You run a company from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, and France has become a real market for you: online orders ship to Lyon, a distributor in Bordeaux places regular orders, or a client in Paris asks for services performed on French soil. Then comes the letter, the blocked VAT refund, or the question from your French customer: “What is your French VAT number?” Many foreign founders discover at that moment that selling into France is not only a commercial step but a tax registration step, with its own office, its own form, and its own calendar. The question you must answer first is simple but technical: do your operations make you liable for French value added tax, and if so, do you need a full French VAT number or can the European One-Stop Shop cover you?

This article answers that question for a foreign business reader. It explains when France treats your sales, your stocks or your services as taxable in France, when the One-Stop Shop (OSS) is enough and when only a local French VAT number works, and how you register, invoice and file from abroad without triggering penalties. Every French acronym is explained along the way: the Kbis (the official identity extract of a French company, issued by the greffe, the clerk’s office of the commercial court), the SIEE (the Service des impots des entreprises etrangeres, the tax office for foreign businesses, part of the DINR, the directorate for non-residents), the CA3 (the standard French VAT return), and the OSS and IOSS (the EU single windows for declaring VAT on cross-border sales). If you are still at the stage of choosing your vehicle for France, read first our general guide on setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, from bank account to Kbis, VAT and first hire, then use this article as the VAT-specific manual.

I. When does your foreign company need a French VAT number?

A. Do your sales, stocks or services in France trigger French VAT?

The starting point is the scope of French VAT. Article 256 of 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.” In plain English: supplies of goods and services made for consideration by a taxable person acting as such fall within VAT. Your company, even incorporated abroad, is an assujetti (a taxable person) as soon as it carries out economic activity, so the test is not where your company is registered but where the transaction is deemed to take place and whether an exemption or a reverse charge applies.

For goods, the place rule is physical. Article 258 of the General Tax Code states that “Le lieu de livraison de biens meubles corporels est réputé se situer en France lorsque le bien se trouve en France”, notably at the time of dispatch or transport to the buyer, at assembly or installation by or on behalf of the seller, or when the goods are placed at the buyer’s disposal in France without transport. Concretely, if you hold stock in a French warehouse, ship goods from France to French customers, deliver and install equipment in France, or sell goods located in France at the time of sale, the supply is in principle a French taxable supply. Storing your own goods in France, even without selling them yet, can already create obligations: the French tax administration treats transfers of your own stock into France followed by domestic sales as operations requiring a French VAT number and French returns (form CA3), because the goods are delivered from French territory. The official impots.gouv.fr guidance confirms that foreign businesses with no stable establishment in France (etablissement stable) must register as soon as they carry out one of the listed operations from France, including domestic invoicing to persons not identified for VAT in France, intra-Community supplies dispatched from France, exports from France, and distance sales of goods from another State to individuals in France: see Immatriculation a la TVA, impots.gouv.fr.

For services, the rule depends on who your customer is. Article 259 of the General Tax Code lays down the principle: “Le lieu des prestations de services est situé en France”, “Lorsque le preneur est un assujetti agissant en tant que tel et qu’il a en France” the seat of its economic activity, a stable establishment receiving the services, or failing that its domicile or habitual residence. In business-to-business relations, your service to a French taxable client is therefore generally located in France, but that does not automatically mean you must register: in most such cases the French customer self-assesses the tax under the reverse charge, as explained below. In business-to-consumer relations, the mirror rule applies: the place is where you, the supplier, are established, with important exceptions for telecommunications, broadcasting, electronic services, transport, cultural and sporting events, restaurant services and services connected with immovable property. If you sell consulting days physically performed in France, run paid training in Paris, or provide services tied to a French building, French VAT will normally be due regardless of where your company sits. Real estate is a world of its own: Article 257 of the General Tax Code provides that “Les opérations concourant à la production ou à la livraison d’immeubles sont soumises à la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée dans les conditions qui suivent”, so any service or development connected with French property must be analysed separately and almost always with local advice.

Two mechanisms then decide whether you personally account for the tax. First, exports and intra-Community supplies leaving France are generally exempt, which does not mean they are exempt from formalities. Article 262 of the General Tax Code states that “Sont exonérées de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée : 1° les livraisons de biens expédiés ou transportés par le vendeur ou pour son compte, en dehors de la Communauté européenne ainsi que les prestations de services directement liées à l’exportation”. An exempt export still requires proof of exit, correct invoicing without VAT, and registration for customs and recapitulative statements. Second, the reverse charge (autoliquidation) shifts the liability to your French business customer. Article 283 of the General Tax Code opens with the principle that “La taxe sur la valeur ajoutée doit être acquittée par les personnes qui réalisent les opérations imposables”, then adds the decisive exception: “lorsqu’une livraison de biens ou une prestation de services mentionnée à l’ article 259 A 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.” If your only French activity is selling goods or services to French VAT-registered businesses who reverse-charge, you may have no French VAT to declare and no registration duty beyond specific statements. But the moment you sell to French individuals, to small businesses or public bodies without a French VAT number, or you invoice from French stock, the reverse charge cannot save you: you need your own French VAT number, you charge French VAT, and you file French returns.

B. Can the EU One-Stop Shop replace a French VAT registration?

Foreign founders often hope that the European One-Stop Shop will spare them a French registration. Sometimes it does, but the OSS has a precise scope, and misunderstanding it is one of the most frequent causes of penalties for e-commerce businesses selling into France. The OSS (Union scheme) lets a business established in one EU Member State declare, in that single State, the VAT due on certain cross-border business-to-consumer supplies: intra-Community distance sales of goods and listed services to non-taxable persons in other Member States. Instead of registering in every country of destination, you file one quarterly OSS return at home and the VAT is redistributed. Its import sibling, the IOSS (Import One-Stop Shop), covers distance sales of goods imported from outside the EU with a consignment value not exceeding 150 euros. Both are single windows for declaring; neither is a substitute for a domestic VAT number whenever France requires one for operations performed on its territory.

The dividing line runs between selling into France from abroad and selling from France. If your company is established in another EU State, holds no stock in France, and only ships goods from home to French consumers, you can in principle cover those distance sales through your home OSS return, provided you exceed or opt out of the small-business scheme: the French guidance recalls the 10,000 euros excluding tax annual threshold below which a business established in a single Member State may keep taxing those sales at home (the guidance describes a combined EUR 10,000 excluding-tax ceiling covering all intra-EU distance sales together with listed telecom, broadcasting and electronic services), as detailed on the official VAT registration page. Once your cross-border sales to consumers across the EU pass that threshold, or as soon as you opt for destination taxation, French VAT on your sales to French individuals is declared via the OSS, and no French registration is needed for those sales alone. The same logic applies to electronic, telecom and broadcasting services supplied to French consumers. In that configuration, the OSS genuinely replaces a French number.

The OSS stops helping as soon as France becomes the State of origin or storage. Goods dispatched from a French warehouse to French or foreign customers, domestic French sales from French stock, goods installed in France, and purchases followed by resale within France are domestic French operations: they require a French VAT number and French CA3 returns, and they cannot transit through a foreign OSS return. Likewise, holding stock in France creates continuing obligations (entries, domestic sales, possible stock transfers treated as deemed intra-Community supplies), and importing goods through France with import VAT self-assessed (autoliquidation de la TVA sur les importations) expressly requires French registration, with the application form boxes dedicated to that mechanism, as the impots.gouv.fr page states. Marketplaces add a further layer: since 2021, the platform is in many cases deemed the supplier for imports of low-value goods and for sales by non-EU sellers to EU consumers facilitated through its interface, which shifts the VAT burden to the marketplace but leaves you with record-keeping and information duties. The practical test is therefore sequential: first, do I store, dispatch, install or hand over goods in France, or supply services physically performed or tied to property in France? If yes, expect a French number. Second, are my only French sales cross-border distance sales or digital services to consumers shipped or supplied from another Member State? If yes, the OSS in your home State normally suffices. Third, do I sell only to French VAT-registered businesses who reverse-charge under Article 283 of the General Tax Code? If yes, registration may be unnecessary, but the contracts and the customers’ VAT numbers must be verified in writing, because a customer who loses its number or acts as a private person pushes the liability back to you. Genuine borderline cases, such as chain sales with a single transport, call-off stock, or goods exhibited at a French trade fair then sold, should be mapped transaction by transaction before choosing OSS or local registration, since one wrongly unregistered flow can contaminate an entire audit.

II. How do you register, invoice and file from abroad without penalties?

A. How do you obtain the number: which tax office, which form, representative or agent?

Once the analysis points to a French VAT number, the procedure is administrative and entirely manageable from abroad, provided you approach the right office with a complete file. France has centralised foreign businesses without a stable establishment in one dedicated office: the SIEE, the Service des impots des entreprises etrangeres, which sits within the DINR (the directorate for non-residents) near Paris. The official guidance designates the SIEE as the competent service for businesses established in another EU Member State and for businesses in a listed group of third countries, and it publishes the office’s details and the documents to supply: see TVA, entreprise dans l’UE, impots.gouv.fr. Registration produces the French VAT identification number built on your SIREN pattern for foreign registrants, which your customers, your carriers and customs will then use; it is distinct from the Kbis, because a VAT-only registration does not create a French company and does not pass through the business formalities one-stop shop (guichet unique operated by the INPI, the national industrial property institute) or the commercial court clerk (greffe). Do not confuse the three tracks: company formation gives a Kbis, VAT registration gives a VAT number, and customs representation gives an EORI number. You may need all three, but each has its own office.

The first fork in the procedure is whether you must appoint a fiscal representative (representant fiscal) or may simply use an agent (mandataire). Businesses established in another EU Member State, and those in the third countries with which France has a mutual assistance instrument, are not required to appoint a fiscal representative; they may act directly or through a representative of their choice acting under their responsibility. Businesses established elsewhere must designate a fiscal representative established in France and itself registered for French VAT, who answers for the tax on their behalf under Article 289 A of the General Tax Code; the competent tax office then becomes the office handling that representative’s own filings. This is not a domiciliation of convenience: the representative is jointly liable, so reputable representatives audit your flows before accepting the mandate, charge fees proportionate to that risk, and require powers of attorney, activity descriptions and identity documents. If you qualify for the lighter track, a French-speaking accountant or tax adviser acting as mandataire can still prepare and file everything for you, but liability stays with you. In both cases, assemble early the standard file: certificate of incorporation with sworn translation, proof of VAT status in the home State, description of the French operations with start date, French correspondence address, bank details (RIB), and the registration form for foreign businesses (form EE0 and its annexes, including the boxes covering import self-assessment where relevant).

Timing matters because the declaration duty starts fast. Article 286 of the General Tax Code requires every taxable person to file, “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”, with a further declaration on cessation. In practice, start the SIEE file before your first French taxable operation wherever possible: warehouse opening, first domestic invoice, first import with French delivery. Late registration does not cancel the tax; it adds late interest and surcharges to tax that was due from day one, and it weakens any later request for leniency. Two additional registrations often run in parallel and should be planned in the same timetable: customs and statistical statements for goods (registration and, where applicable, the monthly recapitulative intra-EU statement and the statistical survey on goods movements, the EMEBI, formerly DEB), and, for employers, registration with URSSAF (the social security collection agency) for any French payroll, which is a separate track from VAT. Publications in the BODACC (the official bulletin of civil and commercial announcements) concern company life events, not VAT-only registrants, but once you incorporate a French subsidiary its creation, capital and manager changes will appear there, and the VAT number will follow from the subsidiary’s own tax registration with its local business tax office (SIE, service des impots des entreprises).

B. How do you invoice, file and fix mistakes once registered?

Registration changes how you invoice. Article 289 of the General Tax Code imposes the rule bluntly: “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” for supplies to another taxable person or non-taxable legal person that are not exempt, for listed intra-Community and export supplies, for advance payments on those operations, and for public auctions of second-hand goods, works of art, collectibles and antiques. The same article sets the rhythm: “La facture est, en principe, émise dès la réalisation de la livraison ou de la prestation de services”, with specific dating rules for exempt intra-Community supplies and for services subject to customer reverse charge. Every invoice you issue from or into France must therefore carry the mandatory particulars: your full identification with the French VAT number, the customer’s identity with its own VAT number for intra-EU flows, date, sequential number, quantity and nature of goods or extent of services, taxable amount per rate, VAT rate and amount, and, where the customer accounts for the tax, the explicit mention of reverse charge (autoliquidation). Invoices in a foreign language or currency are accepted between businesses, but the administration may require a translation and the VAT amount must be intelligible in euros; keep the sequential numbering unbroken across your French operations, because gaps are a classic audit trigger. Since September 2026, France’s electronic invoicing reform also reshapes business-to-business invoicing: domestic B2B invoices must progressively transit in structured electronic format with real-time reporting (e-reporting) of transaction data to the administration, so a foreign-registered business invoicing French taxable customers must confirm with its agent whether its flows already fall in the mandate’s scope and which certified platform (plateforme agreee) or the public portal it will use.

Filing follows a calendar that depends on your regime. Article 287 of the General Tax Code states the core duty: “Tout redevable de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée identifié conformément aux dispositions combinées des articles 286 ter et 286 ter A est tenu de remettre au service des impôts dont il dépend et dans le délai fixé par arrêté une déclaration conforme au modèle prescrit par l’administration.” Foreign-registered businesses without establishment are in practice kept on the standard actual-tax regime (regime reel normal) with monthly CA3 returns filed and paid electronically through the professional tax account, switching to quarterly only where the annual tax due stays below the regulatory threshold; the simplified regime with half-yearly instalments is generally not their track. Each return reports output VAT collected, deductible input VAT on purchases, imports and overheads, the resulting balance, and any refundable credit, which for a foreign business often arises in the early months when French expenses and import VAT exceed French sales. Deductibility obeys strict conditions: the expense must serve taxable operations, the supplier’s invoice must be valid and mention your VAT number, and certain costs such as most passenger vehicles, fuel for private cars and manifestly personal expenditure are partly or wholly excluded, so a policy of requesting fully compliant invoices from every French supplier pays for itself. The return also identifies the amount of reverse-charged tax on the specific line provided, because Article 283 of the General Tax Code requires that self-assessed amount to be isolated on the declaration. Parallel statements must not be forgotten: the European sales listing (etat recapitulatif) for intra-Community supplies of goods and certain services, the statistical goods survey where thresholds are met, and, for importers, consistency between customs data and the self-assessed import VAT line.

Mistakes are common in the first year: a domestic sale invoiced without French VAT through the OSS, an import declared but never self-assessed, a customer’s invalid VAT number, a refund claimed on non-deductible costs. French procedure allows correction through a corrective return or a line on the next return depending on the nature and size of the error, but spontaneous regularisation before any audit notice is treated far more favourably than corrections extracted during an inspection, both for surcharges and for the discussion of good faith. Keep therefore, from day one, an audit-ready file: contracts showing the place of performance, transport and delivery proofs for every cross-border movement, export evidence with customs references, the valid VAT numbers of customers checked at the time of the transaction, the full invoice chain, and the correspondence with the SIEE and your representative or agent. Article 286 of the General Tax Code also recalls the bookkeeping spine of the system: traders without ordinary accounts recording turnover must keep a bound day book and preserve accounts and supporting documents under the conditions of the tax procedure code. In an audit from abroad, the inspector works from documents, not from explanations; a foreign business that produces complete flows, coherent returns and proof of spontaneous corrections keeps the discussion on amounts, while one that cannot justify its place-of-supply choices faces reassessment of the tax with surcharges, late interest and, where invoicing rules were breached, specific fines. The cheapest strategy remains prevention: validate the OSS-or-local choice per flow before invoicing, register before starting, invoice with all particulars including your French number, file every month even for nil periods, and reconcile customs, OSS and CA3 figures quarterly with your agent.

Conclusion

For a foreign company doing business in France, the VAT question resolves into a short decision tree. First, identify your French taxable operations: goods located, stored, installed or handed over in France, services physically performed in France or tied to French property, and sales to French customers who cannot reverse-charge. Second, sort those operations by channel: purely cross-border distance sales and digital services to French consumers from another EU State can travel through your home OSS return, while anything stored, dispatched, installed or resold from France, and any import self-assessed in France, requires your own French VAT number. Third, execute in the right order: open the SIEE file before the first operation, appoint a fiscal representative if your home State requires it or a mandataire if it does not, invoice with the French number and all mandatory particulars, and file the monthly CA3 with its annex statements, correcting spontaneously any early error. Applied with discipline, this sequence turns French VAT from a source of frozen refunds and penalty letters into a routine compliance line, and it protects the commercial momentum that brought you to France in the first place.