French and Dutch authorities raided streaming giant Netflix's offices in Paris and Amsterdam on Tuesday, November 5, as part of a tax fraud probe, a judicial source told Le Monde. The US company's headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa is located in Amsterdam.

Tuesday's search by specialist financial investigators relates to suspicions of covering up serious tax fraud and off-the-books work and is part of a probe opened in November 2022, the source said. Netflix's Amsterdam headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa was also targeted for a search by a team of officials from both France and the Netherlands.

"An action of co-operation on criminal matters between the French and Dutch authorities has been underway for many months in the context of these proceedings, and has been coordinated by Eurojust," the source said. Netflix is also under investigation in France for its tax filings for 2019, 2020 and 2021. The company insisted when the probes went public last year that it complies with tax law in all countries where it operates.

French outlet La Lettre had reported that Netflix's French operation was structured until 2021 so that all subscribers signed up with a Dutch subsidiary. That left it paying less than €1 million in taxes to Paris across 2019 and 2020, when it had around 7 million French subscribers.

Authorities are now trying to determine whether Netflix kept up illegal attempts to minimize its reported profits and thereby its tax bill, La Lettre added.

The French subsidiary reported very low operating margins compared to the US mothership, the outlet said. Netflix earned over $9.8 billion in revenue worldwide from its 282 million subscribers in July-September this year, with net profit reaching $2.4 billion.

The group arrived in France just over 10 years ago and now boasts 10 million households subscribed.