France E-Invoicing Mandate 2026: Dates, Approved Platforms & Rules

France's 2026 mandate in one sentence

From 1 September 2026, every VAT-registered business in France must be able to receive electronic invoices, and large and mid-sized companies must also start issuing them — through an approved platform (plateforme agréée) registered by the tax administration, alongside e-reporting of transaction and payment data. Small and micro-enterprises follow with the issue obligation from 1 September 2027.

With the first deadline days away, reception readiness is the immediate priority. If EN 16931 profiles are unfamiliar, Peppol vs PINT gives the standards background; this guide covers the French model, and our France compliance page covers what GoRoute supports.

The timeline

France's reform separates receiving from issuing, and phases the issue side by company size:

The universal reception obligation from 1 September 2026 is the one every French business must act on now — regardless of size, you must be able to accept a structured e-invoice from a supplier. The tax administration states both dates directly, and notes that even a business which issues no invoices at all is in scope, because it must still be able to receive them.

Which businesses are in the first wave, and which have until 2027?

Large enterprises and mid-sized enterprises (entreprises de taille intermédiaire) must issue electronic invoices from 1 September 2026. Small and medium enterprises and micro-enterprises have until 1 September 2027. The reception obligation applies to every VAT-registered business in France from 1 September 2026, whatever its size.

The administration ties the phasing to France's standard company-size categories: its answer on the reform dates cites article 51 of the loi de modernisation de l'économie of 4 August 2008, and the implementing decree for that article (n° 2008-1354) is what defines the four categories. INSEE, the national statistics institute, publishes the thresholds:

The category is worked out from the last closed financial year, annualised, using headcount, turnover and balance-sheet total together. Micro-enterprises sit inside the SME category, which is why both carry the same 2027 issue date.

Two things follow that are easy to miss. First, if your category is genuinely borderline, settle it against the administration's own four-question self-assessment on impots.gouv.fr rather than against a supplier's reading of it — the obligation is yours, not your vendor's.

Second, the scope is wider than "mid-sized and up". The reform covers every business subject to French VAT whatever its turnover, legal form or tax regime, including businesses under the franchise en base, independents, the liberal professions and micro-entrepreneurs. Being small removes nothing from the 2026 reception duty. It only moves the issue duty to 2027.

What does "must be able to receive" require on day one?

Reception readiness means being reachable through an approved platform: you have chosen one, you are registered on it, and a supplier's platform can deliver a structured invoice to you. The obligation applies from 1 September 2026 whether or not you issue any invoices yourself.

The administration is explicit about the mechanism. To issue electronic invoices, to receive them, and to transmit your data, you must choose a plateforme agréée. There is no version of reception readiness that skips that step, and none that consists of carrying on as you are: a scanned paper invoice, an ordinary PDF or a document sent by email will no longer be compliant.

The obligation reaches you through your suppliers. The rule is that every business must receive its invoices electronically as soon as its supplier is obliged to issue them in that format — and from 1 September 2026 the large and mid-sized firms are. The administration's own example is the everyday one: your energy, telephone and internet suppliers. Those are the invoices that arrive structured first, at a company of any size.

It reaches businesses that issue nothing at all. The administration states that a business which issues no invoices is still in scope, because it must be able to receive them from its suppliers and may have to transmit additional data. A firm whose customers are all private individuals is, at minimum, in the e-reporting regime. A firm invoicing without VAT under the franchise en base, or as a micro-entrepreneur, is in scope too. Operations exempt from VAT under articles 261 to 261 E of the Code général des impôts fall outside the reform on the issuing side — but as a business buyer you are still obliged to receive your suppliers' electronic invoices through an approved platform.

A practical reading of "ready to receive":

• A platform is chosen and live — an account you can log into, not a sales process.
• Your SIREN is correct on that account. An electronic invoice must carry the supplier's and the customer's SIREN in a dedicated field, so that number is how counterparties address you.
• Someone owns the inbox. A structured invoice landing in a system nobody watches is a payment deadline nobody sees.
• You know where the file goes next — into the accounting or ERP system, not into a folder.
• You have asked your largest suppliers when they switch, so the first electronic invoice is not a surprise.

How invoices actually travel: the approved platform

France's system is built around the plateforme agréée — an approved platform, a private dematerialisation operator registered by the tax administration. The administration's own wording is unambiguous: invoices between French businesses must be transmitted through a third party.

• Businesses issue and receive through an approved platform. There is no direct exchange between the two parties, and no route through the public portal.
• The same platform extracts the regulatory data from your outgoing invoices and sends it to the administration, and transmits your e-reporting data.
• You choose freely from the registered list, and your supplier or customer may be on a different platform.
• A scanned paper invoice, an ordinary PDF, or a document sent by email will no longer be compliant.

Earlier guidance — including earlier versions of this page — called the same role a PDP (plateforme de dématérialisation partenaire). The administration's current term is plateforme agréée, and the register of approved platforms is published on impots.gouv.fr.

What the Portail Public de Facturation does now. It is the reference the platforms must interoperate with, not a channel businesses exchange invoices through. To be registered, an operator must demonstrate its tax compliance, the security of its infrastructure and data, and technical interoperability with the Portail Public de Facturation and with the other platforms — and registration is final only once interoperability tests in real conditions have been passed.

This is architecturally different from a pure exchange network: the approved platforms are registered intermediaries, and the tax administration receives the reporting data. For how this compares to an access-point model, see what a Peppol Access Point is.

What is a plateforme agréée, and is it the same thing as a PDP?

A plateforme agréée is a dematerialisation operator registered by the French State. It issues, transmits and receives electronic invoices for its customers, extracts the data the tax administration needs, and receives and transmits transaction and payment data. Earlier guidance called the same role a PDP.

PDP stands for plateforme de dématérialisation partenaire, and it is still what most of the market types into a search box. The administration's current term is plateforme agréée, and the register itself describes the role as an opérateur de dématérialisation immatriculé par l'État — a dematerialisation operator registered by the State. One role, three names. A vendor still saying "PDP" is behind on the vocabulary, not on the model.

What registration actually tests. An operator applying for immatriculation files a dossier demonstrating three things: its own tax compliance, the security of its infrastructure and data, and technical interoperability with the Portail Public de Facturation and with the other platforms. Definitive registration is granted only once the operator has passed interoperability tests in real conditions. The order matters: the paperwork can be complete long before the tests are.

What it is not. An approved platform is not the Portail Public de Facturation. The PPF is the public reference each platform must interoperate with, not a channel businesses exchange invoices through. And impots.gouv.fr publishes a short document presenting two distinct logos — plateforme agréée and solution compatible. They are not the same claim, and only the first names an operator on the register. When a vendor shows you a logo, check which one it is.

You are not locked to one platform. You choose the platform, or platforms, that suit your needs, and yours may be different from your supplier's or your customer's — interoperability between platforms is a registration condition precisely so that this works. If you already run invoicing, line-of-business or ERP software, the administration's advice is to start there: ask that vendor its position on the reform, and whether it is already connected to an approved platform for transmitting invoices.

How do I check that a platform is on the register?

Go to the list published on impots.gouv.fr. Two lists exist: operators that meet every condition including the interoperability tests, and operators whose complete application is on file but whose final registration still depends on passing those tests. Each is downloadable as ODS, XLSX or PDF.

That split is the part worth reading slowly, because a provider on the second list is not yet definitively registered. Both positions are legitimate — the second means a complete and compliant dossier has been accepted — but they are different assurances. A contract signed on the strength of the second one is, in part, a bet on a test result. Ask which list, ask the date, and ask what happens to your migration plan if the tests slip.

Three habits make the check reliable:

1. Download the file rather than reading a marketing page. The lists are published as spreadsheets and PDFs, so you can search them for the exact legal entity name. A vendor's brand and its registered entity are frequently different words.
2. Check the entity you are contracting with, not the group it belongs to. A parent company on the list does not put a subsidiary on it.
3. Re-check before you sign, and again before go-live. The lists move as operators pass their interoperability tests. When we read the register page on 28 August 2026 it carried a last-modified date of 19 August 2026.

What should I ask an approved platform before signing?

Ask which register list it appears on and when it was added; how it handles both e-invoicing and e-reporting; which formats it accepts from your system; how it connects to your ERP; and what it does with invoices from platforms other than its own.

• "Which list, and since when?" The two-list distinction above, in writing.
• "Do you cover e-reporting as well as invoices?" The register's own definition of the role includes receiving and transmitting transaction and payment data. A platform that only moves invoices leaves you half-covered, and e-reporting is the commonest gap in a France project.
• "Which formats will you accept from us?" France's system centres on Factur-X, UBL and CII. If your system emits something else, mapping it is either the platform's work or yours, and it is a cost either way.
• "How do we connect?" API, file transfer, a web portal for low volume, or a connector for the ERP you actually run. A portal-only platform is a manual process for a business issuing thousands of invoices a month.
• "What happens with counterparties on other platforms?" Interoperability is a registration condition, but ask what it means operationally: how a rejection reaches you, and how quickly you learn an invoice did not arrive.
• "What comes back to us?" Processing statuses are the point of the exercise for your finance team — the administration lists finer tracking of invoice processing and better observance of payment terms among the reform's benefits, and a status you cannot see inside your own system is a status you do not have.
• "What about our other countries?" France's approved-platform model is not how Belgium, Germany or Poland work. If France is one country in a wider rollout, the real question is which integration survives the next mandate.

E-invoicing vs e-reporting

France splits obligations into two streams, and the distinction is central:

• E-invoicing — domestic B2B invoices, exchanged as structured documents between French businesses through platforms.
• E-reporting — data that is not a domestic B2B invoice: B2C sales, cross-border transactions, and payment status data, reported to the tax administration rather than exchanged as an invoice.

A compliant setup must handle both. Missing the e-reporting obligation is a common blind spot for businesses focused only on the invoice itself.

What does e-reporting send, and when?

E-reporting sends the tax administration two things your invoices do not: transaction data for sales to non-taxable customers and to operators established abroad, and payment data where VAT falls due on receipt. It follows the same calendar as e-invoicing — 1 September 2026, then 1 September 2027.

The administration describes the reform as having three strands, and they are worth separating properly:

Payment e-reporting is a figure rather than a document: it is the amount the business has collected, used to determine the collected VAT due to be declared.

Sell to both businesses and consumers, and you are in both regimes. For business customers established in France you issue an electronic invoice through your platform. For business customers established outside France there is no obligation to issue an electronic invoice, but data on those operations must be transmitted electronically as e-reporting. Sales to private individuals, in France or abroad, are e-reporting. The operations covered by transaction e-reporting are those listed at article 290 of the Code général des impôts.

Who actually sends it — not you, directly. The register's definition of an approved platform includes receiving and transmitting transaction and payment data, so this is a service you are buying. It belongs on the comparison sheet when you choose between platforms, not in a separate project.

When. The administration states that data transmission to the administration follows the same calendar as e-invoicing: large and mid-sized enterprises from 1 September 2026, small and micro-enterprises from 1 September 2027. How often the data must be transmitted is not stated on the guidance pages cited here, and we do not print a frequency we cannot source; the administration's legal-documentation page lists the governing texts, including decree n° 2026-677 and the order of 27 July 2026. Your platform should be able to tell you which frequency applies to your VAT regime, and that is a fair question to ask before signing.

One published aim explains why the administration wants the data at all: pre-filled VAT returns. Alongside fighting VAT fraud and the productivity case for dematerialisation, the reform's stated objectives include simplifying VAT reporting obligations over time by pre-filling returns from data the administration already holds.

Formats

France's system centres on Factur-X — a hybrid PDF/XML format aligned with Germany's ZUGFeRD — plus structured UBL and CII XML. All are EN 16931-compliant. Your platform maps your source invoice into whatever the receiver's platform expects, and validates it before it goes; the general failure modes are covered in invoice validation errors you can prevent.

France in the wider European picture

France's mandate is one of the largest in the 2026–2027 European wave, converging over time with VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) and sitting alongside Germany's B2B mandate, Belgium's B2B rollout and Poland's KSeF. A business trading across these markets faces several models at once — the case for a single integration, set out in the multi-country e-invoicing API. The full calendar is in the e-invoicing mandates 2026 tracker.

A readiness checklist

• [ ] Confirm your category and phase date against DGFiP guidance.
• [ ] Ensure reception readiness for 1 September 2026 (all businesses).
• [ ] Choose an approved platform from the register published on impots.gouv.fr.
• [ ] Produce Factur-X or structured XML (UBL/CII).
• [ ] Plan both e-invoicing and e-reporting flows.
• [ ] Validate before sending; archive for the statutory period.

How GoRoute helps

GoRoute (POP000991) is a certified Peppol Access Point and SMP. It is not a plateforme agréée registered by the French tax administration — that register is published on impots.gouv.fr and you choose from it. What GoRoute is worth to a France rollout is a single integration that abstracts the different models you face — France's approved-platform world and Peppol-based regimes elsewhere — with validation before sending, behind one REST API. If France is one country in a European or global programme, that's the architecture to build toward rather than a France-only connector. Our France compliance page sets out what is supported today. Book a demo or read the multi-country e-invoicing API.

Sources, all read on 28 August 2026: impots.gouv.fr — Je découvre la facturation électronique (page dated "modifié le 26/05/2026"); impots.gouv.fr — dates of the reform ("modifié le 16/01/2026"); impots.gouv.fr — the register of approved platforms ("modifié le 19/08/2026"); impots.gouv.fr — businesses that issue no invoice or invoice without VAT; impots.gouv.fr — selling to both businesses and private individuals; impots.gouv.fr — the four-question self-assessment; impots.gouv.fr — legal documentation for the reform; INSEE — company-size categories under décret n° 2008-1354; EN 16931; Factur-X / FNFE-MPE.