Since 2022, e-invoicing reform has been on every French finance department's roadmap. Mandatory reception for everyone from September 2026, issuance and e-reporting staggered by company size through September 2027: the timeline is known, documented, widely anticipated. That's exactly what makes the amendment passed a few months later so easy to miss.
A change passed quietly
Law No. 2026-534 of 25 June 2026, on the fight against fraud, amended Article 36 of the French General Tax Code on a point few companies saw coming: the retention period for invoices (both received and issued) and for the reliable audit trail moves from 6 to 10 years. Not a reform announced with fanfare, not a new compliance deadline: a simple adjustment to an already-existing period, passed in a text whose main purpose lies elsewhere.
This is exactly the kind of change that slips through the cracks of a compliance project already underway: the project team set its plan against the 2022 timeline, and no one has reason to re-check an archiving parameter once the project is "done".
What this actually changes
A longer retention period isn't just a line in a retention schedule: it's an infrastructure constraint. Four extra years of invoices to archive, for a company issuing or receiving several thousand documents a year, represents a storage volume and a backup policy to revisit, not just a software setting to flip.
The stakes go beyond storage. Received invoices are supporting documents for deductible VAT: an invoice misrouted to the wrong platform, or lost before the 10-year deadline, directly exposes you to the risk of losing the right to deduct — a real financial impact, not just an administrative one. And failing to connect to a reception platform remains subject to a progressive fine (€500 then €1,000 per quarter after a formal notice goes unanswered).
The blind spot of already "wrapped up" projects
The real risk isn't discovering this obligation: it's discovering it too late, because the topic has been filed as "settled" since 2024. Clean supplier reference data, verified SIRET and IBAN, a genuinely traceable reliable audit trail: these are the same foundations that let you hold 6 years of retention or 10, without the change in duration becoming a project of its own.
Source: Law No. 2026-534 of 25/06/2026, art. 36 (CGI); art. 1737 III and IV bis of the CGI; impots.gouv.fr, e-invoicing reform timeline