French lawmakers approve proposed tax on internet traffic

France’s National Assembly has voted in favour of introducing a tax on internet traffic, advancing a proposal that would charge content and application providers according to the volume of data they deliver to French subscribers.

The amendment to the 2027 budget, introduced by Socialist lawmaker Laurent Lhardit, was approved on 30 October by 11 votes to 10, with 14 abstentions, despite opposition from the government. It proposes a levy of €0.055 per gigabyte of traffic.

Under the proposal, internet service providers (ISPs) would measure the traffic delivered to their subscribers, identify the companies responsible for originating it and submit aggregated quarterly reports to tax authorities. The process would be supervised by telecom regulator Arcep and the public finance administration.

The tax would also cover content delivery networks (CDNs), with taxable traffic calculated as data transferred from caching networks to end users. The amendment prohibits collecting information about the content or destination of individual communications. Annual tax liabilities would be capped at 15% of a provider’s revenue in France or 2% of its worldwide revenue.

Supporters estimate that the measure could generate €10 billion annually, based on Arcep estimates of around 200 billion gigabytes delivered to French subscribers each year. The amendment identifies Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix and Akamai as accounting collectively for approximately half of that traffic.

The government has challenged the proposal’s economic assumptions. Budget Minister David Amiel warned that smaller content providers, including French companies, could face a substantial financial burden. The measure would also require network operators to introduce additional traffic-accounting procedures and address difficulties in attributing traffic delivered through shared infrastructure and CDNs.

The proposal has also drawn concern from open-source developers. VideoLAN, the French non-profit organisation behind the VLC media player, warned that the levy could cost it more than €1 million annually, illustrating the potential impact on organisations that distribute large volumes of data without generating comparable commercial revenue.

The proposal forms part of a wider European debate over whether large online platforms should contribute more directly to telecommunications infrastructure costs. Unlike negotiated network usage payments advocated by some telecom operators, the French amendment would establish a government-imposed tax calculated according to traffic volume.

The measure has not yet become law. It remains subject to the wider budget process and could still be removed from the final legislation. The government’s opposition also leaves its prospects uncertain as parliament considers the 2027 budget.