France’s July 2024 B2B e-invoicing launch sees a special role for independent e-invoicing agents – PDP’s
Mandatory B2B domestic e-invoicing in France will start in July 2024. A pilot will start at the beginning of the year. Note: from 1 July 2024, all French taxpayers must be able to receive e-invoicing in the approved formats – UBL 2.1, UN/CEFACT CII, and Factur-X. From the same date, around 300 of the largest taxpayers will have to issue e-invoices as part of phase 1. In phase 2, a further 8,000 medium sized companies will be included form 1 January 2024. The last round, including all other taxpayers starts January 2026.
For issuing and receiving e-invoices, France has opted for a ‘Y’ model, meaning taxpayers can submit their e-invoices in one of two ways:
- Directly to the Direction Générale des Finances Publiques via the portail public de facturation (PPF), a free, public e-invoicing portal; or
- Use certified agents, Partner Dematerlialisation Platforms (PDP).
The role of French e-invoicing PDP’s
The PDP interfaces between the taxpayer and the PPF, and has the following roles:
- Create, issue e-invoicers for their clients, as well as receive them from their customers.
- Prepare required information for submission to the portail public de facturation (PPF) Chorus Pro-based portal
- Manage and transmit the life cycle of invoices issued, received and archived to report on the updated status of an invoice
- completion of e-Reporting, the additional digital reporting required to cover B2C transactions
- Receive or extract transaction and payment data as part of -reporting and transmit them to PPF
Throughout the above processes they are responsible for the following controls:
- Ensure secure transmission of billing, transactional and payment information
- Invoice addresses
- Validate tax treatment
- Provide full reporting and transparency for services performed to taxpayer clients.
