If you run a transport or logistics business in France, you’ve probably already heard about the upcoming e-invoicing reform. If you haven’t, now is the time to pay attention: starting 1 September 2026, the way your company sends and receives invoices is about to change for good — and the transport sector, with its long subcontracting chains and high invoice volumes, has more at stake than most.
Here’s everything you need to know: what the law actually requires, what it means day-to-day for a transport business, and how Qargo is making sure you’re ready.
The law, in plain terms
France is moving away from the old system — where businesses simply post invoices to each other by email or paper — toward a Continuous Transaction Controls (CTC) model. In practice, this means every domestic B2B invoice will need to travel through a state-certified platform, in a structured digital format, rather than as a free-form PDF.
The key dates:
- 1 September 2026 — Every VAT-registered business in France, regardless of size, must be able to receiveelectronic invoices through an approved platform. Large companies and mid-sized enterprises (ETI) must also issue e-invoices and submit e-reporting data from this date.
- 1 September 2027 — SMEs, micro-enterprises, and independent operators must also begin issuing e-invoices and e-reporting.
How it works: invoices no longer flow directly between two companies. Instead, each business connects to a Plateforme Agréée (PA) — a private, state-certified platform (previously called a PDP, Plateforme de Dématérialisation Partenaire). Your Plateforme Agréée sends the invoice to your customer’s platform, and at the same time reports the relevant tax data to the French tax authority (DGFiP) through a central government hub, the Portail Public de Facturation (PPF). The PPF itself isn’t where you exchange invoices — it’s the directory that tells the system which PA each company uses, and the data concentrator that receives everything for tax purposes.
Structured invoices must be issued in one of three accepted formats: Factur-X, UBL, or CII. A scanned PDF sent by email will no longer count as a valid electronic invoice for in-scope transactions.
Businesses that don’t comply face fines — around €15 per non-compliant invoice and further penalties for e-reporting failures, both capped annually — though the tax authority has signaled a soft landing for companies making genuine, documented efforts to get compliant.
What this means for transport companies specifically
Transport and logistics is one of the sectors most exposed to this reform. It’s an overwhelmingly B2B industry, and the way it’s structured creates a few challenges that don’t show up the same way in other industries.
Subcontracting chains get more complex. A single shipment can pass through a shipper, a freight forwarder (commissionnaire), a charterer (affréteur), and the final carrier — meaning three to five invoices can circulate for one route. Each of those invoices now needs to travel through the new structured circuit while still staying correctly linked to the underlying transport order, delivery note, and proof of delivery. Losing that traceability is the single biggest risk transport companies face with this reform.
VAT rules need to be built in correctly. Intracommunity transport services are typically subject to the reverse-charge mechanism (autoliquidation), and that has to be reflected properly in the structured invoice data — not left as a footnote.
The waybill (CMR) is not an invoice, and it doesn’t have to go digital. It’s worth clearing up some confusion here: the paper CMR waybill remains completely valid, and there is no obligation to switch to the electronic version (eCMR) as part of this reform. The two are separate topics entirely.
High volumes make automation essential. Between transport orders, fuel surcharges, toll recharges, and ancillary service lines, transport invoicing is rarely simple. Manually re-keying this into a new structured format at scale isn’t realistic — this is a case where connecting your invoicing directly to your TMS, rather than manually using a web portal, makes a real difference.
Smaller and independent operators aren’t off the hook. Even though the issuance deadline for SMEs and independent carriers is a year later (September 2027), everyone — including owner-operators — must be able to receive e-invoices from September 2026. The habit of “artisanal” invoicing by email needs to start changing well before your own issuance deadline arrives.
How Qargo is making sure you’re covered
At Qargo, we don’t build our own government-certified invoicing platform. Instead, we partner with B2BRouter, a certified Plateforme Agréée in France, the same partner we already use for our fully live Belgian Peppol e-invoicing (mandatory there since January 2026). This means French compliance builds directly on infrastructure that’s already proven in production.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- One click, two things happen. When you send an invoice from Qargo, a single action handles both sides of the requirement at once: your invoice is delivered to your customer over the Peppol network, and the corresponding tax report is filed with the DGFiP through the PPF. You don’t need to think about the two separate government requirements — Qargo and B2BRouter handle both together.
- No manual formatting. Qargo sends your invoice data directly to B2BRouter, which generates the compliant Factur-X, UBL, or CII document automatically. You keep working the way you already do in Qargo; the structured format is generated behind the scenes.
- Built for the realities of transport. Credit notes, factoring, etc. are all supported — when factoring is enabled for a customer, the e-invoice automatically reflects the correct factoring bank account, just as it does today.
- Registered properly, once. Each French billing entity is registered with the national directory (Annuaire) and the Peppol network as part of a simple, one-time setup — the same kind of onboarding step we already run for Belgian customers.
You don’t need to navigate this alone
Regulatory deadlines like this one tend to create a lot of noise — new terminology, shifting acronyms, and no shortage of vendors promising last-minute fixes. Our approach has been the opposite: build on a certified, proven partner, integrate it properly into the way transport companies actually work, and get it ready well ahead of the deadline rather than scrambling after it.
That’s exactly what we’ve been doing over the past months, working directly with B2BRouter to bring the same reliable e-invoicing experience our Belgian customers already use to every French transport company on Qargo — subcontracting chains, fuel and toll recharges, factoring, and all.
If you run a transport or logistics business in France and want to understand exactly what September 2026 means for you — or simply want to see how Qargo can take this off your plate entirely — we’d love to show you.
Request your free demo and let’s make sure your business is ready, well before the deadline arrives.
