France is introducing an online portal for non-EU businesses to apply for Value Added Tax recovery on their local invoices. This will be available from 1 July 2021.
This covers French expenses such as: taxis; restaurants and hospitality; hotels; advertising and promotion costs; and similar business service charges. It should only be used in the case where the foreign business does not have a French VAT registration for the supply to taxable transactions. Applications are under the EU’s 13th VAT Directive recovery rules. EU businesses may instead use the 8th Directive rules which permit single reclaims for the whole of the EU via the taxpayer’s domestic authorities. Learn more about French VAT in our country guide.
VAT invoice requirements
Reclaims will have to include electronic uploads of the relevant invoices and import declarations. This only applies to invoices above €1,000. For petrol and diesel claims, this threshold is lowered to €250.
You can check the right VAT calculations on individual or batch transactions with our Advisor and Auditor services.
The UK has launched a pilot of its own VAT recovery portal for overseas businesses following Brexit.
