The French Parliament has adopted the revised Finance Law for 2022, confirming the timeline and implementation modalities for mandatory electronic invoicing among VAT-registered businesses following EU Council authorization on 25 January 2022.

Implementation Timeline

The electronic invoicing obligation will apply progressively based on company size. All VAT-registered entities must accept electronic invoices from 1 July 2024. For invoice issuance, large companies must comply from 1 July 2024, intermediate-sized enterprises from 1 January 2025, and small and medium enterprises including micro-enterprises from 1 January 2026.

Data transmission obligations to the tax administration follow the same phased timeline. A pilot program will commence on 3 January 2024 ahead of the full implementation.

Technical Infrastructure

The government awarded a public contract on 9 August 2022 for construction of the public invoicing portal, supported by funding from the Public Action Transformation Fund approved on 28 July 2021. This platform will facilitate the mandatory e-invoicing system across all business-to-business transactions.

Context

The reform pursues four objectives: simplifying business operations and enhancing competitiveness, streamlining VAT compliance obligations, improving fraud detection, and providing real-time business activity insights. The initiative represents an estimated annual benefit of €4.5 billion for small and medium enterprises through digitalization and administrative simplification. This places France among the growing number of EU member states implementing mandatory B2B e-invoicing systems to modernize tax collection and combat VAT fraud.