French Senate Passes Crypto Tax Data-Sharing Bill

France moved a step closer to full OECD-aligned automatic crypto tax reporting on 29 October 2026, when the Senate adopted Bill no. 3421 at first reading. The bill authorises the automatic exchange of crypto-asset transaction data between French tax authorities and their foreign counterparts, and it now heads to the National Assembly for consideration. For accounting firms, auditors, and CFOs managing digital asset portfolios with any EU or OECD dimension, the implications are immediate: the reporting infrastructure around crypto is tightening on two parallel tracks at once.

What the Bill Actually Contains

Bill no. 3421 covers two distinct elements. The first is an agreement enabling the automatic exchange of crypto-specific tax information. The second is an update to an existing agreement on financial account information, broadening its scope.

The CARF connection

The crypto exchange agreement is built on the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. CARF establishes common standards that participating jurisdictions use to collect and automatically share information about crypto transactions, including the identities of the parties involved and the volumes traded. France adopting CARF-compatible legislation means French crypto service providers will feed into a global data-sharing network that already has significant momentum across OECD member states.

Where the bill sits in the legislative process

Senate adoption at first reading is a necessary step, not the finish line. The National Assembly must now scrutinise and vote on the bill. Until that process is complete and the bill is promulgated, the automatic exchange mechanism it establishes does not have legal force. Compliance teams should treat this as a high-probability near-term development rather than an immediate obligation, but planning should begin now.

DAC8: The Layer Already in Force

France did not wait for this bill before acting on crypto reporting. The 2025 Finance Act already transposed the crypto-specific amendment to the EU's Directive on Administrative Cooperation, widely known as DAC8. That framework requires crypto-asset service providers operating in France to collect and report customer identity data and transaction information to the French tax authority. That authority then shares the data with the tax authorities of EU member states where customers are resident.

What DAC8 already demands from service providers

Under DAC8, reportable information includes customer names, addresses, tax identification numbers, and transaction volumes. These are not aggregated summaries: they are granular, per-customer records. Any crypto-asset service provider that thought DAC8 would only require light-touch changes to its data architecture needs to revisit that assumption. The data model required to satisfy DAC8 is also, by design, closely aligned with CARF, so firms that have invested in DAC8-compliant systems are better positioned to absorb the incoming CARF layer without rebuilding from scratch.

For a detailed breakdown of DAC8 reporting obligations and what crypto service providers must submit, see our analysis of DAC8 and what crypto service providers must report.

The 2027 Budget: A Capital Gains Dimension

Separately from Bill no. 3421, the French National Assembly adopted an amendment on 16 October that would make crypto gains taxable as of 1 January 2027. That measure is not yet law: lawmakers resumed debate on the revenue section of the 2027 budget, with a vote scheduled for 3 November. The timing matters because both legislative threads, the CARF exchange agreement and the capital gains rule, could create overlapping obligations for clients who trade crypto assets and are either French residents or transact through French-regulated platforms.

Planning implications for the 2027 tax year

If the 2027 capital gains rule is enacted alongside the data-exchange framework, French tax authorities will have both the legal right to receive detailed transaction data from foreign counterparts and a clear domestic basis for assessing gains on those transactions. That is a notably tighter combination than the current position. Clients with cross-border portfolios, particularly those who hold assets on non-EU platforms, should be advised that the information asymmetry they may have previously assumed is shrinking rapidly.

The Privacy and Security Dimension

Any honest accounting of this regulatory development has to include the data-security concerns it raises. DAC8 involves sharing personal information, including names, addresses, tax identification numbers, and transaction volumes, across EU member state tax authorities. Faustine Fleuret, global head of public affairs at the lending protocol Morpho, told Cointelegraph that this creates a significant risk: "In a country where crypto holders have been physically targeted, a leaked list of who trades what, and for how much, is not only a privacy issue but first and foremost a safety issue."

The centralisation risk

The European Commission has set a target of establishing a central repository for crypto reports by the end of 2026. Each member state's tax authority would be able to query that repository for information about its own tax residents. Fleuret characterises centralising this volume of sensitive data in a single system as creating a potential single point of failure. That concern is not abstract: during the first half of 2026, France was the location of a notable physical attack on cryptocurrency investors, when a couple had Bitcoin stolen by criminals posing as law enforcement officers. Context like this shapes how clients, particularly high-net-worth individuals with visible on-chain positions, think about disclosure obligations.

What firms should communicate to clients

Accounting practices advising crypto-holding clients should be proactive about explaining what data will be reported, to whom, and under what legal framework. Clients have a right to understand the scope of automatic reporting before it happens. Firms that can clearly map the DAC8 and CARF data flows for clients, and explain the safeguards (or lack thereof) in the central repository proposal, will provide meaningfully higher advisory value than those treating these developments as back-office compliance tasks.

Practical Steps for Accounting Firms and CFOs

Two overlapping regulatory developments, DAC8 already in force and CARF-aligned exchange legislation advancing, create a clear action list for firms that use crypto accounting software or advise clients who do.

Data architecture and digital asset accounting software readiness

The single most important preparatory step is confirming that existing digital asset accounting software can produce the specific data fields required under DAC8 today, and that the same system can be adapted for CARF fields once the bill passes the National Assembly. CARF and DAC8 share significant structural overlap, but they are not identical, and gaps in transaction-level data capture will become expensive to fix retrospectively. Crypto bookkeeping software that was adequate for portfolio valuation alone is not necessarily adequate for regulatory reporting. A gap analysis run now, before the National Assembly vote, is far cheaper than a crisis remediation after promulgation.

Client segmentation by exposure

Not every client is equally affected. Firms should segment their client base by: whether the client is a crypto-asset service provider subject to direct DAC8 reporting obligations; whether the client is an individual or corporate holder whose data will be reported by a third-party service provider; and whether the client has cross-border holdings that will attract CARF-based exchange from non-EU jurisdictions. Each segment requires a different advisory response and a different timeline.

Monitoring the National Assembly vote

The bill's progress through the National Assembly deserves active tracking, not passive observation. Any amendments introduced at that stage could alter the scope of the exchange agreement or its implementation timeline. Firms with French-regulated clients or French tax resident clients should assign a named individual to monitor legislative progress and brief partners when material changes occur.

The parallel development in Italy around Pillar Two revenue calculations shows how quickly overlapping tax frameworks can create unexpected interactions. Our coverage of how Italy's Pillar Two restatement ruling affects digital asset tax calculations is a useful reference for firms managing multinational clients with crypto exposure.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CARF and why does it matter for EU-based firms?

CARF is the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework published by the OECD. It sets standardised rules for collecting and automatically exchanging information about crypto transactions between participating tax authorities. For EU-based firms, CARF matters because it extends automatic reporting obligations beyond the EU's own DAC8 framework to a broader set of OECD member states, meaning client data may flow to and from jurisdictions outside the EU under treaty arrangements.

Is automatic crypto data exchange already happening in France?

Partially. The DAC8 framework, transposed into French law through the 2025 Finance Act, already requires crypto-asset service providers to report customer and transaction data to French tax authorities, who then share it with EU counterparts. Bill no. 3421 extends this to non-EU OECD jurisdictions via a CARF-aligned agreement, but that extension is not yet law: it still requires National Assembly approval.

What data is covered by these reporting frameworks?

Both DAC8 and CARF require reporting of customer names, addresses, tax identification numbers, and transaction volumes. The focus is on granular, per-customer records rather than aggregate figures. Service providers need to have data collection systems capable of capturing and structuring this information at the individual transaction level.

How should crypto accounting software be assessed for CARF readiness?

Firms should check whether their current crypto accounting software can export the specific data fields mandated by CARF alongside those already required by DAC8. Key areas to test include counterparty identification data capture, transaction-type categorisation, and the ability to produce jurisdiction-specific output files. Where gaps exist, they should be escalated to software vendors before the National Assembly completes its review of Bill no. 3421.

What is the proposed EU central repository and when would it go live?

The European Commission has proposed creating a central repository to consolidate DAC8 crypto reports, with a target completion date of end-2026. Each EU member state's tax authority would be able to query the repository for data relating to its own residents. The proposal has attracted data-security concerns because centralising sensitive personal and financial data in a single system creates a concentrated point of vulnerability.

Source: Cointelegraph