Invoicing private lessons: the rules for tutors in France

An invoice for private lessons is a dated, numbered document that records a teaching service you sold: to whom, for how long, and at what price. In France it is not the same thing as the annual tax-credit attestation, and it follows rules that many independent tutors learn about too late.

When do you have to issue one?

Any time you bill a company or a public body, an invoice is mandatory. For a private individual the rule is looser but still real: you must hand over a note for any service above 25 € including tax, and on request below that. A single 30 € lesson already clears the threshold.

In practice, if you teach regular students, it is simpler to issue one invoice per family, per month. That way you avoid the January scramble when parents ask for paperwork at tax time.

What has to be on it

An incomplete invoice can be rejected by the tax office and can cost you a fine. Here is what belongs on every one:

• The issue date and a unique number, following an unbroken sequence (no gaps, no duplicates).
• Your details: name or business name, address, and SIREN or SIRET number.
• The client's details: the family's name and address.
• A description of the service, for example "Maths tutoring, Year 12, four one-hour sessions".
• The date of the lesson or the period covered.
• The unit price before tax, the quantity, and the total due.
• The payment due date and, where relevant, the late-payment penalty rate.

If you run a micro-entreprise under the VAT franchise, add the line "TVA non applicable, article 293 B du CGI". You then charge no VAT and reclaim none.

Invoice, note, attestation: three different papers

This is the most common mix-up. An invoice proves the sale. A note is its simplified version for a private client. The tax-credit attestation is a yearly summary that lets the family claim the 50 % income-tax credit for personal services (services à la personne).

A family that pays 1,200 € for lessons over a year gets 600 € back through the tax credit, provided they hold the attestation. The monthly invoice is the proof that supports it all year.

For the attestation itself, see our guide to the French tax-credit attestation.

Numbering, VAT and record-keeping

Three technical points that start to bite as you grow:

1. Numbering. It must be chronological with no break. A year-based format works well, for example 2026-001, 2026-002. You may restart the sequence each 1 January, but keep it continuous within the year.
2. The VAT threshold. As long as your turnover stays under the franchise ceiling for services, you invoice without VAT. Cross it and you have to charge VAT and rebuild your templates.
3. Keeping records. Store every invoice for 10 years. One digital folder per year is enough, as long as nothing goes missing.

Stop redoing them by hand

The hard part is not knowing what goes on an invoice. It is producing 40 of them a month with no wrong number, amount, or name. A spreadsheet copes for a while, then one row shifts and a total is off.

With invoicing software for tutors, the lessons you taught feed straight into the invoice: the student's name, the dates, the hours, and the rate are already there. Numbering is automatic and unbroken. You proofread, you send, and the document goes out by email or WhatsApp in seconds.

For a practice tracking 30 families, that is often two to three hours saved at every month's end, and no forgotten invoice. See our pricing for the order of magnitude.

The short version

• Invoice above 25 € including tax, and always for companies.
• Check the mandatory fields, including the unique number and, on a micro-entreprise, the VAT-franchise line.
• Do not confuse the monthly invoice with the annual tax-credit attestation.
• Keep everything for 10 years, ideally in digital form.

Clean invoicing means less time lost, families that pay on time, and a tax credit that clears without a hitch in spring.