How Much Tax Do You Pay on Crypto in the UK? (2025/26)

“How much tax do I pay on crypto in the UK?” doesn't have one answer — it has two. HMRC splits your crypto activity into capital gains (when you sell, swap or spend) and income (when you earn from staking, mining or DeFi). Each is taxed on a different scale, with its own allowance and its own box on your tax return. Get the split wrong and your bill is wrong.

This guide gives you the actual numbers for the 2025/26 tax year — the rates, the £3,000 allowance, the income bands, and the £50,000 reporting trigger that catches people who think they owe nothing — with worked examples, including the split-year boundary in 2024/25 that most crypto tax tools get wrong.

The two taxes on UK crypto

Almost everything you do with crypto falls into one of two buckets:

Note what is not taxed: buying crypto with GBP, moving it between your own wallets, and bridging or wrapping (e.g. ETH to WETH) are not disposals — the cost basis simply carries across. A tool that books those as sales invents phantom gains.

Capital Gains Tax: rates and the £3,000 allowance

When you dispose of crypto, your gain is the proceeds minus your cost basis. Crypto is pooled at average cost per token under the Section 104 rule — not FIFO, the US default that most crypto tax tools use. From your total gains you subtract the annual exempt amount, then apply the CGT rate to whatever is left:

• Annual exempt amount: £3,000for 2024/25, 2025/26 and 2026/27 (frozen). It was £6,000 in 2023/24 and £12,300 before that.
• 18% (basic rate) on gains that fall within your remaining basic-rate Income Tax band.
• 24% (higher / additional rate) on gains above the basic-rate threshold.

These rates apply to disposals from 30 October 2024. Before that date the rates were 10% / 20% — which is why 2024/25 is a “split year” with two rate regimes inside one tax year. More on that below.

Made a loss? Capital losses offset gains in the same year and carry forward indefinitely once reported — see how to claim crypto loss relief.

Income Tax: staking, mining and DeFi rewards

Crypto you earn rather than buy is income. Staking rewards, mining, liquidity-pool fees, lending interest and most airdrops are taxed as miscellaneous incomeat their market value (in GBP) on the day you received them — at your marginal Income Tax rate:

• 20% — basic rate
• 40% — higher rate
• 45% — additional rate

Two points investors routinely miss. First, you are taxed on the value at receipt even if you never sell— the reward is income the moment it lands. Second, that same value becomes the cost basisfor a future disposal, so when you later sell the rewarded tokens you only pay CGT on any further growth (not on the value you've already paid Income Tax on). The mechanics differ slightly by activity:

• Staking rewards — income at FMV on receipt, on SA100.
• DeFi reward tokens (e.g. CRV) and Aave lending interest — usually income, though the treatment of return-vs-reward can vary.
• Airdrops — income if received in return for something or as part of a trade; potentially outside Income Tax if genuinely unsolicited.

Drawing the line between income and a capital disposal is the single most common DeFi error — we walk through it in DeFi income vs capital gains.

One thing that is notchanging yet: adding to a liquidity pool is still a disposal under the strict rule (CRYPTO61620) for 2024/25 and 2025/26. A no-gain/no-loss treatment for DeFi was signalled in direction at the Autumn Budget 2025, but it is not law — there is no draft legislation and it would apply prospectively, not to the years you are filing now. Until then, an LP add is taxed as a disposal. See how HMRC taxes Uniswap LP positions and the DeFi NGNL consultation.

The £50,000 reporting trigger (even with no gain)

Here is the rule that catches careful investors off guard: you may have to file even if you owe no tax. For Self Assessment, if your total disposal proceeds exceed £50,000in a tax year, you must report your disposals on SA108 — regardless of whether your gain is below the £3,000 allowance.

This is a gross-proceedsfigure, not profit. Active traders blow through £50,000 of proceeds quickly: a handful of round-trips on the same £10,000 stack can easily total £50k of disposals across the year. The £50,000 proceeds trigger and the £3,000 gains allowance are two different tests — you can be well under one and over the other. If you're unsure whether you cross either line, here's when you must report crypto to HMRC.

And exchanges are now feeding HMRC the data to check. Under the Crypto- Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), UK and EU providers began collectingaccount and transaction data on 1 January 2026. HMRC receives the first reports by 31 May 2027 and reconciles them against Self Assessment from 2027 — so the message isn't “HMRC already has your 2025/26 numbers,” it's “exchanges are collecting now; HMRC matches next year.” The CARF guide has the full timeline; the penalties under CARF are aimed at the providers, not at individual investors.

The 2024/25 split year most calculators get wrong

Because the CGT rate changed mid-year, 2024/25 is taxed in two halves. Disposals up to and including 29 October 2024 use the old 10% / 20% rates; disposals from 30 October 2024 use 18% / 24%. HMRC handles this on the SA108 with a dedicated Box 51 adjustment, and you have to apportion your gains by disposal date to fill it.

For the full box-by-box mapping, see SA108 boxes 13.1–13.8 explained and the complete 2024/25 guide.

Deadlines, penalties and payment

Self Assessment runs to a fixed calendar. The paper deadline is 31 October; the online deadline is 31 January. Miss it and the penalties stack:

• £100 automatic penalty the day after the deadline.
• £10 a day after three months, up to £900.
• 5% surcharges on unpaid tax at 30 days, 6 months and 12 months.
• Interest on tax paid late — currently around 7.75%.

If your bill is large enough you may also be pushed into payments on account — advance instalments toward next year's tax. And if you've already had an HMRC nudge letter, don't ignore it — voluntary disclosure before HMRC opens an enquiry materially reduces the penalty.

The cleanest way to keep the bill down legally is to plan around the year-end: realise gains across two allowances, harvest losses, and time disposals. We cover the moves in year-end crypto tax planning.

Work out exactly what you owe

The headline numbers are simple — 18% / 24% on gains over £3,000, 20% / 40% / 45% on income — but your real bill turns on the detail: which tokens share a pool, which transactions are income versus disposals, the split-year rate on 2024/25, and gas as an allowable cost. That is the work a UK crypto tax calculator built for HMRC does for you — Section 104 pooling across every exchange and wallet, same-day and 30-day matching, the SA108 boxes and the Box 51 adjustment, with the working shown on every line so an accountant can verify it. You can see how the engine classifies each transaction before you trust a single figure.