French lawmakers want wealthy crypto holders who relocate abroad to pay tax on gains they haven't even cashed in yet. On Thursday, the National Assembly's finance committee, the cross-party panel that reviews budget bills before they reach the full lower house, voted to extend France's exit tax to crypto-assets starting January 1, 2027.
The exit tax already applies to people who have lived in France for at least six of the past ten years and move abroad holding shares or other securities worth more than €800,000 combined. The new amendment would apply that same €800,000 threshold to a household's crypto holdings, including tokens sitting on foreign exchanges or in self-custody wallets the owner controls directly. Payment would still be deferred for moves within the EU and certain other countries, and the tax gets cancelled entirely if the holder keeps the assets for two to five years, mirroring how the rule already works for stock portfolios.
What the amendment leaves open is the rate. It does not specify what percentage crypto holders would owe, nor does it mention social charges, which account for 18.6 of the 31.4 percentage points departing shareholders currently pay on securities gains. Communist MP Nicolas Sansu and 16 left-wing colleagues sponsored the measure, arguing crypto currently escapes a tax regime applied to securities of equal value, which they say invites avoidance.
JUST IN: 🇫🇷 France considers imposing 31.4% tax on crypto-to-stablecoin conversions.
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) October 14, 2026
Wallet declarations and a swap tax on stablecoins
The committee backed a second proposal from centrist MP Charles de Courson that would force taxpayers to declare self-custody wallets worth €100,000 or more at year-end, with fines up to €10,000 for failing to comply. Right now, only crypto accounts held abroad must be reported, so this would be the first rule reaching directly into wallets individuals control themselves rather than through a custodian.
Backers cite a parliamentary inquiry that flagged crypto as a fraud risk, pointing to an estimate that French investors made €3.5 billion in crypto gains in 2021 but declared only €400 million in holdings. France's Court of Audit disputes that comparison, saying the €400 million figure was declared gains, not declared holdings, which makes the two numbers describe different things entirely.
A separate Sansu amendment, adopted October 7, would tax swaps from crypto into certain stablecoins starting in 2027. Specifically, it targets electronic money tokens regulated under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, which entered full force on July 1. Crypto-to-crypto swaps currently fall outside France's 31.4% flat tax on gains, with tax only owed when someone cashes out or spends their holdings.
A kidnapping wave complicates the wallet registry plan
Crypto advocates have pushed back hard on the wallet declaration proposal, warning that any centralized list of large holders creates a target list if the data ever leaks. The concern isn't abstract. Police counted more than 40 crypto-linked kidnappings in France between January and mid-April this year, up from about 30 across all of 2025. Chainalysis data shows Europe recorded 39 of 52 global incidents by July, with France responsible for 33 of those, or 63.5% of the worldwide total.
The best-known case remains the January 2025 kidnapping of David Balland, co-founder of French hardware wallet maker Ledger, and his partner. Attackers cut off one of Balland's fingers to pressure a ransom payment before police located and freed them. That attack helped push French crypto holders toward reducing their public visibility rather than increasing it, which is part of why a mandatory wallet registry draws such sharp opposition from the same community the policy is meant to regulate.
MPs also voted to let investors carry forward crypto losses against gains for ten years, bringing crypto tax treatment closer to how stock losses are handled, and raised a planned fine for ignoring tax authority document requests from €10,000 to €50,000 per request, aimed at financial institutions, crypto firms, and online platforms. The committee rejected a broader wealth tax covering crypto and a competing proposal from centre-right MP Paul Midy that would have made up to €1,000 a year in crypto payments tax-free.
Why none of this is law yet
On Friday, the finance committee voted down the revenue section of the government's 2027 budget bill by 31 votes to 3. Under France's constitution, the full Assembly must debate the government's original budget text, with committee changes normally folded in as amendments. Because the revenue section failed, none of the crypto amendments carry forward automatically, meaning they must be re-tabled starting Tuesday for a fresh vote.
MPs are scheduled to vote on the revenue section again on October 20, with a vote on the full budget bill set for November 17, before the text moves to the Senate. Last year's budget cycle saw the revenue section rejected by a far wider margin, 404 votes to 1, which wiped out all committee changes before the bill went anywhere. Parliament has until December 10 to pass the budget, after which the government can enact it by ordinance.
France's position stands apart from a neighbor moving the opposite way. Greece published a draft bill for public consultation last week proposing a flat 10% capital gains tax on crypto, among the lowest rates in the EU, compared with France, Germany and Italy, which have set or are planning rates above 25%. The contrast gives crypto holders weighing relocation within the EU a concrete reason to watch Greece's bill alongside France's budget fight, since the tax gap between the two could reach more than 20 percentage points depending on how France's final numbers land. France's 10-year borrowing costs briefly topped 5% this month, the highest level since 2002, adding fiscal pressure to a minority government already bracing for next spring's presidential election.
Gunel Ismayilova
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