French deputies voted, by one vote, to start taxing swaps that move crypto into stablecoins from 2027. Public vote n° 8836 was 38 in favor and 37 against, with 25 abstentions. The amendment is not law.
One hundred deputies took part, 75 votes counted, and 38 was the majority those votes required. The National Assembly adopted the amendment at its second sitting on Friday 16 October 2026, in the first reading of the 2027 finance bill.
What a swap into a stablecoin would tax
Amendment I-3898, tabled on 10 October 2026 by Nicolas Sansu and 16 other deputies, would sit after article 4 of bill n° 3210, the finance bill for 2027. It would change article 150 VH bis of the Code général des impôts, France’s general tax code.
Under that article, a swap from one crypto-asset to another can defer the tax. That deferral sits in the first paragraph of A of II, and the amendment would narrow it. Tax is already due when crypto is turned into ordinary currency, euros included, or is spent on a good or a service. A swap that stays in other crypto-assets would keep the deferral.
The deferral would end when the seller receives e-money tokens, or rights tied to those tokens. The text uses point 7 of paragraph 1 of Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 of 31 May 2023, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, or MiCA. An e-money token (EMT) is MiCA’s name for a stablecoin that refers to one official currency.
From 1 January 2027, a person taxed in France who swaps crypto into an EMT would lose that deferral on the swap.
According to Cryptoast, the finance committee had already approved the measure on 7 October, and USDC and EURC, issued by Circle, are EMTs. A 15 October PTYcoin article notes that USDC is an e-money token under MiCA. Cryptoast treats the legal definition of an EMT as the test, rather than compliance with MiCA, and says a token such as Tether’s USDT could be caught as well. A 9 October PTYcoin article covers stablecoins that sit outside MiCA.
How the gain would be counted
From that date the same text would also replace the gain math, for disposals and swaps in general. The EMT clause is the part that would end the deferral.
On a disposal, the gross gain or loss would set what the seller received against what the crypto-assets sold had cost, rights included. The price would be cash actually received, or the value of what came back instead. Documented costs of the disposal could lower it.
The cost would be the price paid in legal tender. A free acquisition would use the value already taken for gift or inheritance tax. With neither a price nor that value, the cost would be the real worth on the day the asset entered the estate. Documented purchase costs could be added. Bought at more than one price, the same asset would take a weighted average of those prices.
Coins received in a swap the deferral still covers would keep the cost of the coins given up. Coins received outside that deferral, EMTs included, would take the value used to measure that gain or loss.
Crypto bought before 1 January 2027 would bring one irrevocable choice for the whole portfolio. The holder could use each asset’s actual price or value, documented by any means, under the new wording. Or the holder could take the portfolio’s total acquisition cost on 31 December 2026, under the wording in force now, and allot it across the crypto-assets and rights held that day, each slice matching that holding’s value on the day. The choice would be made on the first return after 1 January 2027 that reports a taxable disposal.
In Cryptoast’s example, someone who bought 10,000 euros of bitcoin and swapped it for USDC when the bitcoin was worth 20,000 euros could owe tax on that 10,000 euro gain, even though no euros had reached a bank account.
Who pushed it, and who objected
At the second sitting, Philippe Juvin, general rapporteur of the finance committee, said the committee had adopted the amendments. For his own part, he said, the deferral is still justified, because crypto prices swing hard.
David Amiel, the public accounts minister, spoke for the government. He said the measure would be too complex to put into practice in present conditions. He asked that the amendments be withdrawn. If they were not, his opinion was against them. Nicolas Sansu refused to withdraw his amendment.
In the note attached to the amendment, the sponsors say the deferral should end on a conversion of crypto-assets into stablecoins, and that no sound reason supports keeping it. They say a conversion into ordinary currency falls under the flat tax they call the PFU, and that a conversion into stablecoins backed by ordinary currencies draws none. They call that split a gap the law left open.
According to Journal du Coin, that flat tax is 31.4%.
The sponsors say stablecoins can work as ordinary investment holdings. A person can pay with them on a platform registered in France to provide crypto services, and can buy other crypto with them. If those gains stay outside the flat tax, the sponsors say, the state gives up revenue, and the amendment would not create a new tax. It would apply tax law already in force to a case that law had not covered. They claim the United Kingdom and Italy have already legislated in this direction, and that stablecoins are now treated as money whichever currency they track.
The 20 October vote, the Senate, and Article 49.3
An Assembly timetable, dated in Paris on 29 September 2026, sets a solemn vote for Tuesday 20 October, after Questions to the Government, on the whole of the first part of the 2027 finance bill. The first part is the revenue part.
A further solemn vote, on the bill as a whole, is set for Tuesday 17 November, again after Questions to the Government.
The bill still has to go through the Senate, Cryptoast writes. If the government uses Article 49.3 of the Constitution, the same outlet says, it could keep the amendments the deputies added, take those amendments out, or go back to the bill as introduced. Cryptoast also says the stablecoin rule could still be rewritten or dropped before it applied.
This article is not investment advice.
