VAT Audit and the FEC: The File French Tax Authorities Demand During a Check

Key Takeaway: the FEC (Fichier des Écritures Comptables, or Accounting Entries File) is the text file French tax authorities can demand from day one of a VAT audit or accounting inspection. It lists every accounting entry over a financial year. It applies to businesses keeping computerised accounts, not to micro-entrepreneurs under the simplified regime.

You've run into "FEC" in a note from your accountant, or worse, in a letter from the French tax authority, and the acronym means nothing to you. That's normal: until you've been through a tax audit, nobody really looks into it. The problem is this isn't the kind of document you have time to prepare once the letter arrives.

1. What actually is the FEC?

The Fichier des Écritures Comptables is a text-format export (.txt) listing, line by line, every accounting entry recorded during a financial year: purchases, sales, bank movements, opening balances. It isn't a balance sheet or a summary, it's the raw material of your bookkeeping, in a format tax authorities can load directly into their own analysis software.

The obligation has existed since 2014 (article L47 A of the French Tax Procedures Code) with a precise goal: stop auditors wasting time requesting custom exports from every business they inspect. The format is the same for everyone.

2. Who needs to be able to produce a FEC?

This is where most freelancers get confused. The obligation applies to businesses subject to tax that keep computerised accounts: companies under corporate tax (SASU, EURL, SARL), and professionals under the standard tax regime (BIC or BNC réel). In short, if you use accounting or invoicing software to keep your books, this applies to you.

Micro-entrepreneurs under the micro-BIC or micro-BNC regime don't keep formal accounts, just a revenue register and, for some, a purchase register. In principle, they aren't subject to the FEC obligation, even during an audit. If that's your situation and something you read caused a scare, you can relax, though it's worth confirming your exact situation with your accountant if in doubt.

3. When does the tax authority actually ask for it?

Only during a vérification de comptabilité, an on-site or remote tax audit that examines your computerised accounts. The FEC is never requested in advance "just in case": it must be handed over right at the start of the audit, typically within days of receiving the audit notice.

That short deadline is exactly what trips up people discovering the acronym on that day. A FEC normally generates in seconds from decent accounting or invoicing software, but reconstructing an entire financial year by hand once the notice has arrived is a different story.

Don't confuse this with the electronic invoicing reform rolling out through 2027: the FEC concerns an after-the-fact audit of accounts you've already kept, not how you issue your invoices day to day. We cover that reform separately here.

4. What a FEC file actually contains

Warning: Article 1729 D of the French CGI penalises failure to provide the FEC or submitting a non-compliant file with a mandatory fine of at least €5,000, which can rise to 0.5% of turnover if higher.

The format is strictly governed by Article A.47 A-1 of the French Book of Tax Procedures (LPF): a plain text file (UTF-8 or ANSI) that must be named <SIREN>FEC<YYYYMMDD>.txt (e.g. 123456789FEC20251231.txt, with no hyphens or underscores), delimited by tabs or pipe characters (|).

It consists of 18 mandatory columns in a strict, unchangeable order:

1. JournalCode / JournalLib: code and description of the accounting journal (e.g. VT Sales, BQ Bank)
2. EcritureNum / EcritureDate: sequential entry number and date in the mandatory YYYYMMDD format (e.g. 20250315)
3. CompteNum / CompteLib: general ledger account number (at least 3 digits under the French PCG) and name (e.g. 706000 Services, 411100 Clients, 445710 Output VAT)
4. CompAuxNum / CompAuxLib: auxiliary account number and client or supplier name
5. PieceRef / PieceDate: source document reference (invoice number) and date (YYYYMMDD)
6. EcritureLib: description of the transaction
7. Debit / Credit: amounts formatted with a decimal comma (e.g. 1200,00). Golden rule: every individual entry number must balance strictly (Total Debit = Total Credit to the cent), and the general ledger overall balance must equal zero
8. EcritureLet / DateLet: matching letter and matching date linking invoices to settlements
9. ValidDate: final posting / lock date of the entry (YYYYMMDD)
10. Montantdevise / Idevise: amount and ISO currency code for transactions in foreign currencies

A single missing delimiter, a date in DD/MM/YYYY format, or an imbalance of a single cent immediately causes the tax authority's automated audit software to reject the entire file as non-compliant.

5. What happens if you can't produce one?

Being unable to produce a compliant FEC during an audit isn't a minor paperwork slip. It can be treated as obstruction of the audit, or lead to your accounts being rejected, and in the worst cases, to the tax authority reconstructing your turnover itself, usually less favourably than your own figures. A fine can also apply per financial year concerned. This isn't a document to improvise under deadline pressure.

How to test a FEC file

To check your file's compliance before an audit or before sending it to your accountant, you can use our Free Online FEC Tester: it checks the 18 columns, debit/credit balance, and date formats directly in your browser (100% private, works on Mac, Windows, and Linux).

The official tax authority tool is Test Compta Demat (available for download from DGFiP, Windows only). It checks technical structure (encoding, separator, 18 fields, debit/credit balance), not the tax substance of your accounts. A clean report certifies nothing on the substance to the auditor, but confirms the file passes the initial computerised filter.

Download and instructions: Fichiers des écritures comptables (FEC).

3 things to remember

1. The FEC is only required during a tax audit, never as a preventive measure, but the deadline to provide it is short.
2. Micro-entrepreneurs are, in principle, not subject to it: only businesses with computerised accounts are.
3. Better to be able to generate it in one click the day you're asked for it, than to discover it that same day.

How to get your FEC with HeyDevis

If your business is registered in France and you're on the Expert plan, the FEC export lives in your Invoices tab, under the "Export Comptable" button:

1. HeyDevis pulls together every invoice (and deposit invoice) issued over the period
2. Generates the matching accounting entries, with the correct accounts (706000 sales, 411100 clients, 445710 VAT collected)
3. Checks that every entry balances (debit = credit) before producing the file
4. Exports a .txt file in the official format, ready to hand to the tax authority or your accountant

The file is complementary to your accounting kept elsewhere, not a substitute: HeyDevis covers your invoicing flows, while your accountant remains responsible for the overall bookkeeping (expenses, fixed assets, payroll).