Invoice and Certificate of Origin Translation for France

The Customs Union, the A.TR and Douane

Under the Customs Union industrial goods count as being in free circulation when accompanied by an A.TR movement certificate; the A.TR shows not the origin of the goods but their free circulation status within the Union. In France the customs authority you deal with is Douane, and declarations are processed through the DELTA electronic system. Since the A.TR is a pre-printed standard EU form issued by customs, it is usually not translated separately; the real need for translation arises in the commercial invoice and in free-text sections. Because the expectation that a document be submitted in French runs strong in the French administrative tradition, a French translation of the invoice comes up more often than it does for Germany.

In a file bound for France, then, the route a commercial document takes is usually chamber endorsement and customs certification; translation is added on top of that, when Douane or the French buyer asks for it. The certificate of origin is endorsed by the chambers of commerce and industry and shows non-preferential origin; the chamber’s endorsement is an inseparable part of the document.

EUR.1, EUR-MED and preferential origin

For goods the Customs Union does not cover, or for goods produced with third-country inputs, preferential origin comes into play; the document for it is the EUR.1 or, where Pan-Euro-Mediterranean cumulation applies, the EUR-MED movement certificate. These are pre-printed standard EU forms; their names are preserved in translation and are not generalised into “certificate of origin”. In translation the three documents keep separate functions: the A.TR for free circulation, the EUR.1/EUR-MED for preferential origin, the certificate of origin for non-preferential origin.

The description of the goods, the tariff heading and the amounts on the invoice are expected to match these documents; faced with an inconsistency, Douane will question whether the consignment is one and the same. In a French translation, keeping the descriptions of the goods in line with the wording on the accompanying A.TR or EUR.1 forestalls any contradiction between the documents.

The French buyer and the expectation as to language

The French buyer enters the invoice into its own system for payment and accounting; in a letter of credit transaction the language and format the bank requires are decisive. Where French is asked for, delivery term abbreviations and customs tariff heading numbers are not translated but carried across as they stand; what is translated is the description of the goods and the free text. Trade names, tax numbers and chamber endorsement details are identifying data and are preserved.

The language expectation of the French administrative tradition does not stop at the invoice; the free-text sections of a certificate of origin, or of a document travelling with it, are rendered into French as well where necessary. The point to watch here is that the box headings on pre-printed standard forms such as the A.TR and the EUR.1 are already multilingual, and no attempt should be made to translate them afresh; what is translated is only the free fields filled in by hand. Since Douane compares the documents against the declaration processed through DELTA, keeping the value, the description of the goods and the tariff heading on the invoice consistent with the declaration and with the movement certificate lets the procedure move on without a trail of further queries. Where the French buyer takes regular consignments, settling the descriptions of the goods and the delivery terms once in a consistent glossary speeds up later transactions; holding to established renderings rather than building the terminology from scratch with every new consignment secures both the pace of the work and the consistency between documents.

• Do not take the A.TR for a certificate of origin; it shows free circulation status.
• The expectation of French runs strong; plan the invoice translation early.
• Do not translate the tariff heading or the delivery term abbreviations.

Certification: chamber, customs and a court-listed translator

By their nature commercial documents usually follow the route of chamber endorsement and customs certification rather than apostille. Where translation is required, a translation submitted for official use in France must be produced by a sworn translator (traducteur assermenté) on the list of a court of appeal (Cour d’appel), or else the Türkiye chain is followed: sworn translator, notarisation, apostille. If a document is to be notarised and then submitted for official use, the apostille is obtained from the governor’s office or the district governor’s office; since France is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, confirm the current position from the official HCCH list. You can run your export file through our single office in Ankara Kızılay, see the cost on our pricing page and upload your document to request a quote. This page is for general information only; confirm the customs and preference regime rules with your customs broker.