{"id":2133351,"date":"2026-09-28T07:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T05:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.fr\/2026\/09\/28\/foreign-company-france-vat-thresholds-invoices-penalties-abroad\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T07:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T05:54:16","slug":"foreign-company-france-vat-thresholds-invoices-penalties-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.fr\/en\/2026\/09\/28\/foreign-company-france-vat-thresholds-invoices-penalties-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"Your French Company Owes VAT and You Live Abroad: Registration, Thresholds, Invoices and Late-Filing Fixes"},"content":{"rendered":"

You formed a company in France from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore. The Kbis<\/em> \u2014 the official registration certificate issued by the greffe<\/em>, the clerk’s office of the commercial court \u2014 arrived in your inbox, the SIREN<\/em> \u2014 the nine-digit company identification number issued by INSEE \u2014 is printed on your letterhead, and the first invoices are about to go out. Then your French accountant asks the question you did not expect: what is your VAT position? In France, the answer is never automatic. Some young companies must charge value added tax from their very first invoice, others are protected for a while by an exemption scheme called the franchise en base<\/em>, and a company that gets the answer wrong pays the missing tax, a surcharge and interest \u2014 from abroad, with no local office to receive the warning letters. This guide explains, for a foreign founder or a foreign group running a French vehicle, when French VAT applies, how the 2026 turnover thresholds work, how to obtain a French VAT number, what a compliant invoice must contain, how returns are filed from outside France, and how to repair a late start before the cost becomes serious.<\/p>\n

I. Does your French company really owe VAT, and from what date?<\/h2>\n

A. Taxable transactions, place of supply and the reverse charge when the supplier sits outside France<\/h3>\n

French VAT \u2014 taxe sur la valeur ajout\u00e9e<\/em>, universally shortened to TVA \u2014 is governed by the Code g\u00e9n\u00e9ral des imp\u00f4ts<\/em> (CGI), the French general tax code. The starting rule is deliberately broad: Article 256 of the CGI provides that “Sont soumises \u00e0 la taxe sur la valeur ajout\u00e9e les livraisons de biens et les prestations de services effectu\u00e9es \u00e0 titre on\u00e9reux par un assujetti agissant en tant que tel.”<\/a> In plain English, any supply of goods or services made for consideration by a taxable person acting as such falls within VAT. A soci\u00e9t\u00e9 par actions simplifi\u00e9e<\/em> (SAS, the flexible joint-stock company most foreign founders choose), a soci\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 responsabilit\u00e9 limit\u00e9e<\/em> (SARL, the limited liability company with stricter statutory rules) and even a registered branch (succursale<\/em>) of a foreign company are all assujettis<\/em> \u2014 taxable persons \u2014 as soon as they carry on an economic activity in France. There is no minimum share capital or minimum headcount that keeps a company outside the system: only the nature and the place of the transactions matter.<\/p>\n

The second question is where the transaction is taxed. For services supplied to a business customer, the European rule applied in France is that the service is taxed where the customer is established. Article 259 of the CGI states that “Le lieu des prestations de services est situ\u00e9 en France” when the business customer receiving the services is established in France<\/a> Concretely, when your French SAS bills a German or American business client for consulting, design or software work performed for that client, the place of supply is generally outside France and no French VAT is charged \u2014 the foreign business customer accounts for the tax under its own rules where applicable. Conversely, when a non-French supplier bills your French company, the mirror mechanism applies: Article 283 of the CGI provides that where the supplier is established outside France, “la taxe est acquitt\u00e9e par l’acqu\u00e9reur, le destinataire ou le preneur qui agit en tant qu’assujetti et qui dispose d’un num\u00e9ro d’identification \u00e0 la taxe sur la valeur ajout\u00e9e en France”<\/a> This is the autoliquidation<\/em> \u2014 the reverse charge: your French company self-assesses the French VAT on the foreign supplier’s invoice, declares it and deducts it on the same return, so the operation is usually cash-neutral but remains fully declarable. A foreign founder who ignores these lines and simply pays foreign invoices without declaring the reverse charge accumulates undeclared liabilities that surface at the first audit.<\/p>\n

The third timing rule is the fait g\u00e9n\u00e9rateur<\/em> \u2014 the chargeable event that fixes when the tax becomes due. Article 269 of the CGI provides that “Le fait g\u00e9n\u00e9rateur de la taxe se produit : a) Au moment o\u00f9 la livraison, l’acquisition intracommunautaire du bien ou la prestation de services est effectu\u00e9”.<\/a> For goods, VAT is therefore due when the goods are delivered; for most services, when the service is performed, with special rules for staged payments and successive statements of account. The Cour de cassation recalled the practical weight of this timing in a recent commercial chamber ruling about assigned receivables: in its decision of 22 October 2025 (pourvoi no. 24-19.201), the Court restated that “le fait g\u00e9n\u00e9rateur de la TVA se produit au moment o\u00f9 la livraison, l’acquisition intracommunautaire du bien ou la prestation de services est effectu\u00e9e”.<\/a> For a foreign-run company, the lesson is operational: the date printed on the invoice should reflect the real date of delivery or performance, because that date decides the period on which the VAT must be declared. Backdating or postponing invoices to shift VAT from one quarter to another is one of the first anomalies the French tax administration’s software flags.<\/p>\n

Two frequent borderline cases deserve a clear answer. First, holding and invoicing structures: a French company that only holds shares and receives dividends is not, on those dividends alone, carrying out taxable transactions, but the moment it bills management fees, shared-service recharges or directors’ fees to its subsidiaries, those invoices are taxable services and can pull the whole company into monthly VAT returns. Second, distance and digital sales: specific regimes (intra-Community distance sales, the One-Stop Shop \u2014 guichet unique<\/em> \u2014 for consumer sales across the European Union) allocate the tax to the customer’s country above certain thresholds, but they never exempt the French company from registering and documenting the flows. When in doubt, the question is never whether VAT exists somewhere; it is which country collects it and which number must appear on the invoice.<\/p>\n

B. The franchise en base: the 2026 turnover thresholds that keep a small company outside VAT<\/h3>\n

The franchise en base<\/em> \u2014 literally the “base exemption” \u2014 is the scheme that allows a small business to invoice without VAT: no VAT charged to customers, but symmetrically no VAT recovered on purchases. It is the default shelter of consultants, small traders and service companies in their first months, and the official English-language guidance of the French administration describes it in detail on the entreprendre.service-public.fr portal (see the administration’s pages on the franchise en base de TVA<\/a> and on declaring and paying VAT<\/a>). For 2026, the figures a foreign founder must memorise are the following: for sales of goods, the basic threshold is 85,000 euros of annual turnover with a tolerance threshold of 93,500 euros; for supplies of services, the basic threshold is 37,500 euros with a tolerance threshold of 41,250 euros. The mechanism works in two stages. As long as turnover for the current year stays below the basic threshold, the exemption continues. If turnover exceeds the basic threshold but remains below the tolerance threshold, the company keeps the exemption for that year and becomes liable for VAT on 1 January of the following year. If turnover exceeds the tolerance threshold, the exemption ends immediately \u2014 on the very day the threshold is crossed \u2014 and every subsequent invoice must carry VAT.<\/p>\n

Three traps catch foreign-run companies in particular. The first is the reference turnover: thresholds are assessed on turnover excluding VAT (chiffre d’affaires hors taxes<\/em>) for the calendar year, and the administration looks at the French turnover of the French company, not the worldwide turnover of the group \u2014 but intra-group recharges billed by the French vehicle count in full. A French SAS that merely re-invoices 60,000 euros of group costs plus a margin can cross the services tolerance threshold of 41,250 euros without ever selling to an outside customer. The second trap is the two-year look-back: the published examples of the administration show that exceeding a threshold in year N while having exceeded it in year N-1 can accelerate the exit from the scheme, so a company hovering around 38,000 to 40,000 euros of services turnover for two consecutive years should plan its VAT entry rather than discover it. The third trap is the invoice wording: while under the exemption, each invoice must carry the mandatory statement that VAT is not applicable under the franchise scheme, and the day the tolerance threshold is crossed, that statement must disappear and be replaced by a VAT line with the applicable rate \u2014 20 percent standard rate in most cases, 10 or 5.5 percent for eligible goods and services. Invoices issued without VAT after the exit date expose the company to a reassessment (redressement<\/em>) equal to the VAT that should have been collected, which the company must then pay out of its own margin because it can no longer legally reclaim it from customers months later.<\/p>\n

Opting out voluntarily is sometimes the smarter commercial move, and the law allows it: a company may elect to become liable for VAT even below the thresholds, typically when its customers are businesses that recover VAT themselves and its own suppliers charge significant VAT on equipment, rent or subcontracting. The election locks the company into the VAT system for a minimum period and takes effect on a fixed date, so it should be timed with the accounting year and the invoicing cycle. Conversely, a company whose customers are private individuals \u2014 coaching, training for individuals, small e-commerce \u2014 usually defends the exemption as long as possible, because 20 percent added to consumer prices directly costs sales. The decision cannot be improvised from abroad: it requires a turnover forecast for the current and following year, a client-by-client analysis of who recovers VAT, and a written instruction to whoever issues the invoices, in France or from the foreign head office, so that the correct wording appears from the correct date.<\/p>\n

New companies benefit from one practical simplification: in its first calendar year, a company created during the year applies the thresholds pro rata temporis \u2014 adjusted in proportion to the operating period \u2014 which means a SAS created in October crosses the services tolerance threshold with roughly 10,000 euros of invoices in its first quarter. Founders who launch in the last quarter and bill an initial intra-group setup fee regularly blow through the pro-rated threshold with a single invoice. The safe routine is therefore a monthly turnover check against the applicable threshold from the very first invoice, documented in writing, so that the file proves \u2014 in case of audit \u2014 that the exit date was monitored and applied. The French tax administration accepts that a young company makes an honest timing error of a few weeks and corrects it spontaneously; it does not accept a full year of invoices without VAT above the thresholds presented as an oversight.<\/p>\n

II. How do you register, invoice and file VAT from abroad without triggering penalties?<\/h2>\n

A. Getting the VAT number, issuing compliant invoices and deducting input VAT before the deadline<\/h3>\n

Registration starts at company formation. Since 1 January 2023, all business creation formalities pass through the Guichet unique<\/em> \u2014 the single online portal operated by the INPI, the French intellectual property and business formalities institute \u2014 which transmits the file to the greffe<\/em>, INSEE and the tax administration. When the file states that the company will be liable for VAT, or when liability starts later after leaving the franchise scheme, the tax office (service des imp\u00f4ts des entreprises<\/em>, SIE) assigns an intra-Community VAT number built on the SIREN: the letters FR, a two-digit key, then the nine digits of the SIREN. Article 286 of the CGI requires that “Toute personne assujettie \u00e0 la taxe sur la valeur ajout\u00e9e doit : 1\u00b0 Dans les quinze jours du commencement de ses op\u00e9rations, souscrire au bureau d\u00e9sign\u00e9 par un arr\u00eat\u00e9 une d\u00e9claration conforme au mod\u00e8le fourni par l’administration.”<\/a> In practice, for a company formed through the Guichet unique, this declaration is embedded in the creation file; for a company that becomes liable mid-life \u2014 threshold crossed, voluntary election, new taxable activity \u2014 a specific declaration to the SIE within fifteen days is mandatory, and it can be filed by the foreign director or by a French representative (mandataire<\/em>) with a proper power of attorney. Companies established outside the European Union that are liable for French VAT without a French establishment must additionally appoint a tax representative (repr\u00e9sentant fiscal<\/em>) established in France, who answers for the company’s VAT obligations toward the administration.<\/p>\n

Once registered, every invoice must satisfy the strict French mandatory content. Article 289 of the CGI provides that “Tout assujetti est tenu de s’assurer qu’une facture est \u00e9mise, par lui-m\u00eame, ou en son nom et pour son compte, par son client ou par un tiers”, and adds that “La facture est, en principe, \u00e9mise d\u00e8s la r\u00e9alisation de la livraison ou de la prestation de services.”<\/a> The invoice must show the seller’s and customer’s names and addresses, the SIREN and intra-Community VAT numbers of both parties for intra-Community supplies, the date of issue and of the transaction, a precise description and quantity of the goods or services, the unit price excluding tax, the applicable VAT rate, the VAT amount and the total. For intra-Community supplies of goods exempt in France and for reverse-charge services, the invoice carries no French VAT but must state the legal ground \u2014 typically the self-billing or reverse-charge wording and the customer’s valid VAT number, verified beforehand on the European VIES database. Since 1 September 2026, France has also been rolling out mandatory electronic invoicing (facturation \u00e9lectronique<\/em>) between taxable businesses, with structured formats and transmission through accredited platforms; a foreign-run company whose invoicing tool is configured abroad must verify that its software produces compliant structured invoices and archives them for the full retention period, because a PDF sent by email alone no longer suffices in the general case.<\/p>\n

The financial heart of the system is the deduction of input VAT: the VAT your company pays to its suppliers reduces the VAT it owes on its sales. Article 271 of the CGI states the principle: “La taxe sur la valeur ajout\u00e9e qui a grev\u00e9 les \u00e9l\u00e9ments du prix d’une op\u00e9ration imposable est d\u00e9ductible de la taxe sur la valeur ajout\u00e9e applicable \u00e0 cette op\u00e9ration.”<\/a> But the right to deduct is fenced with deadlines that foreign directors discover too late. In its ruling of 1 October 2025, the commercial chamber of the Cour de cassation held, by combining Article 271 CGI with the regulatory deduction deadlines, that “le client d’un assujetti, lorsque cet assujetti a opt\u00e9 pour le paiement de la TVA d’apr\u00e8s les d\u00e9bits, doit d\u00e9clarer la TVA d\u00e9ductible figurant sur les factures dans le mois de leur r\u00e9ception et au plus tard le 31 d\u00e9cembre de la deuxi\u00e8me ann\u00e9e suivante”, adding that “A d\u00e9faut de d\u00e9claration dans ces d\u00e9lais, le cr\u00e9dit de TVA ne peut donner lieu ni \u00e0 imputation ni \u00e0 remboursement.”<\/a> Translation for the business reader: input VAT shown on a supplier invoice must be claimed promptly, and any VAT not declared by 31 December of the second following year is definitively lost \u2014 no carry-forward, no refund. A company run from abroad, where purchase invoices pile up in an inbox nobody reconciles monthly, bleeds deductible VAT every year. The remedy is a monthly discipline: every supplier invoice checked (valid VAT number, correct rate, real service), recorded and transmitted to the accountant before the return is prepared.<\/p>\n

Deduction also has substantive conditions that audits test one by one: the expense must relate to a taxable activity, must not be excluded by law (a large share of vehicle, fuel, hospitality and entertainment expenses is wholly or partly excluded), and must be supported by a compliant invoice \u2014 a quote, a pro-forma invoice or a bank statement never opens the right to deduct. Where the company carries on both taxable and exempt activities, only the proportion assigned to taxable transactions is deductible (prorata<\/em>). For capital goods \u2014 equipment, vehicles, fit-out works \u2014 the administration claws back deducted VAT if the asset is sold or reassigned to an exempt use within a multi-year adjustment period. Before signing a lease with heavy fit-out works or buying equipment from abroad, the foreign founder should therefore ask the accountant to model the deduction over the life of the asset rather than celebrate the first-year refund.<\/p>\n

B. Monthly or quarterly returns, late filings, corrections and recovering VAT on invoices your customers never pay<\/h3>\n

French VAT is declared and paid on the standard CA3 return filed electronically on the impots.gouv.fr portal. Article 287 of the CGI provides that “Les redevables soumis au r\u00e9gime r\u00e9el normal d’imposition d\u00e9posent mensuellement la d\u00e9claration vis\u00e9e au 1 indiquant, d’une part, le montant total des op\u00e9rations r\u00e9alis\u00e9es, d’autre part, le d\u00e9tail des op\u00e9rations taxables. La taxe exigible est acquitt\u00e9e tous les mois”, while adding that “Lorsque la taxe exigible annuellement est inf\u00e9rieure \u00e0 4 000 \u20ac, ils sont admis \u00e0 d\u00e9poser leurs d\u00e9clarations par trimestre civil.”<\/a> Most foreign-owned operating companies therefore file every month; only genuinely small VAT payers file quarterly. A simplified annual regime with half-yearly instalments exists for the smallest businesses, but a company that chose or triggered VAT liability on significant turnover rarely qualifies, and the accountant confirms the applicable regime each year. From abroad, the critical point is access: the return is filed online by the company or its accountant through a delegated access (d\u00e9l\u00e9gation<\/em>), the payment is made by SEPA direct debit or bank transfer to the French Treasury, and the foreign director must ensure that the delegation is active and the bank account funded before each deadline. A return filed but unpaid, or paid from a foreign account with the wrong reference, still generates penalties.<\/p>\n

Late or missing returns trigger an automatic penalty scale. Article 1728 of the CGI provides that “Le d\u00e9faut de production dans les d\u00e9lais prescrits d’une d\u00e9claration ou d’un acte comportant l’indication d’\u00e9l\u00e9ments \u00e0 retenir pour l’assiette ou la liquidation de l’imp\u00f4t entra\u00eene l’application, sur le montant des droits mis \u00e0 la charge du contribuable ou r\u00e9sultant de la d\u00e9claration ou de l’acte d\u00e9pos\u00e9 tardivement, d’une majoration”, set at 10 percent where no formal notice was sent<\/a> \u2014 with higher rates after a formal notice and in cases of undeclared activity \u2014 plus late-payment interest currently set at 0.2 percent per month. For a company with 100,000 euros of annual VAT due, a year of complete silence costs 10,000 euros of surcharge plus interest before any discussion of the principal. Beside the return itself, ancillary obligations carry their own fines: intra-Community trade declarations (\u00e9tat r\u00e9capitulatif TVA<\/em> for services, statistical statements for goods), the annual list of customers for certain exempt operations, and e-invoicing transmission reports. Each has its own per-omission fine, and they cumulate.<\/p>\n

When the company discovers the problem itself \u2014 no VAT number requested, a year of invoices without VAT above the thresholds, reverse charges never declared \u2014 the strategy is spontaneous regularisation, and it must be executed in the right order. First, stop the outflow: request the VAT number, fix the invoicing template, set the correct rates and start declaring the current period. Second, quantify the past: reconstruct period by period the VAT that should have been collected and the input VAT that can still be deducted, because the reassessment bears on the net amount and every deductible invoice recovered reduces the bill. Third, file the late returns or corrective returns with payment, before any audit notice arrives: spontaneous payment does not erase the 10 percent surcharge, but it stops interest from running and it preserves the argument of good faith against higher penalties and against the criminal qualification of tax fraud, which requires intent. Fourth, document everything \u2014 the monthly threshold monitoring table, the instruction given to the billing team, the accountant’s emails \u2014 because the difference between an honest timing error and concealed activity is proven with paper. Companies that regularise before receiving the audit notice (avis de v\u00e9rification<\/em>) routinely settle for the principal plus the basic surcharge; companies caught with no file and no explanation pay the higher rates and lose the administration’s willingness to grant payment schedules (d\u00e9lais de paiement<\/em>).<\/p>\n

One relief is frequently overlooked by foreign suppliers: VAT paid to the Treasury on invoices that customers never pay can be recovered. Article 272 of the CGI provides that “La taxe sur la valeur ajout\u00e9e qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 per\u00e7ue \u00e0 l’occasion de ventes ou de services est imput\u00e9e ou rembours\u00e9e dans les conditions pr\u00e9vues \u00e0 l’article 271 lorsque ces ventes ou services sont par la suite r\u00e9sili\u00e9s ou annul\u00e9s ou lorsque les cr\u00e9ances correspondantes sont devenues d\u00e9finitivement irrecouvrables.”<\/a> The refund requires proof: a prior correction of the invoice (credit note \u2014 avoir<\/em> \u2014 sent to the customer), and evidence that the debt is definitively irrecoverable \u2014 typically a court-ordered liquidation judgment (jugement de liquidation judiciaire<\/em>) or a certificate of irrecoverability from the liquidator \u2014 or, earlier, the opening of the customer’s judicial liquidation, which already allows the recovery. The recent case law confirms how seriously the courts police this mechanism: in the same 22 October 2025 decision, the Cour de cassation ruled that “lorsque les cr\u00e9ances correspondantes sont devenues d\u00e9finitivement irr\u00e9couvrables, il n’est pas fond\u00e9, sauf stipulation contraire du contrat d’affacturage, \u00e0 r\u00e9clamer au cr\u00e9ancier la taxe dont celui-ci a obtenu le remboursement par application de l’article 272-1 du code g\u00e9n\u00e9ral des imp\u00f4ts”.<\/a> For a foreign company selling to French customers, the operational lesson is to send the credit note and file the refund claim as soon as the customer’s liquidation is pronounced, rather than waiting years: the claim follows the same strict deduction deadlines recalled above, and a refund claimed out of time is lost even when the underlying commercial loss is genuine. Our companion guide on recovering unpaid French invoices from abroad details the enforcement route \u2014 formal demand, European order for payment and the French injonction de payer<\/em> \u2014 that produces the judgments on which the VAT recovery then relies: how a foreign company recovers an unpaid French invoice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

VAT is the tax where a foreign-run French company has the least room for improvisation and the most to gain from method. Determine the VAT position before the first invoice \u2014 taxable from day one or sheltered by the franchise en base \u2014 and calendar the exact date the 2026 thresholds would flip the answer. Obtain the FR VAT number within fifteen days of becoming liable, invoice with the full mandatory content from the correct date, and claim input VAT month by month so nothing expires under the deduction deadlines the Cour de cassation enforces strictly. File the CA3 return every month or every authorised quarter from abroad through a funded delegation, and if the past is already irregular, regularise spontaneously in the right order: stop the current leak, quantify the net arrears, file and pay before the audit notice, and document good faith. The broader setting \u2014 bank account, Kbis, hiring and the annual legal calendar \u2014 is covered in our hub guide for foreign founders (setting up a company in France as a foreign founder<\/a>) and in our annual compliance calendar (the French company’s legal calendar from abroad<\/a>). A company that treats VAT as a monthly routine pays only the tax it truly owes; a company that discovers VAT through a reassessment notice pays that tax plus surcharges, interest and the far higher cost of rebuilding its invoicing history under pressure.<\/p>\n

Need a quick opinion on your case?<\/h2>\n

Telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm. First telephone analysis: 80 EUR incl. VAT. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22<\/a> or write via our contact page<\/a> with your Kbis, your last invoices and any letter from the French tax administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foreign founder running a French company from abroad? 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