🇫🇷 France: the 1 September 2026 e-invoicing deadline

Who is affected

Every business established in France and registered for VAT. There is no size threshold for the reception obligation: even a one-person company must be able to receive a Factur-X, UBL or CII invoice from 1 September 2026. The issuing obligation is phased by company size.

The timeline, phase by phase

1. 1 September 2026Every VAT-registered business

   Must be able to RECEIVE a structured e-invoice. No size threshold — this applies to everyone, including the smallest business.

2. 1 September 2026Large enterprises AND mid-sized companies (ETI)

   Must also ISSUE e-invoices and transmit e-reporting data. ETI are in scope from this date — a widespread misreading puts them in 2027. They are not.

3. 1 September 2027SMEs, very small businesses and micro-enterprises

   Must ISSUE e-invoices and transmit e-reporting. They already had to be able to RECEIVE since September 2026.

What happens if you are not ready

The Finance Act 2026 sets a penalty of €50 per invoice not issued in the required electronic form, and €500 per missing e-reporting transmission, each capped at €15,000 a year. On 10 July 2026 the Ministry said there would be no penalties at the start for businesses acting in good faith, and that support would run to the end of 2026 — but it explicitly ruled out a grace period. The obligation itself starts on 1 September 2026.

Your checklist

1. 1Confirm which side of the phase-in you are on: everyone must RECEIVE from Sep 2026; only large companies and ETI must ISSUE from that date.
2. 2Choose and register with an approved platform (PDP). The public portal (PPF) is no longer an exchange platform — the 2026 Finance Act reduced it to a directory.
3. 3Pick your format: Factur-X (PDF + XML), UBL 2.1 or CII. All three must carry the EN 16931 semantic model.
4. 4Validate a real invoice end to end before September — a file that passes your ERP can still fail EN 16931 business rules.
5. 5Check your master data: a valid French VAT number (FR + key + SIREN) and the buyer SIRET, or the invoice cannot be routed.
6. 6Make sure you can RECEIVE, not just send. This is the obligation most companies overlook, and it is the one that hits everyone.

Prove your file is ready

Check a real file against the rules that apply on the day. Free, no account, and nothing leaves your browser.

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