French Finance Committee Backs Stablecoin Swap Tax and Crypto Exit Tax, Then Rejects Budget Revenue Section

France's National Assembly Finance Committee has approved amendments that would tax crypto holders who swap their coins into stablecoins and extend the country's exit tax to wealthy holders moving abroad. The measures' prospects are uncertain: on Oct. 9, the committee rejected the budget's entire revenue section by 31 votes to 3, meaning the full Assembly will begin its debate from the government's original text, without the crypto amendments.

A third committee-approved amendment, filed by Daniel Labaronne, would let investors carry crypto losses forward for 10 years. The Assembly's floor debate on the revenue section opens Oct. 13, with a formal vote scheduled for Oct. 20—giving the amendments' backers a second window to reintroduce them.

Stablecoin Swaps Treated as Taxable Sales

The stablecoin amendment, filed by Nicolas Sansu of the left-wing GDR group with 16 co-signers, targets what its authors describe as “a hole in the legislation.” Under current French rules, swapping Bitcoin for a stablecoin—a token pegged to a single official currency such as the dollar or the euro—triggers no tax, because the state collects only when gains are cashed out for conventional money or spent. In practice, that allows holders to park gains in stablecoins for extended periods, using them for payments or further token purchases, without triggering the flat tax.

The amendment covers the electronic money tokens defined under MiCA, the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets rulebook—a category that includes most stablecoins tied to a single currency. From Jan. 1, 2027, a swap into such a token would count as a sale, with the gain measured against what the holder originally paid.

The text names no rate of its own and defers to France's flat tax, which rose to 31.4% on Jan. 1 after the 2026 social-security financing law lifted the social-charge portion from 17.2% to 18.6%. The authors insist they are not creating a new burden, only applying existing law to a case it missed. In their view, stablecoins can serve as ordinary investment vehicles, since they can be used to pay for goods at crypto service providers or to buy other tokens; the current deferral is therefore unjustified and lets gains escape the flat tax.

Exit Tax Extended to Wealthy Crypto Holders

A second amendment from Sansu would extend France's exit tax—a levy on gains that have not yet been cashed in, charged when a taxpayer moves their tax residence abroad—to cryptocurrency. Such levies are designed to stop taxpayers from leaving a country with accrued gains that would otherwise escape taxation there.

It would apply when a tax household's combined crypto holdings, including assets kept through custodians, are worth more than €800,000, and where the taxpayer was a French tax resident for at least six of the previous 10 years. The rules would cover moves from Jan. 1, 2027. The threshold matches the one already used for shares, and the payment deferral rules are borrowed from the stock regime.

Swaps between cryptocurrencies with no cash component would not count as sales for exit-tax purposes. Taxpayers would have to attach a statement of all crypto held on the date of the move, including assets held abroad or in self-custody—wallets they control themselves without an exchange.

The authors argue that crypto held directly currently escapes the exit tax while shares of the same value do not, and they flag how easily digital assets can be moved across borders.

Loss Carryforward

Labaronne's amendment would let investors carry crypto losses forward for 10 years to offset future gains, as they already can with stocks. Under current rules, unused crypto losses cannot be carried over—leaving crypto at a disadvantage to other asset classes under the French tax code.

Not Law Yet

Neither tax measure is law, and both must still pass the rest of the legislative process. Because the committee rejected the revenue section, its amendments do not carry over to the text the Assembly will debate; their backers would have to table them again for the floor discussion that begins Oct. 13.

The committee's votes follow earlier French action touching digital assets. In late October 2025, the Assembly adopted in first reading, by 163 votes to 150, an amendment creating a 1% annual levy on “unproductive” wealth above €2 million that grouped digital assets with gold and yachts. Attorney Burçak Ünsal told Decrypt that taxing early token holders was potentially “economically unjust.”

Separately, Coinbase said in October 2024 that it would delist stablecoins that fail to comply with MiCA for European customers by Dec. 30—the date the framework became fully applicable across the EU—pointing users toward compliant coins such as USDC and EURC.

If the stablecoin and exit-tax measures return during the floor debate and survive the Oct. 20 vote, they would apply from Jan. 1, 2027.