France’s National Assembly in a first reading backed an amendment to the 2027 budget that would charge 5.5 euro cents for each gigabyte of data sent to users in the country.
Rate and payers of the levy
Companies that send data to users in France would have to pay; the rate is proposed at 5.5 euro cents per 1 GB. The levy is capped at 15% of a company’s French turnover or 2% of its global turnover.
The authors of the amendment expect to raise €10 billion in revenue each year. According to the regulator Arcep’s estimate, subscribers of French providers receive about 200 billion GB of traffic annually.
How traffic will be measured and who will provide the data
Traffic volumes will be measured by internet service providers Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free: they will transmit anonymised data to the tax authority on a quarterly basis showing how much traffic each supplier sent. The content of the transmitted data will not be analysed, only the number of gigabytes.
Arcep estimates that half of the annual flow, about 100 billion GB, is generated by five companies: Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix and Akamai.
Criticism, examples of cost and the adoption procedure
Budget Minister David Amiel voiced reservations that such measurement would require special sensors in operators’ networks or measurements on users’ devices, and that half the tax could fall on smaller content providers, in particular French ones. The general rapporteur of the finance committee, Philippe Juvin, warned that platforms would pass the costs on to advertisers.
The non-profit organisation VideoLAN wrote on X that deputies “voted for a tax they do not understand”, and it will cost them more than €1 million a year. An example given: downloading a 200 GB game would cost a provider approximately €11.
The provision has not been finally adopted: the budget must pass the full first reading, then the document will be considered by the Senate, where the centre-right holds the majority. The government could also invoke Article 49.3 and remove the amendment during final adoption.
