Do I owe tax on my crypto?
81,000 nudge letters went out last year and HMRC now gets data from overseas exchanges too. Six steps work out whether you have a gain to report, which of it is income, and what to do.
Why this exists: 81,000 nudge letters · 7m UK holders. Avoids penalties; finds losses worth claiming.
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Rates as at 6 April 2026 — the 2026/27 tax year.
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The rules behind this
Every figure above comes from one of these. Where the tool has interpreted rather than calculated, it says so in the finding.
Cryptoassets held as an investment are chargeable assets for capital gains tax.
Exchanging one token for another is a disposal of the first at its market value.
Tokens of the same kind are pooled under section 104, subject to the same-day and 30-day matching rules.
Staking, mining and airdrops received for doing something are income at their value on receipt.
Capital losses must be claimed within four years of the end of the tax year to be carried forward.
Questions people ask
I only swapped coins, never cashed out. Do I owe anything?
Possibly quite a lot. A swap is a disposal of the coin you gave up, valued in pounds on that day. People who have never touched a bank account can have years of unreported gains, and this is the most common way it happens.
Why can this tool not just give me the figure?
Because the cost of what you sold depends on pooling every unit you ever bought of that token, then applying the same-day and 30-day rules. That needs your whole transaction history, not six answers. Anything that claims otherwise is guessing.
Is staking a gain or income?
Income, at the pound value when it arrived. That value then becomes the cost for capital gains when you later dispose of it — so the same tokens are touched by both taxes at different moments.
What if I made a loss?
Claim it. Losses carry forward indefinitely against future gains, but only once reported, and the claim has a four-year window. An unclaimed loss is worth nothing.
How much does HMRC actually know?
UK exchanges already report. From January 2026 an OECD framework adds overseas exchanges. The 81,000 letters sent last year were generated from data they already hold.