French VAT Service: Engagement Terms

FRADECO SAS, société d'expertise comptable, 50 rue Chapon, 75003 Paris, France. SAS au capital de 25 000 € · SIREN 908 368 616 · RCS Paris · TVA FR82908368616 · inscrite au tableau de l'ordre des experts-comptables Paris / Île-de-France. Version 2026-08.

1. Who you contract with

Your French VAT service is provided by FRADECO SAS, Paris, acting as your mandataire fiscal (authorised agent under Directive 2006/112/EC). We are not a fiscal representative (représentant fiscal) and take no joint liability for your tax debts. Your German VAT service, if booked, remains a separate engagement.

2. What the service covers

• French VAT registration with the tax office for foreign businesses (SIEE), where booked.
• Set-up and management of your French online tax account.
• Your recurring French VAT returns (CA3), prepared from the figures you provide and confirm.
• The EC sales list (état récapitulatif) where legally required, and routine correspondence with the French tax administration.

Not included, available on request and billed separately: bookkeeping, invoicing, tax or legal advice beyond the routine returns, statistical trade returns (DEB/EMEBI), supply-chain mapping, audit representation beyond the mandate's scope, objection and refund proceedings.

Registration only (€799 one-off, charged in full at signup): where you book the French VAT registration on its own, the engagement covers the registration and the correspondence with the SIEE up to the issuance of your French VAT number, and nothing else. It ends of its own accord when that number is issued, and we then revoke our mandate at the SIEE; official mail that still reaches us before the revocation takes effect is forwarded to you. French VAT returns (CA3), the EC sales list and all other recurring services are not included. The filing plan can be added afterwards with no further registration fee. The one-year term and renewal in section 5 do not apply to the registration-only engagement.

3. Your part

• Provide complete and accurate figures for each period; you confirm every return before it is filed.
• Sign the required mandates in ink, on your own letterhead where indicated.
• Forward immediately any activation code the French tax office posts to your address. Nothing can be filed until it is entered.
• Sign the French direct-debit mandate and lodge it with your bank. The French tax office collects VAT due by direct debit as standard, so returning the signed mandate quickly matters; until your bank confirms it, we confirm with you how any amount due is settled. We never receive or hold your money and never pay taxes on your behalf.

4. Fees

Fees are due in full in advance and are non-refundable. They pay for our work, not for a government outcome: processing times and decisions rest with the French administration, and first filings typically become possible two to three months after complete documents. The single exception: if we decline to accept your mandate, any fee already paid is returned.

Invoices unpaid at their due date carry late-payment interest at the European Central Bank's rate plus 10 percentage points, plus the statutory €40 flat recovery indemnity per invoice.

5. Liability, term, law

The authoritative contract text is the Convention de mandat et d'honoraires of FRADECO SAS: French is the binding text, with an English translation alongside it. You read and sign it electronically during onboarding, and the signed PDF sits in your documents. This page is an English summary with no contractual value; where they differ, the signed convention governs. In outline:

• FRADECO SAS carries French professional liability insurance. Contractual liability for any engagement is capped at €1,000,000.
• No liability arises for damage caused by wrong or incomplete information from you, by your delay in providing required information, or by third parties working for you.
• Claims are contractually time-barred three years from the events giving rise to them.
• A plan billed yearly runs for one year from your order and renews each year at the price then in force. Either side can end it in writing or from your account, effective at the end of the current year; annual fees paid in advance are not refunded pro rata. A plan billed monthly can be ended at any time, effective at the end of the following month, so that the last return can still be filed. A registration-only engagement (section 2) has no term: it ends when the French VAT number is issued.
• French law applies. Disputes go first to conciliation through the president of the regional council of the Ordre des Experts-Comptables.

Questions before signing? Contact us and we answer in plain English.