France's B2B e-invoicing reform has moved from proposal to production. A live pilot has been running in the production environment since February 23, 2026, and the mandate itself goes live on September 1, 2026.
What's mandatory, and when
| Requirement | Who | Effective date |
|---|---|---|
| Receive e-invoices | All companies | Sept 1, 2026 |
| Issue e-invoices | Large & mid-size enterprises | Sept 1, 2026 |
| Issue e-invoices | SMEs & micro-enterprises | Sept 1, 2027 |
Every company doing business in France needs to be able to receive compliant e-invoices by September 2026, regardless of size — that requirement doesn't wait for the SME issuing deadline in 2027.
The platform model has changed
Earlier guidance described a Public Invoicing Portal (PPF) that would handle invoice exchange directly. That's no longer the design. The PPF's role has been narrowed to a directory and interoperability layer — identifying companies by SIREN/SIRET and routing between platforms. All actual invoice issuing and receiving now happens through accredited private platforms, now officially called PA (Plateforme Agréée), a renaming of what was previously known as PDP in the 2025 specification revisions.
That means the practical decision for most businesses isn't "do we connect to the government portal" — it's which accredited PA fits our ERP and volume, and how do we integrate with it.
Formats
Accepted formats are UBL, CII, or Factur-X (a hybrid PDF/XML format). Your platform choice and ERP integration need to support whichever format your PA and trading partners standardize on.
Getting ready
With the mandate five weeks out from a company's ERP freeze windows in many cases, the practical readiness questions are: Is your ERP data clean enough to generate structured invoices reliably? Have you selected and tested with a PA? Is your AP process ready to receive and process structured invoices, not just PDFs, starting day one?
We help finance and tax teams work through exactly this — PA selection, format mapping, and ERP integration — for e-Invoicing readiness ahead of the September deadline.
Not sure where you stand? Take our free France readiness check to see your gaps.