French lawmakers want to know what sits in self-custodied crypto wallets. The National Assembly’s Finance Committee adopted an amendment on Friday, October 9, that would force holders of crypto worth 100,000 euros ($112,000) or more to report it or face fines. The catch is that adopting an amendment in committee is not the same as passing a law.
The mechanics
Amendment I-CF821 would add a provision to France’s general tax code. It covers crypto not held by a crypto-asset service provider, including assets stored in personal wallets. Holdings would be valued as of December 31, and anyone who fails to declare could be fined up to 10,000 euros.
The sponsors are Charles de Courson, Jean-Pierre Bataille and Michel Castellani, who sit in the LIOT parliamentary group. They say the aim is to fight tax evasion. Their evidence comes from a parliamentary inquiry into the taxation of wealthy individuals, which found crypto capital gains of 3.5 billion euros in 2021, against only 400 million euros of crypto holdings declared to the tax authorities that year.
It matters that this targets self-custody. An exchange can identify an account holder and produce records. A wallet has no such administrator, so a rule like this puts the burden on the holder to establish what they control and what it is worth.
One of five
The wallet measure was among five crypto amendments the committee adopted that week. Others include an exit tax on crypto holdings above 800,000 euros when a taxpayer moves abroad, and an end to tax deferral on conversions into fiat-backed stablecoins.
On closer reading, the broader budget picture is less settled. The committee also rejected the revenue section of the 2027 budget bill by 31 votes to 3, and the Assembly was due to start debating that section from the government’s original draft. According to the French tech publication Clubic, the crypto amendments would have to be submitted again and approved during those proceedings before they become part of the legislation.
What it does not do yet
Nobody has a new filing duty today. Final wording could still be amended, dropped or approved with a different threshold. Open questions include whether the limit applies per address, per wallet or per person, how jointly held assets, staked tokens and stablecoins would count, and which valuation method would apply. Existing French rules on foreign-opened digital-asset accounts, and the EU’s 2023 DAC8 directive covering reports by service providers, are separate from this proposal. A reporting threshold is also not a tax threshold: declaring a wallet would not, by itself, make its whole balance taxable. Nobody is being asked to hand over a recovery phrase, either, and anyone who says otherwise is after your assets.
Sources
- France crypto wallet reporting: €100K plan | Zelcore
- France Lawmakers Back $112K Crypto Wallet Disclosure Proposal
