The government will generalize in 2026 the use of electronic invoicing for payments between companies.
The application of this measure, recorded by an ordinance published on Thursday in
the Official Journal
, will be gradual from July 1, 2024. Eventually, all companies will be obliged to receive electronic invoices, and large companies will have to resort to it for the issuance of their own invoices.
The obligation will then apply to medium-sized enterprises (ETI) on January 1, 2025, then on January 1, 2026 to SMEs and micro-enterprises.
Initially, this process was envisaged from 2023 to end in 2025.
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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.
