France's 2027 Budget Puts Stablecoin Swaps and Self-Hosted Wallets in the Tax Net

France's budget process is once again becoming a testing ground for how European tax authorities intend to treat crypto-assets, with the Assemblée nationale's finance committee opening debate this week on a cluster of amendments that would tighten reporting obligations and close what lawmakers call a taxation loophole around stablecoins.

The Projet de loi de finances pour 2027 arrived at the National Assembly on 1 October carrying ten crypto-related amendments. The finance committee began ruling on them on the evening of Wednesday 7 October, and will continue sitting until 9 October before the text moves to public session between 13 and 19 October. A solemn vote on revenues is scheduled for 20 October, with the vote on the whole budget set for 17 November.

Among the amendments adopted on 7 October is I-CF1826, tabled by Nicolas Sansu of the GDR group, which would make the exchange of crypto-assets for fiat-backed stablecoins a taxable event from 1 January 2027. The amendment's exposé sommaire argues that, under current rules, \"the capital gain realized by conversion into stablecoins backed by fiat currencies is not taxed,\" describing this as a loophole in the legislation.

The committee also adopted I-CF798 from Daniel Labaronne of the EPR group, introducing a ten-year loss carryforward for crypto-assets, aligning their treatment with that of equities. A parallel proposal to the same effect, I-CF1553, had been tabled by Paul Midy.

Not every proposal survived. I-CF43, from Eva Sas of the Écologiste et Social group, sought to rename the real estate wealth tax (IFI) into a broader personal wealth tax covering crypto-assets alongside yachts and financial investments. Its exposé sommaire stated it \"broadens the base of this tax to short- and long-term financial investments, tangible movable property such as yachts, as well as crypto-assets such as bitcoins.\" The committee rejected it.

A separate Sansu amendment, I-CF1822, would extend France's exit tax to crypto portfolios above €800,000 for residents of at least six of the past ten years, arguing that \"a taxpayer who leaves France with a portfolio worth several million euros of crypto-assets escapes all taxation of their unrealized capital gains, whereas the holder of securities of the same value is subject to it.\"

Wallet tracking returns

Charles de Courson of LIOT has revived the question of self-hosted wallet declarations with I-CF821, which would require taxpayers to declare crypto portfolios held outside licensed service providers once their value reaches €100,000 at year-end, under penalty of a fine up to €10,000. The threshold is twenty times higher than the €5,000 figure dropped during the joint committee process on 28 April 2026. The amendment's exposé points to a gap between €3.5 billion in realized gains in 2021 and only €400 million in declared assets.

Christine Arrighi of Écologiste et Social has proposed raising the fine for platforms that fail to respond to tax authorities from €10,000 to €50,000 through I-CF1756. The underlying fine already appears in article 30 of the budget text, which states the refusal to communicate requested documents \"results in the application of a fine of €10,000\" per request. Mickaël Bouloux of the Socialistes group has tabled I-CF1139, which would tax developer governance tokens at resale between 2027 and 2029.

Not all proposals reached debate. I-CF1520, tabled by Paul Midy, was ruled inadmissible under article 40 of the Constitution before discussion, according to its official record on the Assembly's website. Midy, who deposited a separate proposition de loi on 23 July 2026 cosigned by 91 deputies, had also proposed I-CF1564, which would exempt crypto payments up to €1,000 per year from tax.

The flat tax rate on crypto gains, set at 31.4% under article 200 C of the tax code, remains untouched by any of the amendments under discussion. Around fifteen other amendments referencing the flat tax without specifically mentioning crypto were also processed on 7 October, with thirteen rejected and two left unsupported.

The debate unfolds against the backdrop of the EU's DAC8 directive, which has required crypto platforms to collect client identity and transaction data since 1 January 2026, with the first tax declarations due by 15 June 2027. France's domestic push to track self-hosted wallets and stablecoin conversions runs in parallel to that EU-wide reporting regime, adding a layer of national enforcement on top of the bloc's harmonised data-sharing rules.