French wine declarations: the complete guide to customs obligations for wineries

Which filing channel applies to my estate?

The channel depends on your operator status, your trade body and your customs identifiers, not on your address alone. A single estate can run several sites, several excise approvals and several trade body affiliations, and the channel has to be confirmed service by service.

Five questions settle everything else. Are you a grower, a grower-winemaker, a lessor-winemaker, a cooperative cellar, a merchant-winemaker or a merchant without vinification? Do you belong to a trade body that collects the declaration first? Do you hold a CVI number, an excise number, an authorised warehousekeeper approval and, where relevant, an EORI number? Does your regime call for monthly payment, monthly declaration with annual payment, or an authorised annual declaration? Do you use CRD capsules?

Estates that run these channels from a single cellar record avoid the most common root cause of error: one figure entered twice, in two tools, that stops reconciling by the time the close comes around.

What are the French wine declaration deadlines?

This is the core regulatory calendar. The dates below are filing deadlines. A late amendment is still possible on some services, but it does not erase the lateness.

Exemptions exist. A nil harvest is in principle exempt from declaration, and an operator who does not commercialise either the grape harvest or the wine production may also be exempt. No STOCK filing is required when stock is zero on 31 July. Always confirm that every condition of an exemption is met before relying on it.

What accounts and identifiers do you need before filing?

Nothing gets filed without a valid customs account and the attached authorisations. Use named accounts and avoid sharing one password across staff. That is both a security requirement and a traceability condition if you are inspected.

Before the first declaration, gather and verify: legal entity name, SIREN or SIRET, CVI number or numbers, excise number and approved warehouse address, production and storage sites, the competent customs office, your trade body affiliations service by service, your declaration and payment regime, a CRD usage indicator, and the EORI number with the customs representative for import and export. Above all, record a named internal approver for each declaration: the person who legally signs off on the filing.

PARCEL: how do you declare planting, grubbing-up and grafting-over?

PARCEL is used to declare vineyard works and the entry of parcels into the holding, within one month of the works being completed. A valid FranceAgriMer planting authorisation is required before any planting.

Before the works, confirm the planting authorisation, the parcel identity, the area, the grape variety, the intended destination and any appellation or environmental conditions. On completion, record the actual date, the area planted or grubbed up, the varieties and rootstocks, the cadastral references and, for a planting, the nursery delivery certificate. Then check that the CVI has been updated. A discrepancy in planted area can distort harvest and yield checks later in the campaign.

One rule has changed and deserves attention. For grubbing-up carried out from the 2023-2024 campaign onwards, the replanting authorisation request can now be filed until the end of the fifth wine campaign following the grubbing-up, compared with two campaigns previously, under decree 2025-755 of 31 July 2025. The authorisation itself governs its own period of validity, so never hard-code a fixed delay into your procedures. Tie it to the rule in force and its effective date.

VENDANGES: how do you declare harvest and production?

The harvest and production declaration is now filed in VENDANGES, which serves growers, lessor-winemakers, cooperative cellars and merchant-winemakers. This is the single most important change to absorb: the old RECOLTE service now only lets you consult declarations from the last five campaigns.

Growers and grower-winemakers file by 10 December at 23:59. Cooperative cellars and merchant-winemakers file their own production declaration by 10 January at 23:59. The service stays open for amendment until 31 July of the following year, but a late correction can carry legal consequences, so always record the reason.

The filing sequence that avoids rejections runs as follows. First freeze the campaign data: weights, deliverer identities, receipt notes, yields, lot conversions and site allocation. Then reconcile the traceability chain, since supplier and grower volumes have to match the quantities received and the production obtained under an accepted transformation logic. Generate or key the declaration: for high-volume declarations, VENDANGES accepts JSON file import in DTI+ mode, following the official schema for the campaign. Clear every blocking error, then validate. Never stop at a saved draft or an imported file. Finally, download the validated version and the acknowledgement.

Every figure in this declaration is derived from the cellar record and the weighbridge data. That is exactly why more estates now generate it from their production system rather than rebuilding spreadsheets in December.

STOCK and DAI: what has to be declared on 31 July?

The STOCK declaration is a snapshot of physical wine and must stock held on 31 July, filed by 10 September at 23:59. If stock is zero, no STOCK declaration is required.

Start by defining the counting perimeter, including every location you hold or control, including off-site storage where you remain the holder. Carry out the physical inventory across tanks, barrels, bulk containers, packaged wine, musts, concentrated musts and rectified concentrated musts. Classify products correctly: producers generally declare a detailed commercial designation, while merchants may declare by broader category. Reconcile physical against theoretical stock, and never force the physical count to match the record. An unexplained difference has to be investigated before filing.

The DAI is a separate obligation. The annual inventory declaration reconciles theoretical and actual stock, including losses and shortages, and is filed in CIEL, due 10 September for operators on the wine campaign. STOCK and DAI can share the same physical count, but they answer different regulatory purposes and produce separate acknowledgements. Do not merge them into a single calculation.

DRM and CIEL: how does the monthly close work?

An authorised warehousekeeper files a monthly recapitulative declaration in CIEL by the 10th of the following month. Where the 10th is not a working day, the deadline moves to the next working day. Some operators benefit from an annual payment or annual declaration regime, so confirm yours with your customs office.

A clean close has five steps: lock the period and stop movements, reconcile opening stock plus inflows minus outflows, classify by product and duty status, file directly in CIEL or through the trade body, then validate and retrieve the acknowledgement and payment.

A handful of checks prevent most rejections. Opening stock must equal the previous month's validated closing stock, adjusted only by documented corrections. Every inflow, production, transformation, bottling, transfer, sale, loss, sample and destruction is recorded in the materials register. Duty-suspended and duty-paid stock are not mixed. Appellation, category, colour, product code, alcohol band and site are correct. Every GAMMA2 movement is tied to its official reference and discharge status.

One automation point is worth knowing. The CIEL DTI+ import pre-fills the portal but does not by itself prove a legal filing. The user has to validate in the portal. The current DGDDI EDI API programme does not in fact list CIEL among the services connected directly, which means software prepares the file but does not file the DRM without a human action in CIEL.

OENO: which oenological practices must be declared?

OENO collects declarations of oenological practices, and its deadlines are triggered by the operation rather than by a fixed campaign date. Create the declaration before or just around the first operation concerned, according to the rule specific to each practice.

Create the declaration from the planned operation, check the deadline rule before work starts, file in OENO and keep the proof, then link the acknowledgement to the actual cellar operation and the lot concerned.

GAMMA2: which movement documents do you need?

GAMMA2 is used to issue, manage and receive the DAE, DAES, DSA and MVV movement documents. The document is prepared before departure, then tracked during movement and on receipt.

Classify the movement by duty status, origin, destination, parties and product. Validate counterparties by checking excise approvals and destination identifiers before creating the movement. Create and validate before departure, and do not release the shipment until the official reference has been issued. GAMMA2 is among the services currently listed for certified EDI API interconnection.

REV: what do you do with marc, lees and sediment?

Winemaking by-products, meaning marc, lees and sediment, are subject to mandatory disposal or valorisation rules. REV lets you consult the minimum obligation in alcohol equivalent, calculated from production data.

Consult REV once production data is available and note the minimum expected quantity. Choose an authorised route according to the by-product: distillation, composting, methanisation or authorised spreading. For composting or methanisation, check the recipient's FranceAgriMer registration. Keep the specific register, recording quantities and total alcoholic strength, and retain proof of weighing, dispatch, receipt and treatment.

A small-producer exemption exists. Operators who produced less than 25 hectolitres of must or wine on their own premises during the campaign may be exempt from the disposal obligation. Verify every condition before applying it.

What are the most common filing mistakes?

Most rejections and adjustments come from a small number of recurring causes. An opening stock that does not match the previous month's validated closing stock. The same movement imported twice. An invalid or expired product or appellation code. A missing supplier CVI. The wrong declaring entity or the wrong site. An OENO event declared outside its deadline. An unexplained physical inventory difference presented as a simple adjustment.

The principle that prevents all of them fits in one sentence: a generated file does not prove a filing. The declaration only exists once it is validated in the official service and the acknowledgement is retrieved. For every declaration, keep the source data snapshot, the generated file where applicable, the validation report, the named approval, the portal acknowledgement, the final declaration, the payment proof and the correction history. A correction to harvest, production, stock or a movement can affect CIEL, the DAI, REV or later campaigns, so always reconcile the downstream declarations.

One estate, ten declarations, one record

You now have the full map: PARCEL for the land, VENDANGES for the harvest, STOCK and DAI on 31 July, the DRM every month in CIEL, OENO as practices happen, GAMMA2 for movement and REV for by-products. The real cost is not any single declaration. It is keeping ten sets of data consistent with each other, campaign after campaign, in spreadsheets that do not talk. One figure entered twice and the close stops reconciling.

Solera is the winery management platform that keeps one record, from parcel to bottle, and derives your declarations from it. The French compliance module prepares and validates VENDANGES, STOCK and the DRM from your vineyard, cellar and stock data, surfaces blocking errors before the official portal, and archives every acknowledgement. You remain the legal filer; the platform does the preparation and checking work that costs you whole days today.

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