Definition
On 18 December you send a €4,000 invoice. The client settles it on 6 January.
The answer to what comes next decides your contributions, your threshold and your VAT: does that money belong to the year ending, or to the one starting?
To the one starting, with no room for debate.
A cash receipt is the moment a sum is actually handed over to you, not the moment you ask for it.
A micro-enterprise works on a cash basis: only money received between 1 January and 31 December makes up that year's Turnover.
An invoice you have issued counts for nothing until it is paid, and money received upfront counts straight away, before any work is delivered.
That date is what fills the Income ledger, and then the monthly or quarterly Turnover declaration filed with URSSAF.
What that date governs
It first places the sum in a declaration month or quarter, and therefore sets when the matching contributions will be taken.
It then places it in a calendar year, and that year feeds three separate counts: the micro regime ceiling, €83,600 in 2026 for services and liberal professions, the VAT exemption thresholds, and the income to report on your annual tax return.
The payment method does not change the rule, only the way you record it.
A bank transfer is entered on the day it appears on the account, cash on the day it is handed to you, a cheque on the day the sum is made available to you rather than the date the client wrote on it.
Paper Holiday vouchers push that moment one step further out: it is the reimbursement paid by the ANCV that dates the receipt, not the day the customer laid the vouchers on the counter.
With online payment services two dates coexist, the day the client pays and the day the platform passes on the balance: that is the specific case of Platform payments, with one constant, your turnover is the amount paid by the customer, commission not deducted.
One December that spills into January
A freelance developer in an unregulated liberal profession (BNC, non-commercial profits) invoices €6,000 in December 2026.
She receives €2,000 on 22 December, and the remaining €4,000 on 8 January 2027.
December 2026 is therefore declared at €2,000.
At the 25.6% rate applying in 2026 to liberal professions under the general scheme, meaning those outside the regulated professions affiliated to the Cipav, social contributions come to €512.
On top of that comes the CFP (contribution à la formation professionnelle, the vocational training levy), 0.2% of turnover for a liberal profession in 2026, which is €4, owed because she declared turnover during the previous calendar year: a first year without a single cash receipt produces none.
She pays €516. No contribution rate ever covers income tax, which is settled separately, nor the chamber levy owed by traders and craftspeople.
The €4,000 received on 8 January go instead into the January 2027 declaration.
At the 2026 rate, carried over here for want of any published 2027 scale, the same arithmetic would give €1,024 of contributions, €8 of training levy, €1,032 in total.
The calculation repeats itself identically, only the year changes, and the year matters: those €4,000 weigh neither on the €83,600 ceiling for her 2026, nor on her 2026 VAT thresholds.
The December invoice, for as long as it goes unpaid, exists in none of those counts.
Pushing a payment into January to lighten one declaration is perfectly legal, but the sum changes year for every counter at once, and the trap springs on the VAT side.
For a service provider the basic VAT threshold is €37,500 in 2026 and the higher one €41,250, both assessed on the turnover you declare.
These are sub-thresholds, not standalone ones: the overall ceiling of €85,000 and €93,500 in 2026, across all activities combined, applies to everyone on top of them.
Crossing the basic threshold changes nothing before the following 1 January.
Crossing the higher threshold, however, makes you liable that very day, not on the first day of the following month, as set out in article 293 B of the French tax code.
The payment that takes you over the line therefore decides, to the day, which invoices must carry VAT.
Cash receipts, invoicing and income
Three notions get mixed up constantly. Invoicing creates a debt owed to you: it proves what you are due, it triggers neither contributions nor tax.
The cash receipt clears that debt and triggers everything.
Other tax regimes work the opposite way, on debts as they arise, which is why advice written for a company does not carry over here.
A Deposit is no exception: received in December for a job starting in March, it belongs to December, because work still to come postpones nothing.
Which leaves the most expensive confusion of all: what you receive is not what you earn.
The total of your receipts is gross turnover, out of which will come contributions, tax, equipment and travel, without any of those costs ever reducing it.
Only one category of money crosses your account without ever becoming turnover: Disbursements, paid out on the client's behalf and reimbursed to the exact euro.
Frequently asked questions
Does an invoice that is never paid have to be declared?
No, never. An invoice enters your turnover only on the day it is settled, so a debt you end up writing off never enters it at all.
It remains a sum to recover, but it generates no contributions and no tax, and it uses up none of your annual ceiling.
Can I declare my invoices rather than my receipts, to keep things simple?
No, and that shortcut is expensive. Declaring an invoice before it is settled means paying contributions on money you have not yet received, sometimes on money you never will.
During an audit, the gap between your declarations and your bank statements is still yours to explain.
Do I have to file for a month with no receipts at all?
Yes. The declaration is compulsory even when it is empty: a month or quarter without a single payment received is declared at €0.
A missing return is treated as an oversight rather than as an absence of activity, and it exposes you to a penalty when nothing was owed.
The client says they paid on 30 December, the transfer lands on 2 January: which date applies?
The one the money reached your account, so 2 January.
The transfer order given by your client belongs to their bookkeeping, not to yours, and the bank line is the only proof you will be able to produce.
Enter that date in your income ledger and keep the matching statement.