Revolut, Wise, PayPal, bunq, Trade Republic, Crypto.com: these neobanking, financial investment or crypto applications share a characteristic that many of their users are unaware of. As their head office is domiciled abroad, the French administration considers your account like a foreign account. Article 1649 A of the General Tax Code then requires you to declare it each year, via form 3916 or 3916 bis, at the same time as your income tax return.
Sébastien Defrance, CEO of DeclarAid, an application that automates investors’ tax declarations, sees this happen regularly: “This is the error on which we do the most teaching, because it is one of the first things the administration controls »he assures. And sometimes we forget the existence of these online accounts: “Often, our clients are in good faith and do not know that this type of account must be declared every year, whether it is used or not. There really is a need to do this ».
An empty foreign account must still be declared
If Sébastien Defrance insists on this, it is because an account opened abroad must be declared from the first year, whether it is active, inactive, or empty. “Even if it has never been used, just opened, you are obliged to declare it. Even if there’s no money on it. » Good news, however: a few years ago, you had to refill the form from scratch every year. Today, this is simplified: once declared, the account is pre-filled for the following years in your impots.gouv.fr space. The day you close it, remember to mark it as closed so that it disappears from subsequent declarations.
There is however one exception to all of this: PayPal. Its headquarters being abroad, the reporting obligation applies in principle… but the administration lifts it if three conditions are all met : the account must be associated with a current account domiciled in France, the cumulative receipts must not exceed 10,000 euros over the year, and the account must only be used for purchases or sales of goods online. For example, if you use it to collect payments as part of a micro-entrepreneur or self-employed activity, the exemption falls and the obligation fully applies.
French IBAN: does the account still need to be declared?
Revolut, TradeRepublic and N26 have opened branches in France and now offer French IBANs (FR). So, what to do? The rule is simple: if your account displays an IBAN in FRyou have nothing to declare. On the other hand, if your IBAN is Lithuanian (LT), Belgian (BE) or British (GB), the obligation applies. Sébastien Defrance warns of a subtlety: “The transition can be done during the year”. If your IBAN was foreign in the first months of 2025 before switching to a French IBAN, you must declare this account as foreign by indicating the closing date corresponding to the day of the change. If the change takes place in 2026, as is still the case for Revolut users, the change will be reported on the 2027 declaration.
Also pay attention to neobanks which offer several services on the same application. “At Revolut, a user can have a current account, a securities account and a crypto wallet. These are three separate accounts in the eyes of the tax authoritiesto be declared separately on form 3916-3916 bis, by checking the correct box each time depending on the type: current account, securities account or digital assets”explains the expert. Same logic at Crypto.com, whose current account and wallet are the subject of two separate declarations.
Can the tax authorities be informed of an undeclared account?
The sanction for undeclared foreign accounts is steep: “ Between 750 and 1,500 euros per account per year, warns Sébastien Defrance. And the administration can go back to the previous three years. “ For individuals, this is a large sum, the price of an iPhone for an undeclared account! ». And for crypto accounts, transparency has been further strengthened. Since January 1, 2026, the European directive DAC8 requires all digital asset platforms in Europe (Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, etc.) to collect the identity of their users, their tax residence and the history of their transactions, to transmit them to national tax authorities.
Finally, if the foreign account is hosted in a country without a tax treaty with France, the fine increases to 10,000 euros. In the event of proven deliberate fraud, the recovery period extends to ten years. Sébastien Defrance warns: “It’s one of the first things the administration looks at, because they have easy access to information today. It’s a fairly easy windfall to collect for taxes.. »
