UK Crypto Tax Guide (2026/27)

1. UK crypto tax framework

HMRC published its first cryptoasset policy paper in December 2018 and consolidated everything into the HMRC Cryptoassets Manual in March 2021. The core principle sounds boring but matters: cryptoassets are not currency, not a financial instrument under FSMA, and not a security under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 unless they meet the security-token tests. They are property for the purpose of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992. That single legal categorisation is what makes a BTC-to-ETH swap a taxable event, even though no GBP changed hands, because property has been disposed of in exchange for other property.

Three taxes can land on your crypto activity in a typical UK tax year:

• Capital Gains Tax on disposals - the default tax for any sell, swap, gift to a non-spouse, or spend. Charged on the gain above the £3,000 Annual Exempt Amount for 2026/27, at 18% within the basic-rate band and 24% above.
• Income Tax on receipts that arise from an activity or service - staking rewards, mining as a non-trade, conditional airdrops, DeFi yield (most flavours), NFT royalties for creators. Taxed at your marginal Income Tax rate (20% / 40% / 45% for England, Wales, Northern Ireland; six bands in Scotland) on the GBP value at the moment of receipt.
• Income Tax plus Class 2 and Class 4 NI where the activity is a trade - typically large-scale mining operations, professional NFT artists, and dedicated DeFi farming desks. Profits go through the self-employed schedule of Self Assessment.

Two further taxes do not apply: there is no VAT on exchanges between cryptoassets and fiat, or between two cryptoassets, because HMRC follows the Hedqvist CJEU judgement (Case C-264/14). And there is no Stamp Duty Reserve Tax on most crypto transfers, because SDRT applies to chargeable securities and most tokens do not meet that definition. There is, however, Inheritance Tax on crypto held at death (HMRC treats it as situated where the owner is resident, so UK residents pay UK IHT on the GBP value at the date of death). See our inheritance tax calculator for the band mechanics.

2. CGT on disposal

Capital Gains Tax is triggered by a disposal. Under section 21 TCGA 1992 a disposal includes any sale, exchange or part-disposal of an asset. HMRC's CRYPTO22100 lists the cryptoasset-specific disposal events:

• Selling cryptoassets for GBP, USD, EUR or any other fiat currency.
• Exchanging cryptoassets for a different type of cryptoasset (every BTC-to-ETH, ETH-to-USDC, USDC-to-DAI is a UK taxable event).
• Using cryptoassets to pay for goods or services (every coffee bought with BTC at a merchant is a disposal of that BTC).
• Giving away cryptoassets to another person - except gifts to your spouse or civil partner, which transfer at no gain / no loss.
• Donations to a registered UK charity, which use a special no-gain-no-loss rule if the asset value has fallen, or a market-value rule with Gift Aid uplift if it has risen.

Transfers between your own wallets (cold storage to hot wallet, exchange to self-custody) are not disposals - you have not changed who owns the asset, just where it sits. This matters because crypto tax software will flag these as movements; you need to label them as internal transfers so they do not get counted as disposals.

Annual Exempt Amount. Every individual has a £3,000 AEA for 2026/27, applied to total gains across all asset classes (not just crypto). The AEA fell from £12,300 in 2022-23 to £6,000 in 2023-24 to £3,000 from 2024-25 onwards under the Autumn Statement 2022 reforms. Source: gov.uk/capital-gains-tax/allowances, retrieved 2026-05-23. Married couples and civil partners each have their own AEA, and inter-spousal transfers run at no gain / no loss, so doubling up the AEA by transferring half the holding to a spouse before disposal is a common planning move (provided the transfer is genuine, not a sham). See our marriage allowance calculator for a separate inter-spousal tool.

CGT rates for 2026/27. The Autumn Statement 2024 (delivered 30 October 2024) aligned the crypto and shares CGT rates with residential-property CGT rates. From that date onwards:

• 18% basic rate on gains that fall within your unused basic-rate Income Tax band.
• 24% higher rate on gains above the basic-rate band threshold (combined Income + gains).

The "stacking" mechanic matters: gains are added on top of your taxable income for the purpose of finding the band, so a £40,000 PAYE employee with a £20,000 crypto gain pays 18% on the slice of gain that fits inside the unused basic-rate band (about £10,270) and 24% on the rest. The gain itself does not push the salary into the higher band for Income Tax purposes; it only determines which CGT rate applies to each slice of gain. Source: gov.uk/capital-gains-tax/rates, retrieved 2026-05-23. Run your own numbers through our capital gains tax calculator.

Disposal date is the contractual date, not settlement. For exchange trades that is the time of execution; for on-chain trades it is the time the transaction was included in a block (mempool acceptance is not enough). You convert the disposal proceeds into GBP at the prevailing exchange rate at that moment. HMRC accepts any "reasonable consistent methodology" - end-of-day mid-market rates from CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko, or an exchange's own GBP pair are all acceptable provided you apply the same method every time and document it.

3. Pooling and matching rules

The UK does not use FIFO (first-in-first-out) for crypto, and it does not use specific identification of individual tokens. It uses a hybrid system imported from the share pooling rules in TCGA 1992 ss104, 105 and 106A, originally designed for fungible shares of the same class. HMRC explicitly applies these rules to cryptoassets in CRYPTO22200.

There are three matching rules, applied in order:

1. The same-day rule. Any sells on a given calendar day are matched against any buys of the same token on the same calendar day. If you bought 1 ETH at 09:00 and sold 1 ETH at 17:00 on the same day, those two trades match each other regardless of what is in the pool. Same-day matching uses the average cost of all same-day acquisitions if there are several.
2. The 30-day "bed and breakfasting" rule. Sells are then matched against any buys of the same token in the following 30 days, again before touching the pool. This rule exists to stop people crystallising a loss by selling on 5 April and re-buying on 7 April; it forces those re-acquisitions to match against the sell, so the loss does not crystallise. Matching uses earliest-buy-first within the 30-day window.
3. The Section 104 pool. Anything left unmatched comes out of the pool at the weighted-average cost. The pool is a running total of (a) the number of tokens held and (b) the total GBP cost. Each acquisition adds to both; each disposal reduces tokens by the disposed quantity and reduces total cost by tokens-sold multiplied by pool average.

One pool per token, per individual. All your BTC across every wallet sits in one Section 104 pool. All your ETH sits in another. Wrapped tokens (WBTC, WETH) are different tokens from their unwrapped cousins according to HMRC's CRYPTO22600 - the wrap/unwrap operation is itself a taxable swap, although in practice the GBP value is usually identical so the gain is zero (or close to it after fees).

Stablecoins are not exempt. USDC and DAI are cryptoassets in HMRC's view, so swapping ETH for USDC is a disposal of ETH at the USDC's GBP value at the moment of the swap. The fact the USDC is dollar-pegged does not change that. Many UK crypto investors discovered this the hard way during the 2021 bull run, finding they had hundreds of unreported taxable swaps from rotating between volatile alts and stable harbours.

Forks and chain splits. When a chain splits (e.g. ETH/ETC in 2016, BCH/BSV in 2018), HMRC's position in CRYPTO22300 is that the original cost base is apportioned between the two resulting tokens on a "just and reasonable" basis - typically by market value on the day after the fork. Both resulting Section 104 pools then carry on independently.

4. Worked five-trade example

To make the pooling rules concrete, walk through a five-transaction sequence in a single ETH holding across one tax year. All GBP values are rounded; assume zero gas fees for simplicity (in reality you would add gas to each cost / deduct from each proceed).

Trade 3 (3 Oct sell of 1.5 ETH). The 20 Oct buy of 0.5 ETH falls within the 30-day window after the sell, so the 30-day rule applies first: 0.5 ETH of the sell is matched against that future buy at its £4,000/ETH cost (0.5 ETH at £2,000). Proceeds attributed to that 0.5 ETH: £7,500 x 0.5/1.5 = £2,500. Gain on the 30-day-matched 0.5 ETH: £2,500 - £2,000 = £500. The remaining 1.0 ETH of the sell comes from the Section 104 pool at the £3,500 average. Pool proceeds: £7,500 x 1.0/1.5 = £5,000. Gain on the pool slice: £5,000 - £3,500 = £1,500. Total gain on Trade 3: £2,000.

After Trade 3 the Section 104 pool is reduced by the 1.0 ETH that came out of it. Pool: 3.000 - 1.000 (out via pool match) - 0.500 (out via 30-day match against future buy) = 1.500 ETH. Cost: £10,500 - £3,500 (pool average x 1) = £7,000. Pool average remains £4,667/ETH? No - here is the subtlety: the 30-day-matched future buy does not enter the pool, because it has already been consumed by matching against the earlier sell. So when 20 Oct arrives, the new 0.5 ETH is allocated to the prior sell, not added to the pool. Pool after Trade 3: 1.500 ETH at £7,000 (the original remaining 1.5 from the first two buys minus 1 sold = 1.5; cost = £10,500 - £3,500 = £7,000), average £4,667/ETH.

Trade 5 (1 Feb sell of 0.8 ETH). Pool average is £4,667. Cost of 0.8 ETH = 0.8 x £4,667 = £3,733. Proceeds £4,800. Gain £1,067.

Total tax-year gain on this single token: £2,000 + £1,067 = £3,067. Subtract the £3,000 AEA, leaving £67 of taxable gain. At an 18% rate (assuming the taxpayer is in the basic-rate band) that is £12 of CGT due. The worked example illustrates why "I only made a small profit" is rarely the whole story - the 30-day rule can crystallise gains you did not expect, and pool averaging means the "obvious" matching does not always apply. Commercial crypto tax software (Koinly, Recap, CoinTracker, Accointing) does this calculation across thousands of transactions; running it by hand stops being viable above about 20 trades.

5. Income tax events: staking, mining, airdrops, DeFi

Some crypto events are Income Tax, not CGT. The dividing line is whether the receipt arises from an activity (you did something to get the tokens) or from a movement in market price (you held the tokens and they went up). The first is Income; the second is CGT. The HMRC manual sections are CRYPTO21000 (mining), CRYPTO21200 (staking), CRYPTO21250 (airdrops) and CRYPTO61600 (DeFi).

Staking rewards. Whether you are running a validator node directly (solo staking), pooled through a service like Lido or Rocket Pool, or via an exchange "Earn" product, every reward token that hits your wallet is miscellaneous income at the GBP value on the date of receipt. The GBP value also becomes the cost base for that token; if you later sell it, the second event is a separate CGT calculation. Where staking is run at scale as a business (multiple validators, paid staff, dedicated infrastructure), it can instead be trading income; the standard badges of trade in BIM20200 apply. For most retail stakers HMRC accepts miscellaneous income.

Mining. Pre-merge ETH mining and ongoing BTC mining are both Income Tax events at receipt. For a hobbyist with a single GPU running on a domestic electric bill, HMRC accepts miscellaneous income. For a commercially-scaled operation (rented warehouse space, industrial cooling, multiple staff, separate electricity contract) the activity becomes a trade, with profits charged to Income Tax plus Class 2 and Class 4 NI through the self-employed schedule. Allowable deductions include electricity, depreciation on rigs (claimed via capital allowances - see our capital allowances calculator), pool fees and rent.

Airdrops. The key distinction is conditional vs unconditional. An unconditional airdrop (you held a token and another token was dropped to you with no action required) is not income; the tokens enter the Section 104 pool at £nil cost, and only attract CGT on later disposal. A conditional airdrop (you had to retweet, refer a friend, complete a quest, or any other action) is miscellaneous income at the GBP value on the date received. The Uniswap UNI airdrop in September 2020 is HMRC's reference example for an unconditional airdrop to wallet addresses that had used the protocol; many "earn-a-token" campaigns since are conditional and therefore income.

DeFi yield. HMRC's CRYPTO61600 series, published in February 2022 and updated several times since, sets out a complex framework. The short version: yield that arises from lending out tokens (Aave, Compound, Maker DSR) is generally miscellaneous income at receipt if the arrangement returns the same tokens, or potentially a disposal if the lent tokens are exchanged for receipt tokens (cTokens, aTokens) at the point of lending. HMRC acknowledged in its 2023 consultation that the rules produce some economically odd outcomes (a deposit transaction can be treated as a disposal even though economically nothing has changed), but legislative reform has not yet landed. For now, treat each protocol on its own facts and document your reasoning.

Yield farming and liquidity provision. Depositing into a Uniswap or Curve liquidity pool is typically treated as a disposal of the deposited tokens in exchange for LP tokens. Yield from trading fees and reward emissions is miscellaneous income at receipt. Removing liquidity is another disposal (of the LP tokens back to the underlying). The compounding nature of yield farming means a small farming position can generate dozens of micro-events in a tax year. Document everything.

6. NFTs specifically

Non-fungible tokens are cryptoassets in HMRC's classification, so the default tax treatment is the same as any other crypto: CGT on disposal, no VAT. Three NFT-specific nuances are worth flagging.

Each NFT is individually identifiable. The Section 104 pool does not apply to NFTs because each token is unique. Each NFT has its own cost base (acquisition price plus gas plus marketplace fees) and each disposal is calculated against that single cost base. Same-day and 30-day rules also do not bite, because you cannot have two of the same NFT. This actually makes NFT CGT simpler in some ways than fungible-token CGT - no pool maths, just buy-cost vs sell-proceeds per item.

Creator income is trading income. If you mint NFTs and sell them as an artist or studio, the proceeds are trading income, not CGT. They go through the self-employed schedule of Self Assessment (or through your limited company if you trade via one). Ongoing royalties paid by secondary-sale smart contracts (the typical 5-10% creator royalty wired into the contract) are also trading or miscellaneous income at the GBP value on the date the royalty hits your wallet, regardless of how many years have passed since the original mint. Many NFT artists overlook royalty income because it arrives in small amounts, but HMRC's view is unambiguous: each receipt is income at receipt.

Trading-as-a-business test for NFT collectors. A serious NFT collector who flips multiple pieces per week, using leverage, with a structured discipline, can fall into the trading category rather than the investing category. The badges of trade test (frequency, motive, length of holding, organisation, financing) is the same one HMRC has applied to share traders since the 1950s. In practice almost all UK NFT collectors are investors (long holds, capital motive, modest frequency), but high-volume flippers should consider whether they have crossed the line into trading - the tax outcome changes dramatically (Income Tax plus Class 4 NI on profits vs CGT at 18% / 24%).

7. HMRC CARF and DAC8 from January 2026

The Cryptoasset Reporting Framework (CARF) is an OECD multilateral information-exchange regime, modelled on the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) that already covers bank accounts. The UK signed up at the November 2023 G20 Leaders Declaration, legislated through the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024, and HMRC published implementation guidance in September 2025. The European Union's parallel mechanism, DAC8, runs in lockstep. Source: gov.uk/government/publications/cryptoassets-reporting-framework, retrieved 2026-05-23.

Who is in scope. Reporting obligations land on UK-resident Cryptoasset Service Providers (CASPs), defined broadly enough to cover centralised exchanges (Coinbase UK, Binance UK, Kraken, Bitstamp, Bitfinex, Gemini), retail crypto wallet operators with custody (Revolut Crypto, BitPanda), broker dealers (Etoro UK, Trading 212 crypto products), and certain DeFi front-end operators where there is identifiable UK-resident control. Pure non-custodial DeFi protocols without an identifiable operator are out of scope - but most users access them via a UK-resident front-end that is itself in scope.

What gets reported. For each UK-resident customer the CASP collects and reports to HMRC, annually: legal name, tax residence, National Insurance number (or foreign equivalent), date of birth, and transaction-level data covering acquisitions, disposals, transfers to and from external wallets, and the GBP value of each transaction. The data fields broadly mirror CRS plus cryptoasset-specific identifiers (token type, wallet addresses involved). HMRC then matches the data against Self Assessment returns.

Timeline. Data collection began 1 January 2026. First reports cover the calendar year 2026 and are due to HMRC by 31 May 2027. International exchange between CARF jurisdictions starts in 2027 for 2026 data, so HMRC will receive data on UK residents using overseas exchanges in other CARF countries (the US, EU, Japan, Singapore, UAE, Switzerland and around 50 others) as well as data from its own resident CASPs.

What this means for you. If you have used a UK or major-jurisdiction exchange in 2026, HMRC will have transaction-level data on you by mid-2027. Returns that omit crypto income or gains will be visible to HMRC analytics, and HMRC has publicly committed to using the data for enquiry triage. The penalty environment for missed disclosure is expected to tighten significantly from 2027 onwards. The pragmatic implication: any unreported pre-2026 gains are best disclosed voluntarily now (see next section) rather than waiting to be discovered.

8. Voluntary disclosure

HMRC runs a dedicated voluntary disclosure facility for cryptoasset income and gains, launched in November 2023 and accessed at gov.uk/guidance/disclosing-cryptoasset-income-and-gains. It is the right route for anyone who has historic crypto activity that was not declared at the time and now wants to clean up the position before CARF data starts arriving.

How the disclosure works. You register with HMRC, calculate the unpaid tax, late-payment interest and a self-assessed penalty across the years involved, and submit the total via the online facility. HMRC has 12 months to accept or query. Once accepted, the disclosure is binding and protects against subsequent reopening of those years for the same activity (provided you have disclosed in full).

Penalty bands. Penalties under the compliance regime in Sch 24 FA 2007 are scaled by both the taxpayer's behaviour and whether the disclosure was prompted or unprompted:

• Careless, unprompted: 0% to 30% of tax due, often 0% for genuine misunderstanding of complex rules.
• Careless, prompted: 15% to 30%.
• Deliberate, unprompted: 20% to 70% (or 100% for offshore matters).
• Deliberate, prompted: 35% to 70% (or 100% to 200% offshore).

The penalty band is set by HMRC and reduced based on the taxpayer's cooperation (telling, helping, giving access). Disclosing now is unprompted; disclosing after HMRC opens an enquiry on the back of CARF data is prompted - hence the strong incentive to act before mid-2027. Time-to-pay arrangements are available if you cannot settle the full bill at once.

9. Lost or stolen crypto

Lost or stolen cryptoassets can produce a real capital loss but the mechanism is awkward. HMRC's view in CRYPTO22400 is that simply losing access (forgotten seed phrase, hard drive thrown away) does not itself produce a disposal - the asset still exists, you have just lost the keys. You can, however, make a negligible value claim under section 24 TCGA 1992 once the loss meets the negligible-value test. The claim crystallises a capital loss at the claimed value (typically £nil) on the date HMRC accepts.

Theft is treated more sympathetically. Where crypto has been stolen (private key compromise, exchange hack, rug-pull where you can show fraud), HMRC generally accepts that a disposal has occurred at the date of theft because you no longer have control of the asset. The proceeds are £nil, so the loss equals the cost base. Evidence needed: police report, exchange incident ticket, on-chain forensics report from a firm like Chainalysis or Elliptic for high-value cases.

Collapsed exchanges. Where an exchange goes into administration (FTX November 2022, Celsius July 2022, BlockFi November 2022), the holding becomes a claim against the estate rather than an asset. HMRC accepts a negligible-value claim once the administrator confirms that recovery will be a fraction of the original value - typically once an interim distribution percentage is published. The claim crystallises the loss; any subsequent recovery proceeds are treated as a separate capital event.

Losses crystallised this way can be offset against gains in the same tax year first, then carried forward indefinitely against future gains. They cannot be used against general income. Document the evidence; HMRC will ask for it.

10. Record-keeping

Crypto record-keeping is a chore but a non-negotiable one. HMRC's standard expectation in CRYPTO40000 is that records are retained for at least five years after the 31 January following the relevant tax year (so for 2026/27 records, that is 31 January 2033). The list of what to keep:

• Date and time of each transaction in UTC and local time.
• Type of transaction: buy, sell, swap, transfer, staking reward, mining reward, airdrop, gift, fork.
• Quantity and token symbol (and full contract address for non-mainstream tokens to disambiguate scam clones).
• GBP value at the moment of the transaction, sourced from a consistent methodology (exchange GBP pair if available, CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap mid-market rate if not).
• Counterparty (which exchange, which wallet address, which DeFi protocol).
• Transaction fee (gas, exchange fee) in token and GBP.
• Wallet addresses involved on both sides.
• Transaction hash for on-chain transactions - the canonical proof.

Tooling. Manual record-keeping breaks down above about 20 transactions per tax year. UK-focused crypto tax software (Recap, Koinly UK, Accointing UK, CoinTracker, CryptoTaxCalculator) automates the Section 104 pool calculation, applies same-day and 30-day rules, and produces an SA-ready report. Costs run from £40 to £400 a year depending on transaction volume. For higher-volume traders, working with a crypto-specialist accountant (search the ICAEW or ACCA registers for "cryptoassets" certification) is usually worth the fee relative to the cost of getting it wrong.

Gas fees are allowable. Both the gas on the acquisition leg (added to cost base) and the gas on the disposal leg (deducted from proceeds) reduce your gain. Mining and validator-operator hardware can be claimed as capital allowances if the activity is treated as a trade; for hobbyist staking, no such deduction is available.

11. Self Assessment reporting

Crypto income and gains are reported on the standard Self Assessment forms; HMRC has not yet introduced a dedicated crypto schedule (although consultation in 2024 floated one for future years). The current mechanics for the 2026/27 return:

Capital gains go on the SA108 Capital Gains supplementary pages. You must file SA108 if any of:

• Total taxable gains in the year exceed the £3,000 AEA.
• Total proceeds (gross sale value, not net gain) exceed four times the AEA - that is £12,000 for 2026/27.
• You have a capital loss you want to claim and carry forward.

The form asks for total proceeds, total allowable costs, total gains and total losses, with separate boxes for "Listed shares and securities" and "Other property, assets and gains" - crypto goes in the "Other" box. You need a transaction-level computation as supporting evidence (uploaded as a PDF in the online return or attached on paper), showing how you arrived at the headline number. The HMRC computation worksheet template is acceptable; so is a crypto tax software export.

Crypto income (staking, mining-as-hobby, conditional airdrops, DeFi yield, NFT royalties as occasional income) goes in the "Other UK income" box on SA100, under "Any other income". Where the activity is a trade (large-scale mining, professional NFT artist, DeFi-farming-as-business), use the SA103S short self-employment pages (or SA103F full pages if turnover exceeds £85,000). See our Self Assessment step-by-step walkthrough for the box-by-box flow.

Deadlines for the 2026/27 return (tax year ending 5 April 2027):

• 5 October 2027 - register for SA if it is your first year.
• 31 October 2027 - paper return deadline.
• 31 January 2028 - online return + balancing payment + first payment on account.
• 31 July 2028 - second payment on account.

Crypto-only taxpayers (no other side income) are often caught out by payments on account: if your crypto tax bill exceeds £1,000 in a year, HMRC asks for 50% of it again in January and another 50% in July as payments on account towards the next year. Sell concentrated wins early in the tax year to give yourself room to fund the payment on account in the same year, rather than scrambling for cash in January when prices may be lower.

Frequently asked questions

Do I pay tax on crypto in the UK?

Yes. HMRC treats cryptoassets as property rather than currency, so disposals trigger Capital Gains Tax above the £3,000 Annual Exempt Amount, and certain receipts (staking rewards, mining, airdrops earned through some action, DeFi yield, NFT royalties) are charged to Income Tax at your marginal rate at the point of receipt. There is no VAT on crypto-to-crypto or crypto-to-fiat exchanges (HMRC follows the CJEU Hedqvist ruling). The legal source is the HMRC Cryptoassets Manual at gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/cryptoassets-manual, retrieved 2026-05-23.

What counts as a disposal for CGT?

A disposal happens when you sell crypto for GBP, exchange one crypto for another (BTC to ETH is a taxable event in the UK), spend crypto on goods or services, or gift crypto to anyone other than your spouse or civil partner. Each disposal is measured against the Section 104 pooled cost base, and the gain (or loss) goes on your Self Assessment SA108 supplementary pages. Transfers between your own wallets are not disposals.

What are UK crypto CGT rates for 2026/27?

After the Autumn Statement 2024 reform the rates on cryptoassets and shares were brought into line: 18% for gains falling within the basic-rate band and 24% for gains above it. The previous 10% / 20% non-residential rates were withdrawn for disposals on or after 30 October 2024. The first £3,000 of total gains each tax year is covered by the Annual Exempt Amount and pays no CGT.

How does the Section 104 pool work?

The Section 104 pool is the single weighted-average cost base for every unit of the same token you hold. When you buy more of the token, the new acquisition cost is added to the pool and the average is recalculated. When you dispose, the cost base is the pool average multiplied by the number of tokens sold. Two special matching rules sit on top of the pool: the same-day rule matches sells against any buys on the same calendar day, and the 30-day "bed and breakfasting" rule matches sells against any buys in the following 30 days before the pool is used.

Is staking income taxable in the UK?

Yes. HMRC treats staking rewards as miscellaneous income, taxed at your marginal Income Tax rate on the GBP value at the moment of receipt. That same value becomes the cost base if you later dispose of the staked token, so the second event is CGT on any further gain. Where staking is run at scale as a business it may instead be trading income; the badges of trade in BIM20200 determine which category applies. See gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/cryptoassets-manual/crypto21200.

How are airdrops taxed?

It depends on whether the airdrop was unconditional or earned. Unconditional airdrops (tokens dropped into your wallet with no action required, no expectation of return) are not income; they enter your Section 104 pool at a £0 cost base and only attract CGT on later disposal. Conditional airdrops, where you had to provide a service (retweet, refer a friend, complete a quest, hold a particular token) or where the airdrop is part of a trade, are taxed as miscellaneous income at the GBP value on the receipt date.

Are NFTs taxed the same as other crypto?

Largely yes. NFTs are cryptoassets in HMRC terms, so collecting and trading an NFT produces CGT on disposal in the normal way. Two NFT-specific wrinkles: creating and selling NFTs as an artist is trading income (Income Tax plus Class 2/4 NI through Self Assessment), and ongoing royalties paid by secondary-sale smart contracts are also miscellaneous or trading income at the GBP value on the date the royalty hits your wallet. Each NFT is individually identifiable so the Section 104 pool does not apply to it - each NFT has its own cost base.

What is HMRC CARF and when does it start?

The Cryptoasset Reporting Framework (CARF) is an OECD-led automatic exchange-of-information regime, and the UK has adopted it alongside the EU DAC8 directive. From 1 January 2026 UK-resident cryptoasset service providers (Coinbase UK, Binance UK, Kraken, Bitstamp, Revolut Crypto and several dozen others on the FCA register) must collect customer tax-residence details and report transaction-level data annually to HMRC, with the first reports due in May 2027 for calendar-year 2026 activity. Source: gov.uk/government/publications/cryptoassets-reporting-framework, retrieved 2026-05-23.

I forgot to declare crypto gains in earlier years - what now?

Use the HMRC voluntary disclosure facility for cryptoassets at gov.uk/guidance/disclosing-cryptoasset-income-and-gains. Unprompted disclosure attracts the lowest behaviour-band penalties (often 0% to 30% of tax due where the omission was non-deliberate), and HMRC has signalled that prompted disclosure once CARF data arrives in 2027 will attract substantially higher penalties (up to 100% for deliberate concealment, 200% for offshore). Interest runs at the Bank of England base rate plus 4% from the original due date.

My exchange went bust - can I claim a loss?

If your cryptoassets have become worthless or you have lost access to the private keys, you can make a negligible value claim under section 24 TCGA 1992. The claim crystallises a capital loss at the value you claim (typically £nil) on the date HMRC accepts, and the loss can be offset against gains in the same year or carried forward indefinitely. You must keep evidence: wallet addresses, exchange statements, administrator correspondence (for collapsed exchanges like FTX) and a clear narrative.

Do I need to file Self Assessment for crypto?

You must file SA for 2026/27 if your total gains in the year exceed the £3,000 AEA, if total proceeds (gross sale value, not gain) exceed four times the AEA at £12,000, or if you have any taxable crypto income (staking, mining, conditional airdrops, DeFi yield, NFT royalties). Capital gains go on SA108; miscellaneous income goes in the "Other UK Income" box of SA100. See our /self-assessment-step-by-step walkthrough for the full filing flow.

Are gas fees tax-deductible?

Yes. Transaction fees paid in crypto (gas, network fees, exchange trading fees) are allowable deductions when calculating the gain on a disposal. Gas paid on the acquisition leg is added to the cost base; gas paid on the disposal leg is deducted from the proceeds. Both halves of a swap (ETH gas to swap ETH for USDC) need to be valued in GBP at the moment paid - the same GBP rate you use to compute the disposal itself.

Related guides and tools

• Capital Gains Tax calculator - model the 18% / 24% rates against your unused basic-rate band.
• Self Assessment step by step - the box-by-box walkthrough for the SA100 and SA108.
• Tax deadlines 2026/27 - every SA, PAYE and CGT deadline for the current year.
• HMRC penalties guide - the failure-to-notify and late-filing penalty regimes.
• How UK tax works (primer) - the broader UK tax framework that the crypto rules slot into.
• Dividend tax calculator - if you also hold equities alongside crypto.
• Inheritance Tax calculator - for crypto held at death.
• Marriage allowance / inter-spousal transfers - the spouse AEA doubling-up planning move.
• SalaryTax methodology - how we cite, source and update.
• Data sources index - retrieval dates on every figure.