A business that sells or buys goods within the European Union must comply with the following reporting formalities:

• It must submit a summary statement of its cross-border sales. This is tax information, which is intended for exchange between the tax authorities of the Member States for the purposes of intra-EU VAT control. In principle, this statement should be drawn up every quarter within a time limit and according to procedures determined by each European tax authority. However, the latter may provide for these recapitulative statements to be filed on a monthly basis.

• It must complete an Intrastat statement to trace its intra-EU flows of goods if a certain amount is exceeded. The threshold is set by each European country. This is statistical information.

The tracing of trade in goods between France and the rest of Europe was modified on 1 January 2022 to bring France in line with European legislation. Since this date, the traditional Declaration of Exchange of Goods (D.E.B.), which included a statistical section and a fiscal section, has been abolished and replaced by two new distinct declaratory formalities:

• The spontaneous entry of a VAT recapitulative statement only when intra-Community supplies have been made from France.

• The response to a statistical survey on intra-EU trade in goods, by type of flow (introduction/shipment). There is no threshold. Companies are selected by the French administration on the basis of a sample for which it alone has the formula. The response to the statistical survey will be compulsory even if there are no flows carried out by the company for a given month.