Account 44566 — deductible VAT on other goods and services
44566 is the busiest VAT account in French bookkeeping: it carries the tax you paid your suppliers on everyday goods and services, and that you reclaim from the French treasury.
What account 44566 is for
Account 44566 sits in the 4456 "deductible VAT" branch of the French Plan Comptable Général. It is debited with the VAT shown on a purchase invoice for goods or services: it is a receivable from the tax authority, not an expense. The net amount goes to a class 6 expense account instead.
The direction rule has no exceptions worth remembering: 44566 is debited when the invoice is posted, and cleared against output VAT when the return is filed. A 44566 credited mid-month is nearly always a supplier credit note or a posting error.
44566 or 44562: the distinction that matters
The PCG splits input VAT by the nature of the purchase. 44562 takes VAT on fixed assets — a vehicle, a machine, computer hardware capitalised on the balance sheet. 44566 takes everything else: goods, materials, supplies, subcontracting, rent, professional fees, telecoms, insurance.
This is not a presentation detail. The CA3 return reports the two on separate lines, and the tax office compares 44562 against declared fixed-asset acquisitions. Posting an asset to 44566 is the kind of error an audit surfaces.
Where 44566 shows up on the return
On the CA3, the debit balance of 44566 feeds the "deductible VAT on other goods and services" line and is set off against output VAT in 44571. If input exceeds output, the difference becomes a VAT credit, carried forward or refunded.
Entry 1 — purchase of goods at 20%
The common case: a supplier invoice of EUR 1,000.00 net, 20% VAT, EUR 1,200.00 gross. Three lines, two debits and one credit.
| Account | Label | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 607 | Purchases of goods for resale | 1,000.00 | — |
| 44566 | Deductible VAT on other goods and services | 200.00 | — |
| 401 | Trade payables — ACME | — | 1,200.00 |
Entry 2 — a service invoice
A professional-fees or subcontracting invoice follows exactly the same mechanism; only the expense account changes. 44566 does not move, because it depends on whether the purchase is capitalised, not on what was bought.
| Account | Label | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 604 | Purchases of studies and services | 2,000.00 | — |
| 44566 | Deductible VAT on other goods and services | 400.00 | — |
| 401 | Trade payables — CABINET CONSEIL | — | 2,400.00 |
Entry 3 — intra-EU reverse charge
On a purchase from a supplier in another EU member state, the invoice arrives without VAT. The buyer self-assesses: output VAT due goes to 4452 and, in the same entry, the deductible side goes to 44566. The result is cash-neutral, but it must appear on both sides — that symmetry is exactly what the tax office checks.
This is where 44566 is most often missed: the expense and the 4452 get posted, the deductible counterpart does not, and the business pays VAT it was entitled to reclaim.
| Account | Label | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 607 | Purchases of goods for resale | 1,000.00 | — |
| 44566 | Deductible VAT (reverse charge) | 200.00 | — |
| 4452 | Intra-EU VAT payable | — | 200.00 |
| 401 | Trade payables — LIEFERANT GMBH | — | 1,000.00 |
When 44566 must not be used
Some costs carry no right of deduction, or only a partial one. Petrol for passenger cars, restaurant and hotel costs incurred for company officers, gifts above the threshold: the VAT on these is not recoverable and never touches 44566. It stays inside the expense account, which is debited gross.
This is a frequent automation failure: a tool that mechanically splits net / VAT / gross will book a 44566 on a restaurant receipt and inflate a VAT credit that will later be reversed.
44566 in a FEC file
In a French FEC ledger export, the 44566 line carries the purchase journal code (ACH) and a CompteNum of 44566. The subsidiary-ledger columns CompAuxNum and CompAuxLib must be strictly empty on that line: they belong only to party lines, meaning the 401. Filling them with a zero is a classic conformance failure.
How Comptyx posts 44566
Comptyx reads the invoice — supplier, number, date, net, rate, VAT, gross — and then a deterministic accounting engine picks the accounts from the Plan Comptable Général. The AI model never chooses an account: it reads the document, the country rules do the posting. The entry is checked for balance before anyone sees it, and an unreadable invoice is flagged rather than guessed.
The export then leaves in the format your software actually imports: FEC for France, but also DATEV, Sage, ContaPlus, QuickBooks, Xero, XLSX or CSV.
What is the difference between account 44566 and account 44562?
44562 records deductible VAT on fixed assets; 44566 records deductible VAT on other goods and services — everyday purchases, supplies, fees, rent. The CA3 return reports them on separate lines, so the two are not interchangeable.
Is account 44566 debited or credited?
It is debited with the VAT amount when the purchase invoice is posted. It is credited only on a supplier credit note, or when it is offset against output VAT at the filing date.
What do you do when the VAT is not deductible?
You do not use 44566. The VAT stays in the expense account, which is debited gross. That applies to petrol for passenger cars and to certain entertainment costs.
Should 44566 be split by VAT rate?
The PCG does not require it and most firms do not bother: the rate breakdown is visible in the entries themselves. Some software still creates one sub-account per rate to make the base-versus-tax reconciliation easier.
How does 44566 appear in a FEC export?
As an ordinary expense-side line in the purchase journal, with CompteNum 44566 and empty CompAuxNum / CompAuxLib columns. Those two columns apply only to party lines.
Try it with your own invoices
14 days, up to 30 extractions, no card required — whichever limit you hit first.
Create a free account