The government will generalize in 2026 the use of electronic invoicing for payments between companies. The application of this measure, recorded by an order published Thursday in Journal officiel, will be gradual from July 1st 2024. Ultimately, all companies will be required to receive electronic invoices, and large enterprises will have recourse to issuing their own invoices. The obligation will apply thereafter to medium-sized companies (ETI) in theJanuary 1st 2025 and on January 1st 2026 for SMEs and microenterprises. Initially, this process was envisaged from 2023 to end in 2025.
In practice, companies will be able to go through a private billing operator, which will have been validated by the administration, or a public platform. Already in force for transactions with the public sector, the obligation is included in the finance laws for 2020 and 2021. It aims in particular to improve the fight against VAT fraud. According to figures from the European Commission, the shortfall for the State on VAT revenue was estimated at 12.8 billion euros in 2018.
The government also affirms that the generalization of electronic invoicing will make it possible to simplify the life of companies and strengthen their competitiveness thanks to the reduction of the administrative burden, the reduction of payment terms and the productivity gains resulting from dematerialization. He thus expects a gain for the economy of 4.5 billion euros.