Travelers - Operation and Eligibility
How it works and how it is eligible for tax exemption for international buyers
Get the tax refund as a traveler
A simple process for international buyers' rights:
1. A form provided by the store summarizes your purchases, personal information, and the amount of tax that will be refunded.
2. Then, you need to validate this form with customs (Customs Visa) by scanning it at one of the PABLO terminals, located at French airports and border crossing points. Keep the items and invoices corresponding to the form with you.
3. Finally, you are refunded the tax according to the method chosen when creating the form.
We remind you that Fair Tax Free is committed to the confidentiality of the information transmitted by the stores and travelers; private information is in no case commercially shared externally.
For more details, please directly visit the Customs website:
http://www.douane.gouv.fr/articles/a10806-detaxe-conditions-d-eligibilite
Eligibility Criteria
You must be:
- A resident in a Country outside the European Union and the date of the purchases, regarderless of your citizenship.
- Visiting France for less than six months.
- 16 years of age or older.
Are assimilated to countries outside the European Union:
- The overseas communities (COM) of the French Republic: French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, St. Pierre and Miquelon, the French Southern and Antartic Territories, Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy.
- The following territories: the Faroe Islands, the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, Bonaire, Saint-Eustache and Saba, Gibraltar, the Dutch side of St. Martin, the Helgoland Island and territory of Büsingen, Livigno, Campione d'Italia, Mount Athos, the Aland Islands, Greenland and Curaçao island.
- Andorra, San Marino and the Vatican.
Are excluded from the system of VAT tax refund:
- Persons residing in a Member State of the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France , Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden.
- Persons who reside in Northern Ireland (1).
- Persons who reside in the Principality of Monaco.
- People who leave their jobs to take one in a country outside the European Union or in an assimilated outside territory.
- People who have returned to France or the European Union for resettlement.
- People who leave European Union permanently, even if they return to their country of origin.
- Members of diplomatic missions, consular and international organizations stationed in France or in the European Union.
- Students and trainees who stay in France or in the European Union more than six months per year.
- The beneficiaries of a French social security agency requesting a tax refund for pharmaceutical products that may be subject to a full or partial refund.
- Persons residing in the overseas departments of Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique, Mayotte and Reunion.
- Transportation personnel during a trip made in the context of their professional activity.
(1) Within the framework of the withdrawal agreement signed between the European Union and the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland remains a territory subject to the Community VAT tax regime in the same ways as the member States. Northern Ireland residents are thefore not eligible for tax-free purchases.
Goods excluded from the procedure or restricted:
- In general, all goods under trade embargo.
- Sales presenting by their nature or their quality the caracteristics of a commercial supply for the buyer. The commercial nature, judged at the discretion of the Customs Officer can be retained from the first article if the nature of the goods or to the buyer's profession suggests professional use.
- Manufactured tobacco which does not include electronic cigarettes and e-liquids which are eligible for tax refund.
- Private use transportation unless they have the caracteristics of sporting goods such as bicycles, space craft, trailers, caravans excluding those which may be registered in their own series or motorized. Goods such as karts, quads, snowmobiles, mini-motorcycles and ULMs are therefore excluded from the duty-free sale.
As an exception, and in accordance with Directive 2002/24/CE of the European Parliament and the Council of 18 March 2002 relating to the type approval of two or three-wheel motor vehicles, goods fitted with an electric motor may be subject to a tax free sale if the following cumulative conditions are met:
- the engine does not exceed a power of 250 watts.
- the engine only constitutes an assistance, and not a complete replacement of the energy powered by the driver, which must participate in the propulsion of the machine.
- the assistance is cut off when the speed exceeds 25 km/h.
- Equipment an supplies that allow the operation of means of transport for private use, that is to say mechanical parts as well as all the parts essential for the technical and legal functioning of the means of transport. However, insofar as they are not essential, accessories and comfort equipment such as car radios, DVD players, GPS and others are eligible for tax-free sale. Any assembly costs do not benefit from the exemption.
- Petroleum products.
- Dual-use goods.
- Drones listed in Annex I to amended Regulation (EC) N° 428/2009 which lists dual-use goods. As such, the seller commits his responsibility and it is up to him to verify the eligibility of the drone for tax refund. In case of doubt about the classification of the property and its eligibilit for tax refund, the seller can question the dual-use goods department of the general management of the companies.
- Explosives.
- Products likely to inflict torture of inhuman or degrading treatment.
- Narcotics.
- Precursors.
- Radio artificial elements and products including them.
- Psychotropics.
- Restricted goods destined for North Korea.
- Weapons and ammunition of categories A and B.
- War materials and assimilated.
- Goods that cannot be carried in the personal luggage of travelers.
- Cultural products apart from some exceptions (go to the Customs webite).
- Services, apart from those directly related to exportation (go to the Customs website).
Goods subject to traffic restriction:
- Personal items manufactured from endangered species (go to the Customs website).
- Weapons and ammunition classified (go to the Customs website).
The amount of purchases made on the same day in the same store/retailer, must be not less than € 100.01 TTC:
- A shop or brand operating several stores scattered in the same city and identified under the same VAT number, may establish one sales slip combining purchases with an aggregate value exceeding € 100.01, including VAT, and made at most over a period of three consecutive days from the first day of purchase at its various points of sale.
- Similarly, purchases made at most over a period of three consecutive days from the first day of purchase at the different stores of a mall can be consolidated onto one bill of sale of export. Retail stores then perform a delivery of property to a company that can sell itself t an operator for a VAT refund. The commissions associated to the concluded contracts between the company and the operator must lead to a billing with all taxes included.
- It cannot be granted a export sales slip on the basis of a duplicate receipt.
- In no case can be established and export sales slip summarizing the purchases made by a customer beyond a periond of three consecutive days of purchase from the first day of purchase, even if these are subject to the same payment.