France
The Union's second-largest economy — and from 2026 a country where an invoice cannot be sent by e-mail
France is the Union's second-largest market and one of the harder ones to enter — not through tariffs but through expectation. Documentation in French is not a courtesy but a condition; a public buyer requires it and a private one expects it. Incorporating, by contrast, is cheap and quick: both the SAS and the SARL start at one euro of capital and filing goes through a single window. The change now under way is mandatory electronic invoicing, rolled out in waves by company size: an invoice can no longer be sent by e-mail, it has to pass through an approved platform.
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Recent trade news from this country's authorities and newsrooms — tariffs, taxes, sanctions, currency, imports and exports. Headlines are in the original language; the article opens at the publisher. We add no comment.
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Setting up a company
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Legal forms
- ·Minimum capital
- ·How long registration takes
Taxes
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Corporate income tax
- ·VAT
What it makes and needs
Aerospace and defence, automotive, energy including nuclear, agri-food and wine, luxury goods, pharmaceuticals, construction. It buys components, sub-assemblies, machined parts and services.
Importing into their market
The Union's single market — no duty and no customs declaration. A supply to a VAT-registered customer in Francúzska is an intra-Community supply, exempt, with the customer accounting for the tax. It depends on a VAT number checked in VIES and on proof of transport — without both, the exemption falls away and you pay.
MANDATORY E-INVOICING. France is introducing compulsory electronic invoicing and transaction reporting in waves by company size. It means an invoice to a French customer can no longer be sent as a PDF by e-mail — it has to pass through an approved platform in a prescribed format. This does not affect only French companies: it affects anyone invoicing them. The dates have moved several times during preparation.
If people travel with the goods — installation, servicing, training — that is posting of workers. Notification before work starts, the local minimum wage and allowances, documentation in the host country's language, and an A1 for each. It is inspected and the fines are high.
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A visa, legalising a document, an invitation letter, the commercial attaché before a trade fair — these only go through a mission. Below are the official registers rather than transcribed addresses: missions move and consular hours change several times a year, so a link to the register stays current where a transcript would not.
Where a country has no mission in Bratislava or Prague it is usually accredited from Vienna, Berlin or Warsaw — the register says which.
Every figure names the authority that published it and the date the line was last worked on. This is not legal or tax advice — verify a figure with the named source before you act on it.