Definition
A developer gets a message from his client's purchasing department one Tuesday in January 2026: "send us an invoice, otherwise the order cannot be raised".
He has delivered nothing, started nothing, and the contract is unsigned.
If he complies, he issues a real numbered invoice for work that does not yet exist: it enters his sequence, it shows up in his client's books as a debt due, and a credit note will be needed to make it disappear if the project falls through.
The document that purchasing actually wants goes by another name.
The facture proforma (proforma invoice) copies the shape of an Invoice, line for line, without producing any of its effects.
"Pro forma" means "for form's sake": the document announces what the invoice will say if the deal happens.
It records no sale, creates no receivable, and belongs neither to the Invoice numbering sequence nor to the Income ledger. No French text requires it or defines it: it is a commercial custom, which is why it takes fairly different shapes from one sector and one country to the next.
What it actually unlocks
Four situations make it useful, and they share one trait: somebody wants a written amount before the sale exists. A purchasing department or a public buyer who must raise a purchase order.
A funder, a grant body or a training operator who wants the figures before committing funds. A foreign bank that will only release a transfer against a formal document.
And customs, for a shipment outside the European Union involving no payment at all, such as samples or demonstration equipment.
The content mirrors an ordinary invoice: your identity and your SIRET number (the establishment identifier), the client's details, a precise description, prices and total, payment terms.
The full list lives on the official page on mandatory invoice details. Three precautions come on top. The word "proforma" must appear in the document title and in the file name.
A validity period must be stated, as on a Quotation. And the number must come from a separate series, something like PRO-2026-001, so that the sequence of real invoices stays unbroken.
A micro-enterprise under the VAT exemption scheme puts no tax line on this document and carries over the wording "TVA non applicable, article 293 B du CGI" (VAT not applicable, article 293 B of the French tax code).
That is the most common form, not the only one allowed: the Bulletin officiel des finances publiques (the official tax doctrine) accepts two others, a reference to article 293 B bis of the CGI for the European exemption, and one to article 284 of directive 2006/112/EC.
This wording holds until 31 December 2026; VAT rules move into a new code on 1 January 2027, and the wording then becomes "TVA non applicable, article L. 233-3 du CIBS".
The reason for the caution is simple: a paper showing a price and a VAT amount looks like an invoice, and any VAT stated makes you liable for that tax purely because it was invoiced.
€4,000 paid against a proforma
A freelance trainer, under the non-regulated BNC regime (non-commercial professional income), sends a €4,000 proforma to a company's training department.
The accountant on the other side finds it clear, puts it straight through for payment, and the transfer lands seventeen days later.
The document is still not an invoice; the money, on the other hand, is very much in the account.
| What happens | Date | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| €4,000 proforma sent | 3 March 2026 | None: no receivable, no turnover |
| €4,000 transfer received | 20 March 2026 | First-quarter 2026 turnover |
| Final invoice issued and numbered | 23 March 2026 | The accounting record, on both sides |
Those €4,000 cost €4,000 × 25.6%, that is €1,024 of social contributions, at the 2026 rate for non-regulated liberal professions attached to the general scheme (regulated professions covered by the Cipav pension fund have their own rate).
That headline rate does not cover everything owed to URSSAF: on top come €8 of contribution à la formation professionnelle (vocational training contribution), at the 2026 rate of 0.2% for liberal professions, and it is only due if revenue was declared in the previous calendar year.
Income tax, again, is settled separately.
It is the Cash receipt that triggers everything, never the document: the sum belongs to the turnover of the quarter in which it reaches the account, even when no invoice has been drawn up yet.
Many people believe the opposite and work out their turnover from what they have invoiced.
That is wrong in both directions: an invoice issued in December and paid in January belongs to the following year, and a payment received against a bare proforma belongs to the year it arrives.
Taking the money on a proforma and never issuing the real invoice leaves income with no supporting document, which an audit spots in a minute.
A proforma can be corrected as often as you like, which is the whole point of it; the invoice that follows can no longer be altered.
Proforma, quotation and deposit invoice
Three documents travel before payment and are confused all the time. The devis (quotation) is an offer: once signed by the client it counts as a contract and commits you on price.
The proforma commits to nothing, it informs, and mostly serves to unblock an internal procedure at the buyer's end.
The Deposit invoice is a real invoice: it records an agreed part payment, it carries a number from the normal series, and it is declared like everything else.
One sentence sorts all three: a document that records a movement of money is an invoice, a document that announces a price is not.
A proforma the client has already paid does not change nature because of it. It stays what it was, and the final invoice must still be drawn up, for the amount actually received.
Frequently asked questions
Is a proforma invoice required anywhere?
Nowhere. No French text imposes it or regulates it: it exists because buyers, funders and administrations ask for one.
You can work for years without ever issuing a single one, and a detailed quotation very often does the same job.
Should it be numbered like an invoice?
No, and it is better not to. Using a number from the invoice series for a document that records no sale leaves a gap in the sequence the day the deal falls through.
A separate series, prefixed PRO, removes the question entirely.
Does it have to be declared as turnover?
No, as long as no money has arrived. A proforma sent, accepted, even countersigned, is not declared: the micro scheme declares what has been collected, at the monthly or quarterly deadline.
The day the client pays, the sum is declared, proforma or no proforma.
Can a client simply pay a proforma?
Nothing stops them, and it happens often with larger organisations. Two reflexes follow: draw up the final invoice straight away, and check that its amount matches the sum received exactly.
A gap between the two documents is the first thing a client's accounts department picks up.