Crypto tax in Germany (2026): the one-year rule, and why it decides everything
Germany does not tax a private crypto gain at a flat rate. It taxes it at your ordinary income rate if you held for a year or less, and not at all if you held longer. Which means the acquisition date of each individual lot decides your bill — and that is the one thing almost nobody can still prove.
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| Tax rate | Your ordinary progressive income tax rate — 0% to 45%, plus solidarity surcharge and church tax where they apply. There is no flat capital-gains rate for directly held crypto; the 25% Abgeltungsteuer does not reach it.1 |
| The rule that decides it | § 23 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 2 EStG: a private disposal is taxable only where the period between acquisition and disposal is not more than one year. Hold longer and the gain is outside the charge entirely.1 |
| What triggers tax | Selling for euro, and swapping one crypto for another — the Bundesfinanzhof confirmed in 2023 that a swap is both a disposal and an acquisition.2 |
| The annual free amount | €1,000 a year — but it is a Freigrenze, not an allowance. Total private disposal gains under €1,000 are free; one euro over and the whole gain is taxable. Raised from €600 for 2024 onward.1 Unverified: we could not open the consolidated statute text; the Freigrenze and its increase are well attested but read § 23 EStG before relying on it |
| Declaring | The Einkommensteuererklärung. Deadline for the 2025 year: 31 July 2026 unfiled, or 1 March 2027 if a Steuerberater or Lohnsteuerhilfeverein represents you.3 Unverified: the specific annex (practitioners use Anlage SO) is not confirmed against an official form |
| Who knows | Council Directive (EU) 2023/2226 — transposition due 31 December 2025, obligations apply from 1 January 2026, and the first exchange of information covering 2026 takes place by 30 September 2027. Germany is committed to the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework for exchanges beginning 2027.4 |
Tax authority: Bundesministerium der Finanzen (policy) and the Länder Finanzämter (assessment) — there is no single federal tax office for individuals — https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de
Why your records — not the rules — are the real problem
The burden is yours, lot by lot. The one-year clock runs from each individual acquisition, so a wallet holding coins bought across three years contains both taxable and untaxable lots — and only your own records separate them. The BMF letter of 6 March 2025 is the administrative source on documentation duties.
The interesting German trap is not the rate. It is that a coin held eleven months and a coin held thirteen months, sold on the same day from the same wallet, are taxed completely differently — and the exchange statement that shows the sale usually cannot tell you which was which.
That is the gap ClearBasis closes: we rebuild the complete acquisition history from exchange files and on-chain records, match every transfer between your own wallets so moving coins is never taxed as selling, and attach evidence to every number.
A Verspätungszuschlag under § 152 AO for late filing. We could not open the official handbook to state the calculation, so we do not.
What you can use today, in Germany
The free scan shows your true gains against proceeds-only in about three minutes. The Global Basis Report (from $99) is the full evidence-linked ledger — acquisition costs, disposal gains, local-currency values with cited FX — the document you or your accountant declare from.
Run my free scanComing for Germany
Declaration formatting for Germany — your report's totals mapped to the local return's fields, reviewed by a local tax professional before we ship it, and this page published in de · en · tr. Run and save a free scan to join the list: you will be emailed the day it opens, and demand decides how fast.
Start with the free scanQuestions people in Germany actually ask
Is swapping one crypto for another taxable in Germany?
Yes. The Bundesfinanzhof held in February 2023 that currency tokens are other economic goods, acquired when obtained in exchange for euro, foreign currency or other virtual currencies, and disposed of when swapped back or into another token. Both legs count.
Does staking extend the holding period to ten years?
The administrative position is that it does not, and practitioner guidance is consistent. But this rests on the BMF letter of March 2025, which we could not read directly, so we flag it rather than assert it. Read that letter, or ask a Steuerberater, before you plan around it.
What if my gain is under €1,000?
Then it is free — but understand the shape. It is a Freigrenze, not an allowance: at €1,001 the whole €1,001 is taxable, not the euro over the line. This makes the exact figure matter far more than people expect.
What if I cannot prove when I bought a coin?
Then you cannot prove it is outside the one-year window, and the conservative position is that it is inside. That is the whole reason this software exists.
The primary sources listed below are monitored for change. Confirmed factual updates publish with a new version stamp; substantive rule changes are verified by a professional before this page changes. Where a claim carries an unverified badge above, it means the authority's own site refused us access to the document that would settle it — we would rather show you the gap than paper over it.
1. § 23 EStG — private Veräußerungsgeschäfte · 2. BFH 14.02.2023, IX R 3/22 · 3. Filing deadlines under § 149 AO — Land tabular overview · 4. DAC8. Retrieved 28 August 2026. This guide is information, not tax advice; rules change — the page is versioned (de-2026.1), re-reviewed annually, and the English master is canonical. For binding answers, consult the authority named above or a licensed local tax advisor. Every country we cover → · How Germany compares with thirteen others →