On October 30, 2026, the National Assembly of France adopted amendment No. I-1358 to the draft finance bill for 2027, which provides for the introduction of a tax on digital content providers amounting to €0.055 per gigabyte of data transmitted to French users. The initiative was authored by Socialist MP Laurent Lhardit.
The amendment was passed by a narrow majority (11 votes to 10), despite unfavorable opinions from the government and the general budget rapporteur.
The new levy targets large international tech companies that generate the main share of internet traffic in France (Netflix, Google, Meta, Amazon, Akamai):
According to the authors of the amendment, the annual volume of data received by French subscribers is approximately 200 billion gigabytes, which could generate up to €10 billion for the country's budget each year. At the same time, the French government expressed doubts about the realism of these calculations, fearing an additional financial burden on smaller local players.
In addition to its financial goal, the initiative aims to motivate tech companies to better compress video and image content to reduce network load and lessen environmental impact.
The vote in the National Assembly represents only the first step. The draft finance bill for 2027 continues its parliamentary review and must undergo debate in the Senate, where the gigabyte tax provision may still be amended or completely removed from the final version.
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