France — 2026 budget increase to the reduced electricity-excise (accise) scheme for data storage centres

Mechanism

France applies a reduced rate of the domestic electricity excise (accise sur l'électricité, the successor to the former TICFE) to data storage centres under Article L312-70 of the Code des impositions sur les biens et services (CIBS). The reduced rate applies only to the portion of a qualifying facility's annual electricity consumption exceeding 1 GWh, and eligibility requires meeting eight cumulative conditions:

• Infrastructure dedicated to physical storage, processing, transport and dissemination of digital data
• Secured/controlled access
• Dedicated thermal-environment, air-quality, energy-supply and fire-prevention systems
• A certified energy-management system (e.g. ISO 50001)
• Participation in a recognised energy-efficiency programme (e.g. EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres)
• Waste-heat recovery or equivalent efficiency indicators
• Water-use limits
• A minimum electro-intensity ratio of 2.25%

The current CIBS text in force (1 October 2025 – 1 September 2026) reflects amendments made by Loi 2025-391 of 30 April 2025. GTA's state-act record logs a budget increase to this standing scheme effective 1 January 2026 — i.e. an uplift in the fiscal cost/envelope France attributes to the scheme for the 2026 tax year, not a new legal instrument.

Downstream implications

• Reinforces France's position as a subsidised, high-efficiency-conditioned data-centre investment

destination within the EU, alongside its parallel PUE/WUE-linked tax-incentive legislation (expected to take effect 1 January 2027).

• Sits within the broader EU pattern of member states using energy-tax relief (rather than direct

grants) to compete for hyperscaler and colocation capex — a lower-visibility instrument than CHIPS-Act- style headline subsidies but with a comparable capex-attraction effect.

• The eco-conditionality (electro-intensity, water-use, waste-heat criteria) makes this a hybrid

industrial-policy/environmental-policy instrument; watch for read-across to the 2027 PUE/WUE-linked incentive once its implementing text is finalised.

Open questions

• Exact euro value of the 2026 budget increase — GTA's public state-act summary does not disclose the

fiscal-cost figure; France's Projet de Loi de Finances annexes (Voies et Moyens) would carry the ex-post cost estimate.

• Whether this scheme has been notified as EU state aid in its own right, or is treated as a general

tax measure outside the state-aid framework (unlike the CISAF cleantech-manufacturing schemes already on the register, e.g. 2026-03-02-eu-france-cisaf-sa120765-cleantech-manufacturing).