Dropshipping Tax in France: TVA, Impôt sur le Revenu & OSS

If you run a dropshipping store that sells to French customers, you have probably lost sleep over French tax rules. You have heard about TVA, seen OSS and IOSS thrown around in forums, and wondered whether you actually owe impôt sur le revenu on your overseas sales. You are not alone. Dropshipping tax in France has tightened dramatically since 2024, and French authorities now treat dropshippers the same way they treat any domestic retailer. The good news? Once you understand the three pillars (TVA, income tax, and the OSS/IOSS schemes), the picture gets much clearer. Let us walk through exactly what you owe, when you owe it, and how to stay compliant without overpaying.

What is Dropshipping Tax in France?

When people talk about dropshipping tax in France, they mean two separate obligations. The first is TVA, the French value-added tax that applies to almost every sale of goods inside the country. The second is impôt sur le revenu (or impôt sur les sociétés, depending on your structure), which taxes the profit your business earns.

The French Finance Act of 2026 formally identified dropshipping as a model that had been leaking VAT revenue, and the government moved to close that gap. Before 2026, import VAT was often calculated only on the wholesale price a dropshipper paid to a supplier. The retail margin (often the bulk of the sale price) went untaxed. That era is over.

If you sell goods to consumers in France and those goods enter the EU from a third country, you now face TVA obligations at the point of import and on the final sale. The exact treatment depends on where goods enter the EU, their value, and whether you use one of the EU simplification schemes. Ignoring these rules exposes you to penalties ranging from fines to account suspension by platforms.

TVA: The French Value-Added Tax Explained

TVA applies to nearly every B2C transaction in France. The standard rate is 20%, though reduced rates of 10%, 5.5%, and 2.1% apply to specific goods such as food, books, and certain medical products.

For dropshippers, the key question is who collects and remits the TVA. Three scenarios cover most situations.

Selling through a marketplace. If you sell via Amazon, Cdiscount, or a similar platform, the marketplace typically acts as the deemed supplier. It collects TVA from the buyer and remits it to the tax authorities. You still need to keep records, but the platform handles the heavy lifting.

Selling through your own website to French customers. You shoulder full TVA responsibility. If your goods ship from outside the EU and the consignment value stays below €150, you can register for the IOSS scheme and charge French TVA at checkout. If the value exceeds €150, IOSS is not available. You must register for French VAT, declare import TVA at customs, and then declare the domestic TVA on the sale through your French VAT return.

Selling to customers in other EU countries. Once your cross-border B2C sales inside the EU exceed €10,000 per year, you must charge TVA at the rate of the customer's country. Rather than register for VAT in every member state, you can use the OSS scheme—more on that below.

You will file French TVA returns using form CA3 (monthly) or CA12 (quarterly), depending on your regime and turnover. If your annual sales in France exceed €50,000, French authorities may switch you to monthly declarations automatically.

The French franchise de TVA allows small businesses to operate without charging TVA. For micro-entrepreneurs selling goods, this exemption holds as long as your previous-year turnover stays below €85,000 and your current-year turnover does not exceed €93,500. If you cross these thresholds, you must register for TVA and start charging it on your invoices.

OSS and IOSS: The Two Schemes

The EU introduced the One-Stop Shop (OSS) and the Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) in July 2021 to streamline VAT for cross-border e-commerce. Understanding which one applies to your dropshipping tax in France situation saves you from registering in multiple countries.

OSS (One-Stop Shop) applies to intra-EU B2C sales. If you hold stock in an EU warehouse (say, in Germany) and ship from there to customers in France, Italy, and Spain, OSS lets you file a single quarterly return in your home country. You charge the VAT rate of the customer's country at checkout, report all cross-border sales in one OSS return, and pay everything to your local tax office. That office distributes the VAT to each member state.

OSS becomes relevant once your cross-border B2C sales in the EU pass the €10,000 threshold. Below that, you can apply French TVA to all your EU sales and declare them in France.

IOSS (Import One-Stop Shop) covers distance sales of imported goods valued at €150 or less. If you ship products from China directly to a French consumer and the consignment value stays under €150, IOSS lets you charge French TVA at the point of sale and remit it through a single monthly return. The goods clear customs without additional VAT charges, which means faster delivery and no surprise fees for your customer.

Without IOSS, the carrier or customs agent collects TVA (plus processing fees) from your customer before releasing the parcel. That creates a poor experience and can lead to returns and chargebacks.

You register for OSS through your professional tax account on impots.gouv.fr. For IOSS, non-EU businesses must appoint an EU-based intermediary. Both schemes are optional, but for most dropshippers selling low-value goods, IOSS registration proves cheaper and operationally smoother than standard French VAT registration.

Critical nuance added in March 2026: The French tax authorities published a detailed BOFiP rescript (BOI-RES-TVA-000184) clarifying dropshipping VAT treatment when you do not use IOSS. If goods enter the EU via France but ship to customers in another member state, France is not the place of taxation for shipments under €150, provided customs clearance occurs in the destination country. Goods must be placed under external transit. For shipments over €150, the seller becomes liable for French import VAT the moment goods enter through French customs. The VAT paid may be deductible if the subsequent sale is taxed in another member state, but you need proper French VAT registration to claim that deduction. If goods are both imported and delivered within France and the customs value differs from the retail selling price, you bear liability for both import VAT and domestic French VAT.

Impôt sur le Revenu: Taxing Your Dropshipping Profits

Beyond TVA, you must pay income tax on your dropshipping profits. How you pay depends on your legal structure

Micro-entrepreneur (auto-entrepreneur). This is the most common starting point. Your revenue gets taxed under the micro-BIC regime. The tax administration applies a 71% standard deduction to your turnover, so only 29% of your sales count as taxable income. That taxable amount gets added to your personal income and taxed at the progressive income tax brackets. You can also opt for the prélèvement libératoire (a flat 1% of turnover) if your personal income stays below certain thresholds.

Social charges run at approximately 12.3% of turnover for a purchase-resale activity in 2026.

The micro-entreprise ceiling for 2026 sits at €188,700 in annual turnover. If you cross that line, you must switch to a standard business structure.

EURL or SASU. Once you move to a company structure, you pay impôt sur les sociétés (corporate tax) on profits, unless you have opted for impôt sur le revenu. The standard corporate tax rate is 25% as of 2026. You can deduct real expenses—advertising, software, professional services, and the cost of goods sold—from your revenue to arrive at your taxable profit. You then decide how to extract income: salary (deductible for the company, taxable for you personally) or dividends (not deductible for the company, taxed at the flat 30% rate for you).

Regardless of structure, you declare dropshipping income annually through the French tax portal. Micro-entrepreneurs file déclaration de chiffre d'affaires monthly or quarterly. Companies file a full déclaration de résultats each year.

Recent Changes That Reshape Dropshipping Tax in France

Several developments last year changed the compliance landscape for dropshipping tax in France. The Finance Act ended the practice of calculating import VAT solely on the supplier-to-dropshipper price. When the import tax base does not match the retail price, you become liable for the difference. If a supplier charges you €20 for a product and you sell it for €50, you owe import VAT on €20 (€4) plus additional domestic VAT to cover the gap: €10 minus €4, leaving €6 more to remit. That totals €10 in VAT on a €50 sale—exactly 20%, which is what French authorities intended.

The March 2026 BOFiP rescript eliminated ambiguity around non-IOSS dropshipping. It confirmed that customs value discrepancies push VAT liability onto the seller. It also clarified the rules for goods transiting through France to other EU countries, giving clear guidance on when French import VAT applies and when customs clearance must shift to the destination member state.

On the compliance front, France introduced mandatory electronic invoicing (facturation électronique obligatoire) and e-reporting. Transaction data must flow to the tax platform automatically. VAT-related records must be kept for 10 years. Penalties for non-compliance range from €750 to €1,500 for late declarations, and deliberate fraud can trigger fines up to €75,000 and prison sentences of up to five years.

From July 1, 2026, the EU removes the €150 customs duty exemption. A flat-rate customs duty of €3 per item will apply as an interim measure, with further Union handling fees expected from November 2026. This adds a direct cost to every low-value import and pushes dropshippers who rely on thin margins to reassess pricing and sourcing.

Practical Compliance Steps

If dropshipping tax in France feels overwhelming, break it into a checklist.

• First, confirm your legal structure. A micro-entreprise works well to test products, but if revenue climbs, a company structure may give you more flexibility and expense deductions.
• Second, map your logistics. Know exactly where your goods enter the EU, where customs clearance happens, and which country's VAT rules apply to each delivery. A single customs mistake in France can trigger obligations across your entire catalog.
• Third, evaluate whether IOSS makes sense. For shipments under €150, IOSS registration avoids the double VAT liability problem and improves the customer experience. Without IOSS, your buyers may face unexpected fees at delivery, which often leads to refused parcels and refund requests.
• Fourth, consider an EU warehouse. Stocking best-sellers inside the EU removes import VAT complications for those products and speeds up delivery. Some dropshippers use a hybrid approach: IOSS for goods shipped from Asia and OSS for goods dispatched from an EU warehouse.
• Fifth, keep records for 10 years. Transaction logs, invoices, customs documents, and shipping proofs should all be retained. French tax audits are becoming more frequent and more thorough for cross-border e-commerce.
• Sixth, calibrate your pricing. With full TVA applied to the retail price and upcoming customs duties, your margin calculations need updating. Run the numbers now, not after a tax assessment.

Conclusion

Dropshipping tax in France is not a mystery. It is a set of clear rules that apply TVA at the point of import and at the point of sale, tax your profits through impôt sur le revenu or impôt sur les sociétés, and offer simplification through OSS and IOSS schemes if you register for them. The 2024 Finance Act and the March 2026 BOFiP rescript removed the loopholes that once made dropshipping artificially tax-advantaged. You now operate on equal footing with every other retailer selling to French consumers. By choosing the right legal structure, using IOSS or OSS where applicable, and keeping meticulous records, you can stay compliant and focus on growing your business. Get compliant, sell confidently.

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