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French lawmakers approve $11.2 billion internet tax based on traffic usage, costs $0.06 per gigabyte of content accessed — US tech giants like Google and Meta face new levies on content delivered to French subscribers France's proposed data levy could raise €10 billion annually from major content providers. France has approved a proposed tax that aims to tax the amount of internet data per gigabyte sent to French users in the country, with major companies like Google, Netflix, TikTok, and Meta now in the crosshairs. According to minutes released by the National Assembly, members voted 11-10 in support of the motion on October 30 — which now means the new law has been added to the country’s next budget, despite major opposition from the government side and the finance committee rapporteur. The latest amendment, introduced by socialist lawmaker Laurent Lhardit, could see content providers pay €0.055 (roughly $0.06) to the government for every gigabyte of content distributed to French users. With approximately 154 million users and counting in France, the proposal’s authors say such a tax could generate around €10 billion ($11.2 billion) in annual revenue for the government. “This amendment proposes a tax on digital data flows emitted by content providers, to be borne by the providers themselves. Its revenue is estimated at €10 billion.” Said Laurent Lhardit. The said proposal, though yet to be passed as it must survive further parliamentary scrutiny, aims at companies that generate substantial internet traffic as opposed to taxing their advertising revenue, profits and subscriptions. Its explanatory notes particularly mention Google, Meta, Netflix, Amazon, and content delivery network Akamai as major potential contributors. Notably, TikTok and other similar platforms could fall under this broader scope depending on how these rules are applied. Internet service providers, including Orange Free and Liad, would be required to measure the volume of data and identify the companies responsible for sending it to French users. The Data will then be collected and submitted quarterly to France’s tax administration under the supervision of telecommunications watchdog Arcep. Aside from the €0.055 per gigabyte levy, the proposal also includes a cap of 15% of a company’s French revenue or 2% of its worldwide revenue. It also accounts for content delivery networks (CDNs), which store copies of online content closer to users to reduce loading times and network congestion. Approximately 200 billion GB of data pass through French internet providers annually, with about five major companies identified in the amendment accounting for about half of that traffic. Lhardit argued that tax would primarily affect global technology companies because they generate most of the data traffic reaching French subscribers. He also disputed that those platforms would merely push additional costs to users, using Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, which provide free access, as examples. “The rapporteur keeps arguing that the taxes will be passed on to consumers. However, I fail to see how a tax can be passed on to users of Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok since these services are free,” He stated. How much money are you willing to spend during the Black Friday sales? Lawmakers opposed to the proposal, however, argue that it is likely to endanger user privacy. Government Minister David Amiel questioned whether the internet traffic could be measured and attributed to content providers without introducing complicated monitoring requirements. Those concerns extend to potential consequences for French business. Lhardit, however, noted that businesses would pay relatively modest costs, citing TF1 as an example, which requires broadcasters to contribute between €200,000 and €300,000. Several European countries already impose digital service taxes, generally based on revenue from Ads, marketplaces and other digital activities. In March, Meta announced it would introduce location-based fees of between 2% and 55 for advertisers to offset digital services taxes and other government levies in several countries, including France, Italy, and Spain, from July 1, 2026 . Previously, the European Commission has rolled out major enforcement actions against major technology companies, including a €5 billion fine against Google over Android antitrust violations, Facebook’s €100 million fine for misleading European regulators, and the EU’s investigation into Facebook’s ability to link WhatsApp accounts. Last year, Apple and Meta were also fined €500 million and €200 million, respectively, a move that strained the relationship between Brussels and Washington, with the U.S. calling the penalties ‘a novel form of economic extortion’ that it will not tolerate. That said, the amendments' adoption in parliament is only the first step. If it can clear the remaining stages of France’s 2027 budget process, it can become law, with parliament scheduled to vote on the budget’s first section in early November. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Newton Gitonga is a tech journalist covering gadgets, PC hardware, AI, data centers, and the wider tech industry. His interest in technology started early, taking apart things around the house to see how they worked, often to his dad’s frustration. His curiosity sometimes got the better of him, including a few failed attempts to fix laptops, one of them a gifted Dell XPS. He has previously written for Notebookcheck, ZyCrypto, CoinCentral, and Crypto News Flash. - Sluggotg My World of Warcraft install takes up 128GB of data. If a French person installs that, Blizzard will owe France about $79. (Based on $0.62 per gig listed in the article, the headline says $0.64). Am I missing something? Every Movie you stream. Every online game you play. Costs you that much per Gig. Seems very out of control. I can't see how a company like Blizzard would be able to support France without having a "France Only" additional fee. Good Luck with that! Reply - hotaru251 Sluggotg said:My World of Warcraft install takes up 128GB of data. If a French person installs that, Blizzard will owe France about $79. (Based on $0.62 per gig listed in the article, the headline says $0.64). Am I missing something? Every Movie you stream. Every online game you play. Costs you that much per Gig. Seems very out of control. I can't see how a company like Blizzard would be able to support France without having a "France Only" additional fee. Good Luck with that!games are whatever with this. THis is targeting the mega corps who stream massive data or upload and download stuff. and there is no way they would serve the area if it is passed. if someone set up a bot to constantly download petabytes from youtube, facebook, MEGA, netflix, etc etc it would cost them a fortune they can't control. This 100% also encourages Gov to set up these types of bots to constantly download stuff to make them more $ from the law. Reply - bill001g hotaru251 said:games are whatever with this.So you don't think steam will care. There business selling games that needed to be downloaded. The tax on the download exceeds the cost of the games in many cases. So the government wants steam to give them all the money they were paid plus even more. What about microsoft game pass that costs $15/month and lets you download all the games you want. How long before microsoft gets tired of paying $500 per month to the government and getting $15. Even netflix can not afford this when it costs them a couple dollars per hour of movies watched. I suspect some idiot that can't do math proposed this. If it was that much per terabyte the companies would likely grumble but pay the tax. At these rates companies will just stop selling into that market or find a way to directly pass the cost onto the consumer which likely will have the same effect since many people feel games are over priced. They already pay a 20% vat tax for the game. It also depends on who they think they are going to tax. They likely could force their local ISP companies to pay and maybe companies that have a office in france. This will just lead to more people using VPN based in countries with no agreements to hide any of the actual traffic. Then again this is likely something some politician says to get votes knowing nothing will be said about it again after a election. Reply - Edward Jazzhands Sluggotg said:My World of Warcraft install takes up 128GB of data. If a French person installs that, Blizzard will owe France about $79. (Based on $0.62 per gig listed in the article, the headline says $0.64). Am I missing something? Every Movie you stream. Every online game you play. Costs you that much per Gig. Seems very out of control. I can't see how a company like Blizzard would be able to support France without having a "France Only" additional fee. Good Luck with that!You might want to check what the article says again. It says 6 cents per gig. Not 62 cents. Reply - txfeinbergs Yeah, there is no way this is going to be acceptable to those companies. That is a massive tax. I would tell the French government to go F themselves.Reply - txfeinbergs Edward Jazzhands said:You might want to check what the article says again. It says 6 cents per gig. Not 62 cents.Last time I checked: $0.65was 65 cents. Reply - hotaru251 bill001g said:So you don't think steam will care.i didnt say wouldnt care it was just w/e. fun fact: most of the internet usage isn't gaming related. music, video, streaming, etc etc. txfeinbergs said:Last time I checked: $0.65was 65 cents.per article (never trust an article title especially on TH as typos are frequent anymore): The latest amendment, introduced by socialist lawmaker Laurent Lhardit, could see content providers pay €0.055 (roughly $0.06) to the government for every gigabyte of content distributed to French users. that is 6 pennies. not 65 pennies. Reply - tntdyno france ip = do not serve literally that simple for these mega corps. they are not going to pay jack. Reply - greenreaper France has a big server hosting company, OVH... I doubt they're particularly happy about this, because who's going to want to serve France via a company the government can coerce into collecting such a tax? That's the most realistic way I see this working.Reply - SomeoneElse23 The gall that governments have, thinking they can tax everything. Maybe they should reduce expenses like the rest of us have to when funds get tight? Reply
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