France (2021 eInvoicing Country Sheet)

Legislation

The Ordinance No. 2014-697 of 26 June 2014 on the development of electronic invoicing [1] (Last update on 22^nd June 2019) stipulates that holders and subcontractors entitled to direct payment of contracts involved in public procurement shall send their invoices in electronic form, which have to be accepted by all public administrations[2].

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

Obligation to send eInvoices with mandatory fields in a structured form to be forwarded to the Tax Administration:

• Starting on 1 July 2024 for large companies,
• At the latest on 1 January 2025 for medium-size companies,
• At the latest on 1 January 2026 for all companies. 

eInvoicing platform and eInvoicing management solutions

In France, due to compulsory legislation concerning eInvoicing, 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, relying of the Ministry for the Economy and Finance[3].

With the exception of a few contracting authorities (i.e., SNCF, SNCF Réseau, SNCF Mobilités, Caisse des dépôts et consignations), 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.

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 Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in direct connection or via a service operator.

Chorus Pro allows the use of the UBL Invoice 2.1 standard for different types of formats (including structured OASIS UBL 2.1 and minimal OASIS UBL 2.1). Since April 2018, the platform also allows the use of standard UNCEFACT XML CII 16B, stand alone and through Factur-x hybrid format (with 5 profiles of data for Factur-x).

Now, Chorus Pro also counts with an auto-completion mechanism implemented throughout 2020 to enter invoices in portal mode, thus facilitating the entry of the recipient SIRET by the user.

Along with this, "My Messages" space is offered as well. It allows suppliers and public structures that have exchanged invoices to communicate by sending messages.

eInvoicing implementation in sub-central level contracting authorities 

Chorus Pro, the central hub for eInvoicing in France, allows suppliers to submit eInvoices to central and sub-central level contracting authorities. The approach for receiving and processing eInvoices is the same for central and sub-central level contracting authorities. Both for public authorities and SMEs, the uptake of eInvoicing is mandatory by law. 

The foreseen eInvoicing benefits are the cost and operational savings, the reduction of administrative burden, the reduce time to payments and the contribution to process automation[4]. At the sub-central level, eInvoicing treatment is undergoing changes directed towards automatising processes within the system.

Status on the implementation of the European Standard on eInvoicing (EN)

The usage of Chorus Pro (processing compliant documents against the EN) is free for any business partners. Consequently, the implementation of the EN had no direct financial impact on public administrations and suppliers.

The national centralised eInvoicing infrastructure, Chorus Pro already supports UN/CEFACT CII and OASIS UBL 2.1. In order to maximise the benefits of a common standard, France leaves suppliers free to decide which electronic format and channel they will use.

Moreover, access to Peppol, which is enabled through Chorus Pro facilitates the cross-border exchange of eInvoices. Chorus Pro uses CII with Factur-X, the Franco-German standard for hybrid electronic invoicing (named ZUGFeRD in Germany)[6].

Since 1 January 2020, all companies in France are mandated to send eInvoices to public contracting entities on the ChorusPro portal.

France provided specific support to onboard SMEs and support them in their adoption of eInvoicing. As an example, the portal Chorus Pro offers functionalities such as downloading PDF/XML eInvoices and indirect data exchanges with EDI through a service provider, among others.

Monitoring eInvoicing implementation

The Agency for State Financial Information (AIFE) operates the central eInvoicing platform Chorus Pro that monitors the uptake of eInvoicing at both central and sub-central levels, namely the number of suppliers using eInvoicing and the number of eInvoices submitted electronically. 

The platform in place, Chorus Pro, is used by all contracting authorities and their suppliers. Chorus Pro facilitated the sending of 11 million eInvoices in 2017. In 2018, there were 27 million eInvoices sent through the platform. In 2019, there were 45.6 million invoices sent for more than 160,000 public entities coming from 547,000 suppliers using Chorus Pro.

Over 2019, micro-companies – small in size, huge in number – were the entities integrated within the system, leading to a pre-2020 abrupt increase of users.

Between 2019 and 2020, the number of eInvoices processed in Chorus Pro increased from 45,616,095 to 54,562,304 invoices issued.

Approach for receiving and processing eInvoices

The Agency for State Financial Information (AIFE) 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 Chorus Pro, a three-corner operating model. As part of the connection to Chorus Pro in Application Programming Interface (API), the AIFE has set up a “Service Intermediation Platform” for the Transformation of the State in January 2020[7]. This platform pools the API services of both the State and the public sector.

With this platform, the authentication mode for API calls on Chorus Pro (Oauth2 open protocol) has been set up to replace authentication by digital certificate aiming at simplifying the authentication process.

Chorus Pro also allows receiving and processing of eInvoices from non-domestic suppliers (thanks to its connection to Peppol) and allows archiving of the eInvoices processed via the platform.

Use of Core Invoicing Usage Specifications (CIUS) at national level

France has established a national CIUS and implementation guidelines for the EN in order to make the following optional fields of the core semantic model mandatory in the national CIUS[8].

• The code of the administration which receives the invoice (i.e. the identifier of the contracting authority); and
• A sub-code of the Purchase Order number, which is an extra code used by very large organisations like the State

Additional information

Chrous Pro counts with three different portals aiming to support users in eInvoices processing and enhancing user onboarding:

• The Chorus Pro portal itself, allowing entities to send invoices to public customers, either directly through this portal or through another means (management software, dematerialisation operator, EDI, etc.);
• The Chorus Pro community site, where it can be found all the documentation someone`s need to use Chorus Pro, numerous tutorials, as well as access to the support offer proposed by the AIFE;
• The Chorus Pro users' club, where users exchange impressions and participate in various projects, in particular the collection of ideas for improving and developing Chorus Pro.

The French National EInvoicing Forum (Forum national de la facture électronique et des marches publics électroniques – FNFE-MPE)[9] and the German Forum (Forum elektronische Rechnung Deutschland – FeRD)[10] have developed Factur-X, a hybrid invoice based on the EN16931. Factur-X is now implemented in Chorus Pro. Any supplier can send its invoices in Factur-X format to all contracting authorities, even on MINIMUM profile.

As part of the Ordinance n°2021-1190 of 15 September 2021 stands the obligation to send e-reporting information on Business to Consumer (B2C) sales, international B2B sales, Intra-EU supply information and payment information for invoices or sales where the tax point date (VAT eligibility) is on payment. 

• Starting on 1 July 2024 for large companies
• At the latest on 1 January 2025 for medium-sizeize companies
• At the latest on 1 January 2026 for all companies

[1] (Republique française, 2019), [2] (Edicom, 2021), [3] (Communaute Chorus-pro, 2021), [4] (CEF Digital, 2020), [5] (PACTE, 2021), [6] (Forum National de la Facture Electronique, 2021), [7] (PISTE, 2021), [8] (Cicirello, 2021), [9] (Forum National de la Facture Electronique, 2021), [10] (Forum elektronische Rechnung Deutschland, 2021)

UPDATED

Last updated:  Sep 16, 2021 14:35