts the VAT to that customer. Read the full official wording of Article 256 on taxable transactions, Article 278 on the 20 percent rate and Article 259 on the place of services before deciding how to invoice, because the place-of-supply rules contain many special cases for transport, hiring of means of transport, cultural events, catering and electronically supplied services.

Once the activity starts, identification is not optional and it is fast. Article 286 of the CGI requires every taxable person to file, and I quote: “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.” That declaration of existence is filed through the single online formalities portal (guichet unique) at incorporation or at the start of the taxable activity, and it triggers the allocation of the SIREN number (the nine-digit French business identifier issued by INSEE) and then the French intra-Community VAT number, which takes the form FR followed by two check digits and the nine SIREN digits. Your VAT number appears on every invoice you issue, your Kbis (the official company identity extract issued by the greffe, the commercial court registry) proves your registration, and your SIE follows from the address of your registered office (siège social). If you run the company from abroad, file the declaration even before the first euro of turnover, because the administration can reconstruct undeclared activity from bank movements and contracts, as the Bordeaux case below shows. The official text of Article 286 on identification duties also lists the bookkeeping and record-keeping duties that apply from day one.

Very small businesses can escape VAT altogether under the basic exemption (franchise en base), which releases them from charging VAT and therefore from filing VAT returns, at the cost of losing any deduction of input VAT. The turnover thresholds move often and were overhauled recently, so do not rely on a remembered figure: check the current thresholds on the official English-language page for VAT on services exchanged within the EU and on the service-public.fr pages describing the exemption before opting in or out. A foreign founder who expects significant purchases of equipment, stock or subcontracting in France is usually better off taxed normally from the start, because the exemption means every euro of French VAT paid to suppliers becomes a definitive cost.

The trap that catches foreign owners is the fixed establishment (établissement stable). A company whose registered office sits abroad can still be treated as established in France for VAT if it has human and technical resources here of sufficient permanence. The administrative court of appeal of Bordeaux applied exactly this test to Technical Systems SRO, a Slovak company that installed photovoltaic panels in France for French clients between 2010 and 2013 and was assessed for more than two million euros of French VAT. The court recalled the rule in these terms: “Doit être regardé comme tel le prestataire qui a en France un établissement stable depuis lequel les prestations sont fournies et qui présente un degré suffisant de permanence et une structure apte, du point de vue de l’équipement humain et technique, à rendre possibles, de manière autonome, les prestations de services considérées.” It then held that “la société Technical Systems SRO doit être regardée comme disposant d’un établissement stable situé en France présentant un degré suffisant de permanence et une structure apte, du point de vue de l’équipement humain et technique, à rendre possibles, de manière autonome, les prestations de services considérées”, even though the registered office, the bank account, the sole shareholder and the filed tax returns were all in Slovakia, because the manager directed the business permanently from his home in Lormont, near Bordeaux, where quotes, contracts and invoices were drawn up and where posted Slovak workers were organised. Read the full judgment, CAA Bordeaux, 5th chamber, 21 November 2023, no. 21BX02701, on Légifrance, Technical Systems SRO. The lesson for a founder living abroad is direct: if you manage, quote, invoice and direct staff from a French address, even your own flat, the tax office can treat that address as your French establishment and assess French VAT on years of past services, and the formal location of your seat will not save you.

B. Stop charging what your customer must self-assess: reverse charge on foreign services, intra-Community purchases and mandatory self-assessment of import VAT

The reverse charge is the second pillar of the system and the one foreign founders misunderstand most. The general rule of Article 283 of the CGI is that “La taxe sur la valeur ajoutée doit être acquittée par les personnes qui réalisent les opérations imposables, sous réserve des cas visés aux articles 275 à 277 A où le versement de la taxe peut être suspendu.” The seller normally collects the tax. But where the supplier is not established in France, the burden moves to the French customer. The Code states it plainly: “sont fournies par un assujetti qui n’est pas établi en France, la taxe doit être acquittée par le preneur” for the services covered by Article 259(1). And for goods bought from another Member State: “Pour les acquisitions intracommunautaires de biens imposables mentionnées” in Article 258C, the person liable is the purchaser. In practice, if your foreign parent company bills your French subsidiary for management fees, IT support or brand royalties, the French subsidiary self-assesses French VAT on that purchase on its own return; if your French company buys equipment from a German supplier for delivery in France, your French company self-assesses the VAT as an intra-Community acquisition. Check the full official text of Article 283 on who pays the VAT with your accountant before setting up intra-group billing, because the wrong choice means either VAT wrongly charged to a customer who should have self-assessed, which the customer cannot deduct, or VAT missing on a purchase you should have declared, which the audit will price with interest.

On the invoice itself, a reverse-charged sale carries no French VAT amount; it carries the stated reason. French practice requires the words Autoliquidation on the invoice together with both parties VAT numbers, so that the customer knows it must declare the transaction. A supplier who adds French VAT by mistake creates a double cost: the customer pays VAT it cannot recover through the normal deduction circuit, and the supplier has collected tax it must remit. Train whoever issues your invoices, including a billing team abroad, on this single word, and reconcile intra-group invoices every quarter, because auditors sample precisely these cross-border lines first.

Imports from outside the European Union follow a separate self-assessment that became automatic. Since 1 January 2022, in the words of the customs administration (DGDDI, Direction générale des douanes et droits indirects, the French customs authority): Depuis le 1er janvier 2022, autoliquider la TVA à l’importation est obligatoire et automatique pour toutes les entreprises et certains organismes publics identifiés à la TVA en France, as confirmed on the official page on import VAT essentials published by French customs. Concretely, when your French company imports components from China or the United States, the carrier no longer advances the import VAT at the border for you to reimburse; your company declares it itself on its VAT return and deducts it on the same return when the goods serve taxed operations, which is cash-neutral for a fully taxable business. The Code expresses the boundary in Article 1695: “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”. Read the current wording of Article 1695 on import VAT collection: customs still collects the tax directly only where the importer is a private individual or a body without a French VAT number, and everyone else self-assesses.

A recent dispute shows what goes wrong when the carrier and the importer disagree about who handles import VAT. FedEx, acting as carrier and customs representative, billed the importer Cordon Electronics for customs duties and import VAT it said it had paid on goods arriving from China and the United States, and the Saint-Malo commercial court ordered Cordon to pay about 34,700 euros. Cordon resisted three invoices totalling 34,208.36 euros, and the appeal court recorded that Cordon refused to pay three invoices issued between 19 February and 27 April 2020 for a total of 34,208.36 euros, covering import VAT the carrier said it had advanced, because Cordon had held an import VAT self-assessment authorisation since 1 July 2019. The court observed that the authorisation had been granted under Articles 1695 II and III of the CGI as then in force, reversed the Saint-Malo judgment in full and dismissed all of the claims of FedEx Express FR, ordering it to pay 5,000 euros in legal costs to Cordon (CA Rennes, 3rd commercial chamber, 11 February 2025, no. RG 24/02101, Cordon Electronics v. FedEx Express FR). Two lessons follow for a founder importing through a carrier: first, tell your carrier in writing that you self-assess import VAT and check that it stops advancing the tax in your name; second, keep the customs delivery data (the pre-filled import lines now transmitted to your VAT return) and reconcile them every month, because the tax office sees the same data and will ask questions about any gap between your imports and your declared self-assessed VAT.

II. Running French VAT from abroad without fines: returns, deductions, audits and how to fight back

A. File the return, pay on time and only deduct what you may keep: monthly or quarterly filing, deductible input VAT and the duty to pay it back

Every identified VAT payer files periodic returns, and the normal pace is monthly. Article 287 of the CGI provides that “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.” It continues: “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. La taxe exigible est acquittée tous les mois.” Smaller payers get breathing room: “Lorsque la taxe exigible annuellement est inférieure à 4 000 €, ils sont admis à déposer leurs déclarations par trimestre civil.” Very small businesses under the simplified regime file one annual return with two advance payments in July and December, but a growing foreign-owned company almost always sits in the monthly normal regime. Read Article 287 on VAT returns and payment rhythm with your accountant to confirm your regime, then file and pay through the professional account (espace professionnel) on impots.gouv.fr, the tax administration portal, because paper filing no longer exists and the online deadline is strict. From abroad, the practical move is a shared calendar with your French accountant (expert-comptable): returns are due shortly after each month end, and a missed return triggers an estimated assessment (taxation doffice) plus surcharges even where no VAT was actually due.

VAT collected from customers is only half the story; VAT paid to suppliers is the other half. A fully taxable company deducts (impute, recovers) the VAT charged on its purchases of stock, equipment, subcontracting, rent with VAT option and professional services, so that the tax weighs only on the final consumer. The deduction requires real supplier invoices in your name showing the VAT, actual payment, and use of the purchase for taxed operations. Where the purchase partly serves exempt or private purposes, only a fraction is deductible, and the administration loves to attack deductions on company cars, entertainment and invoices from suppliers who turn out to be missing traders. Keep every purchase invoice for the full retention period, pay by traceable means, and check the VAT number of any new significant supplier, because the deduction you claim today is the reassessment of tomorrow if the paperwork is thin.

Deducting too much, or deducting for a project that never becomes taxable, creates a duty to pay back (reversement, régularisation). The Conseil d’État (the supreme administrative court) restated the European rule in a 2023 decision: “La déduction initialement opérée est régularisée lorsqu’elle est supérieure ou inférieure à celle que l’assujetti était en droit d’opérer”. French law transposes it in Article 271 of the CGI, which the court quoted as follows: “les assujettis, qui sont autorisés à opérer globalement l’imputation de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée, sont tenus de procéder à une régularisation : (…) b) Lorsque l’opération n’est pas effectivement soumise à l’impôt”. For ordinary purchases the claw-back is immediate, due before the 25th of the month following the event; for investment goods it spreads over five years, twenty for buildings, in yearly fifths. Read the full ruling, CE, 8th and 3rd chambers combined, 5 July 2023, no. 469778, on Légifrance, SARL Château Vieuville Entreprise. For a foreign founder, the concrete cases are familiar: equipment bought for a French project that is finally performed and taxed abroad, a commercial vehicle transferred to private use, or premises converted from a taxed activity to an exempt one. Each triggers a pay-back, and the file your accountant closes each year should list every asset whose use changed, before the auditor does it for you.

B. Survive a French VAT audit from abroad: contradictory procedure, late interest, surcharges and the Paris routine

A VAT audit (vérification de comptabilité for a full on-site audit, or contrôle sur pièces for a desk review) usually starts with a notice, continues with questions and ends with a formal proposal of reassessment (proposition de rectification) to which you may reply. The procedure that protects you is the adversarial adjustment procedure (procédure de rectification contradictoire): Article L55 of the LPF (Livre des procédures fiscales, the Tax Procedure Code) states that “Sous réserve des dispositions de l’article L. 56, lorsque l’administration des impôts constate une insuffisance, une inexactitude, une omission ou une dissimulation dans les éléments servant de base au calcul des impôts, droits, taxes, redevances ou sommes quelconques dues en vertu du code général des impôts ou de l’article L. 2333-55-2 du code général des collectivités territoriales, les rectifications correspondantes sont effectuées suivant la procédure de rectification contradictoire définie aux articles L. 57 à L. 61 A.” Never ignore the proposal letter, even if it arrives while you are abroad: the thirty-day reply window runs regardless of your travel plans, and silence converts proposed figures into final ones. Answer point by point, in French, with invoices and contracts attached, through your accountant or counsel, and request a meeting (entretien) with the auditor where the stakes justify it. The full official text is here: Article L55 on the adversarial procedure.

Late payment costs interest from day one. Article 1727 of the CGI provides that “Toute créance de nature fiscale, dont l’établissement ou le recouvrement incombe aux administrations fiscales, qui n’a pas été acquittée dans le délai légal donne lieu au versement d’un intérêt de retard. A cet intérêt s’ajoutent, le cas échéant, les sanctions prévues au présent code.” On top of interest, Article 1731 adds that “Donne lieu à l’application d’une majoration de 5 % tout retard dans le paiement des sommes qui doivent être versées aux comptables de l’administration fiscale au titre des impositions autres que celles mentionnées à l’article 1730”. Heavier surcharges for deliberate failure or fraud exist further in the Code, applied case by case. The official texts are here: Article 1727 on late interest and Article 1731 on the 5 percent surcharge. Because a reassessment covering several years compounds interest month after month, the cheapest defence is prevention: file every return on time even for a nil period, pay the declared amount by the deadline, and correct an error yourself through a replacement return before the audit starts, since spontaneous correction usually limits the surcharge where good faith is shown.

If the assessment is already final and you disagree, the path is written and runs from abroad without difficulty. First file a formal claim (réclamation) with the SIE that issued the assessment, setting out facts, law and the discharge or reduction requested; then, if the administration rejects it expressly or stays silent, bring the dispute before the administrative court (tribunal administratif) of the place of taxation. For a company whose registered office is in Paris or the Île-de-France region, that means dealing with the Paris SIE network attached to your arrondissement, corresponding almost entirely through the online professional account, keeping all records in French or with translations ready, and storing invoices and contracts where your representative can produce them within days. Paris audits move fast and correspondence is dematerialised, so designate one reachable contact, your accountant or counsel, empowered to answer the auditor while you are in another time zone. Amounts, limitation periods and court deadlines change, so have the current figures checked on the file rather than relying on general guides.

Conclusion

French VAT rewards foreign founders who treat it as a monthly routine and punishes those who discover it at the audit. Register and get identified within fifteen days of starting, charge 20 percent where France is the place of supply, let the French customer self-assess where the reverse charge applies, self-assess every import on the return since the 2022 reform, file the monthly or quarterly return through the professional account, deduct only documented input VAT used for taxed operations, and pay back what ceases to qualify. The Bordeaux establishment case, the Rennes import dispute and the Conseil d’État on regularisation all tell the same story: the administration reconstructs the activity from contracts, bank data and customs records, and judges back it where the paperwork supports the assessment. Run the routine from abroad with a calendar, an accountant who answers the SIE, reconciled intra-group invoices and filed evidence for every deduction, and French VAT becomes what it should be for a healthy business, a pass-through tax your customers fund and your suppliers refund, never a threat to the company itself.