Definition
A consultant accepts a job by email: "fine for €2,000, delivered by the end of the month". The client asks for four rewrites, rejects the fifth version and demands the deposit back.
Nothing in that exchange says how many rounds of revision were included, how quickly the invoice must be paid, or what happens when the client changes their mind.
A contract does exist: that email. It simply contains no rules.
Terms and conditions, known in France as conditions générales de vente or CGV, are the written groundwork you draft once and apply to every client.
They set the price and how it is calculated, payment methods and deadlines, and late payment penalties. They also cover delivery, guarantees, termination, and which court has jurisdiction.
A Quotation states what one specific job costs; the CGV state the rules around it.
The micro-enterprise scheme changes nothing here: your legal status does not decide whether they are mandatory, your customer does.
Mandatory or not: it depends on who is buying
Selling to a consumer makes them mandatory.
French consumer law requires you to provide, before the contract is concluded, the main features of the product or service, the price, delivery times, the legal guarantees and the option of referring the matter to a mediator.
Distance selling adds the right of withdrawal, its length and its starting point.
The official public service fact sheet lists what is expected, in a shop as well as online.
Two duties come back whenever a private individual is on the other side, and micro-entrepreneurs almost always forget them.
The first is the Legal guarantee of conformity, as soon as you sell goods or digital content.
The second is signing up to a Consumer mediation scheme, which covers every contract signed with a consumer, sales and services alike.
Between businesses the rule is different, and often misquoted: nothing forces you to draft any, but if a business customer asks for them, you must send them, and refusing is punished by a fine set out in the French commercial code.
Where they exist, they form the basis of commercial negotiation and must state the price list, the settlement terms, the Payment terms and the rate of Late payment penalties.
One point matters more than all the others: terms the client never saw before ordering cannot be enforced against them.
A discreet link in a website footer is not enough; they must be given on a durable medium, handed over or accepted before the order.
€4,000 of rebilled expenses, and the VAT exemption gone
A consultant under the non-regulated BNC regime (non-commercial professional income) writes into her terms that travel is rebilled at cost.
In 2026 she collects €34,000 in fees and €4,000 in expenses.
| What the terms provide | Collected in 2026 | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Consulting fees | €34,000 | Turnover, contributions at the 25.6% BNC rate in 2026 |
| Travel rebilled to the client | €4,000 | Turnover as well: €1,024 of extra contributions |
| Total collected | €38,000 | Above €37,500 in 2026, the VAT exemption ends on 1 January 2027 |
Under the micro scheme, everything you collect is turnover, expense reimbursements included.
The sum is €4,000 × 25.6%, or €1,024 of social contributions at the 2026 rate for non-regulated liberal professions under the general scheme, outside the Cipav fund.
On top come €8 of vocational training contribution at the 0.2% rate, which that headline rate does not cover, any more than it covers income tax.
Those same €4,000 push the total past the €37,500 exemption threshold that the French tax code sets in 2026 for services.
It is a sub-threshold, which comes on top of the €85,000 limit on total turnover, all activities combined.
Without them she would have stayed at €34,000 and kept the exemption for another year.
Crossing that threshold does not push her out of the micro scheme, whose own ceiling is far higher.
Drafted differently, the clause would have produced Disbursements, which stay out of turnover, provided there is a prior written mandate and an invoice made out in the client's name.
Your terms quote a price and carry the wording "TVA non applicable, article 293 B du CGI" (VAT not applicable), in force until 31 December 2026, then "TVA non applicable, article L. 233-3 du CIBS" from 1 January 2027.
On the day your turnover for the year crosses the higher threshold, €41,250 for a service provider in 2026, VAT applies to every transaction from that day onwards, and not from the first day of the following month as an Urssaf page still states.
If your terms do not say that prices are exclusive of tax and that any tax in force on the invoicing date is added to them, the client will hold you to the quoted price and the VAT will come out of your margin.
The opposite mistake costs just as much: VAT charged in error makes you liable for it purely because you invoiced it, with no right of deduction whatsoever, and your client cannot reclaim it either.
The amounts and switchover dates live in the VAT threshold entry. This page is up to date as of 5 September 2026 and will be updated as soon as the text appears.
CGV, CGU and the contract: three separate documents
CGV govern a sale. Conditions générales d'utilisation (terms of use) govern how a website or an application is used, with no money changing hands.
Mentions légales (the legal notice) identify who publishes the site: your name, your SIRET number (the establishment identifier), your address.
All three end up in the same footer and get mixed up, while plenty of micro-entrepreneur websites carry only one of them.
Then comes the most stubborn confusion: terms and contract are not opposites.
The CGV are the contract, in its general part; special conditions or a signed quotation then complete or override certain clauses for one given client.
Write down which of the two prevails in case of conflict, or a judge will decide it for you.
Frequently asked questions
Can you reuse a competitor's terms and conditions?
Nothing stops you technically, but two risks pile up: the text is protected by copyright, and above all it describes a different business.
Product sale terms applied to a consulting service leave the only questions that matter unanswered, namely how many rounds of revision are included and what happens to the deposit if the job is cancelled.
Where must the terms appear for them to apply?
On a durable medium, provided before the order: on the back of the quotation, attached to the order form, or behind a tick box for an online sale.
The client must be able to keep them and read them again later. A bare link to a page that changes with no version history proves nothing on the day a clause is disputed.
Are terms needed when you work with a single client?
If that client is a business and never asks for them, no obligation applies to you.
But a single client is precisely the one whose unpaid invoice stops your activity: the payment deadline clause and the penalty clause are worth far more than the quarter of an hour they take to write.
Can terms be changed during the year?
Yes, as often as needed, with two reservations. The version that applies is the one accepted at the time of the order, which means keeping a dated history of every version.
And orders already placed remain governed by the previous version, even where the new one would suit you better.