E-invoicing in France: events and e-reporting in 2026

A French organiser who sells tickets has two distinct obligations, and it pays not to mix them up. The first is business-to-business e-invoicing, which goes through a platform registered by the tax authority. The second is e-reporting: sending the tax authority the box office data for tickets sold to private individuals, aggregated by day and by VAT rate.

The reform is already under way. Factsheet 1 from the Direction Générale des Finances Publiques (DGFiP), updated in June 2026, opens with a sentence in the present tense: "Depuis le 1er septembre 2026, votre entreprise doit être en mesure de recevoir des factures sous format électronique" (Since 1 September 2026, your business must be able to receive invoices in electronic format). What follows is which part applies to you today, which part arrives in 2027, and what you should demand from your box office system to be ready in time.

What changes from 1 September 2026 for an organiser in France?

What changes is who can send you an invoice, and how. From that date, every VAT-registered business established in France must be able to receive electronic invoices, and large companies and mid-sized firms (ETI) must issue all of theirs electronically. This is set out in DGFiP factsheet 1 and confirmed by the official page on entreprendre.service-public.gouv.fr, which defines the scope: "toutes les entreprises établies en France et assujetties à la TVA" (all businesses established in France and subject to VAT).

The channel is mandatory. Article 289 bis of the code général des impôts requires electronic invoices to be issued, transmitted and received "en recourant à une plateforme agréée" (through an accredited platform). The DGFiP spells it out in factsheet 1: a scanned paper invoice, an ordinary PDF, or a document generated by accounting software and sent by email "n'est plus conforme à la réglementation" (no longer complies with the regulations).

Source of thresholds and dates: DGFiP factsheet 1, June 2026 update.

Almost no independent promoter, concert venue or festival producer falls into the first two rows. In practice, most French organisers only have a receiving obligation today, and a year ahead of them for the rest. That is no excuse to wait: the 1 September 2027 deadline also reaches sole traders under the VAT exemption of Article 293 B of the CGI, which factsheet 1 expressly mentions.

Do you have to issue an electronic invoice for every ticket sold?

Not when the buyer is a private individual. The obligation under Article 289 bis covers transactions between VAT-registered businesses established in France. A ticket sold to a natural person is not B2B, so it does not generate an electronic invoice. It triggers a different obligation: transaction e-reporting.

The DGFiP factsheet on the transmission of transaction data defines it in its first scenario: transactions "réalisées avec une personne non assujettie (dites B2C), par exemple avec des particuliers ou des associations à but non lucratif" (made with a non-taxable person (known as B2C), for example with private individuals or non-profit associations). Ticket sales to the general public live there. The legal basis is Article 290 of the CGI, which requires the data on these transactions to be reported to the authority electronically, through the chosen plateforme agréée.

What does not change is the billetterie (ticketing) regime. The mandatory details on the ticket and the declaration of the computerised system stay where they were, in Article 290 quater of the CGI and in Annex IV. We already covered that in our guide to how to sell tickets in France with récépissé, VAT and the CNM tax. The two layers coexist: the ticket proves the right of entry, and e-reporting tells the tax authority the volume.

What box office data must be transmitted, and how often?

Aggregated data, never personal data. The DGFiP factsheet is explicit: B2C e-reporting consists of "données cumulées par jour, de chiffre d'affaires HT soumis à la TVA permettant d'obtenir les bases HT réparties par taux de TVA et les montants de TVA par jour" (data aggregated by day, on turnover excluding VAT subject to VAT, from which the bases excluding VAT by VAT rate and the VAT amounts per day can be derived). It adds that "aucune donnée à caractère personnel (par exemple le nom du client) n'est transmise" (no personal data (for example the customer's name) is transmitted). No names, no emails, no order numbers.

The list of fields published in that same factsheet includes the supplier's SIREN, the period, the date of the transactions, the transaction category (for ticket sales, a supply of services subject to VAT) and the total excluding tax by tax rate, with the VAT due. For a French box office, that means splitting by rate: 2.10% under Article 281 quater of the CGI for the first 140 performances, 5.5% under Article 278-0 bis F for entrance rights, and 20% for whatever is taxed at the standard rate. We break that split down in the tax guide to selling tickets in France.

Source: DGFiP transaction e-reporting factsheet, September 2025 version. The factsheet itself warns that these details will be updated because the simplified regime is being abolished from 1 January 2027.

For a festival, the ten-day period is the detail that wrecks schedules. An event that sells most of its passes between the 1st and the 10th of a month must have transmitted that data by the 20th, while the crew is still building the site. This is our reading of the factsheet's deadlines, not a warning from the tax authority.

What about the payment data for tickets?

It is a separate submission, and it hits ticketing squarely. The DGFiP's payment e-reporting factsheet explains that it covers "toutes les opérations dont l'exigibilité de la TVA est l'encaissement (par exemple les prestations de services, les acomptes…)" (all transactions for which VAT becomes due on receipt of payment (for example supplies of services, deposits…)). Selling a ticket is a supply of services. Unless you opt to pay VAT on invoicing, the tax falls due when you are paid.

The same factsheet places sales to private individuals in the case that requires both submissions: "l'entreprise fournisseur déposera un e-reporting de transactions et un e-reporting de paiement" (the supplier will file a transaction e-reporting and a payment e-reporting). The content, when there is no electronic invoice behind it, is an XML file with "le montant encaissé par jour réparti par taux de TVA" (the amount collected per day, split by VAT rate).

The frequency is lighter than for transactions: monthly, before the 10th of the following month, for the standard monthly and quarterly regimes. Between the 25th and the 30th of the following month under the simplified regime. Every two months under the exemption. The customer transmits nothing, as the factsheet states in its "Bon à savoir" (Good to know) section.

Which of your event's invoices are electronic?

The ones you issue to another French business. A sponsorship contract, the sale of a show to another producer, a ticket bundle sold to a company for its clients, the hire of your venue: all of that is B2B and enters the Article 289 bis circuit once it is your company's turn to issue. From the other side, so do your suppliers' invoices: sound, security, catering, agency.

The content changes too. Article 242 nonies A of Annex II to the CGI adds to the classic mandatory details the customer's identification number, the delivery address when it differs from the customer's, and a statement of whether the transaction consists of supplies of goods, supplies of services, or both. Without the customer identifier, the invoice cannot be routed.

Formats are not free either. The arrêté of 27 July 2026 sets the accepted standards in Article 41 septies C: the EN 16931 profile in CII, the EXTENDED-CTC-FR profile in CII, the same two profiles in UBL, and the mixed XML-with-PDF/A-3 format, with standard XP Z12-012 from the Association française de normalisation as reference. If your accountant tells you they still send PDFs by email, that is the conversation to have this week. The European pattern repeats itself: we have covered it for German E-Rechnung and for invoicing via Peppol in Belgium.

What if your company is in Spain and sells tickets in France?

The e-invoicing obligation does not reach you merely because you sell there. The service-public page confines it to businesses "établies en France" (established in France). A Spanish company with no permanent establishment in France does not have to issue its invoices through a French plateforme agréée, even if it is registered for French VAT.

E-reporting is another matter. The DGFiP factsheet expressly includes foreign operators: "les entreprises étrangères sont soumises à l'obligation de e-reporting, dès lors que l'opération qu'elles réalisent s'effectue avec une personne non assujettie ou avec un client assujetti non établi en France et que l'opération est soumise à TVA française au regard des règles du Code général des impôts" (foreign businesses are subject to the e-reporting obligation where the transaction they carry out is made with a non-taxable person or with a taxable customer not established in France, and the transaction is subject to French VAT under the rules of the Code général des impôts). Selling tickets to a concert held in France to a French audience fits that description.

There is a documented way out. The factsheet itself excludes from B2C e-reporting "les opérations avec un non-assujetti si l'opérateur non établi en France est inscrit à un guichet de TVA européen" (transactions with a non-taxable person if the operator not established in France is registered with a European VAT one-stop shop), that is, the OSS-IOSS one-stop shop. The AEAT describes the Union scheme as the one applicable to "prestaciones de servicios a personas que no tengan la condición de empresario o profesional actuando como tales, y que estén establecidas en la Comunidad, pero en un estado miembro distinto" (supplies of services to persons who are not businesspeople or professionals acting as such, and who are established in the Community, but in a Member State other than) the one where the supplier is established. If you sell tickets in France from Spain, the question for your tax adviser is not whether you adapt to French e-reporting, but whether your sales are declared through the one-stop shop. This is our reading of the two documents cited. The decision depends on where each transaction is located.

What does non-compliance cost?

Fines are per unit, with an annual cap, and sit in two articles. Article 1737 of the CGI penalises failure to issue invoices electronically with €50 per invoice, with the calendar-year total capped at €15,000. Article 1788 D punishes failure to transmit the data under Articles 290 and 290 A with €500 per transmission and the same cap of €15,000 a year.

Amounts in force following Article 123 of Law No. 2026-103 of 19 February 2026, the 2026 Finance Act, which also replaced the term "operador de plataforma de desmaterialización" (dematerialisation platform operator) with "plateforme agréée".

Two caveats soften the blow. Article 1788 D waives the fine when it is the first breach in the current year and the previous three and it is corrected spontaneously or within 30 days of the first formal notice. And the DGFiP's practical start-up guide, from July 2026, announces that "il n'y aura pas d'application des sanctions aux entreprises rencontrant des difficultés dans la mise en œuvre de la réforme mais qui sont engagées dans une trajectoire sérieuse de mise en conformité" (penalties will not be applied to businesses facing difficulties implementing the reform but which are committed to a serious path to compliance), before closing the door on the comfortable reading: "Cette approche ne constitue ni un report ni une suspension de l'obligation" (This approach is neither a postponement nor a suspension of the obligation).

What does your box office system need to give you?

Four things, and none of them is exotic. First, a sales report with taxable base and VAT by day and by VAT rate, which is exactly the format the transaction e-reporting factsheet asks for. Second, the amount collected per day, split by rate, for payment e-reporting. Third, the payment date kept separate from the transaction date, because for a supply of services VAT falls due on payment. Fourth, an export in a format your plateforme agréée or invoicing software can read without manual work.

The DGFiP practical guide allows the middle path: data can reach the plateforme agréée "par l'intermédiaire d'une solution compatible par exemple un logiciel (de facturation ou de caisse)" (via a compatible solution, for example software (invoicing or till software)). Your ticketing system can be that compatible solution, but the obligation remains yours. Ask your provider in writing what it exports and how often before you sign.

And Futura Tickets: how much of this does it cover?

Let's be unambiguous: Futura Tickets is not a French plateforme agréée and does not transmit e-reporting on anyone's behalf. The organiser does that through the plateforme agréée they choose from the official list on impots.gouv.fr. What a ticketing platform does provide is the raw material: with Futura Tickets, 100% of the sales and attendee data belongs to the organiser, so the daily breakdown by VAT rate and by payment date can be exported and handed to whoever handles your invoicing. If you are comparing systems, the useful question is in what to ask of a ticketing platform: not who claims to comply with French rules, but who gives you the data in the format those rules require.

Checklist before your next transmission

• Check which category you are in. Headcount, turnover and balance sheet decide whether you issue from 2026 or from 2027. The thresholds are in DGFiP factsheet 1.
• Appoint a plateforme agréée now, even if you only receive. The receiving obligation allows no extension from 1 September 2026, and Article 1737, IV bis, provides for a formal notice and a fine.
• Ask your box office for the daily report by VAT rate. Base and VAT, separating 2.10%, 5.5% and 20% according to the show.
• Separate sale and payment in your reports. Payment e-reporting requires the amount collected per day and per rate.
• Mark the ten-day deadlines in your production calendar. If you are on the standard monthly regime, the 20th falls in the middle of build week for many festivals.
• Review the details on your B2B invoices. Customer identifier, delivery address and nature of the transaction, under Article 242 nonies A of Annex II.
• Keep a record of your steps. The DGFiP guide treats platform contracts, connection schedules, tests and support tickets as evidence of a "trajectoire sérieuse" (serious path).
• If you operate from Spain, settle the one-stop shop question first. Whether French e-reporting affects you depends on it.

Conclusion

France has separated two flows that reach an organiser together: invoices between businesses, which travel through registered platforms, and box office data, which travels aggregated by day and by VAT rate. The first obligation is already enforceable for receiving. The second reaches SMEs on 1 September 2027. The real work is not in the rules but in making sure the system you sell tickets with can export the data the rules ask for, with the right payment date and rate. Whoever sorts that out in 2026 will reach 2027 making an adjustment, not changing supplier. And anyone who wants the full tax context for the country will find it in the guide to selling tickets in France and in the one on capacity and safety in type L ERPs.

Sources

• DGFiP, factsheet 1: «Que va-t-il se passer pour mon entreprise en matière de facturation ?», June 2026 update
• DGFiP, factsheet «La transmission des données de transactions (ou e-reporting)», September 2025 version
• DGFiP, factsheet «La transmission des données de paiement (e-reporting de paiement)», September 2025 version
• DGFiP, «Facturation électronique : guide pratique de démarrage au 1er septembre 2026», July 2026
• impots.gouv.fr, official list of plateformes agréées
• Légifrance, Article 289 bis of the code général des impôts
• Légifrance, Article 290 of the code général des impôts
• Légifrance, Article 1737 of the code général des impôts
• Légifrance, Article 1788 D of the code général des impôts
• Légifrance, Article 242 nonies A of Annex II to the code général des impôts
• Légifrance, arrêté du 27 juillet 2026 relatif à la généralisation de la facturation électronique
• Légifrance, Article 123 of the loi n.º 2026-103 du 19 février 2026 de finances pour 2026
• Service-public.gouv.fr (Entreprendre), page F23208 on electronic invoicing
• AEAT, general questions on VAT one-stop shops in e-commerce