France votes a 5.5-cent-per-gigabyte levy on data traffic

On 30 October 2026 France’s Assemblée nationale adopted an amendment to the 2027 finance bill that would create a levy on data sent to internet users in France. It matters because it taxes traffic volume rather than revenue, in a field where taxation, network regulation and net neutrality meet.

What was adopted

According to the French press, amendment I-1358 sets a rate of €0.055 per gigabyte transmitted to French subscribers. It was tabled by deputy Laurent Lhardit. The charge would fall on the company that sends the data: neither users nor access providers would be directly liable. A 100 GB file would mean €5.50.

The levy would be capped at 15% of the company’s turnover in France or 2% of its total turnover. Data would be collected in consolidated, anonymised form, under the supervision of the regulator Arcep and passed to the tax authorities.

A narrow vote and an open road

The result was 11 votes for, 10 against and 14 abstentions, with the government and the general rapporteur opposed. Its authors estimate annual revenue of €10 billion, a figure the government disputes; the same outlet reports that the finance committee had rejected the measure in early October. This is an amendment to a budget bill still going through Parliament, so it is neither in force nor applicable yet.

Open legal questions

Practical doubts have been raised: operators measuring traffic flows to reconstruct the tax base, and, according to the government, a large share of the burden falling on smaller providers, including French ones. Another unknown is whether the cost would be passed on to subscribers, since the text contains no mechanism on this.

Our view at CEA Digital Law

The Euro-American Committee of Digital Law - CEA Digital Law sees this initiative as a new chapter in the debate over who pays for networks. We suggest three lines of analysis.

First, a volume-based levy is a traffic policy as well as a fiscal one. Charging per gigabyte may encourage compression or discourage heavy content, and its fit with Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 on open internet access and the principle of non-discrimination between content should be assessed. Second, the technical design (measurement at interconnection points, audits based on network logs) needs safeguards on proportionality, data protection and legal certainty in a cross-border setting; European coordination seems preferable to scattered national solutions. Third, in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Africa, where connectivity gaps weigh more heavily, any mechanism contributing to network roll-out should be judged by its effect on access prices and on the entry of local operators and creators.

We recommend that the discussion rest on published impact assessments and look for cooperation between platforms, operators and regulators, rather than instruments that shift costs onto users.

Sources

• Europe 1 – Budget 2027 : les députés votent une taxe au gigaoctet
• Clubic – Une taxe sur chaque gigaoctet téléchargé
• NosParlementaires – Taxe au gigaoctet
• Developpez.com – Taxe de 5,5 centimes par Go

CEA Digital Law