E-reporting is the French reform's second half: for every transaction that does not travel through the domestic invoice network, the data still reaches the tax authority, declared by the French party through an accredited platform. Your invoices to French customers are exactly that case: the buyer declares each purchase from a supplier established abroad, with your country, your VAT number, the invoice number, date and amounts. You declare nothing, register nowhere, and owe France no filing. What the system changes for you is indirect: your customers need clean, complete invoices to declare from, and they ask for the details accordingly.
What your customer files about you
For each invoice you send, their platform transmits to the French tax authority: the supplier's country and VAT (or national) identifier, the invoice number and issue date, the operation type, the amounts per VAT treatment (reverse charge, typically, with its exact coding on your side), and the currency. Line items and the file itself stay with them.
For services, the payment side follows: French rules make VAT due on collection for services, so your customer also reports when they paid you. That is why an accounts payable team may care about payment references more than before.
The cadence follows the customer's VAT regime, from three filings a month to one every two months; late or missing filings are their fine, not yours.
What it explains in your inbox
"Please confirm your VAT number." It goes into every declaration about you; a wrong one bounces back to them from checks. Put it on the invoice once, correctly, and the emails stop.
"Please state the invoice's operation type." Goods, services or both: their filing carries it, and the French mentions list expects it.
"We could not process your invoice." A declaration built from a PDF means retyping on their side; a Factur-X they can ingest prefills it. Your structured file saves their clerk ten minutes per invoice, which is the quiet reason procurement asks for it.
"We declared it, can you re-issue with the right amount?" Declarations, once filed, are corrected the way invoices are: by a credit note referencing the original. Expect French customers to be strict about credit-note references.
The edge case that does concern you
A foreign company registered for French VAT without an establishment (distance sales, local inventory, a fiscal representative) is outside e-invoicing but inside e-reporting for its French-located sales, on the calendar of its size. If that is you, the SIREN lookup flags the status, and the filing runs through an accredited platform; get in touch and we will tell you plainly what we can and cannot cover for that case today. For the ordinary exporter or service provider with no French registration, nothing above applies.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to report anything to the French tax authority?
No, not without a French VAT registration. Your customer declares the purchase; your side is a correct invoice.
Why does my customer suddenly need my VAT number and invoice dates exactly right?
Because each purchase from you becomes a filing with those fields, checked on their side. Errors come back to them, and then to you as re-issue requests.
Does e-reporting mean France sees my prices and margins?
The French tax authority receives header data about transactions with French buyers: amounts, dates, identifiers. Line detail and the file stay with your customer, as before.
My customer asks me to "declare the invoice on the platform". Can I?
No, and you do not need to: declaration is the buyer's act, through their platform. If a customer says otherwise, they are confusing your case with domestic suppliers.
We sell B2C into France, distance sales under French VAT. Are we in scope?
With a French VAT registration and French-located sales, e-reporting duties exist on your side, on the size calendar. That is the one case worth checking properly; the lookup flags it, and the footer's caveat applies twice.
Published 24 September 2026. Sources: French e-reporting provisions (ordonnance 2021-1190 and implementing texts), DGFiP specifications. GetFacturX is not an accredited platform (Plateforme Agréée); transmission over the French network is operated by an accredited partner platform. This article is not tax or legal advice. Dates, frequencies and amounts are those known at publication and may change; check them before relying on them.