France: The roll-out of electronic invoicing scheduled for July 2024 has been postponed to a later date

The French government has announced the indefinite postponement of the widespread introduction of electronic invoicing for all businesses, originally scheduled for July 2024.

The new date of entry into force will be set in the next Finance Act.

The decision was taken after discussions with economic players and software publishers. The system provides for the use of private dematerialisation partner platforms (PDP) in addition to the public invoicing portal (PPF), to facilitate the transmission of dematerialised invoices and simplify VAT collection while combating fraud.

Small businesses, which were not ready in time, will benefit from shorter payment periods and faster payment of VAT credits thanks to this reform.

However, they need to invest in order to comply with the standards, which is a cause for concern given that a recent survey shows that they are not ready.

In addition, the Directorate General of Public Finance will continue to examine the first applications for private dematerialisation platforms from 2 May 2023.

This measure is designed to avoid a potential fiasco similar to that of the one-stop shop for business formalities, which got off to a rocky start.

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Source: Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty (in French)