Andy Garcia · freelance dev
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Tax & Small Business

75% of French VAT Filers Picked an E-Invoice Platform. The Simplified VAT Regime Ends January 1.

October 19, 2026 8 min read

On Thursday, October 8, 2026, David Amiel, France's Minister of Public Action and Accounts, chaired the first follow-up committee of the e-invoicing reform, with business groups and accountants. The ministry's press release, dated October 9, gives the first scorecard. As of October 4, 75% of companies that file VAT returns had designated a platform to receive e-invoices. More than 20 million invoices had gone through the new circuit, for more than 70 billion euros. The minister repeated that no company will be sanctioned before the end of 2026, and the committee agreed to publish an updated start-up guide within two weeks.

Read the other way, a quarter of VAT filers still had no reception platform about five weeks after it became mandatory. And e-invoicing is only half of what changes for small French businesses. On January 1, 2027, the simplified VAT regime disappears.

I built BidForge, an AI that reads French public tender files for small businesses. Many of the companies it is built for are caught by both calendars. So I read the texts rather than the summaries: the DGFiP's start-up guide, article 1737 of the tax code as it stands on October 19, and the tax administration's notice on the simplified regime. Here is what they say.

Already mandatory: receiving

Since Tuesday, September 1, 2026, every business subject to VAT, whatever its size, must be able to receive electronic invoices through an approved platform, a "plateforme agréée". That includes micro-entrepreneurs under the VAT franchise. The impots.gouv.fr FAQ, updated on September 28, answers in one line: "Oui, vous êtes concerné."

An e-invoice is not a PDF sent by email. It is a structured file, routed from the supplier's platform to the client's. Who sends you one now? Large companies and mid-caps, which have had to issue them since September 1, plus volunteers. The DGFiP's first-steps fact sheet gives examples: your electricity supplier, your phone or internet provider, your equipment suppliers.

The official list, updated on October 13, names 155 platforms that meet every condition, interoperability tests included. The guide says you can also go through your usual software, your accountant or your bank, as long as that solution connects to an approved platform.

The ministry's reform page also lists four new mandatory mentions on invoices from September 1, 2026: the client's SIREN number, the category of the operation (goods, services, or both), the option for paying VAT on debits when it applies, and the delivery address when it differs from the billing address.

What the fines actually are

Article 1737 of the tax code, as amended by article 123 of the finance law of February 19, 2026, and article 1788 D set the amounts. The version of article 1737 that takes effect on January 1, 2027, amended by an ordinance of July 27, 2026, keeps the same amounts.

No reception platform: the administration first sends a formal notice and gives you three months. If nothing changes, the fine is 500 euros, with a second notice and three more months. Then 1,000 euros, and another 1,000 euros after each further three-month period that ends with a failed notice. A year after the first notice, ignoring every one of them adds up to 500 + 1,000 + 1,000 + 1,000 = 3,500 euros.

Not issuing e-invoices once you must: 50 euros per invoice, capped at 15,000 euros per calendar year. On paper, a freelancer who keeps sending ten PDF invoices a month to French business clients after the deadline is at 10 × 12 × 50 = 6,000 euros a year. Three hundred invoices reach the cap.

Missing e-reporting: 500 euros per transmission, also capped at 15,000 euros a year. For both the issuing and the e-reporting fines, a first offence in the current year and the three before it is waived if it is fixed spontaneously or within 30 days of a first request. The reception fine has no such waiver. It has the notices instead.

Beyond the minister's promise for 2026, the guide's tolerance is conditional. The guide says there will be no sanctions for businesses that hit difficulties while on "a serious compliance trajectory", and that this approach is "neither a postponement nor a suspension" of the obligation (my translations). It wants evidence: the contract with a platform, emails with your software vendor or accountant, support tickets, a connection calendar. "A simple declaration of intent is not enough."

Two answers in the guide that protect small firms

Two of the July guide's 29 answers matter more to a freelancer than the tolerance does.

Answer 3: a PDF or paper invoice received after September 1 can still be processed and paid when it matches a real operation and carries the required information. The fact that it did not come through the electronic circuit does not, by itself, cost you the right to deduct its VAT.

Answer 20: a client cannot use the reform to force a small or micro-business to issue e-invoices before September 1, 2027, and should not refuse to process or pay an invoice only because it is not electronic. Contracts can organize electronic exchanges, but the guide says not to confuse them with the legal obligation. It does set aside the separate rules that may apply to invoices sent to public buyers, which anyone who answers public tenders should keep in mind. If a large client tells you otherwise this autumn, answer 20 is the one to send.

January 1, 2027: the simplified VAT regime ends

Article 38 of the 2025 finance law abolishes the simplified VAT regime (RSI) from January 1, 2027. The impots.gouv.fr notice was published on September 22 and updated the next day.

Who is on it? On Service-Public's 2026 figures, a services business falls in the simplified regime between 37,500 and 286,000 euros of turnover, with less than 15,000 euros of VAT due the year before. That band covers many freelancers who charge VAT, for example SASU and EURL consultants, or micro-entrepreneurs who crossed the franchise threshold. Micro-entrepreneurs still under the franchise file no VAT returns, so this part does not change their routine.

The switch is automatic. The DGFiP moves businesses to the normal regime and reads the turnover on the last annual return to choose the rhythm: quarterly CA3 returns if turnover was at most 1,000,000 euros the previous year (1,100,000 in the current year), monthly above that. A business can opt for monthly filing through its secure messaging.

For a calendar-year business, the transition looks like this. The last annual CA12, covering 2026, is due by May 4, 2027. The first CA3 covers January or the first quarter of 2027. No VAT installment is due in July or December 2027.

What changes is the cash rhythm. Under the simplified regime, you pay 55% of last year's VAT in July and 40% in December, then the balance with the annual return in May. Take a consultant whose 2025 VAT came to 8,000 euros: 4,400 euros in July 2026, 3,200 euros in December 2026. From 2027, VAT is paid on actual figures, quarter by quarter. With flat activity, that is about 2,000 euros a quarter. With growing activity, the float of paying on last year's figure disappears.

The two reforms meet on September 1, 2027, when former RSI businesses, like all SMEs and micro-businesses, must start sending e-reporting data through their platform, at a frequency set by their VAT regime: monthly for quarterly filers; for monthly filers, every ten days for transaction data and monthly for payment data. The notice asks businesses to tell their platform about the new regime.

The dates I would put in a calendar

  • Now: a reception platform, if you still do not have one.
  • Late October: the updated start-up guide the committee promised within two weeks of October 8. On October 19, the guide online was still the July version, so check the date of the one you read.
  • December 31, 2026: end of the period in which the minister has promised no sanctions.
  • January 1, 2027: end of the simplified VAT regime.
  • May 4, 2027: last CA12, for 2026.
  • September 1, 2027: SMEs and micro-businesses must issue e-invoices and send e-reporting data.

What I would set up this quarter

Ask your accounting software, bank or accountant which approved platform receives your invoices, and get the answer in writing. Keep a dated folder of every step, because that folder is what the guide treats as proof of good faith. Add the four new mentions to your invoice template. If you are on the simplified regime, check which VAT regime your platform has on file, and set VAT aside every month.

If you build software that issues invoices for French businesses, read answers 11 and 12. The guide separates a platform rejection, a format or data error you fix and send again, from a buyer's refusal, a lifecycle status that must state a reason and, if you reissue, needs a new invoice number. Code that treats both as "failed" gets the next step wrong, and the guide keeps returning to the risk that follows: the same invoice paid, booked or declared twice.

For a small French business, the e-invoicing deadline that bites is September 1, 2027. The one that changes your cash is January 1.

Sources

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