French committee passes crypto exit tax and stablecoin-swap tax, then rejects the budget

France's Commission des Finances adopted three crypto-tax amendments to the PLF 2027 budget bill before voting the revenue section of the same bill down 31-3 on October 9, Decrypt reports. The headline measures — a tax on crypto-to-stablecoin conversions and an extension of the exit tax to unrealized crypto gains — are not law yet. They were committee votes, cleared under the Mélenchon-aligned left bloc's push, on amendments to a text that the committee itself then rejected in its entirety.

The three amendments that passed

Per Decrypt and the earlier Cryptoast reconstruction of the amendment file:

• I-CF-1826 (Nicolas Sansu, GDR, plus 16 co-signers). Treats conversions of crypto into MiCA e-money tokens — the regulated stablecoin bucket — as a taxable disposal. Target effective date: January 1, 2027. The amendment itself does not set a rate; gains fall under the standard French prélèvement forfaitaire unique ("flat tax") structure.
• I-CF-1822 (Sansu, GDR). Extends the French exit tax to unrealized crypto gains for a household holding more than €800,000 in crypto and having been resident in France at least 6 of the last 10 years. Covers custodial and self-hosted alike. Crypto-to-crypto transfers with no fiat leg are excluded.
• I-CF-798 (Daniel Labaronne, EPR). Introduces a 10-year carryforward of crypto capital losses, aligning the regime with other asset classes.

A fourth amendment, I-CF-1520 (Paul Midy, Horizons), was declared inadmissible under Article 40 of the Constitution (loss of state revenue), per Cryptoast. It did not reach a vote.

The budget rejection

After the amendment pass, the Commission rejected the recettes (revenue) section of the PLF 2027 31 votes to 3. Under the French parliamentary cycle, that rejection does not kill the bill: the version that goes to the floor on October 13 is the government's original draft, not the committee-amended version. The committee's crypto amendments carry forward only if a deputy re-tables them for the floor. A solemn vote follows on October 20.

That procedural detail is the one most of the English coverage leaves implicit. A committee vote in France is a political signal, not a statutory step; the amendment file is the input to a debate, not the output.

What a "tax on crypto-to-stablecoin conversion" would mean in practice

The current French regime treats a crypto-to-crypto swap as a non-event and taxes only the exit to fiat. I-CF-1826 narrows that shelter: any conversion of crypto into a MiCA-regulated e-money token (EUR-denominated or otherwise) becomes a taxable event. The target set is the stablecoin bucket most retail traders use — USDC, EURC and their peers — plus any euro-denominated token issued under the MiCA EMT regime. Non-MiCA stablecoins, such as USDT (which operates in the EU under separate footing), sit outside the amendment's literal scope; whether a Bercy guidance would read them in is for after the vote, not before.

Decrypt reports the standard flat-tax rate at 31.4% (12.8% income + 18.6% social charges after a January increase); Cryptoast's accompanying piece cites 12.8% PFU plus 17.2% social charges. The amendment text does not set a rate; it defers to whatever flat-tax rate stands on the effective date. Readers who want to size the hit for a given portfolio should pull the rate from the final PLF text once the floor vote has happened, not from the pre-vote press.

Exit tax: who it catches

The I-CF-1822 threshold is the one worth modeling. €800,000 of crypto wealth across a fiscal household, with 6-of-10-year residency, triggers the extended exit tax on unrealized gains at the moment of departure. The French exit tax already exists for securities above a similar threshold; the amendment carves crypto out of its historical exemption. If adopted on the floor, that threshold becomes the planning number for any French-resident holder considering a move.

Context

The crypto-side of the PLF 2027 debate has been running since early October. This site covered the two Cryptoast-flagged amendments earlier today in French: the stablecoin conversion tax at I-CF-1826 and the self-hosted wallet declaration above €100,000 at I-CF-821. The budget rejection vote is the piece most of today's EN coverage leads with; the specific amendments and the carryforward on losses are the pieces builders and family offices with French exposure should actually track line by line.

The pattern is familiar from the 2024-2025 PLF cycles: a committee adopts aggressive crypto measures that the government opposes, the committee rejects the full bill as a political move, and the floor debate reverts to the government's draft before amendments are reintroduced. What's new this round is MiCA. The e-money-token definition the amendment uses is a creature of EU law, so once France adopts an EMT-targeted tax, it has a bright-line definition to work from — the one on the MiCA register — rather than a case-by-case interpretation.

What to watch

1. The October 13 floor debate. Which of the three amendments gets re-tabled, and by whom, is the signal to track. A re-table from the government benches would move I-CF-798 (loss carryforward) first; the Sansu amendments depend on left-of-center support holding.
2. The October 20 solemn vote on the amended text. The committee rejection does not translate into a floor rejection; recent PLFs have ultimately passed under Article 49.3.
3. MiCA EMT register scope. Whether a French tax guidance reads non-MiCA USD stablecoins (notably USDT, under its current EU footing) into I-CF-1826's definition will decide most of the revenue impact.
4. Exit-tax enforcement mechanics. The practical question for a self-custody holder is whether DGFiP can value an unrealized gain on a cold-storage wallet without a cooperative taxpayer. Expect that to be the subject of the implementing decree, not the law itself.