Selling an extension or SaaS in France: the steps to know

You've published an extension, a micro-SaaS or an app, the first users are arriving, and you want to start charging. That's when the questions come thick and fast: do you need to set up a company? Is the micro-enterprise scheme enough? Who collects VAT when the sale goes through a store? What's the risk of taking payment without being registered?

The difficulty is that most available resources address shopkeepers or consultants. The case of a digital product sold online, to customers spread across several countries, via intermediary platforms, is rarely covered. Here is an overview of the steps, in the order they actually arise.

What you need to know before selling

One point is worth stating upfront: in France, carrying out a habitual economic activity requires registration. Regularly taking payments for a product without being registered exposes you to a tax adjustment and penalties. The leniency people sometimes imagine for “small revenue” doesn't exist: it's the habitual nature of the activity that counts, not the amount.

The good news is that getting compliant for a digital business is quick and cheap. The micro-enterprise is created online, free, and suits the vast majority of launches. The most common mistake isn't choosing the wrong status, it's putting off the formality until the revenue becomes hard to explain.

1. Choose a legal status

For a digital product launched solo, three options arise in practice.

The micro-enterprise is the natural starting point. Free online creation, lightened accounting, contributions calculated as a percentage of the revenue collected — if you collect nothing, you pay nothing. It's capped in annual revenue and doesn't allow deducting expenses, which becomes a penalty if you have significant costs (servers, contractors, advertising).

The EURL or SASU (French single-member companies) become relevant when revenue grows, when you have significant costs to deduct, or when you want to clearly separate personal and business assets. In return, they involve real accounting, articles of association, capital and annual running costs.

The most useful choice criterion isn't the amount you hope for, but your cost structure. A business collecting €30,000 with almost no costs fits the micro-enterprise very well. The same amount with €15,000 of real expenses loses a lot there, since the flat-rate allowance won't match your actual costs.

2. Register

Registration formalities now go through the single electronic business-formalities window, operated by the INPI. It's the single entry point, whatever the status chosen.

Two elements deserve attention when declaring:

• The APE / NAF code. It's assigned based on the activity you describe. For software publishing, the codes in the 58.2 family are the most common. This code has no direct legal effect, but it determines administrative attachments — better to describe your activity precisely.
• The nature of the activity. Selling software licences, providing development services and training don't fall under the same regimes or contribution rates. If you do several of these, say so: an incomplete declaration is hard to correct.

Generally allow a few days to a few weeks to receive your SIRET number. You can start invoicing as soon as registration is effective.

3. Understand the VAT question

It's the subject that causes software publishers the most trouble, for a simple reason: the rules for electronically supplied services differ from those for classic sales.

Three points structure the subject.

The small-business exemption. Below certain revenue thresholds, you're exempt from charging VAT. Your invoices then carry the notice “VAT not applicable, article 293 B of the CGI”. In return, you don't recover VAT on your purchases. The thresholds are revised regularly: check the amounts in force when you read this.

Selling to consumers in the European Union. For electronic services sold to consumers in other member states, VAT is in principle due in the customer's country, at its rate. A one-stop shop (OSS) lets you declare and pay everything from France, without registering in each country.

Selling to businesses. Between taxable persons established in two different member states, VAT is generally reverse-charged by the customer. You then need to check their intra-EU VAT number and put the corresponding notice on the invoice.

These rules are technical and change. If your volume exceeds a few sales a month outside France, it's the first subject on which to have your setup validated by an accountant.

4. Selling via a platform: the “merchant of record” role

Many developers sell via a store or platform (Chrome Web Store, Gumroad, Paddle, a marketplace) rather than directly. This detail changes a lot.

Some platforms act as “merchant of record”: legally, it's the platform that sells to the end customer. It collects payment, issues the receipt, collects and remits VAT depending on the buyer's country, and then pays you your share. On your side, you don't invoice the end customer: you receive revenue from the platform.

Other solutions are simple payment providers: they collect payment technically, but it's you who sells. All the obligations — invoicing, VAT, legal notices, handling withdrawals — then remain yours.

The distinction is essential for your accounting as well as your reporting obligations. Check precisely which case each channel you use falls into: it's written in the platform's terms, and it determines how you record your revenue.

5. Mandatory notices and documents

As soon as you sell online to consumers, several documents become mandatory:

• Legal notice — publisher identity, status, registration number, contact details, website host. It derives from the French law on trust in the digital economy.
• Terms of sale — product description, price, payment and delivery terms, right of withdrawal, legal warranties, consumer mediation.
• Privacy policy — as soon as you process any personal data, which is the case for any online sale.
• Information on the right of withdrawal — and, for immediate-execution digital content, obtaining explicit consent to this execution and waiver of withdrawal.
• Consumer mediator — joining a mediation scheme is mandatory for professionals selling to consumers.

This last point on withdrawal deserves particular attention for digital products: without express consent obtained at the time of purchase, the customer keeps their 14-day right of withdrawal, even on already-downloaded content.

6. Taking payments

On a practical level, two points come up systematically.

The bank account. A micro-enterprise must have a dedicated account for its activity above a certain revenue level sustained over time. Even below, separating the flows from the start considerably simplifies accounting and any audits.

Supporting documents. Whether you sell directly or via a platform, keep everything: payout statements, sales reports, invoices from your own providers (hosting, tools, advertising). Retention obligations run into years, and reconstructing platform exports after the fact is tedious — even impossible if the service has closed.

7. Keeping your accounts

In a micro-enterprise, the obligations are lightened: a chronological revenue book, keeping supporting documents, and the periodic revenue declaration. No balance sheet, no income statement.

Watch out for a subtlety that trips up many publishers: the revenue to declare is what was collected in the period, not what was invoiced. With platforms that pay out with a delay of several weeks, the date to use is when the money actually arrives.

In a company, full accounting is required and using an accountant becomes, in practice, hard to avoid.

Going further

This overview gives the order of the steps and the vocabulary to ask the right questions. It doesn't replace a case-by-case check: your personal situation, your volume, the geographic spread of your customers and your sales channels change the answers.

Three useful reflexes for what follows. Always check thresholds and rates against their date: they change often and articles found online are frequently out of date. Have your VAT setup validated by an accountant as soon as you sell outside France. And document your sales channels: knowing precisely who is the legal seller of each euro collected solves most accounting questions.

We're preparing a full guide on the subject, Create & Sell, which covers these steps in the chronological order of a launch, with the corresponding checklists and templates. It's not on sale yet — the detailed programme is available on the Courses page.