Factur-X E-Invoices: Receive, Read and Verify Locally

Since September 1, 2026, every French company must be able to receive electronic invoices — and “Factur-X” files are landing in mailboxes. A Factur-X is a hybrid document: readable by a human and by accounting software. This guide explains how to recognize one, extract its XML and check it without sending the invoice anywhere — the Unpack attachments tool runs entirely in your browser.

The reform timeline: who owes what, and when

Deadline	Obligation	Who is concerned
September 1, 2026	Reception of e-invoices	All VAT-registered businesses in France
September 1, 2026	Issuance	Large companies and mid-sized enterprises (ETI)
September 1, 2027	Issuance	SMEs and micro-businesses

Three useful precisions:

• The scope covers domestic B2B transactions between VAT-registered parties. B2C sales and cross-border operations fall under a separate regime, e-reporting: data is transmitted to the tax authority, but those are not e-invoices in the strict sense.
• The channel: issuance goes through a registered private dematerialization platform (PDP) — the public portal has been refocused on the business directory and tax data collection.
• The formats accepted in the minimum baseline are three: Factur-X, UBL and CII. Only Factur-X is hybrid; the other two are pure XML, unreadable without suitable software.

The practical consequence, inside and outside France: even if your company doesn’t issue e-invoices yet, you already receive them — and some PDFs labelled “Factur-X” will be plain PDFs in disguise. Being able to read and check them matters now.

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Factur-X: two ingredients, not one

A Factur-X invoice is a hybrid file:

1. A PDF/A-3 — the archivable version of PDF, readable by a human.
2. An embedded XML file as an attachment (factur-x.xml), structured according to the European EN 16931 standard — the part accounting software reads automatically.

An “ordinary” PDF/A (profile 1b, 2b…) without XML is not a Factur-X, even if it’s named invoice.pdf. And a plain PDF — however polished — is just a document to re-read by hand. Factur-X comes in several profiles (MINIMUM, BASIC WL, BASIC, EN 16931, EXTENDED) that define how rich the XML data is; the two most common in France are BASIC WL and EN 16931. Factur-X shares its technical base with Germany’s ZUGFeRD — same hybrid approach, same EN 16931 core.

Every Factur-X is a PDF/A-3; the reverse is not true. PDF/A-3 is an archiving container that allows attachments; Factur-X additionally requires the structured XML, a declared relationship between the visual rendering and the data, and metadata announcing the profile in use. Document Flare doesn’t read those conformance metadata — its PDF metadata editing covers title, author, subject and keywords — but for a manual check, the discriminating test stays the simplest one: is the XML there?

Verifying a received invoice, locally

The simplest test needs no specialized tool: is the XML present?

1. Open the Unpack attachments tool — the mechanics are detailed in the PDF embedded files article.
2. Drop the invoice: you get a ZIP of everything the PDF embeds.
3. Look for factur-x.xml (or zugferd-invoice.xml — the same standards family, on the German side). Present → very likely a real Factur-X; absent → a plain PDF, whatever it looks like.

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The extraction reads the EmbeddedFiles name tree in the PDF catalog — exactly where the standard requires the XML to live. If the tool reports no attachments found, the file is not a conforming Factur-X.

Extraction is not validation. Document Flare shows that the XML is present and lets you read it; it does not check the EN 16931 schema or the profile’s business rules. For formal validation, use the FNFE-MPE validator or your e-invoicing platform.

Reading the extracted XML

The XML opens like any text file. In clear text you’ll find: invoice number and date, the issuer’s identity and company identifier (the SIRET in France), the buyer’s identity, invoice lines, net/VAT/gross amounts, payment terms, sometimes a settlement IBAN. Cross-check those values against the PDF rendering — amounts differing between XML and visual is a red flag.

A useful check too when a supplier sends “the same file as before”: if the old invoice contained the XML and the new one doesn’t, the issuer may have changed pipelines — or the file isn’t what it claims. And facing a “corrected” invoice, compare the two versions: the page-by-page text comparison (up to 100 pages, 2 files) surfaces every alteration.

Why not drop the invoice on an online “validator”

An invoice contains your business data: who supplies you, at what amounts, at what pace — and often your banking details. Uploading it to an unknown service means disclosing your commercial relationships to a third party whose retention you can’t observe. Local extraction removes the question entirely: the document stays in browser memory, and you can verify it yourself — the network test in our no-upload PDF tools pillar shows that no request carries your file.

Three reception-side use cases

• Small business owner: a supplier announces they’re “switching to Factur-X” → extract, check the XML is there, cross-check the amounts. Ten seconds, zero upload.
• Accountant: grab the factur-x.xml to import it into accounting software instead of retyping the invoice — that’s precisely what the embedded XML is for.
• Archiving: keep the PDF/A-3 together with its XML. The rendering-plus-data pair is what gives the format its long-term value; see also archiving to PDF/A locally.

What Document Flare does — and doesn’t do

Let’s be clear about the scope:

• Extract and read: yes — attachments to a ZIP (1 file, 50 MiB, 1,000 pages), XML reading, text comparison of versions, all locally.
• Validate EN 16931 compliance: no — extraction proves the XML is present, not that its schema is valid. That’s the job of a dedicated validator or your platform.
• Convert to PDF/A: yes, but best-effort at profile 1b — the details and limits are in the PDF/A and validation article.
• Produce a Factur-X: no. Even attaching an XML to a PDF with the embed tool wouldn’t set the PDF/A-3 base, the declared data relationship or the conformance metadata — the job of your invoicing software or a certified e-invoicing platform, not a PDF utility.

In short

The French reform puts Factur-X at the center of B2B exchanges: mandatory reception for everyone since September 2026, generalized issuance by September 2027. The boundary is simple to remember: no embedded EN 16931 XML, no e-invoice. Attachment extraction gives you the answer in ten seconds, without sending a financial document to a third-party service — and to understand why everything happens in the browser, see the PDF tools without upload pillar.