France is the first expansion market for Belgian online shops: €196.4 billion in online sales in 2025, 42.2 million buyers, and a border less than 130 km from our loading docks. No customs, no export declaration, no duties — you reach it almost like your domestic market.
Almost. Because three non-customs obligations are waiting for the Belgian seller — and the third one changed on 10 July 2026. Since that date, any producer not established in France, including a Belgian e-merchant shipping from Willebroek, must appoint an EPR authorised representative established in France. The measure covers every waste stream, not just packaging.
This article walks through those three obligations in the order they catch up with you: VAT and the €10,000 threshold, extended producer responsibility under the French AGEC law, and the delivery expectations specific to the French market. Each time, with what you settle online — and what you settle in the warehouse.
The short answer: three registrations, no customs
Selling to France from Belgium requires no customs formality at all: it is an intra-EU flow. What it does require is three registrations.
| Obligation | Triggered when | Where it is handled |
|---|---|---|
| French VAT via the OSS scheme | As soon as your cross-border B2C sales exceed €10,000 a year, across all EU countries combined | Online, from Belgium: quarterly OSS return filed through Intervat |
| EPR registration and unique identifier (IDU) | From the very first French sale of a product falling under a covered stream | Join a producer responsibility organisation, then receive an IDU via ADEME — one per stream |
| EPR authorised representative in France | Since 10 July 2026, for any producer not established in France | Written mandate to a representative established in France |
One remark before the detail: only the first of these depends on your volume. The other two apply to your first order exactly as they apply to your ten-thousandth. That is precisely what makes them easy to forget — and expensive to discover.
VAT: the €10,000 threshold and the OSS scheme
Below €10,000: you charge Belgian VAT
As long as all your B2C sales to other EU countries stay below €10,000 excluding VAT per calendar year, you keep charging Belgian VAT at 21%, exactly as you would for a customer in Ghent. Nothing to declare in France, nothing to register.
Watch the nature of the threshold: it is EU-wide and aggregated, not per country. Your sales to France, the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg all add up in the same counter. A shop selling €4,000 in France and €7,000 in the Netherlands has crossed the threshold, even though no single country reaches it.
Above it: French VAT, declared from Belgium
Past the threshold, the VAT due is that of the customer's country. For France: 20% standard rate, 10% or 5.5% depending on the product category, 2.1% in a few special cases. The switch applies from the transaction that crosses the threshold — not the following quarter, and not the following financial year.
The good news: this does not require a French VAT number. The One Stop Shop lets you declare and pay VAT for every EU country from Belgium, in a single quarterly return filed through Intervat. You stay registered in Belgium, you collect French VAT, and the Belgian administration passes it on to France.
One operational detail that matters: moving from 21% to 20% changes your displayed gross price. If your shop shows a single VAT-inclusive price across Europe, that missing VAT point falls into your margin — which is not dramatic. In the other direction, selling in Germany at 19% or the Netherlands at 21% at the same displayed price makes your margin drift from country to country without ever showing up in your reports.
The trap: stock in France breaks the OSS scheme
This is the most expensive mistake in the file, and it appears nowhere in general-purpose guides. The OSS scheme only covers distance sales dispatched from another member state. The moment you hold stock on French territory — a rented warehouse, a French provider, stock forward-deployed with Amazon FBA France — the sale is no longer a distance sale: it is a French domestic supply.
The consequence: French VAT registration, periodic French returns, and an OSS scheme that no longer serves you for those flows. It is a complete administrative shift, triggered by a purely logistical decision. We come back to it below, because it is the central trade-off of this whole topic.
EPR and the AGEC law: the representative obligation since 10 July 2026
Extended producer responsibility (EPR, REP in French) is the French implementation of the anti-waste and circular economy law known as AGEC. It is the least understood subject among Belgian sellers, and the one where penalties are most concrete.
You are a "producer" even if you manufactured nothing
The word is misleading. Under EPR, the producer is whoever places the product on the French market for the first time. A Belgian shop selling a t-shirt to a French consumer is the producer of that t-shirt in France — whether it manufactured it, imported it from Asia or bought it from a wholesaler in Antwerp. Reselling someone else's brand does not exempt you from the status.
And the packaging counts as much as the product. The shipping box that arrives at the French consumer's door is household packaging, in exactly the same way as the product box itself. Your void fill, your tape, your poly mailer: everything that ends up in the customer's bin falls into the eco-contribution base. This is the point that connects this regulatory file directly to your logistics provider — they are the one choosing and weighing that packaging.
The streams that actually concern e-commerce
| Waste stream | What it covers for an online shop |
|---|---|
| Household packaging | Almost every shop: product packaging and shipping box |
| Textiles, household linen, footwear | Clothing, textile accessories, shoes — see our fashion logistics |
| Electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) | Anything with a plug, a battery or a circuit, including small accessories |
| Batteries and accumulators | Sold on their own or built into the product — often overlaps with ADR rules on lithium batteries |
| Toys | Stream operational since April 2022 |
| Furniture and furnishing items | Including small furniture and structural decoration |
| Sports and leisure articles | Equipment, gear, accessories |
| DIY and garden articles | Tools, garden equipment — see garden & outdoor |
| Graphic paper | Catalogues, leaflets, inserts slipped into the parcel |
An e-commerce catalogue almost always falls under at least two streams: packaging, plus the one covering its products. A fashion brand that slips a printed catalogue into its parcels adds a third.
The unique identifier (IDU): obtained per stream, displayed publicly
Joining a producer responsibility organisation gets you a unique identifier, issued through ADEME's SYDEREP platform. It proves your registration. You get one per stream: packaging and textiles give you two distinct IDUs.
This identifier is not an internal reference number: it must appear in your terms and conditions of sale, in your contractual documents and on your website. It is the easiest thing to verify from the outside — and therefore the one marketplaces automate. Missing a unique identifier carries an administrative fine of up to €30,000 for a legal entity.
The warning rarely comes from the administration first. It comes from Amazon, Zalando or Cdiscount: since marketplaces became liable for non-compliant third-party sellers, they request IDUs per stream and suspend listings when they are missing. A compliance process that takes a few weeks can therefore cost several weeks of sales in the middle of peak season.
The representative: what the law of 8 July 2026 changed
This is the key development of the year. Article L. 541-10-9-1 of the French Environment Code, created by law no. 2026-602 of 8 July 2026 and in force since 10 July 2026, requires any person not established in France and subject to EPR to appoint a representative there.
Three points make it a genuine break for Belgian sellers:
- It targets EU sellers, not only non-EU ones. Being established in Belgium does not exempt you: the criterion is the absence of an establishment in France. A Belgian shop shipping from a Belgian warehouse is fully covered.
- It covers every waste stream, not just packaging. That is a considerable widening compared with what existed before.
- The mandate must be in writing, and the representative is subrogated into your obligations: joining the producer responsibility organisation, obtaining the unique identifier, filing annual declarations, paying contributions, and interfacing with marketplaces.
The legislator's intent is transparent: give the French administration an identifiable, sanctionable counterpart on its own territory. In practice, paying your eco-contribution is no longer enough — you also have to be represented.
If you were already selling to France before July 2026 and have done nothing since, this is the item to handle first. It is not an upcoming obligation: it has been in force for over a year by the time you plan your fourth quarter.
Triman and info-tri: the marking on the packaging
The last building block is the visible one: France requires the Triman logo together with sorting instructions (info-tri) on products and packaging intended for households. This is not a design recommendation, it is a mandatory statement.
Two size-based tolerances exist:
- If the largest face measures less than 10 cm² and no other document accompanies the product, the entire marking — logo and instructions — may be dematerialised.
- Between 10 and 20 cm², the sorting instructions may be dematerialised, but the Triman logo must remain physically present on the product or packaging.
Above that, everything must appear on the packaging. For a Belgian shop, this often means a France-specific packaging variant — or a single packaging design compliant with French requirements, used for every market. The second option is almost always cheaper in practice: one SKU, one packaging stock, one packing line.
Delivery: what the French market actually expects
French consumers do not behave like Belgian ones, and the main gap is the pickup point.
| Data point | What it means for your checkout |
|---|---|
| 55% home deliveries, 35% pickup point | The pickup point is not a secondary option: it is more than one parcel in three. Not offering it costs conversions |
| 77% have used home delivery, 76% a pickup point | Both modes are mainstream: this is not a niche audience to convert, it is an established habit |
| 79% say delivery quality influences their loyalty | Delivery is not a cost centre to squeeze: it is a repeat-purchase driver |
| 67% have abandoned a purchase over an unsatisfactory delivery promise | Two buyers in three drop out at checkout on that criterion alone |
The operational conclusion fits in one line: if you open France with home delivery only, you cut yourself off from roughly a third of the market — and you pay more per parcel, since pickup points are structurally cheaper. It is also the most direct lever to reduce your shipping costs without stretching your lead times.
On transit times from a Belgian warehouse, the order of magnitude is stable across carriers: next day for northern France and the Paris region, day+2 for the south. In other words, the same promise most French players make for the northern half of the country, where the bulk of the population lives.
Belgian stock or French stock: the trade-off
This is the question everyone asks after six months of French sales. The default answer, for the vast majority of Belgian shops, is do not duplicate the stock. Here is why.
| Criterion | Single stock in Belgium | Dedicated stock in France |
|---|---|---|
| VAT | OSS from Belgium, one quarterly return | Mandatory French VAT registration + French returns |
| Safety stock | One only, pooled across BE, FR, NL and LU | Duplicated: every SKU exists in two places |
| Stockouts | An item in stock is in stock for every market | You can be out of stock in France while the goods sit in Belgium |
| French lead time | Next day north and Paris region, day+2 south | Next day across a larger share of the country |
| Fixed cost | One contract, one WMS, one counterpart | Two providers, two integrations, two inventories to reconcile |
| EPR | Representative required (not established in France) | Identical: a third-party warehouse is not an establishment |
The real gain from French stock is limited to one day of transit across the southern half of the country. The cost is immediate and permanent: an extra VAT registration, a duplicated safety stock, and inventory reconciliation between two warehouses — the item shops underestimate most consistently.
The calculation flips when France clearly outweighs your other markets in volume and the southern half carries real weight in your order mix. Until then, a central Belgian warehouse serves France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg from a single inventory. That is exactly the logic we apply from Willebroek, less than 130 km from the border and around 300 km from Paris — see our pricing and our comparison of e-fulfilment providers in Belgium.
The six most common mistakes
- Assuming the OSS scheme covers everything. It covers distance sales. As soon as there is stock in France, French registration is required. Many shops discover this during a correction.
- Still charging 21% after the threshold. The switch to 20% happens on the transaction that crosses €10,000, not the following quarter. The counter adds up every EU country.
- Not displaying the unique identifier. It must appear in the terms of sale and on the website. It is the simplest check to automate — and carries up to €30,000 in administrative fines.
- Forgetting that the shipping box is household packaging. Shops often declare the product packaging and forget the parcel itself, the void fill and the mailer. That skews the entire tonnage declaration.
- Ignoring the representative obligation. In force since 10 July 2026, for every producer not established in France and every waste stream. Paying the eco-contribution is no longer enough.
- Launching France without pickup points. A third of French deliveries go through them, and they are the cheapest option. Skipping them costs twice: in conversion and in transport cost.
Your 30-day compliance plan
- Days 1–5 — Map your waste streams. List your product categories and match them against the EPR stream list. Always add packaging, and graphic paper if you slip a catalogue or leaflet into your parcels.
- Days 5–10 — Check the VAT threshold. Add up your B2C sales to all EU countries for the current calendar year. If you are approaching €10,000, open the OSS scheme before you cross it rather than after.
- Days 10–20 — Appoint a representative and register. This is the critical path: the written mandate, then membership per stream, then the unique identifiers. Count in weeks, not days.
- Days 20–25 — Update the site. Unique identifiers in the terms of sale and on the site, French VAT rate at checkout, pickup point option enabled.
- Days 25–30 — Handle the packaging. Triman and info-tri marking, plus a record of the real weight of your packaging by material: that is the data your annual declarations will run on. If you are outsourced, your provider holds it.
A scheduling remark: none of these steps should happen in November. Mandates and registrations take weeks, and a listing suspended on a marketplace during Black Friday costs infinitely more than the compliance work itself. If you are targeting France for the fourth quarter, September is the last comfortable window.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need a French VAT number to sell to France from Belgium?
No, as long as you ship from Belgium. Above €10,000 in cross-border B2C sales per year you charge French VAT at 20%, but you declare it from Belgium through the One Stop Shop, in a single quarterly return. However, as soon as you hold stock on French territory — a warehouse, a local provider or stock forward-deployed with a marketplace — French VAT registration becomes mandatory and the OSS scheme no longer covers those sales.
What is an EPR authorised representative and since when is it mandatory?
It is a representative established in France, appointed by written mandate, who is subrogated into your extended producer responsibility obligations: joining the producer responsibility organisation, the unique identifier, declarations and contributions. The obligation comes from article L. 541-10-9-1 of the French Environment Code, created by law no. 2026-602 of 8 July 2026 and in force since 10 July 2026. It applies to any producer not established in France, whether inside or outside the European Union, and covers every EPR waste stream.
Does the €10,000 threshold apply per country or across the whole European Union?
Across the whole European Union. The threshold is aggregated and annual: your B2C sales to France, the Netherlands, Germany and every other member state add up in a single counter. A shop selling €4,000 in France and €7,000 in the Netherlands has crossed it, even though no single country reaches it. The switch applies from the transaction that crosses €10,000.
Who pays the eco-contribution: the merchant or the logistics provider?
The merchant. You are the one placing the product on the French market, so you are the producer under EPR: the eco-contribution is yours, and the authorised representative pays it on your behalf. Your logistics provider comes in on the data side: they choose the shipping packaging, know its weight per material, and can give you the tonnage actually shipped to France. Without that data, your annual declaration rests on an estimate.
How long does it take to deliver France from a Belgian warehouse?
Depending on the carrier, count next day for northern France and the Paris region, and day+2 for the southern half — for orders placed before the cut-off time. From Willebroek the border is less than 130 km away and Paris around 300 km, which puts most of the French population in the next-day zone. That is the same commercial promise most French players make for the northern half of the country.
Open France without duplicating your logistics
The French market is open to Belgian shops with no customs and no local warehouse. What blocks people is never transport: it is three registrations — OSS, EPR, authorised representative — the last of which has been in force since July 2026 and is still largely unknown on the Belgian side.
If you are preparing that move, two complementary reads: our guide to selling to the UK and Switzerland from Belgium, where customs comes back into play, and our analysis of the French small parcel tax if you import from outside the EU before re-shipping.
And if you want to know what France would cost from a single Belgian warehouse: our pricing is public, and a quote is priced on your real volumes within one business day.