France remittance tax proposals and 2024 outflows of 15.8 billion euros, Digi Mart USA News: People living and working in France sent 16.2 billion euros abroad in 2024 and received 0.3 billion, according to the Banque de France. The difference, 15.8 billion euros leaving France in 2024, is recorded in the “workers’ remittances” line of the balance of payments, which tracks all money entering and leaving France.
This figure returns to the debate with each budget. For 2026 and then 2027, Rassemblement national deputies proposed taxing money individuals send outside the European Union: 10% the first time and 14% the second.
Neither text has been adopted. The most recent amendment, I-CF980, was filed on October 4, 2026, by M.
Chenu and the Rassemblement national group. It targeted the 2027 finance bill and was meant to apply to transfer orders received from January 1, 2027.
A first version had been filed a year earlier. It taxed at 10% transfers from a person domiciled in France to a beneficiary outside the European Union, and exempted countries that had signed a readmission agreement.
Both texts targeted the same group, family transfers outside the EU, with the rate raised by 4 points the second time.
The amounts cited by the authors describe the money sent, not what the tax would have raised: no official estimate of its yield has been published. The 2027 explanatory statement also cites Eurostat: 52.1 billion euros sent in 2024 by EU households to third countries, including 3.4 billion from France to Morocco, the largest outflow from France.
Across all transfers, to the EU and outside it, France accounts for 11% of money leaving EU countries, ranking second behind Germany (13%). The issue joins other tax measures debated around the 2027 budget, such as indexing the income tax scale.
The two amendments had different fates. The 2026 budget version was debated in the finance committee and rejected.
The 2027 version is marked “not supported”: no deputy defended it in committee, so it was never put to a vote.
During the 2026 budget review, committee exchanges summarized the positions involved. The obstacle raised was legal: European law protects the free movement of payments, even to countries outside the European Union.
This was the argument the general rapporteur relied on before the vote, and the committee rejected the text.
Other measures in the same budget follow their own course, such as the cap on exemptions for severance payments. For money transfers, no tax is currently in force in France.
The United States and Italy have already taxed money transfers abroad, at lower rates than those proposed in France. The United States has applied a 1% tax since January 1, 2026, created by the budget law signed July 4, 2025.
The version first passed by the House of Representatives provided for 3.5%.
Italy tried a 1.5% rate in 2019 and 2020. The tax, created by decree at the end of 2018, was repealed by the 2021 budget law.
The US tax exempts transfers debited from a bank account or card: only transfers paid in cash, by money order or by bank draft are taxed. The French proposals, by contrast, targeted all channels, including bank transfers.
For a family sending 200 euros a month, or 2,400 euros a year, a 14% tax would have amounted to 336 euros a year, compared with 240 euros at 10% and 24 euros at the US rate of 1%.
Currently, no tax applies to money transfers from France. They nonetheless carry a cost: according to the World Bank, sending money from France costs 5.23% of the amount on average, and 18.59% when the transfer goes through a bank, compared with a global average of 6.36%.
On the 2,400 euros sent each year in the example, 5.23% represents 125.52 euros in fees. The cost of a transfer depends first on the channel chosen: 18.59% on average through a bank, compared with 5.23% across all channels.
For transfers to an EU or European Economic Area country, a euro transfer cannot cost more than a domestic transfer in France, under a 2021 European regulation. The SEPA zone, the euro payment area, extends further with 41 countries and territories, without this price guarantee outside the EU and EEA.
Outside this zone or in other currencies, banks charge an “international” transfer fee.
Comparisons of online banks and bank fee schedules detail these charges before opening a dedicated account for transfers. Customers should also verify, at the same time, that the 100,000-euro deposit guarantee does not apply in the same way to every institution.
