French and Dutch authorities raided the offices of streaming giant Netflix in Paris and Amsterdam as part of a tax fraud investigation, French judicial sources said.
Officials from both countries have been cooperating on the case since the investigation began in November 2022.
Netflix has not made any specific comment on the raid but insists it complies with tax laws wherever it operates.
The Amsterdam office serves as the headquarters for the company’s operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The French investigation is being led by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), a special unit dedicated to investigating high-profile white-collar crime.
According to the PNF, this is linked to suspicions of “covering up serious tax fraud and off-the-book work”.
The company is also under investigation for its 2019, 2020 and 2021 tax filings.
French sources said Dutch authorities were conducting simultaneous searches and that cooperation between the two countries had been going on for “several months”.
Last year, French media outlet La Lettre reported that until 2021, French Netflix was minimizing tax payments by declaring the turnover it generates in France to the Netherlands.
La Lettre said its annual reported turnover in France jumped from 47.1 million euros ($51.3 million; £39.6 million) in 2020 to 1.2 billion euros in 2021 after abandoning the arrangement.
However, the outlet said investigators are trying to determine whether Netflix continues to try to minimize profits after 2021.
Netflix arrived in France more than a decade ago and opened a Paris office in 2020.
