France sets Nov. 3 budget vote after one-vote stablecoin tax win

France's National Assembly has set the solemn vote on the first part of the 2027 budget for the afternoon of Nov. 3, after a floor debate that runs Oct. 27 to Nov. 2, according to the chamber's own schedule. The first part of a French finance law covers revenue. Examination began Oct. 13 and ran through Oct. 19 before the current pause. The date matters because the budget's revenue section now carries an amendment that would tax swaps from cryptocurrency into euro- and dollar-backed stablecoins, a measure lawmakers backed on Oct. 16 by a single vote.

The National Assembly's official record of that ballot shows amendment I-3898 passing 38 to 37, with 25 abstentions, among the 100 deputies who took part. With 75 votes actually cast, the measure sat exactly at the threshold for a majority. Decrypt reported the same tally and detailed what the amendment would change.

Under current French rules, holders can move between cryptocurrencies without owing tax as long as no euros change hands; the bill comes due when they cash out or spend. The amendment carves out swaps that end in an electronic money token under MiCA, the European Union's crypto rulebook, which covers stablecoins pegged to a single official currency. From Jan. 1, 2027, those swaps would count as sales. The taxable gain would be the value of the stablecoins received minus what the holder paid for the coins given up, taxed at France's flat rate, which rose from 30% to 31.4% after the country's 2026 social security financing law lifted social charges on capital income from 17.2% to 18.6%.

The text also rewrites cost-basis accounting. Instead of a single figure for the whole portfolio, each coin sold would carry its own purchase price, averaged where the same coin was bought more than once. For holdings bought before 2027, investors would make a one-off, irrevocable choice between documenting the actual cost of each asset and spreading the portfolio's total cost across what they hold on Dec. 31, 2026. The amendment does not address swaps that end in asset-referenced tokens or algorithmic designs outside the MiCA electronic money category.

The amendment's authors, led by Nicolas Sansu of the left-wing GDR group, argue that stablecoins can act as ordinary investment vehicles, used to pay crypto service providers or buy other tokens, and that gains moved into them currently escape the flat tax through what they call a hole in the legislation. They point to the United Kingdom and Italy as jurisdictions that have legislated along the same lines.

The government opposed the measure. Public Accounts Minister David Amiel asked for it to be withdrawn, arguing that stablecoins first needed a legal definition and that the state had to be able to trace reallocations within portfolios, Decrypt reported, citing CoinDesk. The finance committee had already backed Sansu's stablecoin amendment earlier this month, along with another of his proposals extending France's exit tax to crypto held by households worth more than €800,000, before rejecting the budget's entire revenue section by 31 votes to 3. That rejection sent the floor debate back to the government's original text and forced the stablecoin measure to be tabled again, which is how it reached the chamber and won on Oct. 16.

A separate committee amendment would require holders to declare self-custodied crypto worth €100,000 ($112,000) or more at year-end, with fines of up to €10,000 for failing to do so. That proposal has drawn a backlash from crypto figures, who argue that collecting the data would put holders at risk in a country that has seen a string of crypto kidnappings, including the 2025 abduction and mutilation of Ledger co-founder David Balland.

None of the measures is law yet. The Assembly votes on the full revenue section on Nov. 3, after which the budget passes to the Senate.