The French Senate votes it unanimously: late payments, which weigh €17bn on SME cash flow, raise the risk of failure by 25 %
Adopted unanimously on 19 February 2026 and now before the National Assembly, the Rietmann bill starts from a stark finding by France's Payment Terms Observatory: late payments raise a company's risk of failure by 25 %. The Banque de France recorded over 68,500 business failures in 2025, an unprecedented level, up 3.5 % year on year. The €17bn in late payments recorded in 2024 came almost exclusively from large companies (€12bn) and public administrations (€5bn), draining the cash flow of SMEs, micro-businesses and mid-caps.
The bill first toughens sanctions: the administrative fine cap would move from a fixed €2m to the higher of €2m or 1 % of consolidated worldwide turnover, with the repeat-offence window extended from two to three years. For public buyers, the payment clock would start running from the invoice's deposit on the designated electronic platforms, and a public subrogation fund would let small businesses whose public contract exceeds 30 % of their turnover get paid quickly. Most notably for business-to-business relations: the bill bans creditors from waiving late-payment penalties — a practice widespread among SMEs and micro-businesses that would rather not upset an important client.
That ban changes what an invoice reminder actually is: no longer just a matter of commercial courtesy, it becomes an obligation resting on the creditor itself. For an agency billing recurring services — company domiciliation, mail handling, administrative support — that means systematically tracking which due dates have passed, which penalties are legally owed, and no longer letting that information slip because nobody had time to check invoice by invoice.
For AppH
- An agent that tracks due dates client by client and drafts a reminder calibrated to that account's history absorbs exactly this repetitive work, without ever sending a formal notice — that decision stays with the owner.
- The same agent can flag when a late-payment penalty is legally owed, so it stops being forgotten for lack of time — applying it remains a human decision, never automatic.
Honest limits
- The agent replaces neither judicial debt recovery nor the decision to pursue a recurring bad payer.
- The agency's payment terms and penalties need to be clearly set in its contracts first — the agent follows rules, it doesn't invent them.
A bill passed unanimously for a problem weighing €17bn on French cash flow deserves to be taken seriously even before final enactment. While the National Assembly deliberates, the simplest protection for an SME remains the best one: never leave a missed due date unchased, or an owed penalty unclaimed.
Reviewed by a human at AppH