• The amendment would make swaps from crypto into MiCA-regulated e-money tokens taxable from 1 January 2027, according to CoinDesk.
• It sets no new rate; gains would fall under France's existing 31.4% flat crypto tax.
• It is not law: the finance committee rejected the budget's revenue section 31 votes to 3, so the amendments must be reintroduced.
• Chainalysis warns the tax could shift activity to DeFi, peer-to-peer and offshore venues that are harder to monitor; this is a forecast, not an observed result.
• Watch the 20 October Assembly vote and the 10 December deadline to pass the 2027 budget.

A French budget amendment would tax swaps from crypto into MiCA-regulated stablecoins at 31.4% from 1 January 2027. It has cleared a committee but is not law, and its fate depends on a budget process that has already stumbled. The policy question is whether taxing the most monitorable stablecoins pushes activity toward channels regulators can see less of.

What the amendment would change

The amendment would treat a swap from a crypto asset such as bitcoin into a MiCA-defined e-money token as a taxable sale from 1 January 2027. Today France taxes crypto only when it is cashed out for ordinary money or spent, so a swap into a stablecoin is not a taxable event. The amendment sets no rate of its own; it would bring those gains under the existing 31.4% flat tax. Other stablecoins such as USDT and DAI fall outside its scope, according to CoinDesk.

Decrypt reports that Nicolas Sansu of the GDR group and 16 co-signers filed it. The 31.4% rate reflects a rise in the social-charge portion from 17.2% to 18.6% under the 2026 social-security financing law, as Decrypt describes it.

Why the legislative path is uncertain

The measure is not law and may not survive. The finance committee rejected the budget's revenue section by 31 votes to 3 on 9 October, so the full chamber starts from the government's original text without the crypto amendments, according to Decrypt. Backers would need to reintroduce them for floor debate. The Assembly is scheduled to vote on the revenue section on 20 October, and lawmakers have until 10 December to pass the 2027 budget.

The offshore migration argument

Chainalysis's France chief, Francois Volpoet, argues that taxing regulated-stablecoin swaps could push activity toward DeFi, peer-to-peer trading and exchanges outside international tax-reporting arrangements, where oversight is weaker. He says regulated stablecoin trades are easier to monitor. This is a forecast from an analytics vendor, not an observed outcome, and the tax has not taken effect. The same package would require declaring self-hosted wallets holding at least €100,000, as reported by CoinDesk.

What this means for compliance teams and exchanges: the proposal would make the swap, not only the cash-out, the reporting event for MiCA stablecoins. Watch the 20 October vote for whether the amendment returns, and whether any final text keeps the scope limited to MiCA-regulated tokens.