Electronic Invoicing

Electronic invoicing in France becomes mandatory from September 2026. Discover the deadlines, requirements, and the best free platforms to stay compliant.

Last update : 23/06/2026

If you run a business in France — whether you’re a micro-entrepreneur, a freelancer, or a small SARL — you’ve probably already heard the term facturation électronique floating around. Maybe your accountant mentioned it. Maybe you got an email from the Impôts. Maybe you just saw « 2026 » and « obligatoire » in the same sentence and felt a small wave of dread.

This blog post aims to walk you through exactly what’s happening, when it affects you, and — the part everyone really wants to know — which platforms let you comply without spending a euro.

What's changing with e-invoicing?

Right now, most small businesses send invoices as a PDF attached to an email, or even on paper. From a regulatory standpoint, that’s about to stop being good enough. The French government is rolling out a reform that requires invoices between VAT-registered businesses (B2B) to be issued, transmitted, and received as structured electronic data — not a scanned image, not a Word document turned into PDF, but a file a computer can read and process automatically, using one of three accepted formats: Factur-X, UBL, or CII.

Crucially, these invoices won’t travel by email anymore. They’ll have to pass through what’s called a Plateforme Agréée (PA) — a platform officially registered by the French tax authorities that handles routing, data verification, and the extraction of information the administration needs.

Alongside this, there’s a second, related obligation called e-reporting: transmitting transaction and payment data to the tax authorities for sales that fall outside the B2B scope — things like B2C sales or international transactions.

When does electronic invoicing actually hit your business?

The obligation rolls out in two stages, and the date that matters depends on whether you’re talking about receiving or issuing invoices, and the size of your business.

1 September 2026 — every business, regardless of size and including furnished rentals, must be able to receive electronic invoices and transmit e-reporting data. Large companies and ETI (mid-sized companies) must also begin issuing all their invoices electronically.
1 September 2027 — small and micro-businesses must be capable of issuing their invoices electronically and transmitting their e-reporting data.

Even if you’re a micro-entrepreneur and your obligation to issue electronically doesn’t start until September 2027, you must be able to receive electronic invoices from September 2026. In practice, that means you need a registered platform set up well before then, because your bigger suppliers and clients will already be sending you electronic invoices and your old email inbox won’t cut it. Even if your emission obligation only kicks in in 2027, you need to be capable of receiving electronic invoices from 1 September 2026.

Anyone carrying out an independent economic activity is considered assujetti to VAT — including micro-entrepreneurs under the franchise en base regime who don’t charge VAT and carry the « TVA non applicable, article 293 B du CGI » mention on their invoices. Being under the franchise en base makes you non redevable (you don’t collect or remit VAT), but it does not make you non assujetti. Those are two different things, and only the second one would take you out of scope.

In practice, this means almost every micro-entrepreneur is covered by the reform, regardless of turnover or whether they currently invoice VAT. What changes is the extent of the obligation, which depends on who your client is:

Client is a VAT-registered business in France (B2B) → full e-invoicing obligation: receive electronically from September 2026, issue electronically from September 2027.
Client is a private individual (B2C) or a foreign business → no obligation to issue an electronic invoice to them, but you must still transmit the transaction data via e-reporting, and you still need to be able to receive electronic invoices from your own suppliers from September 2026.

Free online platforms for e-invoicing

The original plan for the reform did include a free, universal state platform (the *Portail Public de Facturation*, or PPF) where any business could issue and receive invoices at no cost. That plan changed.

So in practice, every business — including the smallest — needs to register with a private Plateforme Agréée. The good news is that several of these have built genuinely free tiers specifically to capture the micro-entrepreneur and TPE market.

A word of caution before the list: « free » in this space covers a few different realities. Some providers offer a genuinely permanent freemium tier with no time limit, others offer an extended trial that converts to paid, and others are free only because your accounting firm absorbs the cost on your behalf. Always check that a platform is genuinely on the official DGFiP-registered list before connecting your SIREN to it — this list is published and updated regularly on impots.gouv.fr.

With that caveat, here are the platforms most consistently cited as offering real, ongoing free access for small structures, as of mid-2026:

Tiime

Tiime is frequently held up as the benchmark for a genuinely free option. It’s a complete solution — invoicing software plus PA/PDP — that lets you send and receive electronic invoices for free, with no hidden fees. It supports unlimited quotes and invoices, is accessible on web and mobile, and is built for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and new business creators. It’s aimed squarely at micro-entrepreneurs, freelancers, and TPEs who want a clean, no-frills compliant tool.

Abby

Abby targets independent workers and micro-entrepreneurs specifically. Its free tier gives unlimited invoice and quote creation, along with purchase orders, deposits, and credit notes. It also handles online invoice payment and electronic signature of quotes. It’s a certified PA, meaning it can handle the full circuit — sending, receiving, and routing — without you needing to plug in a separate tool.

Indy

Indy is built for independent professionals and offers a genuinely free invoicing tier as part of its accounting and invoicing toolkit for freelancers — another solid option if you want something lightweight and France-based.

Qonto Facturation

If you already bank with Qonto, this is worth knowing about: Qonto offers Qonto Facturation, a 100% free electronic invoicing tool, to help entrepreneurs transition to the reform without disruption to their business. It can also be combined with a paid Qonto pro account if you want more banking features layered in.

Shine

Shine, the online business account provider, plans to integrate electronic invoicing into its existing subscriptions for free, with no additional charge, and will be a registered platform from 2026. If you’re already a Shine customer, this means no new tool to learn — you’ll be able to receive, view, and pay invoices directly from your existing client space.

Dougs

Dougs is a bit different from the other names on this list: it’s an online accounting firm that built its own registered Plateforme Agréée, called Dougs facturation gratuite, rather than starting out as a pure invoicing software vendor. The platform handles invoice creation, quotes, and the full PA circuit — emission, transmission, and e-reporting — as one integrated package, and it’s free. The real advantage here is the coupling with accounting support: because Dougs runs the platform itself, compliance happens in the background as part of your bookkeeping relationship rather than as a separate tool you have to manage. It’s a strong fit if you’re looking for accounting support and e-invoicing compliance together, rather than a standalone invoicing app — though it’s worth noting it’s primarily designed around becoming a Dougs accounting client, similar in spirit to Dext’s model of free access through your accounting firm.

France Admin's advice

Don’t wait until August 2026. Setting up a platform, signing the mandate, and getting your SIREN correctly attached in the state directory takes a bit of admin time. Do it now, calmly, rather than in a last-minute scramble.
Check the official registry before committing. The list of agréées platforms is public on impots.gouv.fr. A platform that markets itself as « compliant » but isn’t actually a registered PA will leave you exposed.
Match the tool to your real volume. Free tiers are usually designed for modest invoice volumes — typically under 50 invoices a month — with limited automation (no advanced reminders, no bank reconciliation, lighter support). If your business is growing quickly, it’s worth checking the paid tier’s threshold before you build your whole workflow around the free version.
Talk to your accountant, if you use one, before you choose. This isn’t just a software decision — it touches your VAT reporting, your archiving obligations, and how your accounting firm receives your data. Many of the platforms above integrate directly with accounting software, and your expert-comptable can tell you which one will save the most back-and-forth.

This reform is a genuine shift in how French businesses operate, but it’s also a manageable one if you start early. If you’d like help setting up the platform for your business, feel free to reach out!

*This article is for informational purposes only and does not replace personalised advice. The offers and pricing of the platforms mentioned are subject to change; always check the official list of registered platforms on impots.gouv.fr before committing to one.

*There are affiliate links in this article.

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