French Assembly Passes Data Traffic Tax On Google, Meta, Netflix
France's National Assembly passed amendment I-1358 on October 30, 2026, introducing a tax on content providers based on the data they send to users in France.
1 source 2h ago
Reporting from 1 source: GIGAZINE.
Why it matters
The bill puts the tax burden on content providers rather than users or telecom operators, which makes traffic volume itself the taxable event and hands the collection role to the ISPs that measure it.
Key Facts
- France's National Assembly passed amendment I-1358 on October 30, 2026, by a vote of 11 in favor, 10 against and 14 abstentions.
- The tax is set at 0.055 euros per GB of data sent to users in France and is projected to raise 10 billion euros a year.
- The amendment names Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix and Akamai as the main taxable targets.
- Telecom operators report data volumes and originating companies to tax authorities every quarter.
- The tax is capped at 15 percent of a company's sales in France or 2 percent of its worldwide sales.
Set at 0.055 euros per GB, it is projected to raise 10 billion euros a year. The amendment names Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix and Akamai as targets, and the French government opposes it.
The amendment passed the plenary session by 11 votes in favor, 10 against and 14 abstentions, after the Finance Committee rejected it on October 9. Socialist Party deputy Laurent Lhardit submitted it as part of the 2027 budget bill.
Collection runs through telecom operators, which report quarterly on the volume of data crossing their networks and the companies sending it. The measure caps the tax at 15 percent of a company's sales in France or 2 percent of worldwide sales, and it counts data sent from CDN servers, so rerouting delivery does not avoid the charge.
The French government opposes the bill, according to the report, even though the Assembly has now passed it.
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