Key takeaways

  • France’s National Assembly passed amendment I-3898 by 38 votes to 37, with 25 abstentions among 100 cast, ending the tax deferral on swaps from crypto into stablecoins from January 1, 2027.
  • Gains on swaps into e-money tokens as defined under MiCA Article 3 would fall under France’s 31.4% flat tax on crypto disposals.
  • The amendment also changes how gains are computed, moving from a whole-portfolio method to an asset-specific cost basis, with a one-time irrevocable choice for pre-2027 holdings.
  • The measure is not law yet: it sits in the 2027 budget bill’s revenue section, whose floor vote was postponed with 2,828 of 3,396 amendments still unexamined.

What happened

The vote adopted amendment I-3898 to the 2027 budget bill. The text targets the deferral that currently lets a crypto-to-crypto trade postpone any gain until the investor sells for euros or spends the coins. Under the amendment, that deferral disappears when the investor receives an e-money token as defined in Article 3 of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). Gains on those swaps would then fall under the 31.4% flat tax France has applied to crypto disposals since January.

The MiCA definition covers a token pegged to one official currency and says nothing about whether the issuer holds an EU authorization. Circle’s USDC is the first such token classified as significant under MiCA.

Nicolas Sansu, a deputy from the Democratic and Republican Left group, filed the amendment on October 10, after the finance committee backed the same text on October 7. Sansu told the chamber that converting crypto into euros triggers the flat tax while converting into a stablecoin does not, and called that a gap in the law.

David Amiel, Minister for Public Action and Accounts, asked Sansu to withdraw the amendment and opposed it when he refused. Amiel said France would first need to define stablecoins, then build the ability to trace reallocations inside a portfolio. Philippe Juvin, the finance committee’s rapporteur general, said the committee backed the amendment but he personally favored keeping the deferral because of crypto’s volatility.

Deputy Charles de Courson backed the principle and cited figures from a parliamentary inquiry he co-wrote. He said 20,000 taxpayers declared 400 million euros in taxable crypto gains for 2021, against an estimated 3.5 billion euros realized.

Market context

The amendment does more than close a deferral. It also rewrites how French investors compute a gain. Today that gain runs off the whole portfolio’s value and its total acquisition cost at each sale. The new method takes the sale price minus the acquisition cost of the specific assets sold, with a weighted average for units bought at different prices. Holders of pre-2027 coins would choose once, irrevocably, between actual cost per asset and a pro-rata share of portfolio cost at December 31, 2026.

In the same sitting, deputies rejected a 10-year carryforward of crypto losses by 75 votes to 18, removing a measure that would have softened the impact of the new cost-basis rules for investors sitting on losses.

The amendment’s start date falls in the same month licensed EU firms must finish winding down non-MiCA stablecoins under ESMA’s October opinion. That coincidence matters: the French tax change and the EU-wide stablecoin wind-down both take effect in January 2027, so investors holding non-compliant stablecoins face a compressed window to restructure positions.

Why it matters

The 38-to-37 margin signals how narrow the support is. The government opposed the text, and the finance committee’s own rapporteur general personally favored keeping the deferral. The vote passed with 25 abstentions, meaning roughly a quarter of those voting declined to take a side. That is not a durable coalition, and it leaves the measure exposed to further amendment as the budget bill moves.

For investors, the practical effect is a change in the timing of taxation rather than the rate. A swap into a MiCA-defined e-money token would become a taxable disposal event, so gains that could previously be rolled forward would be realized and taxed at 31.4%. The cost-basis change compounds this: moving from a portfolio-wide average to asset-specific accounting can raise or lower a given investor’s bill depending on which assets are sold and at what prices they were acquired.

The parliamentary inquiry figures cited by de Courson point to a wider compliance gap. With 20,000 taxpayers declaring 400 million euros against an estimated 3.5 billion euros realized for 2021, declared gains represent a small fraction of estimated activity. The amendment’s backers frame the stablecoin deferral as one piece of that gap; whether closing it improves compliance or simply shifts activity is unresolved.

What to watch

The budget’s revenue section was due for a floor vote on Tuesday, but that vote was postponed with 2,828 of 3,396 amendments still unexamined, according to parliamentary channel LCP. Until that vote and the budget’s final passage, the amendment is not law. The Senate’s review and any conference committee stage could still alter or remove the text.

Two details deserve attention as the bill progresses. First, the irrevocable choice for pre-2027 holdings at December 31, 2026 sets a fixed date for investors to pick between actual cost per asset and a pro-rata share of portfolio cost; that deadline will arrive before the tax change itself takes effect. Second, the interaction with ESMA’s October opinion means the stablecoin universe available to French investors in January 2027 may look different from today’s, which affects which swaps the new rule actually captures.

The government’s objection—that France needs to define stablecoins and build tracing capability for intra-portfolio reallocations—remains unaddressed in the adopted text. If those systems are not in place by 2027, enforcement of the new rule could prove difficult, regardless of the vote count.