France Crypto Tax Guide 2026: PFU, BIC, FEC & Form 2086

France treats crypto more carefully than most jurisdictions. There's a clean flat tax for ordinary investors, a separate regime for people who trade like professionals, and a real risk of being reclassified from one to the other if your activity looks too much like a business. The line between the two has moved over the last few years, and the consequences of being on the wrong side are large.

This guide covers how crypto is taxed in France in 2026: when the PFU (the 30% flat tax) applies, when you cross into the BIC regime, what counts as a taxable event, and which forms the DGFiP expects to see. It also covers the FEC export requirement that catches a lot of crypto-active businesses off guard.

The short version: most individual investors will pay 30% on net gains realized in fiat. Habitual traders, miners, and businesses fall under different rules entirely. Crypto-to-crypto trades are not taxable in France for occasional investors, which is a notable difference from the UK or US. And if you hold tokens on foreign exchanges, you owe the DGFiP an annual declaration whether you sold anything or not.

The two regimes: occasional investor (PFU) vs habitual trader (BIC)

French crypto tax law splits individuals into two camps. Which camp you're in determines almost everything else.

Occasional investor (investisseur occasionnel): You buy and hold crypto, occasionally sell some to fiat, and don't run anything resembling a trading operation. Your gains fall under article 150 VH bis of the Code général des impôts and are taxed at the Prélèvement Forfaitaire Unique (PFU): a flat 30%.

Habitual trader (investisseur habituel): Your activity has the characteristics of a profession: high frequency, sophisticated tools, significant capital deployed, and a clear intent to generate trading income. Your profits fall under Bénéfices Industriels et Commerciaux (BIC) and are taxed at progressive income tax rates plus social contributions, with the possibility of business expense deductions.

There is no single legal threshold that pushes you from one to the other. The DGFiP and the courts look at a bundle of factors: how often you trade, the tools you use (bots, leverage, advanced derivatives), how much of your wealth is deployed, whether trading is your main income, and whether you've structured your activity in a business-like way.

Until 2023, the line was vague and badly defined. The Loi de Finances 2022 (which took effect from 2023 onwards) clarified the criteria but did not produce a numeric threshold. In practice, most retail investors stay firmly in PFU territory. Day traders, on-chain market makers, and people running bots get reclassified into BIC more often than they used to.

If any of these BIC-side factors apply to you, get an expert-comptable before filing. The reclassification risk is real and the tax consequences are larger than most people expect.

The 30% PFU flat tax explained

For occasional investors, France applies a single flat rate to net realized gains in fiat. The 30% PFU breaks down as follows.

Gains are calculated at the level of the portefeuille global, meaning your entire crypto portfolio, not per-coin. Each time you sell crypto for fiat (or use it to pay for goods or services), you compute the gain on your whole portfolio at that moment, using a weighted-average cost basis across everything you hold.

The French formula, simplified:

Plus-value = Prix de cession − (Prix total d'acquisition × Prix de cession ÷ Valeur globale du portefeuille)

This is a single-pool approach: you cannot pick which lot you're selling. It's closer to the UK's Section 104 method than to US specific identification. The upside is simplicity. The downside is that you cannot tax-loss-harvest individual lots; gains and losses across the entire portfolio are netted automatically.

Taxpayers can opt to be taxed at the progressive income tax scale instead of the 30% flat, which sometimes makes sense for low-income filers. That election applies globally to all capital income for the year, not just crypto.

When you cross into BIC territory (and why that matters)

The PFU is generous. The BIC regime is not.

If your trading activity is reclassified as habitual, your profits become Bénéfices Industriels et Commerciaux. That means:

• Progressive income tax rates (up to 45%) instead of 12.8% IR
• Social contributions of roughly 17.2% to 45% depending on your structure
• Obligation to register a business activity (often as micro-entrepreneur or under régime réel)
• Quarterly or monthly VAT considerations (though most crypto trading is VAT-exempt under EU rules)
• Bookkeeping requirements, including the Fichier des Écritures Comptables (FEC) export

There are two flavors of BIC for crypto traders.

Micro-BIC is administratively lighter but the 50% flat deduction rarely matches actual expenses for crypto trading. Régime réel lets you deduct exchange fees, gas, software subscriptions, hardware, and a portion of utilities, but it requires real accounting.

Most people don't choose BIC; they get pushed into it after a tax audit. If you're trading at scale, the cleanest approach is to incorporate (SASU, SAS, SARL) and run the activity through a company. That gets you corporation tax (impôt sur les sociétés) at 15% up to €42,500 of profit and 25% above, plus dividend taxation when you pay yourself.

Taxable events: sale to fiat vs crypto-to-crypto

This is one of the most important features of French crypto tax law and it's specific to the occasional investor regime.

Taxable in France for occasional investors:

• Selling crypto for euros or any fiat currency
• Using crypto to pay for goods or services
• Selling crypto on a platform that converts to fiat at the back end (some debit cards)

Not taxable in France for occasional investors:

• Swapping one crypto for another (BTC to ETH, ETH to USDC, anything)
• Moving crypto between wallets you own
• Buying crypto with fiat and holding it
• Receiving a gift of crypto (gift tax may apply separately)

The crypto-to-crypto exemption is a meaningful difference from UK and US rules. If you swap ETH for USDC on Uniswap, no French tax is due at that moment. The cost basis carries through to the new token. Tax only triggers when you eventually convert back to fiat or spend it.

This rule applies only under PFU. If you're classified as BIC, every disposal, including crypto-to-crypto swaps, counts as business income at fair market value.

Stablecoins are a gray area worth flagging. The DGFiP has not formally ruled that USDC or USDT are equivalent to fiat. As of 2026, swapping ETH for USDC is still treated as a crypto-to-crypto trade for PFU purposes. That position could change, and several legal commentators expect it to. Track stablecoin disposals carefully so you can recompute if the rules shift.

Form 2086 — declaring capital gains

If you realized any taxable disposal during the year, you owe the DGFiP a Form 2086 alongside your annual déclaration de revenus (Form 2042).

Form 2086 itemizes each taxable disposal: date, proceeds in euros, the global portfolio value at disposal, the total acquisition price across the portfolio, and the resulting gain or loss. Net annual gain flows from Form 2086 to Form 2042 C, line 3AN (gains) or 3BN (losses).

A few points that catch people out:

• One Form 2086 covers all your disposals for the year, but each disposal is a separate line.
• You need the global portfolio value in euros at the moment of each disposal, not just the value of the asset you sold. This is what makes manual calculation impractical for active investors.
• Losses for the year offset gains for the year automatically. Net losses cannot be carried forward to future years (this is a major asymmetry vs the UK).
• The €305 abattement (de minimis exemption) was abolished from 2023. Every euro of gain is now taxable.

The filing deadline tracks the standard déclaration de revenus calendar, typically late May to early June, depending on your département.

Form 3916-bis — declaring foreign exchange accounts

This catches many crypto holders by surprise.

If you hold crypto on a foreign exchange (Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, OKX, anything not registered as a French PSAN), you must declare each account on Form 3916-bis every year, regardless of whether you sold anything.

The penalty for failing to declare is €750 per undeclared account (€125 if the account holds less than €50,000), with a maximum of €10,000 per year. The DGFiP receives data from many large exchanges through the DAC8 directive (effective 2026), so non-disclosure is increasingly easy to detect.

Form 3916-bis requires:

• The exchange name and country
• The account number or user ID
• The opening date
• Whether the account was closed during the year

You file one Form 3916-bis per account, attached to Form 2042. Wallets you control (MetaMask, Ledger, self-custody) are not subject to this declaration; only accounts held by a third party.

FEC export for crypto businesses (DGFiP requirement)

If you operate under BIC régime réel or run a French company, the DGFiP can require you to produce a Fichier des Écritures Comptables during a tax audit. The FEC is a standardized text file containing every accounting entry for the financial year, in a format defined by article A. 47 A-1 of the Livre des procédures fiscales.

The FEC has 18 mandatory columns including journal code, entry date, account number (under the Plan Comptable Général), debit, credit, currency, and reconciliation reference. It must be produced within 15 days of the DGFiP's request during an audit, and it must reconcile to the published financial statements.

For crypto-active companies, building a FEC manually is genuinely difficult. The data lives across exchanges, on-chain wallets, fiat bank accounts, and accounting systems that rarely speak to each other. Wag3s Ledger generates FEC exports automatically from connected wallets and exchanges, mapping crypto transactions to the correct PCG accounts (typically classes 5 for treasury, 7 for revenue, 6 for fees and expenses).

Failure to produce a valid FEC during an audit triggers a fine of €5,000 or up to 10% of the reassessed tax, whichever is higher. It also shifts the burden of proof against you for the rest of the audit.

Mining, staking, airdrops — how they're taxed

Income from crypto activity is taxed differently from capital gains, and the categorization depends on the activity.

Mining (Proof-of-Work): Treated as Bénéfices Non Commerciaux (BNC) for individuals, taxed at progressive rates. If you mine at scale with significant equipment, it can be reclassified as BIC. The fair market value of mined coins at the moment of receipt is income, and subsequent appreciation is taxed under the disposal regime when you sell.

Staking: The DGFiP has not issued definitive guidance for all staking arrangements, but the prevailing position is that staking rewards are BNC income at receipt for individuals, valued at fair market value at the time the rewards become available. Subsequent disposal follows PFU rules.

Airdrops: If received without action (passive airdrop), most commentators treat it as zero-cost-basis crypto, taxed only on disposal. If received in exchange for actions (testnet participation, retroactive rewards for usage), the value at receipt is BNC income.

Liquidity mining and DeFi yield: Generally treated as BNC at receipt. The frequency and complexity of DeFi rewards make manual tracking impractical for any active user.

Salary paid in crypto: Treated as ordinary salary, with the employer responsible for converting to euros for prélèvements sociaux and impôt sur le revenu. The employee acquires the crypto at the euro value declared by the employer, which becomes the cost basis for future PFU calculation.

FAQ

Do I owe French tax if I held crypto all year and didn't sell?

No. France only taxes realized gains. Holding crypto, receiving it as a gift (other than gift tax considerations), and moving it between your own wallets are not taxable events. You may still need to file Form 3916-bis if any of your crypto is held on a foreign exchange.

Can I carry forward crypto losses to future years?

No, not under the PFU regime. Losses within a tax year offset gains within the same year, but unused losses are lost. Under BIC, business losses can be carried forward like any other commercial loss. This asymmetry is one of the largest practical reasons people end up wishing they were in BIC, ironically.

What's the difference between micro-BIC and régime réel?

Micro-BIC applies a flat 50% deduction to your revenue and taxes the rest at progressive IR. It's simple but rarely tax-optimal. Régime réel lets you deduct actual expenses (exchange fees, software, equipment, partial utilities) but requires full bookkeeping and FEC capability. Most crypto traders who fall into BIC end up under régime réel because actual expenses exceed 50%.

Are stablecoins treated as fiat by the DGFiP?

Not as of 2026. Swapping ETH for USDC is currently a non-taxable crypto-to-crypto trade for occasional investors. Several legal commentators expect this position to evolve, especially with the EU's MiCA framework now in force. Track stablecoin trades carefully in case the rules change retroactively or for future years.

What happens if I don't declare a foreign exchange account on Form 3916-bis?

A €750 penalty per undeclared account (€125 below €50,000 in account value), capped at €10,000 per year. Under DAC8, the DGFiP receives automatic data from most large exchanges, so undeclared accounts are increasingly visible. The penalty applies even if you didn't make any taxable disposal: it's about disclosure, not tax owed.

Further reading

For tracking individual crypto activity and generating a France-ready Form 2086 export, see Wag3s Folio. For French companies that need automated FEC exports mapped to Plan Comptable Général accounts, see Wag3s Ledger.

Related guides:

• How to do crypto taxes — the general framework, jurisdiction-agnostic
• UK Crypto Tax Guide 2025 — for comparison with the HMRC regime

External sources:

• DGFiP — Bofip-Impôts BOI-RPPM-PVBMC-30 (capital gains on digital assets): bofip.impots.gouv.fr
• Loi de Finances 2024 — reform of the crypto regime and clarification of habitual trader criteria

If you're filing for the first time as a French crypto investor, the practical advice is unchanged from previous years: keep records of every fiat-on-ramp, track the global euro value of your portfolio at each disposal, and file Form 3916-bis for every foreign exchange, including ones you've stopped using.