The finance committee of France's National Assembly has backed an amendment under which swapping crypto into a stablecoin would count as a sale and be taxed from January 1, 2027. Two days later, on Friday, the same committee rejected the whole revenue section of the budget by 31 votes to 3, so the amendments have no legal force yet.
For stablecoin holders this signals the direction of EU tax logic. Today in France, swapping Bitcoin for a stablecoin triggers no tax. The state collects only when the asset is sold for regular money or spent.
What the stablecoin amendment changes
Amendment I-CF1826 was filed by MP Nicolas Sansu of the left wing GDR group with 16 cosigners. The text calls the current rule "a hole in the legislation". It covers electronic money tokens as defined under MiCA, a category that includes most stablecoins tied to a single currency.
In practice it is one more taxable event. Swapping into a stablecoin, for example USDC, stops being a neutral step, and a gain has to be calculated even if no money ever reached a bank account.
The authors explain the logic this way. Stablecoins work perfectly well as an ordinary investment vehicle, since they can pay for things at crypto service providers or buy other tokens. So the deferral on swapping into them, in their view, has no justification and lets the gain escape the flat tax.
By the logic of the amendment, if an investor moves a position into a stablecoin during a drawdown and later returns to Bitcoin, the first step becomes taxable and the return opens a new cost record.
How the gain would be calculated and what it could cost
The base would be the acquisition cost of the assets sold. For coins bought in batches at different prices, a weighted average applies. The amendment names no rate and defers to the flat tax on capital, which rose to 31.4% on January 1 because the social charge went 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.
A simple hypothetical. An investor bought 1 BTC for 40,000 euros, and at the moment of the swap into a stablecoin the asset is worth 60,000 euros. A gain of 20,000 euros at 31.4% means 6,280 euros of tax. The numbers are invented for illustration, but the mechanics are exactly this.
Exit tax and loss carry-forward
A second Sansu amendment extends the exit tax to crypto. It is a levy on unrealized gains, charged when a taxpayer moves tax residence abroad. The rule would apply if a household's combined crypto is worth more than 800,000 euros (about $895,000) and the person was a French tax resident for at least six of the previous ten years. The threshold matches the one already used for shares.
The authors argue that crypto held directly escapes the exit tax today while shares of the same value do not. They also point out how easily digital assets move across borders.
The calculation includes assets held with custodians, abroad and in self custody, so the taxpayer would have to file a statement of all coins held on the date of the move. Swaps from one cryptocurrency to another with no cash component would not count as sales for this tax.
A third amendment, from MP Daniel Labaronne, would let investors carry realized crypto losses forward for 10 years. Today unused losses cannot be carried over, while for stocks that option already exists.
Why this is not law yet
On Friday the committee rejected the whole revenue section, so the document goes to the Assembly floor in the government's original wording, without any of the crypto amendments. Their authors will have to table them again. Debate starts on October 13, and a formal vote is scheduled for October 20.
The precedent is mixed. In October 2025 the Assembly voted 163 to 150 in first reading for a 1% annual levy on unproductive wealth above 2 million euros that lumped in digital assets. But the road from first reading to law is long.
Another example runs alongside. Greece's finance ministry published a draft bill with a 10% tax on individuals' crypto gains and an exemption up to 500 euros a year. Unlike the French idea, swaps of one crypto for another stay untaxed there.
What to watch next
The coming weeks will show whether the amendments survive to a vote. Three things are worth following.
- Whether lawmakers table the amendments again for the plenary debate on October 13. Without that they never reach a vote.
- Whether the wording on electronic money tokens under MiCA survives, since it decides which stablecoins fall under the tax.
- DAC8 reporting: the rules apply from January 1, 2026, and the first exchange of data between EU tax authorities covering 2026 is due by September 2027.
The practical effect for platforms and users would be simple. Every swap into a stablecoin would become a record for tax reporting. Under DAC8, services already collect clients' identity and transaction data and pass it to tax authorities, which exchange it between EU states.
The bottom line
French lawmakers are only taking aim at stablecoin swaps for now, but the argument about a gap in the law is easy for other EU states to adopt. The concrete numbers are a tax from January 1, 2027, a rate of up to 31.4% and an exit tax threshold of 800,000 euros. A decision will not come before the October 20 vote, and even then the text may change. Crypto holders in the EU should keep cost basis records starting now.
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