Do You Need a French VAT Number? A Seller Decision Tree

The starting question is not whether you sell to France. It is whether the same legal entity carries out an operation for which France requires VAT identification or a French return. The DGFiP registration guidance says that a foreign company without a French fixed establishment needs registration when it carries out at least one listed operation requiring customs identification or French VAT returns.

Run the analysis entity by entity. A VAT number held by a parent company, another marketplace account or a logistics provider cannot be used as the answer for the company that owns the stock or appears as importer and seller. Our French VAT registration service starts with that entity and transaction map before any application is prepared.

Imports are the clearest trigger. French Customs states that a business importing into France must place a valid French intra-Community VAT number on its customs declarations. Import VAT is then reported through the French CA3 mechanism. If your entity is importer of record, do not assume that a marketplace or carrier registration replaces your own number.

Own-stock movements also matter even though no customer buys the goods during the transfer. Articles 17 and 21 of the EU VAT Directive treat a transfer of business goods to another Member State as a supply in the dispatch country and an intra-Community acquisition in the arrival country, subject to specific exceptions such as qualifying call-off stock. Moving your inventory into a French fulfilment centre can therefore create a French identification need before the first customer order leaves that warehouse.

Once goods are in France, domestic B2C sales, exports, intra-Community supplies from France and transfers out of France can require French reporting. The exact return treatment depends on the sale, the customer and any special scheme, but the warehouse location remains part of the analysis.

A foreign supplier without a French establishment does not always pay the French VAT itself. When its customer is a business identified for VAT in France, the customer accounts for the tax under the French reverse charge (CGI Article 283-1). Where those reverse-charged sales are the supplier's only French transactions, they do not on their own require French registration (CGI Article 286 ter A).

That is an accounting rule for the sale, not an exit from the registration test. Stock in France requires your French number whatever the customer type, because the goods arrived as an intra-Community acquisition or an import. An import in your name, a domestic consumer sale on which you owe French VAT and any French return obligation each remain a trigger. Confirm the customer's valid French VAT status and keep the contractual, invoicing and transport evidence supporting the treatment.

Union OSS is a reporting route for covered intra-Community distance sales of goods and certain B2C services. The European Commission confirms that a seller registers for the Union scheme in one Member State, where it is established in the EU or, with no EU establishment, in a Member State of dispatch, and declares covered destination-country VAT there. It is not a general European VAT number and it does not report the arrival of your own stock in France or import VAT on a French customs declaration.

A marketplace is the deemed supplier for two kinds of consumer sale: EU-held goods sold by a seller not established in the EU, whatever the value, and imported consignments of an intrinsic value up to EUR 150, whatever the seller. The platform then pays the VAT on the sale. For goods dispatched from France, your exempt supply to the platform still needs French identification and goes on your CA3; from stock in another Member State there is nothing to file in France for that sale. EU-held goods sold by an EU-established seller remain the seller's own sale, and an imported consignment above EUR 150 is not a deemed supply, although French law can make the platform liable for the import VAT. Read our deemed-supplier guide and the separate explanation of why marketplace VAT collection does not automatically end seller registrations.

A simple rule helps: OSS or marketplace collection changes who pays the VAT on a customer sale. It does not change who owned and moved the goods before that sale, so the import and stock checks always come first. Two smaller rules sit at the edges. A seller established in a single Member State and dispatching from it may keep origin-country VAT while its relevant cross-border turnover does not exceed EUR 10,000 in the current or preceding year, unless it opts for destination taxation. An authorised cross-border SME exemption (CGI Article 293 B bis) removes French registration and CA3 filing for the exempt sales.

The table runs the same four checks as the chart: imports, goods in France, marketplace responsibility and your remaining consumer sales. Apply every row to the same legal entity across all of its flows. A business can fall into several rows at once, one registration trigger is enough to justify a full review, and a row marked not required covers only the flow it describes.

A correct decision is only as good as the facts behind it. Build one map for each legal entity rather than sending a list of marketplaces and countries. The map should connect purchase, transport, customs, storage and sales records so the first reportable French event can be dated.

Do this before stock moves. A registration application can require company records, constitutional documents and translations, and the representative or agent route depends on where the business is established. Finding the trigger after launch can turn one registration task into a historical reconstruction of several VAT periods.

A Dutch company currently dispatches all consumer orders from the Netherlands and reports eligible cross-border sales through Union OSS. It plans to transfer its own products to a French fulfilment warehouse. The Dutch company remains the owner of the goods and the seller to the customer.

OSS can continue to cover eligible cross-border B2C sales, but it does not report the transfer of the company's own inventory into France. That movement must be reviewed as a deemed supply in the Netherlands and an intra-Community acquisition in France. French registration may therefore be needed before the first transfer even though OSS already handles the customer's VAT on other orders.

The practical file should identify the first arrival date, warehouse, transport documents, product owner and sales routes from the French stock. It should also separate domestic French sales from orders dispatched from France to consumers in other Member States.

Define the registration scope before preparing forms: entity, effective date, transaction types, expected return frequency, importer route and bank details. Then determine whether the company needs an accredited fiscal representative or may use a tax agent. The country test is separate from the transaction test; our guide to countries exempt from mandatory French fiscal representation explains that second decision.

If the answer is uncertain, do not register every entity just in case. Send the ownership, import and stock map for review. A focused analysis can distinguish a genuine French filing obligation from a sale already covered by OSS, marketplace deemed-supplier treatment or customer reverse charge.