Basware's ambition is to keep you well informed on the most important developments regarding the 2024 French e-invoicing mandate
Read on to learn about what this new e-invoice mandate means for your organization's Accounts Payable (AP) and invoice receiving processes as well as Accounts Receivable (AR) operations for sending compliant e-invoices.
This page will continuously be updated (originally published 10-2021, last updated 08-2022).
Basware is committed to offer a compliant e-invoicing solution in France and become a Partner Dematerialization Platform (PDP) that is accredited by the French General Directorate of Public Finance. Our ambition is to keep you well informed on the most important developments regarding the mandate and serve you with both expertise and solutions to be fully compliant with the France 2024 e-Invoicing mandate.
Take this free self-evaluation to learn how you will be affected by the mandate and access your free copy of our France 2024 mandate checklist.
START SELF-EVALUATION
Over the past decade, the French government has launched strategic initiatives to increase its efficiency in collecting VAT. The technologies that have been designated to reach this goal are e-invoicing, and most recently e-reporting. Under the new mandate in France, which is specified in the legal order n°2021-1190 from September 15, 2021, VAT-liable business documents such as e-invoices generally have to be registered on and reported to the governmental platform Portail public de facturation (PPF, translates as public billing portal).
As a member of the FNFE, the official French National Forum for Electronic Invoicing, and member of the DGFIP PDP working group, Basware is closely following developments behind the mandate, and what they mean in practice, to deliver a compliant solution to customers on day one.
Your organization needs to identify which parts of your internal invoice processes are affected by these changes mandated by the French government:
The deadlines of the obligation to send B2B e-invoices depends on company size: 1st July 2024 for large enterprise companies, 1st January 2025 for mid-sized companies, 1st January 2026 for the medium to small companies and micro-companies (see details below).
The mandate also requires invoice lifecycle management, which means transmitting regular invoice status updates to the government platform PPF – either directly or via a partner digitalization platform (PDP). Some statuses will be mandatory (invoice submitted, refused, rejected, received) and other will be optional (disputed, approved, etc.).
E-Invoices and e-Reporting data can be either submitted directly into the government platform PPF (Portail public de facturation) or can be sent through a 3rd party solution of an accredited service provider (named PDP for plateforme de dématérialisation partenaire). This means companies will no longer send invoices directly to customers, but either through the PPF or the 3rd party PDP. The French government calls this approach with those two options the “Y-model.”
Companies subject to VAT in France need to be able to receive e-invoices in the mandated formats UBL 2.1, UN/CEFACT CII, and Factur-X as of 1st of July 2024. Make sure your AP solution can receive and process the permitted formats.
E-invoicing will not be mandatory for B2C and cross-border invoices. However, the government will require French companies to send e-reporting files for these transactions with a similar set of data-points in specified formats to the government platform four days after the end of the week for companies subject to the standard reporting scheme (réel normal) and within seven days after the last day of the month for all other companies.
Following the deadlines specified below, only certain e-invoice formats will be accepted: UBL 2.1, UN/CEFACT CII, and Factur-X. This means that by latest 2026, paper and simple PDF invoices will no longer be valid in France for domestic B2B e-Invoicing. If you issue invoices electronically, they must also be archived electronically, so you will need to have a solution for electronic invoice archiving by latest 2026.
For companies below 250 employees AND below €50M revenue or €43M balance sheet total.
If you're unsure how the mandate will affect you, then take this online self-evaluation to learn how you will be affected by the mandate.
Through the Basware Network, the world’s largest globally compliant open business network, your organization can ensure connectivity to the government portal PPF. While the French 2024 e-invoicing mandate is an important compliance challenge, it is only one of many. Since invoicing and tax compliance is complex, fragmented, and constantly changing, you need a seasoned partner by your side who has a deep understanding of ongoing global developments. Instead of maintaining multiple solutions at the same time, your organization can trust Basware as an all-inclusive compliance solution.
Only structured formats will be considered valid e-invoices for fiscal purposes under the French B2B mandate. This means that by latest 2026, paper and simple PDF invoices will no longer be valid in France for B2B e-Invoicing.
The DGFIP (Direction générale des Finances publiques; translates as General Directorate of Public Finance) is planning to regulate the use of a number of formats, as long as they are compatible with the European Norm. The initially permitted three formats are UBL 2.1, UN/CEFACT CII and Factur-X.
PDP stands for Plateformes de dématérialisation partenaires, which translates to partner digitalization/dematerialization platform. Vendor registration for becoming a PDP will open in September 2023 – no platform can pretend to be registered or accredited before then. PDPs will need to undergo a compliance audit to demonstrate to the administration its capacity to fulfil the requirements.
PDPs are required to:
PPF stands for Portail public de facturation, which translates as public billing portal. The publicly trusted third party offers free services and concentrates on invoicing and billing data for the tax authorities. The public invoicing portal allows companies to submit invoices, created by them in a structured or mixed format:
The public billing portal also allows you to enter the data online or to upload a PDF file representing the invoice. The data entered (or extracted from the PDF) is then transformed, after validation, into one of the structured formats of the platform.
The corresponding invoice is made available to the recipient without any additional action from the depositor.
E-Invoicing will not be mandatory for B2C and cross-border invoices. However, to get a complete overview of all invoice transactions, the government will require companies to send e-Reporting files.
E-Reporting requires a specific set of data-points in a specific form and will have to be sent on a recurring basis. Companies will have to be able to produce e-Reporting and send them to the government platform, either directly or through a partner platform (PDP) which can produce these files and deliver them to the government platform. These transactions are affected by e-reporting:
In addition to invoice data, companies will have to transmit the invoice processing statuses to the government platform - directly or via a partner platform.
The invoice lifecycle will guarantee more transparency on the status of operations to the government. Some statuses will be mandatory (invoice submitted, refused, rejected, received) and other will be optional (disputed, approved, etc.).
Book a consultation call with our solutions experts to discuss the impact of the mandate on your business and potential solutions.
Learn more
Read more