A staking reward is taxed once as income and once as basis. Miss the row and you pay for both.
The value of a reward when you can first move it is ordinary income. That same value is the cost basis of the coins, so when you eventually sell them you are taxed on the movement since then and not on the whole thing. Those are two halves of one event — and they are almost never in the same file. Rewards reach the IRS on a 1099-MISC; the sale reaches it on a 1099-DA whose cost box knows nothing about the first form. Import your trade history alone and the basis those rewards created simply is not there.
One per line:
asset, quantity, value in USD when you could first move it, date YYYY-MM-DD
— the date is the day you gained the ability to sell them, which is not
always the day the protocol credited them.
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The same figure, wearing its other hat. Every dollar you take into income here is a dollar that will NOT be taxed again when you sell — provided the record of it survives into the file you file from.
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A reward is income in the year you gained control of it, so a reward credited in December and unlocked in January belongs in the second year. We use the date you typed and nothing else.
When exactly is it income?
Rev. Rul. 2023-14 puts a cash-method staker's rewards into gross income in the taxable year in which the taxpayer gains dominion and control — which the ruling defines as obtaining the ability to sell, exchange or otherwise dispose of the units. The amount is the fair market value as of the date and time that control is gained. In the ruling's own example the taxpayer received rewards on one date, could not dispose of them until a later one, and included them in the year of that later date. If your protocol or your exchange locked the rewards, the unlock is the date that matters, and it is the date this page asks you for. Rev. Rul. 2023-14 (IRS) →
The two forms that do not speak to each other
Rewards are reported on a 1099-MISC. Sales are reported on a 1099-DA. The 1099-DA carries a cost box, and for coins that were earned rather than bought that box has nothing in it to carry — the broker knows what it paid you as income on a different form, in a different box, that the sale form never reads. Nothing is wrong with either form. The gap is between them, and it is yours to close. What every box on the 1099-DA means →
Our own column mapper offered a «staking» action, accepted it, wrote it into the import, and then dropped every row that used it, because the layer underneath had never been taught the word. A four-row test file with 0.5 ETH of rewards came back with $0.00 of ordinary income against a real $1,620, and $2,040 of gain against a real $1,440 — because the rewards never became lots, so the sale of those same coins found nothing to sell and opened a zero-basis lot instead. Wrong in both directions at once, and confident about it. It passed its tests, both build gates and sixteen consecutive clean site audits; it was found by uploading a realistic file to the live site and checking the answer by hand. Fixed 1 September 2026. We publish it because the arithmetic does not need a bug — anyone importing trade history without reward history gets the same result.
Outside the United States
Rewards are one of the places where jurisdictions genuinely diverge, and where published guidance sometimes does not exist at all. Where that is the case we say so rather than fill it in.
income at receipt
Ordinary income at fair market value when you gain dominion and control (Rev. Rul. 2023-14), and that value becomes your basis. Reported on Schedule 1, Part I, line 8v where it is not business income. The country guide →
flagged, not asserted
The question people ask is whether staking extends the holding period to ten years. The administrative position is that it does not, and practitioner guidance agrees — but that rests on a BMF letter we have not been able to read directly, so we flag it rather than assert it. The country guide →
income at receipt
Issuance, mining and transaction validation fall into Category B as business income rather than the Category G capital rules, and passive returns can land in Category E. The 365-day exclusion is a Category G rule and does not reach them. The country guide →
income at receipt
Mining and staking are taxable income at receipt, valued in Swiss francs. The country guide →
not published
The IRAS e-Tax Guide on digital tokens does not address staking. That is a genuine gap in the published guidance, and we would rather say so than fill it in. The country guide →
Common questions
When is a staking reward taxed?
In the year you gain dominion and control over it — which Rev. Rul. 2023-14 defines as the moment you obtain the ability to sell, exchange or otherwise dispose of the units. The amount is the fair market value as of the date and time you gain that control, not the moment the protocol credited it. In the ruling's own example the taxpayer received rewards on one date, could not dispose of them until a later one, and included them in the year of the later date. If your rewards were locked until an unstaking date, that is the date that matters.
Is the reward taxed again when I sell?
No — but only if the first tax was recorded. The value you took into income becomes the cost basis of those units, so a later sale is taxed on the movement since then. Lose the reward row and you lose the basis with it: the sale is then computed against a basis of nothing and the whole proceeds become gain. That is the same money taxed as income (if you reported it) and again as gain (because nothing recorded that you had).
Why would the reward row be missing?
Because the two things are usually in different files, and often on different forms. Rewards are reported to the IRS on a 1099-MISC and sales on a 1099-DA, and the 1099-DA's cost box does not know what the 1099-MISC said. Import only your exchange's trade history and the rewards are simply not in it. Our own column mapper had a version of this failure: it offered a «staking» action, accepted it, and then dropped every row that used it. A four-row file with 0.5 ETH of rewards came back with $0.00 of ordinary income against a real $1,620, and $2,040 of gain against a real $1,440. The fix shipped on 1 September 2026; the arithmetic is why this page exists.
Does it matter that the reward was never sold?
Not for the income. The tax is on receipt of something with value, and holding it does not defer that. It matters a great deal for what comes next: until you sell there is no gain or loss, and the basis you are carrying is the value you already paid tax on.
What if I do not know the value at receipt?
Then that is the number to go and find, and it is worth finding: it is both the income you report and the basis you keep. Where an engine cannot find it, the responsible default is a conservative zero — which overstates the eventual gain rather than understating it, and is the safe direction to be wrong in for tax. It is a placeholder, not an answer, and a tool that quietly fills the box without saying so has hidden the one thing you needed to act on.
Is staking through an ETF the same?
No, and the difference is structural rather than a matter of degree — a fund that stakes its holdings is not handing you a reward you gained control of. That has its own page here, because the reporting is a fund's reporting and not yours.
Am I running a business?
That is a question about you rather than about the ledger, so nothing here answers it. Staking carried on as a trade or business belongs on Schedule C with its own consequences, including self-employment tax; passive rewards do not. We surface the question instead of deciding it.
Is anything uploaded?
No. This page computes entirely in your browser. Nothing you paste leaves it.
Run your own files and the rewards become lots with a basis rather than a hole. The scan is free to look at, in your browser, with no account.
Scan my history What am I holding at a loss? → Staking inside an ETF is different →