TL;DR
- France is considering taxing crypto swaps into MiCA-regulated stablecoins at its 31.4% capital-gains rate from January 1, 2027, but the proposal is not law.
- Chainalysis warns the measure could push traders toward DeFi, peer-to-peer venues, offshore exchanges or non-MiCA tokens that remain outside the targeted category.
- The amendment must return to the National Assembly after the Finance Committee rejected the budget’s revenue section, leaving its final scope and passage uncertain.
France is considering extending its 31.4% crypto capital-gains tax to swaps into MiCA-regulated stablecoins, a change that Chainalysis warns could push activity toward less transparent alternatives. The official 2027 budget bill already updates the crypto-asset scope of Article 150 VH bis, while a Finance Committee amendment approved October 7 would go further by treating conversions into qualifying electronic money tokens as taxable disposals from January 1, 2027. The proposal would remove the current tax deferral for certain regulated stablecoin swaps, but it has not become law.
Tax Proposal Raises Regulatory Arbitrage Concerns
Under France’s current framework, exchanging one crypto asset for another generally does not trigger capital-gains tax, while cashing out or spending crypto can create a taxable event. The amendment would change that treatment when a trader moves from assets such as Bitcoin into stablecoins classified as electronic money tokens under MiCA. The concern is that France could tax the regulated exit route while leaving some non-MiCA alternatives outside the same treatment, creating an incentive to route activity elsewhere. That tension arrives as Europe pushes stablecoin activity toward MiCA-compliant issuers.
François Volpoet, Chainalysis’ head in France, warned that the measure could undermine efforts to bring crypto activity into supervised channels. He argued that regulated stablecoin transactions are easier for authorities to monitor than trades routed through decentralized finance, peer-to-peer venues, self-hosted wallets or exchanges outside international reporting arrangements. USDT, DAI and PAXG were cited as examples outside the amendment’s targeted category. The policy risk, in his view, is regulatory arbitrage: traders may choose less transparent rails to avoid triggering tax when moving out of volatile crypto assets. The warning echoes broader concerns around MiCA-driven liquidity fragmentation.
Chainalysis estimates France recorded $9.4 billion in taxable onchain crypto activity during 2025, including $2.5 billion in gains, although those figures do not show how much trading the proposed stablecoin rule would affect. The amendment also remains procedurally uncertain: the Finance Committee later rejected the revenue section of the budget, requiring the crypto measures to return for debate in the full National Assembly. France is therefore debating a tax change, not implementing one, and its final scope could still change before the 2027 budget is approved in the months ahead. The debate lands alongside Europe’s broader reassessment of MiCA stablecoin rules and competing efforts to keep regulated liquidity onshore.
