E-invoicing for French SMEs and micro-enterprises: what to do now for 1 September 2027

If you run a small business in France — a TPE, a PME, a micro-entreprise, an auto-entrepreneur under the franchise en base — the e-invoicing reform has already reached you once and will reach you again. Since 1 September 2026 you must be able to receive electronic invoices through an approved platform, whatever your size. From 1 September 2027 you must also issue your domestic B2B invoices through one, and report the transactions and payments the law asks for. This page is the twelve-month plan between the two dates: what is already true, what changes, which decisions are yours, and what KRONENWERK does and does not do for a French small business today.

What already applies to you since September 2026

The reception duty is universal. Every business subject to French VAT, including one that never issues an invoice and one under the franchise en base, must have chosen a plateforme agréée (PA) through which suppliers' e-invoices reach it. Large companies and ETIs have been issuing through their platforms since the same day, so a small business that buys from a large supplier may already be receiving structured invoices — a Factur-X, a UBL, a CII — rather than a PDF by e-mail. If those invoices are still arriving as PDFs, the DGFiP's start-up guidance says you may not refuse them, leave them unpaid or deny the VAT deduction on that ground alone while the transition runs; but the direction is set, and the platform choice you make for reception is the one you will issue through in 2027.

What a small business is not yet required to do: issue its own invoices electronically, or file e-reporting. It may opt in early through its platform, and a large customer may ask it to — but it cannot be forced before 1 September 2027.

What changes on 1 September 2027

Size follows article 51 of the 2008 LME law, assessed per SIREN as at 1 January 2025: fewer than 10 staff and at most €2 million turnover or balance sheet makes a micro-enterprise; fewer than 250 staff and at most €50 million turnover or €43 million balance sheet makes a PME. Whether a business that belongs to a group falls into a different bracket requires professional confirmation. The penalties exist — €15 per invoice not issued electronically, capped at €15,000 a year, first offence unpunished; €500 for a missing reception platform three months after formal notice — and the DGFiP has said they will not be applied automatically and blindly where a difficulty is real, documented and being corrected. That is tolerance in enforcement, not a postponement, and a future finance law could still move the date or the fines; the dates above are current as of September 2026.

Four decisions to make before next summer

1. Which platform. The DGFiP publishes the list of approved platforms. A small business needs one; it may be the platform your accounting software works with, the one your expert-comptable uses, or an independent one. The platform receives for you, sends for you, exchanges statuses with the buyer's platform and forwards the required data to the administration. Ask each candidate three things: what it charges per invoice or per month, whether it can take a Factur-X file from your software without re-keying, and what it does for e-reporting.
2. Which format your software will produce. The law accepts UBL, CII and hybrid documents; Factur-X is the hybrid — a readable PDF/A-3 with the structured XML inside — and the natural choice for a business whose customers still want to look at a PDF. See Factur-X.
3. The four new mentions. From 2027 your invoices must carry the customer's SIREN, the category of the operation (goods, services or both), the "TVA sur les débits" option where you use it, and the delivery address when it differs from the billing address. Collect the SIREN of every business customer now; it is the field most small businesses do not have.
4. Who does the e-reporting. B2C sales and sales to businesses abroad are not e-invoiced but reported; services taxed on receipt also report payments. Decide whether your platform, your software or your accountant produces the data, and at what frequency your VAT regime requires.

A twelve-month plan

Now to December 2026. Confirm your size bracket with your accountant. Choose and register with a reception platform if you have not. Start collecting customers' SIREN numbers and recording whether each customer is a business or a consumer. Check that your software can produce a valid Factur-X — the free e-invoice checker validates a file without an account.

January to June 2027. Issue a few invoices electronically through the platform to customers who accept them; the law allows an SME to opt in early. Fix what breaks while nothing is mandatory. Agree with your accountant who files the e-reporting and from which data.

July and August 2027. Switch the default: every domestic B2B invoice goes through the platform. Keep the PDF-by-e-mail habit only for consumers and foreign customers, whose sales are reported instead.

How KRONENWERK handles this

NOT YET READY Factur-X generation is supported: French invoices are issued as PDF/A-3 with embedded CII and validated at issuance; the four French mentions are invoice content the issuing company supplies. Incoming Factur-X, CII and UBL invoices are read into bills with the file attached. Transmission through an approved platform is not yet ready: KRONENWERK is not a plateforme agréée and does not claim to be one; French transmission is planned through Storecove's approved-platform capability and is not production-ready. Until then, a French small business connects an approved platform of its own choice for sending and receiving and uses KRONENWERK's files with it. E-reporting is not produced by KRONENWERK today. The France hub and the approved platforms page carry the detail; the France software page lists everything else a French business gets and does not get.