Payment terms: what the law lets you impose

Definition

A developer delivers a website on 20 November, sends her €5,000 invoice the same day and writes "payable on receipt" on it.

Her client's accounts department, however, processes supplier invoices once a month: the transfer leaves on 12 January.

Seven and a half weeks of cash flow gone, and one effect she had not seen coming, far more lasting: those €5,000 no longer belong to her 2026, but to her 2027.

A payment term is the agreed time between delivering the work and settling the invoice.

You set it in your Quotation and your Terms and conditions, then restate it on every Invoice as a due date.

That date, and nothing else, separates a client who is taking their time from a client who is late.

What the law lets you impose

Between businesses, contractual freedom applies, but inside a frame.

The French commercial code sets a default term that applies when nothing has been agreed, a cap the contract cannot cross, and two ways of counting the time: from the invoice issue date, or on an end-of-month basis.

The two methods do not produce the same due date for the same invoice, and the text requires you to state which one applies.

The exact durations are in the article itself, which already varies them by sector: road transport and perishable food are subject to shorter terms, imposed and not negotiable.

An agreement between both parties is not enough to go beyond the statutory cap: an abusively long clause exposes the party imposing it, almost always the client, to an administrative fine; the one who pays for it in cash is you.

With a private customer that cap does not exist, because the relationship falls under different articles: payment on order or on delivery remains the norm, and a written Deposit secures the job better than any clause.

In every case, the due date and the rate of Late payment penalties are among the details a business-to-business invoice must carry.

€5,000 received in December or in January: the calculation

Back to the developer's invoice, under the non-regulated liberal professions (BNC, non-commercial professional income).

That headline rate of 25.6% in 2026 covers neither the vocational training contribution, nor the chamber levies owed by traders and craftspeople, nor income tax.

Two caveats on the December line. That contribution is only due if positive revenue was declared in the previous calendar year.

And a regulated liberal profession affiliated to the Cipav pension fund would pay on the same €5,000 at the 23.2% rate in 2026, which did not follow the general-scheme increase.

The shift also moves your thresholds, every one of them measured on what actually reached your account.

The micro-scheme ceiling stands at €83,600 for services in 2026, and crossing it once does not push you out of the scheme: it has to be exceeded two years running.

The VAT basic exemption sits far lower: for services the sub-threshold is set in 2026 at €37,500 of previous-year revenue, and it does not excuse you from staying under the €85,000 overall threshold, all activities combined.

A January collection does not weigh on the year that has just closed.

Invoiced, collected, declared: three dates to keep apart

The invoice issue date does one job only, starting the clock.

The date that governs the micro scheme is the Cash receipt date: the ceiling is assessed on revenue excluding tax actually collected during the calendar year, never on the amount invoiced.

A December invoice paid in January therefore counts towards the following year, and an invoice that is never paid is never declared.

The third date is your own: the deadline of your turnover declaration, which only knows the month or the quarter during which the money arrived.

It does not move because a client asked for extra time.

Finally, do not confuse the term you granted with the delay you suffer: as long as the due date has not passed, there is no lateness, no penalty and no ground for a Formal notice, however uncomfortable the wait becomes.

Frequently asked questions

Below the statutory cap, yes, and it is negotiated like the rest of the contract.

Above it, no: between businesses the cap in the commercial code overrides the contract even when both parties agree. A long term is best offset by a larger deposit at the start of the job.

The default term set by the commercial code takes over, and the invoice remains perfectly enforceable.

But leaving the settlement date off a business-to-business invoice is a missing mandatory detail, punishable as such, and above all it makes the conversation far harder on the day payment starts dragging.

It depends on the counting method chosen, which is exactly why it has to be written down.

A due date computed from the issue date and one computed on an end-of-month basis fall on different days, which shifts the starting point of late payment penalties by the same amount.

No, it only postpones them. The amount collected is eventually declared and charged at the rate applicable when it was received.

The only real effect is one of timing: the revenue moves into the following calendar year, along with that year's thresholds.