Crypto taxes in Spain: what's taxable, how much you pay and what the tax agency already knows

One rule sorts everything out: under Spain's personal income tax (IRPF) you don't pay for holding crypto, you pay when you dispose of it. As long as you only buy with euros and hold, there's no gain to report, even if your portfolio is up 300%. The moment you sell, swap or spend it, a gain or a loss appears, and it goes on that year's income tax return, known in Spain as the Renta.

For the tax agency, each cryptocurrency is a different asset. That's why the AEAT's official income tax manual treats exchanging one coin for another as a swap (a permuta): you hand over one asset, receive another, and the difference in value is taxed. It doesn't matter that no euros are involved. And it doesn't matter if you switch to a stablecoin to “park” the profit: that's a disposal too.

If your exchange has an instant convert button, every click on it is one of those swaps. My OKX tutorial, in Spanish, has a chapter on swapping crypto inside the platform: watch it with that in mind.

OKX Tutorial 2026: Cómo Registrarse, Comprar y Vender con Euros | Ley MiCA28:09

The formula is simple: disposal value minus acquisition cost. What makes life hard is pulling together the data for every transaction, especially if you've been buying on several platforms for years.

1. 01

   Acquisition cost

   What you paid in euros plus the fees and costs directly tied to the purchase (article 35 of the IRPF law). If you bought in dollars, it's converted at the exchange rate on the purchase date.

2. 02

   Disposal value

   What you receive when you sell, minus that sale's fees. If the agreed price is below market value, the tax agency uses market value.

3. 03

   Which units go out: FIFO

   If you bought in several lots, the units you sell are deemed to be the first ones you bought. The DGT applies this to each coin as a whole, regardless of the platform each unit sits on (ruling V1550-25).

4. 04

   If it's a swap

   The gain is the difference between the cost of what you hand over and the higher of two values: the market value of what you give or of what you get. That value becomes the cost basis of the new coin.

5. 05

   When to report it

   In the year you deliver the coins or make the swap, even if you're paid later.

Platform fees and network fees (the famous gas) count as long as they're tied to that purchase or sale and you pay them, according to DGT ruling V0648-24. The fee for withdrawing crypto to your own wallet, on the other hand, reduces nothing: if you only move your coins, nothing has happened for income tax purposes.

The detail that surprises most people: your average price doesn't count. If you buy on a schedule, each purchase is a lot with its own price, and when you sell part of your holdings the oldest lots go first. There's a worked example in the bitcoin DCA guide.

Qué es el DCA en Criptomonedas y Cómo Hacerlo (Guía Paso a Paso)6:50

Gains from selling or swapping crypto, and income from staking or lending, go into the savings base, which has its own rate scale, separate from the one for wages. It has five brackets, and since January 1, 2025 the top one, above €300,000, pays 30% instead of the previous 28%: Law 7/2024 of December 20 raised it.

It works in brackets, like a staircase: only the part above €6,000 pays 21%, and so on. With a net gain of €60,000 in one year, you'd pay €1,140 on the first €6,000, €9,240 on the next €44,000 and €2,300 on the last €10,000. Total: €12,680, an average rate of 21.1%.

National law sets both halves of this scale, so it's the same in every region under the common system, Catalonia included. What varies from region to region is the general scale, the one for wages. The Basque Country and Navarre run their own income tax systems, and this guide doesn't cover them.

Does anything change for 2026? As of October 17, 2026, no. According to the BOE's consolidated text, last updated on October 7, articles 66 and 76 still read as Law 7/2024 left them, so whatever you sell this year will be reported in spring 2027 under the same scale. There was a proposal to take crypto out of this base, but it lapsed in October: more on that in the next section.

You may have read that crypto gains were about to be taxed like a paycheck. The story had a real origin, but it never got past the proposal stage, and as of October 17, 2026 it isn't even being debated.

In June 2025 the Spanish government sent Congress the bill meant to transpose the EU's DAC8 directive (file 121/000060). The Sumar parliamentary group tabled amendments to it, published in the Cortes Generales official bulletin on November 5, 2025. Amendment 5 would have taken gains from disposing of crypto-assets that aren't financial instruments under MiFID II, such as bitcoin or ether, out of the savings base and moved them to the general base, taxed on the progressive scale used for wages. Another, amendment 7, would have set a 30% rate under corporate income tax.

The difference wouldn't have been small. Today the top savings rate is 30%. On the general scale, the national and Catalan brackets add up to 50% above €300,000 of taxable income, according to the AEAT's 2025 income tax manual.

Spain is still required to transpose DAC8, so the next government will have to bring a new bill to Congress, and nothing stops someone from reviving the general-base idea. The sensible advice is still boring: don't sell, or hold off selling, because of a headline. Decide based on your investment plan and revisit the issue when there's an approved text published in the BOE, with its effective date.

Losses must be reported too, and you should do it even in a year when you owe nothing: it's the only way to use them later. Article 49 of the IRPF law sets the order:

1. Gains and losses from disposals in the year offset each other with no cap: crypto, shares and funds all go in the same pot.
2. If the result is negative, you can subtract it from that year's investment income in the savings base (interest, dividends, staking), up to a cap: 25% of that income.
3. Whatever is left carries forward for the next four years, in the same order and for the largest possible amount each year. After that, it's gone.

An example with made-up figures: you close the year with €2,000 of crypto losses and €1,000 of interest. You can offset €250 (25% of €1,000), pay tax on €750 of interest and carry €1,750 of losses into the next four years. It also works the other way round: if your investment income is negative, it offsets gains up to 25% of their positive balance.

Two situations follow different rules. If an exchange goes bankrupt and doesn't return your crypto, the loss isn't automatic: the AEAT manual treats it as an unpaid debt, with its own timing rules, and sends it to the general base. And if you're scammed, the DGT accepts the loss as long as you can prove it, also in the general base (ruling V5387-26, July 2026). To avoid getting there, read the crypto scams guide.

Selling at a loss and buying back: the rule that can apply

With listed shares there's the well-known two-month rule: if you buy back the same securities within two months before or after the sale, you can't claim the loss yet (article 33.5.f). But that clause covers securities admitted to trading, and the DGT has said cryptocurrencies are not securities for these purposes (ruling V0525-25).

The catch is clause e) of the same article, written for any asset: a loss isn't recognized if you reacquire the same asset within one year of the sale; it's recognized when you finally sell it. Among the binding rulings on cryptocurrencies published through October 2026, there's no clear position on how this applies to fungible coins such as bitcoin. The cautious approach: if you sell at a loss and buy the same coin back within 12 months, assume the tax agency may defer that loss, and check with an adviser first.

Active traders generate dozens of reportable gains and losses a year. If your strategy is to sell in stages, build tax into your exit plan from the start: see the risk management guide.

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The AEAT manual has no dedicated section on this, but Spain's Directorate General of Taxes (DGT) has issued several binding rulings. They answer specific cases, yet the General Tax Law requires the tax agency to apply those criteria to any taxpayer with the same facts (article 89). Here's what they say:

Staking on an exchange or delegated

Investment income from lending out your own capital (article 25.2): each reward is taxed at its market value in euros on the day you receive it, in the savings base (V1766-22, V0648-24, V0612-26).

Native staking

If rewards build up in the smart contract and you have to claim them, they're taxed when they become available to you, usually when you claim them (V0612-26, March 2026).

Liquid staking

Swapping ETH for a token such as rETH, and later back again, are swaps: each one produces its own gain or loss (V0612-26).

Lending and liquidity pools

Interest for lending crypto and what pools generate are investment income in the savings base. The fees and interest you pay when you are the borrower can't be deducted (V0648-24).

Airdrops

Receiving free tokens is a gain that doesn't come from a sale: you report their market value in the general base, the one your salary goes into, in the year you receive them (V0648-24, V1948-21). Selling them later produces another gain or loss.

Mining

The DGT has classed bitcoin mining as a business activity for the IAE business tax and as outside the scope of VAT (V3625-16). If you mine with your own equipment in an organized way, business-activity rules apply: you need an adviser.

A practical tip: record the euro value of every reward on the day you receive it. You'll need it to report the reward that year and, later, to work out the gain when you sell it. The DGT even accepts the day's average exchange rate if you receive several rewards on the same day.

The tax agency doesn't rely on your memory. It receives information through three channels, approved by orders HFP/886/2023 and HFP/887/2023:

• Form 172: Spanish-resident providers that hold crypto for clients report your balances at December 31 every January, in units and in euros.
• Form 173: Spanish-resident exchanges and custodians report your purchases, sales, swaps and transfers, with dates, amounts and fees.
• Form 721: you file this one yourself if you hold more than €50,000 in crypto with foreign custodians at December 31.

With that data, the AEAT states in the guidelines of its 2026 Annual Tax Control Plan (BOE, March 12) that it already provides tax information to taxpayers and that this year it will step up checks on people who traded crypto but didn't report their gains.

Form 721, point by point

• It's filed by Spanish residents whose virtual currencies are held by non-resident custodians, when the combined balance at December 31 exceeds €50,000. If it does, you report all of them.
• Balances are valued at the December 31 price from major trading platforms or price-tracking sites. Deadline: January 1 to March 31 of the following year, so 2026 balances are filed between January and March 2027.
• In later years you only file again if the combined balance has risen by more than €20,000 since your last return, or if you no longer hold crypto you previously reported.
• Crypto in self-custody, in a wallet where you control the keys, cold or hot, isn't included, according to the AEAT itself.
• If you buy and sell everything within the same year, there's no balance to report (DGT V5066-26, June 2026).

Filing it late or incorrectly is penalized under the general rules of Spain's General Tax Law. And before moving everything to your own wallet just to skip the form, think about security first: it's all in the hot vs cold wallet guide.

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DAC8: Europe-wide data sharing

Directive (EU) 2023/2226, known as DAC8, requires crypto-asset service providers to identify their clients' tax residence and report their transactions: purchases and sales against euros, swaps between coins, payments and transfers, including transfers to addresses that don't belong to any provider. Member states had to apply it from January 1, 2026, and each year's data is exchanged within nine months of the year's end. For the first year, 2026, the exchange has to happen by September 30, 2027 at the latest, according to the European Commission.

Spain is running late: bill 121/000060, which was meant to transpose it, lapsed on October 6, 2026 when parliament was dissolved, and the ministerial order for the new forms (Form 175, which would replace Form 173, plus new versions of Forms 172 and 721) is still a draft: the Ministry of Finance put it out for public consultation in March 2026 and it has not been published in the BOE. The slow process doesn't change the basics: Forms 172, 173 and 721 already work, and the directive, which brings the OECD's CARF standard into the EU, is designed so that data reaches the tax authority of the country where each client lives. Given how it's built, if you use a provider authorized in another EU country that has transposed it, you should expect the data on your 2026 transactions to reach the AEAT through automatic exchange. If you're not sure whether your platform is Spanish, European or from elsewhere, start with the exchanges and MiCA guide.

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Crypto is also wealth. For Spain's wealth tax (Impuesto sobre el Patrimonio) you report each coin's euro balance at December 31, using the 11:59 p.m. price from major platforms or price-tracking sites (AEAT 2025 wealth tax manual). Whether you have to file depends on your total wealth, not just your crypto:

In Catalonia the difference shows: the allowance is €500,000 instead of €700,000, and the rates are higher than the national ones. For the 2025 tax year, the Catalan Tax Agency applies a scale running from 0.21% up to 3.48% above €20 million. According to the AEAT manual, it stays in place while the solidarity tax remains in force, and Royal Decree-law 8/2023 extended that tax until wealth taxation is reviewed as part of the reform of regional financing.

The temporary solidarity tax on large fortunes applies to net wealth above €3 million, with a €700,000 allowance and rates of 1.7%, 2.1% and 3.5%. Because wealth tax already paid is deducted, in regions that charge wealth tax at high rates, such as Catalonia, it may end up adding little or nothing. It's filed from July 1 to 31.

All figures are illustrative and have nothing to do with real prices. Assume you live in Spain's common tax territory and that your other income already absorbs your personal and family allowance.

Gains and losses for the year offset each other: €1,495 + €1,970 − €1,200 = €2,265. Adding the €150 from staking, the savings base comes to €2,415, all within the first bracket: €2,415 × 19% = €458.85 of tax.

Notice three things. The February swap is taxed even though you never touched a euro. The ETH loss only lowers your bill because you realized it within the year, and if you buy ETH back within the next 12 months, remember the buy-back rule. And you still hold 0.05 BTC from lot B, with a cost of €4,005, which will be the first to go in your next sale.

The tax return software has a dedicated section, “Ganancias y pérdidas patrimoniales derivadas de la transmisión o permuta de monedas virtuales por particulares”, for gains and losses from selling or swapping virtual currencies as an individual. Every sale and every swap goes there. If the draft return shows data from your exchange, check it carefully: it may include the sale but not your purchase price, especially if you bought on a foreign platform.

1. 01

   Download your history

   Every year, export the transaction file from each exchange and wallet, with dates, amounts, prices and fees. Platforms shut down or rebrand; your files don't.

2. 02

   One ledger per coin

   Sort all purchases by date so you can apply FIFO regardless of which platform each unit is on.

3. 03

   Log every swap and reward

   The euro value of what you give, what you get and each staking reward, on the day it happens.

4. 04

   Keep the December 31 snapshot

   Balances and prices on that date, in case wealth tax or Form 721 applies to you.

5. 05

   Keep records long enough

   The tax agency has four years to assess a tax year, counted from the end of the filing window (articles 66 and 67 of the General Tax Law). You'll need proof of a purchase until the statute of limitations runs out on the year you sell. If you carry losses forward, their origin can be checked for ten years (article 66 bis).

On my channel you'll find market analysis, platform tutorials and my Entiende Cripto series, all in Spanish, with no hype and the risks up front. If you're just starting out, the from-scratch video guide covers where to buy, how to store your crypto, how to avoid scams and what the Spanish tax agency says.

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