This article was first published on Tax@Hand, and is reproduced on this blog with the authorization of its authors.
On 12 September 2025, the French Constitutional Court ruled that France’s 3% digital services tax (DST) is fully compatible with constitutional principles.
As a reminder, the French parliament on 11 July 2019 enacted a law imposing the DST on annual revenue derived from:
- The online placement of advertising and the sale of collected user data: Services provided in placing advertising targeted at users on a digital interface, as well as the transmission of data collected from users as they use the interface; and
- Intermediation services: Services rendered to make multi-sided digital interfaces available to users (“intermediation services”) that allow users to find other users and to interact with them, and that also may facilitate the provision of underlying supplies of goods or services directly between users.
The French DST applies only to companies of groups whose relevant turnover during the calendar year exceeds EUR 750 million globally and EUR 25 million in France.
On 17 June 2025, the French Supreme Administrative Court referred a priority question (“QPC”) to the French Constitutional Court on whether the legal text of the French DST is constitutional.
In the case leading up to the QPC, the taxpayer had claimed a refund of its French DST paid in 2019, arguing that the tax contravenes the French constitutional principle of equality among taxpayers. The taxpayer had challenged the scope, tax basis, computation methodology, and rules applied to compute the French national presence ratio. The French Constitutional Court finally rendered its decision and ruled that the DST is fully compatible with constitutional principles.