With no tax registration, your market is limited to brands willing to pay without an invoice. It is not an administrative formality: it is what decides your clients.
Why that decides your clients
That is the tipping point of the business.
A company cannot deduct an expense without a valid tax document. With no invoice, a structured brand therefore cannot hire you, even when it wants to.
That excludes at a stroke the agencies, the large chains, the distributors and most established brands, which is to say exactly the clients who pay best and most regularly.
The question is therefore not "do I have enough income" but "how many jobs have I already turned down for lack of being able to invoice".
Withholding changes what you receive
That is the most frequent surprise of the first transfer.
Depending on your regime and the type of client, part of the invoiced sum may be paid directly to the administration by the client. The amount arriving in your account is then lower than the invoice total.
It is not a discount: it is an advance on your tax, settled later.
Two practical consequences. Always quote your prices specifying whether they are before or after those withholdings. And plan your cash on what you actually receive, not on what you invoice.
Rates, regimes and cases of application change, and are checked with the administration or with an accountant, never on the testimony of a colleague who registered three years ago.
What the invoice must carry
Six elements, and forgetting one makes it unusable for the client.
Your complete tax details.
Those of the client, including their regime and their postcode.
The precise description of the service, with the number of videos and the rights transferred.
The amount, the applicable taxes and, where relevant, the withholdings.
The declared use, which must match what the client is going to do with it.
And the payment method and form, which must reflect the reality of the transfer.
Do it before you need it
That is the only calendar rule that counts.
Registration, obtaining access and setting up the tools take time. A brand asking you for an invoice for next week will not wait.
So go through the process during a quiet period, before the first important order, and issue a test invoice to check that everything works.
What is set up before invoicing
| Step | What it unlocks | When |
|---|---|---|
| Tax registration | The right to issue an invoice | Before the first order |
| The authentication credentials | Electronic issuance | The same month |
| The invoice template | An immediate send | Before the first client |
What is kept for each transaction
The invoice issued, its electronic version, the proof of payment and the signed contract. One folder per month is enough, as long as it is kept up daily.
What to ask a professional
The applicable regime, the filing obligations, any withholding and the treatment of foreign clients, to be confirmed with an accountant.
The reflex that simplifies everything
Just one, and it holds in one sentence.
Set aside, on every payment received, the percentage corresponding to your obligations, into a second account, and stop looking at it.
The creators who run into trouble are almost never those who earn least: they are those who spent a sum of which part did not belong to them.
The rest, regimes, thresholds, returns and deadlines, is prepared once with an accountant and then repeats every month without thinking.
Sources
Checked on 26 August 2026. Thresholds and rates change: where this guide and the official source disagree, the official source is right.
