ANCV chèques-vacances 125 million euro levy, Digi Mart USA News: Tourism professionals in France are raising alarm over a government plan to withdraw €125 million from the cash reserves of the Agence nationale pour les chèques-vacances (ANCV), the national holiday voucher agency.
In a statement published on Tuesday, the Groupement des Hôtelleries et Restaurations de France (GHR) called on the government and lawmakers to abandon the levy, which is set out in Article 50 of the 2027 finance bill. The union said the measure would compromise funding for vacation aid and penalize tourism businesses, including hotels, cafés and restaurants.
The Union nationale des associations de tourisme et de plein air (UNAT) published an op-ed with Vacances Ouvertes calling for Article 50 to be removed and circulated a petition. The association Vacances et Familles had earlier mobilized and gathered more than 800 signatures.
Christelle Chassagne, president of ADN Tourisme, which represents 1,200 tourism institutions in France, also opposes the plan.
According to a study cited by the Institut Terram and written by Jean Pinard and Rémy Oudghiri, holiday vouchers often trigger departures and stimulate spending in local areas, with each euro spent in vouchers generating roughly three euros in tourism spending. In 2025, 4.8 million employees and self-employed workers received holiday vouchers, representing €1.75 billion reimbursed to beneficiaries and reinvested in the French economy, according to the ANCV.
Jean Pinard told L’Écho touristique that the payments also generate €360 million in VAT and described the levy as a “holdup,” noting that the ANCV “costs the state nothing.” The agency finances its operations and social action programs through commissions of 1% on sales to employers and committees and 2.5% on reimbursements to affiliated professionals. In 2025, more than €40 million was devoted to social action programs, enabling about 292,000 people from vulnerable groups to go on holiday.
Some observers, including Pinard, fear the agency could eventually disappear. The government of former Prime Minister François Bayrou had announced plans to merge or abolish one-third of state agencies and operators by 2027 to achieve savings of €2 to €3 billion.
The ANCV, a public establishment of the state, was not named among the bodies initially targeted, although it belongs to the same category. Established in 1982, the ANCV holds a monopoly on issuing holiday vouchers used for transport, accommodation, meals and leisure.
