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France

Executive summary

Electronic invoicing is used by less than one third of companies in France. However it is expected that in 2008 six companies over 10 should use an e-invoicing system
(source : www.indexel.net).
In France, e-invoicing is regulated by article 17 of the law 2002-1576 dated 30th December 2002, Decree no. 2003-659 and the July 18, 2003 Ministerial Order and commented in the tax instruction dated August 7th 2003 3 CA 136. This regulation provides for the ability to send invoices electronically according to two secured norms:

- Electronic signature (Article 289 V of the FTC);

- Dematerialised invoicing through electronic data interchange (“EDI”) systems or equivalent (Article 289bis of the FTC). This corresponds to invoices that include a structured message according to a norm that has been agreed upon between the parties and that allows them to be read by computer and automatically treated and analysed.

Vis-à-vis the public, no specific effort and/or development has been taken by the FTA in the field of e-invoicing. However, France is participating to the Fiscalis group work information on e-invoicing and e-audit. France is waiting for the outcome of the works performed by the EU Commission for participating to the review and the amendment of the EU VAT Invoicing Directive with a view of taking future technological developments in the scope into account.