FEC (Fichier des Écritures Comptables): format and rules

If you run a business in France, sooner or later someone will mention the FEC. It is not a tax return and you do not file it on a schedule. It is the standard file your books must be able to produce when the French tax administration (DGFiP) audits you.

What the FEC is

The Fichier des Écritures Comptables is a copy of every accounting entry of a financial year in one standardised electronic file. Under article L47 A (I) of the Livre des procédures fiscales (LPF), a business that keeps its accounts on a computer meets its duty to present its books by handing over this copy, and article A47 A-1 of the LPF sets the technical standard (BOFiP BOI-CF-IOR-60-40-20, as of October 2026). The obligation applies since 1 January 2014 (economie.gouv.fr, as of October 2026).

Who needs it and when

The rule covers taxpayers who keep their accounts on computerised systems, are required by the tax code to keep accounting records, and are being audited (vérification de comptabilité). Two groups are exempt as a concession: property companies (SCI) taxed only on rental income with individual partners only, and auto-entrepreneurs (BOFiP BOI-CF-IOR-60-40-10, § 50–55, as of October 2026).

Timing depends on the type of audit:

• On-site audit: the copy is due at the inspector's first visit (same BOFiP, § 170).
• Remote audit (examen de comptabilité): you have 15 days after receiving the notice to send the files, and the administration then has six months to analyse them (economie.gouv.fr, as of October 2026).

Not providing a compliant file triggers the fine in article 1729 D (I) of the Code général des impôts: 5,000 €, or 10 % of the reassessed tax if that is higher, applied once per audit regardless of how many years are covered (BOFiP BOI-CF-IOR-60-40-10, § 275 and § 290, as of October 2026).

Structure of the file

The administration's guidance (BOFiP BOI-CF-IOR-60-40-20, as of October 2026) describes the essentials:

• Format: either a flat sequential file or an XML file following the DGFiP's XSD. In a flat file, the first line holds the field names.
• One file per financial year, covering all journals. Entries are numbered chronologically, rising, with no gaps.
• Complete: opening entries (à nouveau), depreciation, provisions and other year-end entries are included; summary (centralisation) entries are not.
• French chart of accounts (PCG) account numbers and French-language labels.
• Naming: the official examples follow the pattern 123456789FEC20131231, a nine-digit number, the letters FEC and the closing date of the financial year.
• Values: in the published examples, dates are written as YYYYMMDD (20111123) and amounts with a decimal comma (392,87). Debit and credit must both contain a number, so the unused side is 0,00. A field marked "blank if not used" must stay empty, not 0 or a space.

The standard layout has 18 columns (§ 410). The guidance describes them in this order:

If your codes are internal (journal codes, currency codes), you hand over a description file explaining them.

Producing and checking it

The FEC is generated by the accounting software that holds the general ledger, usually your expert-comptable's. The DGFiP offers a free Windows tool, Test Compta Demat, that checks the structure of a file and lists anomalies (economie.gouv.fr, as of October 2026). The French government also recommends generating a FEC at each year-end close, testing it and archiving it.

Common reasons for rejection: gaps in the entry numbering, missing opening entries, monthly summary entries instead of the detail, non-French account numbers, and zeros typed into fields that should stay empty.

How Bonro produces it

Bonro's FEC export is honest about what it is: a FEC-format subset built from your receipts. It is a tab-separated text file with a balanced debit/credit entry per receipt in the purchase journal (AC): the expense excluding VAT on the account of its category, deductible VAT on 44566 and the total on supplier account 401000. It uses 16 of the FEC column names; the auxiliary-account columns are left out because all receipts go to one generic supplier account. Business meals (repas d'affaires) are one entry with no split, and EcritureNum continues across exports instead of restarting.

It is not the complete FEC for the tax administration. Your expert-comptable imports it into French accounting software and reconciles it with the general ledger, which holds the opening balances and validated journal numbering, and the official FEC comes from there. For other countries, see the Auditfile XAF guide or the DATEV booking batch.

The FEC export is part of the Bonro Pro plan; see Bonro's pricing for details.