Every year, many French companies call upon external service providers located outside of France to perform specific tasks that require skills that are not available within the French company.
When these skills require innovation or R&D (Research & Development), it becomes possible for the client to recover up to 30% of the invoices of its provider in the form of tax credit. This aid is also paid if the service provider is not located in France.
To do so, two (2) conditions must be met.
– The service provider (private company or academic research laboratory) must provide innovation, engineering, design or R&D services. To determine if the services fall within these fields, it is strongly recommended to contact experts in innovation taxation such as inosearch
– The service provider must apply for a research or innovation accreditations and obtain it on the date of the invoice.
What are innovation or research accreditations?
Innovation or research accreditations are « labels » issued by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (MESRI), and the General Directorate of Companies (DGE). These approvals attest to the competence of a service provider to carry out quality work related to innovation, R&D or design for others. Obtaining the accreditations is a guarantee of competence and recognition for a service provider. But, the accreditations allow a company that uses the services of a service provider who has these approvals to recover up to 30% of the invoice in tax credit. It is therefore a commercial and marketing advantage for subcontractors.
This recovery system is quite common in the French tax administration, but few non-French speaking companies are aware that they are also eligible.
The accreditations are labels that are exported beyond the French borders
In 2022, 5,901 accreditations were issued, of which 1,364 were issued to non-French companies.
If you are a non-French company and provide services, design or R&D to French companies, you can obtain innovation or research approval to facilitate your development in France.
Do you want to get accredited? How to do it :
You must make an initial request for accreditations with the support of a technical file and administrative documents written in FRENCH.
Referenced in the requests for innovation and research accreditations, Inosearch can accompany you and put together your entire application, follow and defend your file with the ministry.
The timetable for submitting the first applications for approval is as follows:
– First application for research approval: between December 15 of the previous year and March 15 of the year requested
– First application for innovation approval: before September 30 of the year requested
