Crypto Taxes in France: 2026 English Filing Guide

For a French-resident household, private crypto disposals use a global portfolio formula rather than FIFO. The current official standard rate is 31.4%, with a separate progressive-rate option. This English guide explains fees, the €305 annual price test, BIC/BNC classification, foreign accounts and the new NFT rules applying to 2026 disposals. Form examples refer to 2025 income declared in 2026.

Tax-year scope: the available 2026 Form 2086 covers income earned in 2025. Transactions in calendar 2026 must follow the legislation applicable to that year; the filing form and deadlines for the 2027 campaign need their own confirmation.

Short answer: fiat sales and payments are taxable; qualifying swaps are deferred

For a French tax resident acting privately, Article 150 VH bis covers gains and losses on disposals of digital assets. A sale for euros or another legal currency is taxable. Using crypto to buy goods or services is also a taxable disposal because the taxpayer receives non-crypto consideration.

An exchange of digital assets for other digital assets without a cash adjustment (soulte) benefits from deferral and is excluded from the annual €305 proceeds test. If cash or other non-digital consideration is received or paid, the rules become more complex and the adjustment must be captured. Calling every DEX transaction “tax-free” without checking the consideration is unsafe.

France uses a global portfolio formula, not FIFO

The official 2026 Form 2086 instructions calculate the gross gain or loss for each taxable disposal as:

Disposal price − [total acquisition price of the digital-asset portfolio × disposal price ÷ global portfolio value immediately before disposal].

The global portfolio value includes relevant digital assets and associated rights held across French and foreign exchanges, personal servers, and offline storage. It must be valued at each taxable disposal. The total acquisition price is adjusted for the fractions of initial capital already allocated to earlier taxable disposals. This is why a transaction-only gain or exchange-level FIFO result does not reproduce Form 2086.

Example: a household invested €10,000. Immediately before a €3,000 taxable cash-out, its complete digital-asset portfolio is worth €15,000. Ignoring fees and earlier capital fractions, the allocated acquisition amount is €10,000 × €3,000 ÷ €15,000 = €2,000. The gross gain is €1,000. A later cash-out must use the updated remaining acquisition capital.

Documented platform and network fees connected with the taxable disposal can reduce the disposal price under the form’s instructions. They are not inserted into the allocation quotient in the same way. A report should therefore preserve gross consideration, deductible disposal fees, global value, and remaining acquisition capital separately.

Fee example: two cash-outs and the remaining capital

Extend the €10,000 acquisition-capital and €15,000 portfolio example with a €30 supported selling fee. The cash received after that fee is €2,970, but the capital allocation still uses the €3,000 sale consideration: €10,000 × €3,000 ÷ €15,000 = €2,000. The gain becomes €970, rather than €1,000. Using €2,970 in both parts would incorrectly allocate €1,980 of capital and show a €990 gain.

After the sale, €8,000 of acquisition capital remains. Assume no new deposits or market change: the remaining assets are worth €12,000. A second €2,400 sale with a €24 supported fee consumes €1,600 of capital and produces €2,376 − €1,600 = €776 of gain. The combined gain is €1,746; remaining acquisition capital is €6,400. At the current standard rate, the illustrative tax is €548.24 before any election or particular social-insurance treatment.

The evidence trail should show the trade confirmations, each fee, the complete household portfolio value immediately before each trade, and the capital carried into the second computation. A personal wallet missing from that valuation changes both gains. Reusing the original €10,000 for the second cash-out also produces a wrong result.

The standard rate, progressive option and €305 price test

The current official crypto guidance states 31.4%: 12.8% income tax plus 18.6% social levies for ordinary private disposal gains. A report still using an automatic 30% total should be checked. This is not the rate for all receipts paid in crypto. Compulsory social insurance in another EEA state or Switzerland can also require a separate review of the social-levy component.

Box 3CN is the express annual election for the progressive income-tax scale on the household's private digital-asset disposal gains. It is irrevocable for that year and independent of the election for investment income and securities gains. Compare both calculations using the household's full circumstances; a marginal rate alone is not a complete comparison.

The exemption applies when the annual household sum of disposal prices determined under Article 150 VH bis does not exceed €305. Qualifying deferred swaps without soulte are excluded. This tests prices, not profits. The 2026 Form 2086 for 2025 income adds prices after supported disposal fees and its prescribed soulte adjustments in line 51. The fee treatment in this price test is separate from the capital-allocation quotient.

For example, one €307 sale with a €3 supported selling fee and no soulte gives €304 for line 51. With no other relevant disposals, it stays within the exemption. Another €2 payment for goods raises the annual total to €306; the exemption no longer applies. Neither €304 nor €306 is itself a gain. The form instructions still require the annex when the disposals are exempt under this price test.

Private investment, the BNC exception and a BIC business

The official distinction has three branches. Private asset management uses Article 150 VH bis. Genuine commercial buying and reselling carried on as the taxpayer's profession is BIC. A separate, subsidiary BNC rule covers operations conducted under conditions analogous to a professional activity without constituting the taxpayer's profession. BOFiP describes that last rule as applying to exceptional cases; it does not abolish the BIC branch.

There is no official “100 trades” test. Keep a factual note on organization, tools, strategies, borrowing, time, clients and the economic transactions behind an order counter. Five thousand export lines can include repeated balance snapshots and internal transfers. Neither a bot nor a software label decides the legal classification on its own.

The official crypto page expressly places mining and staking profits in BNC. Keep the activity's receipts, entitlement, euro valuation and applicable expense regime separate from private cash-outs. Lending, liquidity pools, creator income and derivatives need a review of their actual rights. In particular, a value already considered in an income calculation must not be inserted into private portfolio capital merely to obtain a preferred result without establishing the applicable acquisition rule.

Read the staking and DeFi guide and the BIC/BNC guide for the relevant evidence.

NFT disposals in 2026 require a separate classification

Article 150 VH ter now links qualifying unique, non-fungible crypto-assets to the tax treatment of the goods or rights they represent, subject to professional-profit rules. The provision is in force from 27 June 2026 but applies to disposals from 1 January 2026. A 2025 Form 2086 example cannot establish that every 2026 NFT sale still belongs in the ordinary crypto formula. See the NFT guide.

Filing workflow: 2086, 2042 C, and foreign accounts

1. Identify every taxable disposal by the whole tax household.
2. Calculate each transaction on Form 2086 using the contemporaneous global portfolio value.
3. Report the household’s global gain on line 3AN or global loss on line 3BN of Form 2042 C.
4. Check 3CN only when expressly electing the progressive income tax scale.
5. Declare reportable foreign digital-asset accounts with Form 3916-3916 bis.

French residents must declare covered digital-asset accounts opened, held, used, or closed abroad. A self-custody wallet is not automatically the same as an account held with a foreign custodial provider, but hosted exchange accounts can be reportable even without a taxable sale. Preserve provider name, address, account identifier, opening and closing dates, and account ownership.

For 2025 income, retain a separate foreign-provider account inventory: legal entity, account number, country, opening/closing dates and ownership. For 2026, Article 1649 bis C has a revised scope covering foreign crypto portfolios and specified unique NFTs held or used abroad. Assess those facts against the current provision; do not infer that every blockchain address is foreign or that the old form already supplies every new field.

A global private loss on Form 2086 offsets private gains of the same year. The official form carries the current-year global result to 3BN; it does not create a general multi-year crypto loss carryforward. Read the France crypto loss guide before assuming that an unused negative result survives.

The complete French-language workflow is available in our French crypto tax guide.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

• BOFiP: private activity, BIC and the exceptional BNC rule
• CGI Article 150 VH ter: unique NFTs from 2026
• Current Article 1649 bis C: foreign portfolios and NFTs

• French tax authority: Form 2086 and 2026 instructions
• impots.gouv.fr: reporting digital-asset gains and losses
• impots.gouv.fr: Form 3916-3916 bis for foreign accounts

Content and cited official sources reviewed on 9 October 2026. The form examples concern 2025 income filed in 2026; 2026 transactions require the law applicable to those transactions.

Disclaimer: This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute tax advice. For individual tax advice, consult a licensed tax professional.