FTT: AMAFI warns against a tougher approach that would harm French companies

AMAFI has published an impact study on the consequences of raising the rate of the financial transaction tax (FTT) from 0.3% to 0.4%, which came into effect on April^1, 2025. In light of the results, it warns of the counter-productive effects of a further tightening of a tax borne by the savers who provide our companies with equity capital, and from which the latter suffer as a knock-on effect.

By comparing French companies’ shares with their equivalents in Germany, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom, the AMAFI study shows that trading volumes for French shares subject to FTT grew less rapidly and even declined after the increase, while French shares not subject to taxation followed the upward trend observed elsewhere.

This contraction in volumes directly increases the cost of capital for the companies concerned: by reducing the liquidity of their shares, the FTT undermines companies’ ability to finance themselves effectively on the market. Because it is borne by investors, the tax also weighs directly on share savings, which are essential for financing the productive sector.

By penalizing French equities in the allocation choices of portfolio managers, whose horizons are often European or even global, it encourages capital to be shifted to untaxed issuers outside our borders, but also to competing financial centers.

At a time when Europe is seeking, with the Savings and Investment Union, to strengthen capital markets to support the investment required by the major changes underway, France cannot take the opposite path without undermining the investment capacity of its companies, and hence growth and employment.

AMAFI therefore calls for any changes to the FTT to be conditional on an objective assessment of its economic impact and a harmonized approach at European level.