Report contents
Europe · Established
France
Crypto Livability Index 2025·data to 31 Dec 2025
Scoreboard
Five pillars, then the 22 sub-pillars scored 0 to 4. Empty sub-scores are held out of the total, not zeroed.
The number behind the rank
| Raw capability score | 63 / 84 |
| P2P liquidity bonus (tie-breaker) | +1 |
| Inflation 2.6% · unbanked 1% · remittances 1.2% GDP · capital controls 0 · sanctions 0 | CNI 0.022 |
| Need multiplier | ×0.533 |
| Livability score | 0.400 |
Raw 63/84 = 0.750 capability. Crypto-Necessity Index 0.02, from five components: inflation 2.6% (three-year average 2023 to 2025), unbanked 1% of adults, remittances 1.2% of GDP, capital-control intensity 0.00 (KAOPEN 2023), sanctions exposure 0. Need multiplier ×0.53. Livability score 0.400, rank #47 of 79.
Three findings
Continental Europe's deepest merchant network, with a perfect spending pillar to match
France scores a flawless 20 of 20 on spending, the strongest direct-merchant acceptance market on the continent. The Lyzi payment layer reaches over 400,000 POS terminals, with brand-level adoption spanning Printemps, Porsche and Lamborghini dealers; Cannes onboarded over 50 merchants for the EthCC conference, Talence became the first French municipality to integrate crypto in 2024, and Toulouse's transport network has accepted it since March 2025.
A perfect spending score sitting on zero crypto ATMs and a 30% flat tax
Against that merchant depth, France registers no active crypto ATMs as of the cutoff, an absolute floor on access density, and applies a 30% flat levy (the Prélèvement Forfaitaire Unique) on disposals, the lowest tax sub-score in the European set at 1. Strict AMF (the Autorité des Marchés Financiers) licensing also channels liquidity into compliant exchanges, suppressing the informal peer-to-peer (person-to-person) market to a bonus of 1.
One of the steepest livability slides in this set, 29 places
France scores 63 of 84 in raw capability but a Crypto-Necessity Index of just 0.02: inflation 2.6%, 1% unbanked, no capital controls, no sanctions. The ×0.53 need multiplier drops it from rails #18 to livability #47, among the largest falls of the 24 European countries. This is the index working as designed, not a defect: a market that has perfected crypto spending for a population with little need to use it.
In one line
"France has built the richest place in Europe to spend crypto, and one of the widest gaps between how well it can and how little it needs to. That gap is the whole point of the livability table."
Watch in 2026
Trajectory 3/4, trending liberalising. The AMF's PSAN-to-CASP transition under MiCA (the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation) is live, with Coinbase, Crypto.com and Bitstamp among the first EU authorisations and a Societe Generale-FORGE stablecoin licence issued; the full 18-month glide path runs to 1 July 2026. Circle's French entity anchors USDC as a MiCA reference stablecoin, while a post-cutoff hike to the flat tax signals mild tightening ahead.