Sole Trader in France: Do You Really Need to Keep Your Receipts If You Can't Deduct Expenses?

The short answer is: yes, you absolutely must keep your receipts. But to understand why, you first need to separate two distinct tax concepts that many freelancers mistakenly lump together.

Deducting Expenses vs. Keeping Receipts: Two Completely Separate Obligations

Under the micro-enterprise regime, your tax calculation is beautifully simple: the French tax administration applies a flat-rate allowance to your revenue — 34% for liberal professions, 50% for commercial service activities, and 71% for trading activities. This allowance is designed to represent your business costs in a standardised, simplified way. The result: you don't need to list your actual expenses or prove them for the purpose of calculating your income tax.

So far, so good. And this is precisely where the dangerous mental shortcut takes hold: *"I don't have to justify my expenses, so I don't need my receipts."* Wrong.

The obligation to retain professional purchase receipts does not stem solely from the right to deduct expenses. It stems from your status as a self-employed professional, subject to accounting obligations and potentially to an audit by the French social security authority (URSSAF) or the French tax authority. These two realities exist entirely independently of whichever tax regime you happen to be on.

The VAT Threshold: The Time Bomb Most Sole Traders Never See Coming

This is the most concrete argument — and the most frequently overlooked. As a sole trader benefiting from the VAT exemption (*franchise en base de TVA*), you don't charge VAT to your clients — as long as you stay below the legal thresholds. In 2024, those thresholds stand at €36,800 in annual revenue for service activities, and €91,900 for trading activities.

What happens when you cross that VAT threshold — whether gradually over the course of a year, or all at once after landing a major contract? You move into the standard VAT regime. From that point on, you must collect VAT on your invoices — but you can also, finally, reclaim VAT on your professional purchases.

And this is exactly where every receipt you threw away comes back to haunt you. If you've discarded six months' worth of professional purchase records because you thought they were useless, you've just permanently forfeited your right to recover the VAT embedded in those purchases. These amounts cannot be recovered retroactively without a valid supporting document. The French tax authority (Direction Générale des Finances Publiques) is uncompromising on this point: no proof, no deduction.

How Long Do You Need to Keep Your Receipts?

French regulations are precise when it comes to how long accounting and tax documents must be retained. For a sole trader, the general rule is as follows:

Professional purchase receipts must be kept for 10 years from the end of the financial year to which they relate. This is the legal retention period applicable to commercial documents, as defined by the French Commercial Code (*Code de commerce*).

From a tax perspective, the French General Tax Code (Code général des impôts — CGI) gives the administration the right to audit your tax returns for the past 3 years under the standard statute of limitations. In cases of fraudulent conduct, this window extends to 10 years.

Do You Need to Keep Everything, or Only Purchases Above a Certain Amount?

A persistent myth suggests that below a certain threshold — €150, €200 — receipts aren't necessary. There is no legal minimum threshold below which you are exempt from providing supporting documents in France. Every professional purchase, regardless of the amount, can in theory be requested during an audit.

The relevant distinction is not about amounts — it's between purchases that are clearly professional in nature — computer equipment, software, office supplies, travel expenses tied to a specific assignment — and purchases with mixed personal and professional use. For the latter, the absence of a receipt is even more problematic, because you have no way to demonstrate the professional share of the expense.

Stop Fighting a Losing Battle with a Shoebox

The real reason sole traders throw away their receipts isn't ignorance — most people know, vaguely, that they should keep them. It's that keeping them is a genuine hassle. Sorting them, filing them, making sure they don't fade, tracking down last November's receipt when you need it in March — it's time and mental energy that nobody wants to spend.

The overflowing shoebox. Receipts stuffed into a coat pocket all winter. Crumpled vouchers at the bottom of a bag. This is the reality for a huge number of freelancers — and it offers no more protection than a bin when an audit arrives.

ScanCompta solves this problem at its root. The app uses an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine capable of reading your receipts even when they're crumpled, slightly faded, or photographed in imperfect lighting conditions. You take the photo at the moment of purchase — thirty seconds — and the receipt is captured, categorised, and archived digitally in a format that is fully valid for the French tax administration.

No more shoebox. No more unreadable receipt at the worst possible moment. Just a clean, organised archive, accessible from your phone, ready to be shared with your accountant or produced during an audit. And if your revenue crosses the VAT threshold tomorrow, every supporting document is already there — exploitable, complete — so you can reclaim every euro you're entitled to.

Under the micro-enterprise regime, administrative simplicity is a right. But it should never come at the cost of your protection.

Article based on regulations in force as of 1 September 2026 (French Commercial Code / Code de commerce, French General Tax Code / CGI, URSSAF guidelines). For questions specific to your personal situation, please consult a certified accountant (expert-comptable).