France: New Mandatory Invoice Content Requirements Introduced

To help reduce delays in the payment of invoices, the French authorities by Ordinance No. 2019-359 of 24 April 2019 have clarified their invoicing rules to include two new mandatory content requirements.  These are in addition to those already in place.

The two new requirements stipulated in the France invoice mandate are:

1) To provide the billing address of the buyer and the seller if it is different from their office / home address and

2) To include the purchase order number if it has been previously established by the customer.

The addition of this extra information on the invoice should help businesses which have their head office in one location and the invoicing department located in another.  It should ensure that invoices are sent directly to the billing address and speed up the payment process by adding a purchase order number where this has previously been created.

In addition, the Ordinance has also considered it necessary and aligned commercial legislation and tax legislation to provide a single date of issue of the invoice to ensure legal certainty for both trading parties. According to the Ordinance, the date of issue of the invoice is set to be the day the products or services are delivered.

The cost of non-compliance

Failure to include this mandatory information on the invoice, incurs an administrative penalty of up to €75,000 for an individual and up to €375,000 for a business.