Newsletter

• The French National Assembly passed a budget amendment by a single vote, proposing that starting from 2027, the exchange of cryptocurrencies for stablecoins regulated by MiCA be considered a taxable sale.
• Only 100 members of parliament participated in the vote, with 38 votes in favor, 37 against, and 25 abstentions. This led to the re-introduction and approval of measures that had previously been invalidated after the Finance Committee rejected the budget text.
• This amendment still needs to go through the subsequent review procedures of the budget bill; meanwhile, another proposal that requires holders to declare wallets containing more than 100,000 euros is facing resistance from the crypto industry.

According to the voting records of the French National Assembly, French lawmakers voted in favor on Friday by a narrow margin of one vote, recognizing the conversion of cryptocurrencies into stablecoins as a taxable event.

Of the 100 members who participated in the vote, 38 supported Amendment I-3898 regarding the 2027 budget proposal, 37 opposed it, and 25 abstained. As a result, with a total of 75 votes cast, this measure precisely achieved the required majority of 38 votes to pass.

Currently, when French holders convert between cryptocurrencies, as long as euros are not involved in the transaction, they generally do not have to pay taxes; taxes are usually incurred when they cash out into fiat currency or make actual purchases. This amendment makes an exception for transactions that are ultimately exchanged for electronic currency tokens under the MiCA framework. MiCA is the EU's framework for crypto asset regulations, which includes stablecoins pegged to a single official currency.

Starting from January 1, 2027, such exchanges will be considered as sales transactions. The taxable income will be calculated by subtracting the purchase cost of the currency handed over by the holder from the value of the stablecoin received, and will be taxed at a uniform tax rate in France. The report indicates that after France raised the social contribution tax on capital income from 17.2% to 18.6% in 2026, this uniform tax rate has now increased to 31.4%.

The amendment also rewrites the method of cost calculation. Unlike the previous practice of using a single cost value for the entire portfolio, in the future, each token sold will correspond to its own purchase price; if the same token has been purchased multiple times, the average cost will be used for calculation. For positions acquired before 2027, investors need to make a one-time and irrevocable choice: either record the actual cost of each asset or allocate it based on the assets held as of December 31, 2026, within the total cost of the entire portfolio.

The author of this amendment is led by las and Sansu from the left-wing GDR group. They believe that stablecoins could be “completely traditional investment tools” that can be used to pay for cryptocurrency service providers or to purchase other tokens, and that the profits from converting to stablecoins can evade unified taxation due to “legislative loopholes.” The authors also stated that the UK and Italy have already enacted legislation in the same direction.

The French government opposes this measure. According to reports, the Minister of Public Accounts David Amiel has called for the withdrawal of the amendment, on the grounds that a legal definition of stablecoins is first needed, and at the same time, the state must also be able to track the reallocation of assets within investment portfolios.

France Advances Crypto Taxation

Earlier this month, the Finance Committee of the French National Assembly supported the stablecoin amendment proposed by Sansu, as well as another proposal of his to extend the French "exit tax" to cover crypto assets held by households valued at over 800,000 euros. Subsequently, the Finance Committee voted 31 to 3 against the entire revenue section of the budget bill, forcing the debate back to the government's original text and necessitating the stablecoin measures to be submitted for review again.

Another independent committee amendment requires that holders must declare self-managed crypto assets whose value reaches or exceeds 100,000 euros (112,000 US dollars) at the end of the year; those who fail to declare may face a fine of up to 10,000 euros. This move has sparked backlash from the crypto industry, which believes that collecting such data will put holders at risk, especially after a series of crypto-related kidnapping incidents in France, including the abduction and torture of David Balland, co-founder of Ledger, in 2025.

At present, these measures have not yet become law. The National Assembly is expected to vote on the complete revenue section on Tuesday, after which the budget will be submitted to the Senate for review.