EU Big Tech levy targets 100 million euro revenue threshold

This regulatory shift represents a tactical pivot to treat digital platforms as general large-scale enterprises rather than a unique tax class. For streaming giants like Amazon and Meta, this flat-fee approach could become a predictable cost of doing business compared to the volatile 100% retaliatory tariffs threatened by the U.S. government. By including European banks and manufacturers in the scope, the Commission creates a legal shield against claims of anti-American discrimination. The broader streaming ecosystem must now account for these fixed regional operating costs as part of their European margin calculations. Watch for whether individual member states like France and Italy retire their national digital taxes in favor of this unified EU-wide contribution.

The European Commission's Corporate Resource for Europe proposal has been one of five new "own resources" designed to raise approximately €60 billion annually from 2028 onward as part of the EU's multi-year budget framework. Dealroom reported that CORE was first proposed in July 2025 within the Commission's roughly €2 trillion budget plan for 2028-2034, and that a majority of EU member states currently oppose the mechanism in its original form. The expansion under discussion would raise the bracket amounts that currently cap contributions at €750,000 per entity while maintaining the sector-neutral framing that applies equally to manufacturers, banks, and technology firms. An EU official told the Financial Times that some capitals oppose a pure digital tax to avoid upsetting the Americans, while many more oppose CORE itself, making expansion to all large companies the political compromise.

The tariff threat driving this design is specific and recent. President Donald Trump threatened in June 2025 to impose a 100% tariff on all goods from any country that imposes a digital services tax on American companies, a penalty he said would override existing trade agreements. France, Italy, Spain, and Austria already operate national digital levies and face U.S. Section 301 investigations that could lead to retaliatory tariffs. The Commission's bet is that CORE's sector-neutral legal architecture, which does not mention digital companies or reference advertising revenue, will be sufficient for the Trump administration to treat it differently than it has treated France's 3% revenue levy or the UK's 2% digital services tax. However, the U.S. Trade Representative's office has historically evaluated such measures by their effective incidence rather than their stated sector neutrality.

The 2021 OECD global tax deal, which was intended to provide a multilateral framework for taxing multinationals, has effectively stalled following Trump's 2024 re-election. TechTimes reported that an EU official described the OECD agreement as "dead" in practice, leaving the Commission to pursue unilateral mechanisms like CORE. The EU had previously shelved its own digital levy to make room for that global deal, and officials now say a digital-only tax is unlikely to win sufficient support among the 27 member states given fears of U.S. retaliation. Any change to CORE requires unanimous ratification across all member states, a threshold that remains the proposal's most significant political obstacle.