What is Chorus Pro?
Chorus Pro is the French government portal for electronic invoice submission, operated by AIFE (Agence pour l'Informatique Financière de l'État). Since 2020, any business invoicing a French public sector buyer — État, collectivités territoriales, hôpitaux — must submit invoices electronically through Chorus Pro.
Chorus Pro tracks the full invoice lifecycle: Déposée → Reçue → Mise en service → Mandatée → Payée. Suppliers receive status updates at each stage.
The 2026 reform: mandatory for all B2B
Under the revised reform timeline (Finance Law 2024):
| Date | Obligation |
|---|---|
| September 2026 | **All businesses** must be able to **receive** structured e-invoices |
| September 2026 | Large enterprises must **issue** e-invoices (>5,000 employees or >€1.5bn turnover) |
| September 2027 | Mid-sized enterprises must **issue** (>250 employees or >€50m turnover) |
| September 2027 | SMEs and micro-enterprises must **issue** |
Failure to comply by your applicable date will be treated as a declaration irregularity under the TVA reform framework.
Factur-X: the French structured invoice format
France uses Factur-X (the same standard as ZUGFeRD 2.x in Germany): a PDF with embedded structured XML. The invoice is human-readable as a PDF and machine-processable from the XML.
Five profiles: - Minimum — identification data only (for simple cases) - Basic WL — without line detail - Basic — line-level amounts - EN16931 — full European standard (recommended for most businesses) - Extended — all fields including French-specific (required for some sectors)
A plain PDF or a PDF with a manually-attached XML does not satisfy the Factur-X requirement.
What you need to do now
- 1Confirm your accounting software issues Factur-X — not just PDF
- 2Register on Chorus Pro if you invoice public entities — obtain a compte technique (technical account) for API access
- 3Update your accounts payable workflow to receive and process structured invoices — mandatory for all businesses from September 2026
- 4Verify your SIRET is present on all invoices — it is a mandatory field under the reform
How Finovo handles it
Finovo generates Factur-X (EN16931 profile) invoices for all French workspaces. For invoices to public sector buyers:
- 1Create the invoice, select the public sector customer
- 2Finovo embeds structured XML into the PDF automatically
- 3Submit directly to Chorus Pro from within Finovo — no manual portal upload
Invoice status updates from Chorus Pro are pulled back into Finovo and shown on the invoice timeline.
See our France accounting guide for TVA, DSN payroll and the Liasse Fiscale alongside e-invoicing.