France

Factur-X e-invoicing requirements for France, with Beliq configuration examples.

France commonly uses Factur-X. It is a hybrid PDF format (technically aligned with ZUGFeRD) that embeds CII D22B XML in a PDF/A-3 document. Beliq targets Factur-X 1.08 (the version in force since January 2026, jointly published with ZUGFeRD 2.x).

Factur-X is jointly maintained by the FNFE-MPE (France) and FeRD (Germany) and is fully aligned with EN 16931.

Factur-X 1.08 profiles

minimum and basicwl are reduced profiles (header-only, and without individual line items) and are not complete EN 16931 invoices. Pick them only when the receiver specifically expects that profile; see the format reference for the per-profile compliance breakdown.

For most use cases, en16931 is the recommended profile. Pick extended-ctc-fr when the receiver requires the French B2B reform CTC overlay.

MINIMUM and BASIC — secondary source

The FNFE-MPE / FeRD joint pack distributes the BASIC_WL, EN 16931 and EXTENDED Schematron and XSDs via direct download. The MINIMUM and BASIC profile artifacts are gated behind an email-request information package on the FNFE-MPE side. Beliq sources MINIMUM and BASIC Schematron and per-profile XSDs from Mustangproject core-2.22.0 (Apache-2.0) — Mustangproject is listed by FNFE-MPE itself as a recommended downstream consumer and re-publishes the same artifacts at matching upstream tags. The Mustangproject provenance is recorded with SHA-pinned per-file paths.

All five Factur-X 1.08 profiles run through the same XSD + Schematron pipeline; documents arriving with a MINIMUM, BASIC, BASIC_WL, EN16931, or EXTENDED CustomizationID are validated against the matching profile rules without operator intervention.

Promotion of any Factur-X profile to fully-verified in Beliq’s status taxonomy still requires a public negative unit-test corpus from FNFE-MPE — that gap is tracked as an upstream gap and reviewed quarterly. The current supported status reflects positive-corpus coverage plus T3 spec-derived, cross-validated negative fixtures.

Generating Factur-X invoices

Use standard: "facturx" with output: "pdf":

curl -X POST https://api.beliq.eu/v1/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer blq_live_abc123..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "standard": "facturx",
    "profile": "en16931",
    "output": "pdf",
    "invoice": {
      "number": "FA-2026-0123",
      "issueDate": "2026-04-13",
      "dueDate": "2026-05-13",
      "currencyCode": "EUR",
      "seller": {
        "name": "Exemple SARL",
        "vatId": "FR12345678901",
        "email": "facturation@exemple.example",
        "address": {
          "street": "12 Rue de la Paix",
          "city": "Paris",
          "postalCode": "75002",
          "countryCode": "FR"
        }
      },
      "buyer": {
        "name": "Client SAS",
        "vatId": "FR98765432109",
        "address": {
          "street": "8 Avenue des Champs-Élysées",
          "city": "Paris",
          "postalCode": "75008",
          "countryCode": "FR"
        }
      },
      "lines": [
        {
          "description": "Prestation de conseil — Avril 2026",
          "quantity": 5,
          "unitCode": "DAY",
          "unitPrice": 800.00,
          "lineTotal": 4000.00,
          "vatRate": 20,
          "vatCategoryCode": "S"
        }
      ],
      "paymentMeans": {
        "typeCode": "30",
        "iban": "FR7630006000011234567890189",
        "bic": "BNPAFRPPXXX"
      },
      "paymentTerms": "Net 30 jours",
      "totalNetAmount": 4000.00,
      "totalTaxAmount": 800.00,
      "totalGrossAmount": 4800.00
    }
  }' --output facture.pdf

XML output

To generate just the CII XML without the PDF wrapper:

curl -X POST https://api.beliq.eu/v1/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer blq_live_abc123..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "standard": "facturx",
    "profile": "en16931",
    "output": "xml",
    "invoice": { ... }
  }'

French B2B reform (CTC) readiness

France’s B2B e-invoicing reform replaces unstructured invoices with EN 16931-compliant Factur-X documents transported through certified Plateformes Agréées (PA). The current legal timeline (DGFiP / AIFE) is:

The 1 September 2026 and 2027 calendar was reconfirmed in April 2025; a further delay was rejected. Dates can still move by decree, so re-confirm against DGFiP before relying on them.

Last verified against DGFiP / AIFE and the European Commission eInvoicing country page on 9 July 2026. Official source.

Always check the official impots.gouv.fr e-invoicing portal for the latest dates and the B2B “Spécifications externes” v3.2 for the full technical requirements.

What Beliq covers today

For the French B2B reform, Beliq generates Factur-X 1.08 documents that pass the FNFE-MPE BR-FR-CTC Flux 2 Schematron. Concretely:

• We emit Factur-X 1.08 / D22B documents (and PDF/A-3 hybrids) that satisfy the EN 16931 baseline.
• We validate against FNFE-MPE’s BR-FR-CTC Flux 2 Schematron (france_ctc_schematron, currently 1.3.0) whenever the document carries an AFNOR XP Z12-012 Flux 2 BusinessProcess code (S8, B8, M8) or you opt in by sending franceCtc=true.
• We additionally apply the EXTENDED-CTC-FR overlay when the document is in the EXTENDED profile and the CTC mode is on.
• The FR-specific structural fields (SIREN / SIRET on seller and buyer, French VAT codes, Flux 2 process codes, line-level legal IDs and parent-line linkage) are recognised by both the builder and the validator, with rule IDs surfaced in the validation result.

# Opt in to the BR-FR-CTC overlay when validating an existing document
curl -X POST 'https://api.beliq.eu/v1/validate?franceCtc=true' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer blq_live_abc123...' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/xml' \
  --data-binary @facture.xml

// Generate a CTC-enabled invoice
{
  "standard": "facturx",
  "facturxProfile": "extended-ctc-fr",
  "output": "pdf",
  "invoice": {
    /* …seller / buyer with SIREN/SIRET and FR VAT IDs, lines, totals… */
    "franceCtc": true,
    "businessProcessId": "B8"
  }
}

What Beliq does not do (transmission / Annuaire / e-reporting)

Beliq is not a Plateforme Agréée (PA) immatriculée operator and does not (yet) intermediate transmission through the AIFE network. Specifically, the following are out of scope of this release:

• Plateforme Agréée (PA) immatriculation with AIFE (a separate regulatory and operational program).
• Operating the AIFE Annuaire (recipient lookup) interface.
• The CDAR (Cross-Domain Acknowledgement and Response) message envelope used between Plateformes Agréées.
• E-reporting flows (Flux 8 / 9 / 10) used for transaction reporting to DGFiP.

If your workflow requires a registered Plateforme Agréée (PA) today, please pair Beliq’s compliant Factur-X output with a partner PA for transmission. Reach out if you would like us to track your PA requirements as we expand this work.

French VAT specifics

Use the appropriate vatRate and vatCategoryCode combination on each invoice line.

Parsing Factur-X invoices

Upload a Factur-X PDF to extract the embedded data:

curl -X POST https://api.beliq.eu/v1/parse \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer blq_live_abc123..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/octet-stream" \
  --data-binary @facture.pdf

The engine extracts the factur-x.xml attachment from the PDF and returns the normalized JSON invoice data.

Validation

Beliq validates Factur-X 1.08 invoices against:

1. CII D22B XSD schema (the per-profile XSD subset is used when the document declares a Factur-X CustomizationID).
2. EN 16931 core Schematron rules (currently v1.3.16).
3. The Factur-X 1.08 profile-specific Schematron (BASIC_WL / EN16931 / EXTENDED), vendored from FNFE-MPE / FeRD.
4. The FNFE-MPE BR-FR-CTC Flux 2 overlay when a Flux 2 BusinessProcess code (S8 / B8 / M8) is present or franceCtc=true is requested.
5. The FNFE-MPE EXTENDED-CTC-FR overlay on top of (4) when the document is in the EXTENDED profile.

See validation artifacts for the exact versions in use.

Resources

• Factur-X specification — official FNFE-MPE documentation
• DGFiP e-invoicing reform portal (impots.gouv.fr)
• EN 16931 business rules — CEN/TC 434 Schematron rules