Crypto-assets and wealth planning

No. The taxation of gains realised by individuals on disposals of digital assets (article 150 VH bis of the French Tax Code) requires a transfer for consideration. A gift is a gratuitous transfer: it is not a taxable event for capital gains purposes. The accumulated latent capital gain is therefore wiped out by the gift. The donee receives the tokens with a tax acquisition cost stepped up to their value on the date of the gift; on a subsequent sale, only the gain realised since that date is taxable. The gift itself remains subject to gratuitous transfer duties.

Crypto-assets are, as a matter of law, intangible movable property, falling within the category defined in article L54-10-1 of the French Monetary and Financial Code (tokens and digital assets representing value, excluding financial instruments). This characterisation determines the applicable capital gains regime: for an individual acting on an occasional basis, article 150 VH bis of the French Tax Code applies, with taxation at the flat-rate levy. Certain NFTs or tokens backed by a financial instrument may fall under a separate regime depending on their underlying, hence the importance of a prior case-by-case characterisation.

A gift-partition (French Civil Code art. 1075 et seq.) makes it possible to transfer and allocate crypto-assets during one's lifetime among several presumptive heirs, in a single deed. Its benefit is twofold: it freezes the value of the tokens on the date of the deed, so that subsequent gains are not brought back into the estate, and it prevents disputes by organising a balanced allocation. Like any gift, it wipes out the latent capital gain within the meaning of article 150 VH bis of the French Tax Code. The valuation of the tokens on the date of the deed and the evidence of the wallet-to-wallet transfer must be rigorously documented.

Yes. It is possible to gift the bare ownership of tokens while retaining the usufruct, which transfers full ownership of the value at term, at a lower tax cost: gift duties are computed on the value of the bare ownership alone, according to the scale of article 669 of the French Tax Code based on the age of the usufructuary. A dismemberment agreement is strongly recommended: because crypto-assets are fungible and volatile, it must specify the powers of management, reallocation and disposal, as well as the allocation of income (staking, yields) between the usufructuary and the bare owner.

A successive usufruct (or reversion of usufruct) provides that, on the extinction of the first usufruct, it passes to a designated second beneficiary, for example the spouse or a relative, before the bare owner recovers full ownership. Applied to crypto-assets, this mechanism organises the transfer across two successive holders while protecting the enjoyment of a relative. It requires careful drafting of the deed of gift and an agreement governing the management of the tokens throughout the duration of the dismemberment.

Often, yes. Crypto-assets are fungible property consumable through use (a usufructuary who reallocates or spends the tokens cannot return them in identical form). Article 587 of the French Civil Code then provides for a quasi-usufruct: the usufructuary may dispose of the tokens, subject to restoring their equivalent at the end of the usufruct. The bare owner holds a restitution claim, whose valuation and possible deductibility as a liability of the estate must be framed, notably with regard to article 774 bis of the French Tax Code. A written quasi-usufruct agreement is essential to set the amount, indexation and security of the restitution.

Yes. Article 1649 bis C of the French Tax Code requires the reporting of digital asset accounts and wallets opened, held, used or closed with undertakings or bodies established abroad. The report is filed using form 3916-bis, attached to the income tax return. Failure to report is penalised by a fine of EUR 750 per unreported account (increased to EUR 1,500 where the value of the account exceeds a threshold), without prejudice to other consequences. See our analysis of the DAC8 directive and the CARF framework and our guide on reporting foreign accounts.