France votes to end stablecoin tax deferral from January 2027

France’s National Assembly voted 38 to 37, with 25 abstentions, to end the tax deferral that crypto investors currently enjoy when swapping cryptocurrency for stablecoins, adopting amendment I-3898 to the 2027 budget on 16 October, according to the official roll-call record. Gains on such swaps would fall under France’s 31.4% capital gains levy for transactions from 1 January 2027.

Stablecoins stop being a parking spot

Under current French rules, exchanges between cryptocurrencies without an additional cash payment generally defer tax until disposal into fiat, and the official tax administration guidance spells out how investors declare gains on digital asset disposals under those rules. The amendment removes that deferral when investors receive e-money tokens, the MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) category covering stablecoins pegged to a single fiat currency. The practical effect is that a French investor moving bitcoin into a euro stablecoin would realise a taxable gain at the moment of the swap, rather than only when converting back to cash.

The text would also replace France’s portfolio-wide capital-gains calculation with a method based on the acquisition cost of the assets actually sold, using a weighted average for units of the same cryptocurrency bought at different prices. That change matters for anyone rebalancing into stablecoins frequently, since the taxable value of each swap will follow the cost of the specific coins disposed of.

A narrow vote, and the government is split

The margin shows how contested the measure is. Public Accounts Minister David Amiel asked for the amendment to be withdrawn, telling the Assembly: “We first need to define stablecoins, then ensure our ability to monitor and trace reallocations within a portfolio of assets” . Philippe Juvin, the finance committee’s rapporteur general, said he favoured keeping the deferral given crypto’s volatility.

Francois Volpoet of Chainalysis has reportedly warned that the levy could push French investors toward decentralised finance platforms, peer-to-peer transactions and offshore exchanges outside international tax-reporting arrangements. For exchanges and euro stablecoin issuers, France is a key market and the move would remove the main tax reason traders park positions in stablecoins between trades.

The change arrives amid a broader tightening of EU stablecoin rules. The European Banking Authority’s designation of USDC as the EU’s first ‘significant’ e-money token under MiCA showed how closely regulators watch the category, and supervisors have already set a January 2027 deadline for firms to unwind non-compliant stablecoin exposure.

The measure is not law yet. It remains subject to the budget’s remaining parliamentary stages, where it could still be amended or removed, before the changes would apply to transactions from 1 January 2027.