To reclaim VAT from France, you essentially need four types of documents: invoices that comply with French requirements, proof that your business is established in the Netherlands and is a VAT-liable business, an authorization allowing the application to be submitted on behalf of your business, and, as a separate category, toll receipts. Without these documents, an application cannot be submitted completely, and an incomplete application risks France as the refund country requesting additional information or rejecting the application.
Toll deserves separate mention because it is an expense category that works differently than a hotel invoice or a fuel receipt. Anyone who regularly drives through France for installation work, transport, or trade fair visits pays a small amount per journey, but over a year it quickly adds up to a substantial part of the total application. Precisely because it involves many small amounts debited via a toll badge, this item is more often overlooked than a single invoice that is clearly recognizable as such.
Invoices: the basis of every application
Every French invoice included in an application must contain a number of details: name and address of the supplier, the French VAT number, the invoice date, a description of the service provided or product, the amount excluding and including VAT, and the applied rate. A receipt from a petrol station usually meets these requirements if it is completely printed, and hotel invoices also typically contain this information as standard. For trade fair costs or catering, sometimes a part is missing, for example the VAT number of the organizer, and then the application for that item is not complete.
Toll: why this is a separate item and quickly adds up
Anyone driving in France with a toll badge, such as télépéage, does not receive an invoice per passage but a monthly statement from the toll operator. That statement counts in practice as a consolidated invoice, but must separately state the VAT to be usable for a refund application. Because it is a statement rather than individual receipts, toll is often not recognized as a separate expense category, while for businesses that regularly drive through France it is regularly one of the largest items in the application. An expense that seems small per journey often counts more heavily than expected over twelve months.
Proof of establishment and business status
In addition to the invoices themselves, proof is needed that the application comes from a Dutch, VAT-liable business. This is usually done with an extract from the Chamber of Commerce and the details with which the Tax Authority has registered the business as a business for VAT purposes. This part is part of the client due diligence that precedes the submission of applications and is recorded once at the start.
The authorization to submit on your behalf
Because a refund application goes through the Dutch Tax Authority portal and is forwarded from there to France, an authorization is required if a third party submits this on behalf of the business. That authorization ensures that applications, additional questions, and payments reach the right place, without the business owner having to log in themselves for each application. Anyone who wants to know exactly what that step looks like can read about it on the page where we show how the submission works.
What happens if a document is missing
If an invoice is incomplete or a toll statement does not match, France as the refund country may request additional information. That takes time, and time is scarce in this scheme because the right to refund expires on a fixed date. How such an application looks per expense category and which documents specifically belong to fuel, hotels, toll, and trade fair costs is set out in detail on the page that shows what is needed for each situation.
Anyone who wants to know whether this is worthwhile for their own situation can find out in a few questions receive an indication of the amount that may potentially be unclaimed. This costs nothing and is not yet conclusive, but does give a first impression before time is spent gathering documents.