Definition
The invoice went out on 3 March, payable within thirty days. On 4 April, nothing. Camille, a freelance developer, sends a polite reminder by email, then waits some more.
When the agency finally pays, six weeks later, she has spent two half-days chasing her own money and is convinced that no rule will ever make anyone pay for them. One does.
The line that says so is printed at the bottom of her own invoice, copied across for two years without ever being read.
The indemnité forfaitaire de recouvrement, the fixed recovery fee, is a set sum that every business client owes its supplier as soon as it pays an invoice after the due date.
It covers, as a lump sum, what chasing the payment cost: the time spent, the letters, the calls.
It is owed as of right from the day after the due date, with no prior reminder and with no contract clause needed. Its amount is a flat figure set by decree and written into article D. 441-5 of the code de commerce, the French commercial code, where it takes up a single line.
It comes on top of Late payment penalties, which are a percentage and grow with the length of the delay: two separate sums, never one instead of the other.
Who owes it, and from when
The debtor is a business, and only a business.
A private customer never owes it, whatever your terms and conditions say: the rule governs dealings between professionals, and printing it on an invoice addressed to a consumer creates no right against that person.
When an individual fails to pay, the tools sit elsewhere: the Formal notice first, then, if the silence continues, the Payment order.
The starting point is the due date shown on the invoice, the one set by your Payment terms. The next day the fee is acquired: nothing to request, nothing to prove, no loss to justify.
It counts per unpaid invoice, not per client and not per day of delay: three overdue invoices with the same client give rise to three fees, while a single invoice settled six months late produces only one.
Two limits complete the rule. If the costs actually incurred exceed the flat amount, additional compensation can be claimed on supporting evidence.
And the fee stops being owed where the opening of a sauvegarde, redressement or liquidation judiciaire (the French insolvency procedures) prevents the client from paying on the due date.
Three overdue invoices, the full calculation
Camille invoices the same agency three months running, 1,200 € a month, payable within thirty days. None of the three is settled on time.
She therefore claims three fees, one per invoice, on top of the penalties calculated over each period of delay.
Had she grouped the three assignments onto a single invoice of 3,600 €, she would have obtained only one: bundling invoices to keep things simple means giving up two thirds of what the law grants her.
During those three months, that 3,600 € costs her nothing.
In a micro-enterprise it is the Cash receipt that triggers everything: an invoice issued and never paid enters neither the turnover declaration nor the ceiling of the scheme.
The day the agency pays, the 3,600 € falls into the quarter of collection.
The sum is 3,600 × 25.6%, which makes 921.60 € of social contributions at the 2026 rate for non-regulated liberal activities under the general scheme, outside the Cipav.
On top come 7.20 € of CFP, the vocational training contribution, at the 2026 rate of 0.2% for the liberal professions.
That 25.6% rate in 2026 covers neither the CFP nor income tax, which come on top; the chamber levy, for its part, falls only on traders and craftspeople, never on a liberal activity.
The real cost of an unpaid invoice is not the invoice, it is what it makes you miss elsewhere.
Contributions only validate pension quarters if they are actually paid: on identical turnover, someone up to date validates a quarter where someone in arrears validates none.
Two slow clients can therefore cost you pension quarters, on a scale that dwarfs the fee they owe you. When the URSSAF deadline approaches and the money has not arrived, ask for an URSSAF payment plan before the debit date, never after.
What gets confused every time
Three different sums hide behind the same delay. Penalties run day by day and grow for as long as the invoice stays unpaid.
The fixed fee is single and flat, whatever the length of the delay. Additional compensation is obtained only on supporting evidence, when the recovery bill exceeds the flat amount.
The three add up, and none cancels the others.
Then comes the costliest confusion: believing that the fee is created by the invoice.
Its wording does belong to the Mandatory invoice details of any invoice between professionals, alongside the penalty rate and the settlement date, and leaving it out exposes you to an administrative fine.
But it is the law that creates the debt, not your document: an invoice that forgot the line opens the same right, and an invoice that displays it does not make your client a debtor before the due date.
Frequently asked questions
Must I claim it on every single late payment?
No. The fee is owed to you, it is not imposed on you: nothing stops you from letting two days of delay go with a loyal client.
What costs dearly is announcing in advance that you never apply penalties or fees, because your invoices then move to the back of the queue in your clients' payment runs.
Should I print it on invoices sent to private customers?
The wording targets invoices between professionals and has no effect on a consumer.
The clearest approach is to keep two templates: one for business clients, carrying the line, and one for private customers, without it.
Against a consumer, only the contract, the written reminder and civil proceedings come into play.
My client refuses to pay the fee: what can I do?
Set it out again in a written mise en demeure, the formal notice, with the calculation detailed invoice by invoice, then apply to the competent court for a payment order.
The judge has the text in front of them, and since the fee is owed as of right it is not open to negotiation: it is for the client to prove that payment was made on time.
Can I claim it once the invoice has already been settled?
Yes, because the debt arose the day after the due date: a late payment does not erase it, it establishes it.
In practice it is claimed in the reminder or just after settlement, while the commercial relationship still allows the subject to be raised without turning ten days of delay into an open dispute.
Formal demand for an unpaid invoice adds it to the sum when your client is a business, and tells you what is still claimable when they are not.