France proposes 31.4% tax on swaps into MiCA stablecoins

France's National Assembly finance committee adopted an amendment on Oct. 7 that would make swapping bitcoin or other crypto into EU-regulated stablecoins a taxable event under the country's 31.4% flat crypto gains tax, CoinDesk reported.

The amendment would draw the taxable line at MiCA's e-money token category for crypto-to-stablecoin swaps from Jan. 1, 2027. MiCA has been in full force since July 1. It sits in the government's 2027 budget, which lawmakers have until Dec. 10 to pass. Under current French rules, swapping one crypto for another generally does not trigger capital gains tax; the 31.4% levy applies when an investor cashes out or spends holdings.

For advisors with French-resident clients, the amendment would make a token's MiCA classification a tax input: the same rotation out of bitcoin would produce a different French tax result depending on which stablecoin the client moves into. That puts MiCA's e-money token definition on the due-diligence checklist alongside issuer and custody arrangements.

Other amendments adopted in committee would require French taxpayers to declare self-hosted crypto wallets holding at least €100,000 ($116,000), with fines up to $11,600. A separate proposal would extend France's exit tax to crypto holdings worth roughly $900,000, capturing unrealized gains under rules already applied to wealthy shareholders moving abroad. Another amendment would let investors carry crypto losses forward for up to 10 years. None of these measures is law: after adopting the amendments, the committee rejected the revenue section of the budget by 31 votes to 3, so the proposals must be debated again in the full National Assembly before the Dec. 10 deadline.