Short answer: in 2026, a notarial office, a law firm or a judicial officer's practice no longer needs a physical fax machine — but it still needs a reachable fax number, because some of its correspondents (registries of certain courts, building managers, insurance companies, debt recovery departments, banks, colleagues abroad) publish nothing else. The exit comes down to four decisions: port the existing number to an online fax service before the copper line is cut, route incoming faxes to a controlled shared mailbox rather than a paper tray anyone can reach, shift everything that can be shifted onto the professional platforms (RPVA, Télé@ctes, secure exchange systems), and archive the transmission report alongside the document. Budget a quarter for the transition, not a weekend.
The trigger is physical. Arcep is publishing, batch by batch, the shutdown schedule for Orange's copper network, municipality by municipality, until the complete switch-off planned by the end of the decade. For a practice that has been in the same premises for thirty years with the same analogue line, that means one morning the fax machine no longer picks up the line — and urgent information requests, draft deeds sent at the last minute, services of process awaiting confirmation, opposing party documents sent the day before a hearing all stop dead. With no useful notice if nobody has anticipated it.
Why fax still holds on in regulated professions
One might assume that the legal professions, largely digitized for fifteen years now, have settled the matter. In practice, three reasons keep fax alive in law offices.
Professional platforms only cover a limited perimeter. The RPVA connects lawyers to the courts, Télé@ctes connects notaries to the land registry services, the judicial officers' portal handles part of electronic service of process. But none of these networks talks to third parties outside the legal professions: the condominium manager, the claims handler, the litigation department of a social housing landlord, an employer's HR department, the bank holding an account to be garnished. Those correspondents are reached by post, by email — or by fax when the document is urgent and email doesn't offer sufficient traceability.
The delivery trail. The transmission report shows the number called, the date, the time, the duration, the number of pages transmitted and a result code. It isn't a signature, it isn't a registered electronic delivery, but it is prima facie evidence that a bare email does not provide. In proceedings where a few hours are being argued over, that printed line carries weight.
International matters. An estate with an heir in Portugal, a sale with a buyer in Spain, a file involving a German authority: many European and non-European counters still publish a fax number on their forms. Our supported countries page lists the reachable destinations, and the reality is simple: fax remains the most universal protocol in existence between two organizations that share no account.
Fax never survived because it was good. It survives because it asks nothing of anyone: no account, no directory, no certificate, no IT person at the other end.
The tipping point: your number is an asset, not an accessory
This is the costliest mistake seen in law offices. The fax number appears on letterhead, on deeds, on filed submissions, in professional directories, in the records of thousands of archived files, in the databases of court registries and public authorities. Losing it isn't losing a line: it's creating a black hole into which documents will fall for years, without anyone at the practice knowing.
Porting a geographic number to an online fax service is technically routine and legally framed. What makes it fail is administrative detail:
- The line holder must match the legal name of the practice or professional structure exactly. A line still registered to the founding partner who has retired will block the request.
- The RIO (operator identity statement) must be obtained before any cancellation. Cancel first, port later, and you lose the number.
- The lead time: allow several weeks between the request and the actual switchover. Start as soon as the area shutdown letter arrives, not afterwards.
We set out the procedure in Keeping your fax number after the PSTN shutdown. The principle applies to every profession; what changes here is the cost of failure.
Professional secrecy: the real weak point isn't the protocol
Fax is regularly described as "not very secure." That's true on an analogue line, where the signal travels in the clear. But in a law office, the leak almost never comes from the line. It comes from the last metre.
The classic scenario: the fax machine sits in the corridor by the waiting room, or in the copy room shared with trainees and the cleaning contractor. Opposing submissions, a draft division of estate with the figures, an order to pay with the debtor's address, a divorce agreement: all of it piles up in an open tray for hours. No amount of encryption fixes that.
Moving to fax-to-email removes that physical risk, provided you don't replace it with another one. The rules to set:
- A shared functional mailbox, not a personal one.
fax@orsecretariat-fax@on the practice's own domain, with a named list of authorized people, reviewed on every arrival and departure. - Never a free consumer address. A personal Gmail or Outlook mailbox receiving documents covered by professional secrecy means transferring data to a third party you don't control, and something hard to justify before your professional body or the CNIL.
- Encryption of the workstation and the server. An encrypted SSD on the secretary's workstation costs less than a breach you have to report.
- Scheduled purging. Documents don't stay indefinitely in the inbox: they are filed into the case management system, then deleted from the mail client.
On the regulatory side, our article Fax and GDPR in 2026 details the obligations around records, retention periods and processing — the host of the fax service is a processor within the meaning of Article 28 GDPR, and the contract must say so.
What must go through the professional platform, and what can stay on fax
The sorting is done by type of exchange, not by habit. Here is the grid we see working in the practices that have managed their transition successfully.
| Type of exchange | Channel in 2026 | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Filing submissions, communicating exhibits in proceedings | RPVA / lawyers' virtual private network | Mandatory or strongly expected depending on the court |
| Land registration, filing of deeds | Télé@ctes | Natively paperless workflow |
| Service of process between judicial officers | Dedicated professional platform | Built-in timestamping and traceability |
| Urgent document to a non-legal third party (building manager, insurer, bank) | Online fax | Correspondent has no platform access |
| Confirming a postal mailing, securing a deadline | Online fax | Dated transmission report |
| Exchange containing sensitive data with a fellow professional | Secure messaging or professional platform | End-to-end encryption |
| Correspondence with a foreign authority | Online fax | Often the only published channel |
The logic: keep fax only where nothing better exists for the recipient. That isn't a fallback position, it's a judgement call. Our comparison Fax or secure messaging develops the reasoning.
Setting up the office physically after the fax machine
Removing the machine changes the secretariat's workstation. Three points deserve to be settled before the switchover, or the quality of outgoing faxes will collapse.
Scanning. An online fax starts from a file. If that file comes from a phone photo, taken at an angle, with a shadow across the middle, the recipient will get an unreadable page — and most of the rejections we see come from there, not from the network. A duplex document scanner with an automatic feeder sitting next to the workstation processes a thirty-page bundle while you answer the phone. It's the most profitable investment of the whole transition. For bound deeds or fragile documents you don't want to run through the feeder, an A4 flatbed scanner remains essential as a complement.
Immediate filing. A document received by fax and never added to the file is a lost document. The naming convention is decided once: YYYY-MM-DD_case-number_type_sender.pdf. Ten minutes of decision-making, years of searching avoided.
Residual confidentiality. Paper will remain: documents received by post, originals, annotated drafts. A cross-cut shredder placed near the copy room stops the contents of a divorce file from ending up in the building's recycling bin. For practices handling large volumes, aim for a capacity of at least ten sheets per pass.
Backup archiving. Documents filed in the case management software are backed up by the vendor — in principle. A cold, offline copy on an encrypted external hard drive stored in the office safe remains the only real protection against ransomware that would encrypt the server and its connected backups simultaneously. The practices hit in recent years learned this the most expensive way possible.
The deadline question: what a transmission report actually proves
A sensitive point in the legal professions, where a few hours sometimes decide admissibility.
A transmission report establishes that a call was successfully connected to a given number, at a given time, and that a number of pages was negotiated between the two terminals. It establishes neither the content of the pages, nor their legibility on arrival, nor the identity of the person who collected them. French case law, consistent on this point, leaves the judge full discretion: fax counts as freely admissible evidence in commercial matters, it does not replace an instrument subject to a legally prescribed form.
Three habits that make the difference in the event of a dispute:
- Keep the report with the document, in the same file, under the same name. Separated, they're worth nothing.
- Archive the page sent exactly as sent — not the source Word document, but the PDF actually transmitted, cover sheet included.
- Double up critical transmissions with a registered letter the same day. The fax secures the time; the registered letter secures the form.
On building a compliant cover sheet and on what a fax actually proves, see Legal value of fax in 2026.
A one-quarter transition plan
Weeks 1 to 2 — inventory. Note the exact fax number appearing on letterheads, professional directories, the practice's website and deed templates. Identify the line holder. Request the RIO. Extract the last fifty correspondents from the fax machine's log: that's the real list of who writes to you.
Weeks 3 to 5 — decision and porting. Choose the online fax service, check where the hosting is located and the GDPR processing clause, start the porting request. Create the shared mailbox and the list of authorized users.
Weeks 6 to 8 — parallel running. The fax machine stays plugged in while the online service is already receiving. You compare, adjust scanning quality, train the secretariat. This is the phase where you discover the transmissions that fail — often foreign recipients dialled incorrectly, a topic covered in International fax.
Weeks 9 to 12 — switchover and communication. Unplug the machine, update letterheads and directories, inform regular correspondents with a note in the footer of your letters. Archive the fax machine's log before disposing of it: its internal memory is wiped when the power is cut.
Frequently asked questions
Does a fax received by email have the same value as a paper fax?
Yes, and often better. The service generates a timestamped PDF accompanied by transmission metadata, whereas the thermal paper of older machines faded within a few years. What matters is not the medium but the ability to produce, years later, both the document and its delivery trail.
Can documents covered by professional secrecy be sent via online fax?
Technically yes, provided the supplier encrypts the traffic, hosts within the European Union and accepts a processing agreement compliant with Article 28 GDPR. Legally, prudence dictates reserving fax for exchanges with third parties who have no alternative, and favouring professional platforms between legal practitioners.
What if a correspondent no longer has a fax but asks us for one?
This has been common since 2024. Many authorities and companies keep a number published on their forms even though the line is dead. Check by sending a one-page test; if the call fails consistently, ring the switchboard and get the replacement channel confirmed by email — that record protects you.
Should we keep a backup fax machine?
No. An analogue machine plugged into a VoIP box fails unpredictably because of T.38 negotiation issues, detailed in Fax over VoIP. A backup that works one time in three is worse than no backup: it creates a false sense of security.
How long should received faxes be kept?
According to the nature of the document and the file it belongs to, not according to the channel. A procedural document follows the retention period of the case file; a chasing message with no legal significance has no reason to stay for ten years. The GDPR requires a defined period, not "keep everything."
Key takeaways
- The number is the asset, not the machine: port it before the copper shutdown, and never cancel first.
- The confidentiality risk is physical before it is technical: an incoming tray in a corridor exposes more than an analogue line does.
- Sort by recipient: professional platform between legal practitioners, fax for third parties who have nothing else.
- The transmission report is only worth anything attached to the document — archive them together, under the same name.
- Scan quality determines your success rate: an automatic feeder solves 80% of rejections.
- Plan for a quarter with a parallel-running phase, not an overnight switchover.
To test a transmission to a correspondent before committing to the transition, the form is right on the home page, and practical questions are gathered in our FAQ.
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