France (2017 eInvoicing Country Sheet)

Legislation

The Ordinance No. 2014-697 of 26 June 2014 on the development of electronic invoicing stipulates that economic operators involved in public procurement should submit eInvoices, which have to be accepted by all public administrations.

The mandatory submission of eInvoices started, on a gradual basis, from January 2017. According to the ordinance, the date of enforcement of the law for the suppliers varies according to the company size :

• 01/01/2017 for any company including more than 5000 employees
• 01/01/2018 for any company including 250 to 5000 employees
• 01/01/2019 for any company including 10 to 250 employees
• 01/01/2020 for any company including less than 10 employees

eInvoicing platform and eInvoicing management solutions

In France, due to compulsory legislation concerning e-invoicing, a national unique invoicing portal called "Chorus Pro" has been developed by the Agence pour l'Informatique Financière de l’État (AIFE), the french national public agency for IT, depending of the Ministry for the Economy and Finance.

Chorus Pro supports all suppliers of the public sector to submit their invoices, to check on their current status of the invoice and the payments.

Usage of Chorus pro is free of charge for suppliers and contracting authorities.

In order to adapt to the capacities and needs of the suppliers concerned, the portal offers three modes of sending: the manual entry of invoices directly on the platform, the downloading of PDF or XML invoices (signed or not) from the portal, and EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) in direct connection or via a service operator.

Approach for receiving and processing eInvoices

The Agency for State Financial Information is responsible for operating the (single hub) eInvoicing platform (Chorus Pro).

Economic operators submitting eInvoices and public entities receiving and processing eInvoices are connected to the Chorus Pro, a three-corner operating model. 

Additional information

The French e-invoicing forum (Forum national de la facture électronique et des marches publics électroniques – FNFE-MPE) and the German Forum (Forum elektronische Rechnung Deutschland – FeRD) have developed Factur-X, a hybrid invoice based on the EN16931.

VALIDATED BY THE EMSFEI MEMBER

Last updated:  Nov 29, 2017 17:08