France e-invoicing
From September 2026, French companies must exchange B2B invoices and report related VAT data through the national e-invoicing framework run by the DGFiP (Direction générale des Finances publiques).
What changes
Invoices are no longer exchanged only by email or PDF between trading partners. They must go through a regulated channel that:
- makes each company discoverable to others,
- routes electronic invoices to the correct recipient,
- and reports the required tax information to the tax administration.
Key building blocks
Portail Public de Facturation (PPF)
The public portal operated for the reform. It hosts the national directory and receives tax reporting flows.
Annuaire
The official directory of electronic invoicing addresses. A company (or one of its establishments) appears there under an address built from French identifiers such as SIREN, SIRET, and optional routing or suffix codes. Issuers look up buyers in this directory before sending.
Plateforme Agréée (PA)
A certified private platform that connects companies to the PPF. Most businesses use a PA rather than integrating with the government portal directly. The PA handles directory registration, document formats, routing, and tax reporting on their behalf.
Identifiers
French companies are identified by SIREN (9 digits, legal entity) and SIRET (14 digits, establishment). Electronic addresses in the Annuaire are compositions of these identifiers (and, where needed, internal routing codes or suffixes).
Domains covered by the reform
The framework covers more than sending a PDF:
| Area | Role |
|---|---|
| B2B e-invoicing | Structured invoices between French VAT-registered businesses |
| Invoice lifecycle | Status messages (deposited, received, approved, refused, paid) |
| e-Reporting | Reporting of B2C and certain cross-border transactions that fall outside domestic B2B e-invoicing |
Public-sector invoicing (B2G) continues to use Chorus Pro under its own rules; private-sector B2B traffic uses the Annuaire / PA model described above.
Testing before go-live
The live Annuaire and real company identifiers must not be used for experiments. The DGFiP provides a qualification (QAS) environment with fictitious company numbers so registration and directory checks can be validated safely.
How to obtain those numbers and complete registration in xTool is described in Test Environment.