What you paid to third parties

A communications agency pays 9 400 € to a freelance translator, 3 100 € to a designer and 1 800 € to a consultant over the year. It believes it has nothing to report: these are invoices, not wages. Two of those three amounts must nonetheless appear on an annual statement. Before you read on: which ones, and why not the third?

A statement of amounts paid to third parties

Article 240 of the general tax code requires natural and legal persons to report every year the commissions, brokerage fees, rebates, attendance fees, professional fees, gratuities and other similar remuneration paid to third parties.

The duty covers anyone paying those amounts in the course of their profession. An association, a civil company, a craftsman who subcontracts: the legal form does not matter, carrying on a profession is enough.

The return carries the surname, forenames, profession or capacity and address of the beneficiaries, together with the amount paid to each, broken down by nature. It gives the administration the mirror image of the income those third parties must report themselves.

Its common name comes from its form number, the DAS2, which exists under two references depending on the filing route. Since 1 January 2018 it must be filed by electronic means, on the authority of article 89 A of the tax code.

• Fees paid to a self-employed provider, whether occasional or regular, whatever the nature of the assignment.
• Commissions and brokerage paid to a business introducer or to a commercial agent.
• Commercial and other rebates, attendance fees, gratuities and remuneration of a similar nature.
• Directors' fees paid to board members, and copyright royalties, which come under a separate penalty regime.

What does not belong on that statement: wages, which follow the payroll declaration, and purchases of goods, which are not payment for a service. A printer's invoice is not reported; the work of the designer who prepared it is.

The 2 400 € threshold, per beneficiary and per year

Not every amount is reported. From 2024 income, reported in 2025, only amounts above 2 400 € paid per year to any one beneficiary are entered on the return.

That threshold is recent and the figure most often quoted is the old one. The BOFiP itself recalls it in a note: previously, the reporting threshold was 1 200 € per year for any one beneficiary.

The assessment is made beneficiary by beneficiary, on the year's total, and never on the size of any single invoice. Three payments of 900 € to the same provider cross the threshold; a single payment of 2 000 € to another does not.

The threshold does not excuse anyone from keeping count. A business that does not track its payments provider by provider cannot know which ones it crosses, and discovers the duty when the administration points it out. The tracking costs one column in the ledger.

Three routes, one calendar

An employer already filing a monthly payroll declaration reports its fees there, alongside its wages: that is the most integrated route. Without it, two options remain, electronic data interchange and online entry from the professional space.

Online entry is capped: a single submission covering fifty beneficiaries at most. Beyond that, the filer must use data interchange, which accepts a file with no volume limit.

The deadline rule is the month of January of the year following payment. An administrative tolerance moves the due date to the April payroll declaration for those who use that route.

An alignment on the results return exists, but it is a derogation and reserved to the other routes. Taking it for the general rule, as one often reads, makes filers miss the January deadline.