France e-Invoicing Standards: AFNOR XP Z12-012, XP Z12-013, XP Z12-014

Who publishes what

French e-invoicing documentation comes from more than one body, and the documents do different jobs. Confusing them is a common source of wasted effort.

AFNOR (Association Française de Normalisation) is the national standards body. It publishes the three XP Z12-01x standards covering message formats and lifecycle statuses, the connection API, and B2B use cases. These are sold through the AFNOR store.

DGFiP (Direction Générale des Finances Publiques) is the tax authority. It publishes the spécifications externes, the external specifications, on impots.gouv.fr. That package carries the annexes, the XSD schemas and the Swagger API definitions, and it is free to download.

AIFE (Agence pour l'Informatique Financière de l'État) states that it builds and operates the reform's digital tools. It describes the annuaire, the directory listing businesses and public entities in scope along with the platform holding their data and their e-invoicing addresses, as the central service of the infrastructure supporting the reform. Directory lookups in practice are covered in our post on the platform readiness gap.

Why the standards are labelled XP

All three documents carry the XP prefix, which marks them as *normes expérimentales*, experimental standards rather than NF norms.

AFNOR uses this document type so that specifications can be tested in practice before wider adoption. Feedback is gathered from users to assess whether a published document needs to change, ahead of possible integration into the standard corpus.

XP Z12-012: formats and lifecycle statuses

Full title: *Formats et Profils des messages Factures et Statuts de cycle de vie, constitutifs du socle minimal applicable à la Réforme Facture Electronique en France*.

The scope covers two things, and the second is easy to overlook. Alongside the formats and profiles for invoice messages, the standard covers the lifecycle statuses, the messages that report what has happened to an invoice after it has been sent.

The current edition runs to 99 pages, so budget more than an afternoon if someone hands it to you. AFNOR's Norm'Info entry gives its publication date as 30 June 2026.

For the underlying format families, see our explainers on EN 16931 and on the Factur-X, UBL 2.1 and CII choice in France.

XP Z12-013: the connection API

Full title: *API pour interfacer les systèmes d'informations des entreprises avec les Plateformes de Dématérialisation Partenaires*.

This standard covers the interface between a company's information systems and the accredited platforms.

If you are scoping an ERP or billing-system integration, this is the document your developers will want. Swagger API definitions are included in the DGFiP specification package described below.

XP Z12-014: B2B use cases

Full title: *Cas d'usage B2B applicables dans le cadre la Réforme Facture Electronique en France*.

This is the use case catalogue, covering the B2B situations that arise under the reform.

Because it is organised by business situation rather than by data field, it is the most approachable of the three for a functional or finance audience. A practical way to use it is to list your own invoicing scenarios and find each one in the catalogue. Anything you cannot match is worth raising with your platform early.

The current editions

AFNOR published new editions of all three standards in June 2026. They replace the February 2026 editions, which are cancelled.

The standards are revised as the reform is refined, so the edition date matters when you are citing a clause or handing a specification to a developer. Check that everyone is working from the same edition before assuming a disagreement is a genuine technical one.

The DGFiP external specifications

The AFNOR standards are sold through the AFNOR store. The DGFiP external specifications are published free of charge on impots.gouv.fr, and for most implementation work they are the more practical starting point.

The current release is labelled Version 3.2 des spécifications externes de la facturation électronique (BtoB, GtoB et BtoG) du 30/04/2026. It covers all three transaction directions: business to business, government to business, and business to government.

The download is a single archive containing the specification document, the annexes, worked examples, the XSD schemas and the Swagger API definitions. Earlier versions stay available on the same page, which is useful when you need to work out what changed between two releases.

One point worth watching: the AFNOR editions described above are dated June 2026, later than the 30 April 2026 specification package. Before starting work, check the DGFiP page for a newer release rather than assuming the copy you downloaded last quarter is still current.

Which document do you actually need?

For most teams, the document they need is not the AFNOR text.

If you are integrating a system, start with the DGFiP external specifications package. The XSD schemas and Swagger files are in there, and it is free.

If you are mapping business scenarios, XP Z12-014 is the one to read, because it is organised by situation rather than by data field.

If you are citing a normative reference for a format or a status, XP Z12-012 is the document, and the edition date belongs in the citation.

If you are briefing a steering committee, none of these is the right artefact. Use the reform timeline and obligations instead, which we cover in what most finance teams get wrong.

Related reading

For the reform timeline, scope and obligations, see France's e-invoicing reform: what most finance teams get wrong. For platform routing and format choice, see PDP, Factur-X and September 2026. For the difference between an accredited platform and a ready one, see accredited is not the same as ready. Country-level data sits on the France country page.