Crypto tax return
Data preparation from exchanges and wallets, cost basis under FIFO or LIFO, clean per-address separation, and a defensible trail for every figure that reaches the Anlage SO form.
See the process →
§ 23 EStG
German tax practice · Potsdam · Barcelona · Dubai
German crypto tax, explained in your language.
If you live in Germany, your crypto is taxed under German rules — whichever exchange you used and wherever you are from. We handle the filing, deal with the tax office, and explain every figure in English before anything is submitted.
Anlage SO · lines 42 ff.
Tax year 2025
Disposals within the 12-month period€18,400
Wallet transfer booked as a sale. Not a disposal — tax base overstated.
Staking rewards, other income€0
2025 inflow not recorded. Sec. 22 no. 3 EStG, €256 limit exceeded.
Held > 12 months, tax free€64,900
FIFO run across all exchanges. Per-address evidence missing.
Findings we see in ongoing audits
Audit note
- Nine years as a German tax auditor
- Vice President, Tax Advisers Association Berlin-Brandenburg
- Author, standard German handbook on crypto taxation
- Lecturer for the German tax advisers associations
- Expert witness before the Bundestag finance committee on DAC8
- Court-appointed expert witness
- Named among Germany’s best tax advisers 2024
- Own offices in Barcelona and Dubai
Germany taxes crypto differently from almost everywhere else
If you arrived from the UK, the US, India or the Netherlands, the rules you already know do not transfer. Four differences catch newcomers out most often.
There is no flat capital gains tax on crypto
Directly held crypto is not treated like shares. Gains fall under private disposal transactions and are taxed at your personal income tax rate, which runs from 0 to 45 percent depending on your total income.
Holding for more than twelve months makes the gain tax free
Not reduced — free, with no ceiling. This is the single most valuable rule in German crypto taxation, and the reason documentation of acquisition dates matters more here than in most jurisdictions.
Coin-to-coin swaps are taxable events
Exchanging Bitcoin for Ethereum is a disposal and starts a fresh twelve-month clock for the asset received. Traders who never cashed out to euro are frequently surprised by this.
The thresholds are limits, not allowances
Reach €1,000 in private disposal gains and the entire amount becomes taxable, not just the excess. The same logic applies to the €256 limit for staking and lending income.
Services: German crypto tax advice from filing to litigation
Steger Consulting is a German certified tax practice in Potsdam near Berlin, covering crypto assets across thirteen service areas — from the annual return under section 23 EStG through accounting, VAT and voluntary disclosure to representation before the fiscal courts, plus support for clients moving to or leaving Germany. Clients are advised throughout Germany and internationally, in English.
Filing and accounts Tax returns, accounting and appeals
Staking, lending and DeFi
Timing of inflows, valuation of rewards, airdrops, liquidity pools and wrapping — the cases where off-the-shelf tax software routinely fails.
See the cases →Crypto accounting & VAT
Recognition and measurement of crypto assets held in a business, German GAAP and tax balance sheet, year-end valuation. Also covering write-downs to going-concern value and VAT on NFTs.
See the approach →Cash-basis accounts & VAT
Cash-basis accounts for miners, node operators and freelancers with crypto income: receipts-and-payments principle, fixed asset register, the Anlage EÜR form. Also covering write-downs and VAT on NFTs.
See the approach →Appeals and litigation
Filing and managing objections against assessments, applications to suspend enforcement, staying proceedings behind pending test cases, and representation before the fiscal court.
See the route →Moving to Germany
Planning before you become tax resident: avoiding or deferring exit tax in the country you are leaving, securing the acquisition records that decide whether the 12-month rule protects you, and the German registration that follows.
See the checklist →Leaving Germany
What ends your unlimited tax liability, when exit taxation actually bites, and the evidence that must exist before you deregister. Own offices in Barcelona and Dubai; 18 destination countries covered in-house rather than through correspondent firms.
See destinations →When the tax office acts Voluntary disclosure, audits and expert opinions
Voluntary disclosure
A complete disclosure covering every unbarred year, prepared before DAC8 data or a collective information request removes the protection it offers.
See the process →Tax audit and defence
Representation during the audit, handling of data requests, and defence in tax criminal proceedings — argued by someone who spent nine years conducting audits.
See the focus →Tax and valuation opinions
Written opinions on the valuation and tax classification of crypto assets for courts, insolvency administrators, companies and contested proceedings.
See the service →For companies and providers Software, blockchain projects and teams
Software compliance review
Testing crypto tax and reporting software against what German tax offices will actually accept: calculation logic, per-wallet cost basis, auditability and export formats.
See the scope →Software development support
Technical and tax guidance for providers: real-world test cases, mapping of new transaction types, import logic and interfaces — from a former programmer.
See how we work →Blockchain projects and teams
Ongoing advice for projects and teams: token issuance, payment in tokens, employee participation, treasury holdings and choice of legal form.
See the service →Who we work with
Your starting position determines the approach. Pick the situation closest to yours.
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Expats
Expats living in Germany
You moved here with an existing portfolio, or started trading after arriving. Residence, not citizenship, decides your German tax position — and foreign exchanges are covered too.
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Investors
Private investors
Trading across several exchanges, airdrops, rewards, open prior years — from the first sorting of data to a return ready for submission.
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Arriving
Moving to Germany
Exit position in the country you are leaving, records that must survive the move, and every registration that follows once you become tax resident here.
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Relocating
Moving to Dubai, Barcelona or elsewhere
Planning before departure rather than repair afterwards, coordinated with our own offices in Barcelona and Dubai.
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Companies
Companies holding crypto
Treasury positions, accepting payment in crypto, mining held as business assets, and the interface with your bookkeeping.
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Advisors
Tax advisors and law firms
Technical support on your own client's file, a second opinion on contested positions, and in-house training for your team.
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Platforms
Exchanges and platform operators
Compliance review of your reporting logic, development of your import coverage, and which tax reports your German users actually need.
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Arriving in Germany: your first year
Becoming tax resident in Germany starts a chain of registrations, and most of them ask for documents nobody told you to keep. We handle the sequence, from the exit position in the country you are leaving to the paperwork German banks, landlords and authorities will request.
Exit tax in the country you leave
Several countries tax unrealised gains on departure. Coordinated timing, and in some cases a deferral, can avoid being charged twice on the same holdings.
Acquisition records from before you arrived
Germany looks at your original acquisition, not the date you moved. Whether the 12-month rule protects a holding therefore depends on records created long before your arrival — gather them while the accounts still exist.
Tax number and first return
Registration with the competent tax office, tax identification number and tax number, and the first German return — including the part-year in which your liability began.
Source of funds for banks and exchanges
German banks and regulated exchanges ask where the money came from before they onboard you or release a payout. A prepared trail avoids frozen credits and rejected accounts.
Proof of income and certificate of residence
Income confirmations for landlords, visa and residence permit applications, plus the certificate of tax residence you need to claim treaty relief and stop withholding tax abroad.
Family benefits and naturalisation
Applications for child benefit, and the tax records required later in a naturalisation file — assembled correctly from the start rather than reconstructed under time pressure.
How a German tax auditor reads your crypto data
Four findings that appear in almost every file. No tax software catches them, because they are not in the numbers — they are in what is missing.
Finding 01
Wallet transfers booked as sales
Moving coins between your own addresses is not a disposal. Raw imports book it as one anyway, inflating the tax base for no reason.
Finding 02
Only FIFO, run across all exchanges
The German authorities expect the calculation per wallet or address. Running a comparative cross-wallet calculation, or LIFO, shifts acquisition dates and with them the holding period.
Finding 03
Inflows recorded at a cost basis of zero
Staking and lending income must be valued at the rate on the day it was received. Without per-inflow evidence the figure is estimated, and rarely in your favour. The same applies to airdrops and other inflows.
Finding 04
History lost after an exchange closed or went insolvent
Discontinued platforms, deleted accounts, dead CSV exports. Acquisition data can be reconstructed — but only with an on-chain trail, not an assertion. The same holds for source-of-funds evidence your bank will ask for.
Working with a German tax practice in English
German tax forms exist only in German and filings go through the official ELSTER portal. That does not mean you have to navigate any of it in German.
Intake in English
You describe the years involved, the platforms used and the rough number of transactions. You receive an estimate of effort and fees before anything begins.
Data, not screenshots
API connections and full exports wherever possible, encrypted transfer, reconstruction where an exchange no longer exists. You keep custody of your assets throughout.
Filing and representation
We hold a power of attorney with your tax office, submit through ELSTER, and handle the correspondence. Everything is explained to you in English first.
Knowledge
Articles with a stated legal position and source references. Each is revised when the tax authorities change their view, rather than simply redated.
The 12-month holding period: start, reset and evidence
When the clock starts, which transactions restart it, and why the extension to ten years is not applied to staking and lending.
Tax residency in Germany and what it means for your crypto
Residence, habitual abode and the 183-day question — and why holding coins on a foreign exchange changes nothing about your German liability.
Leaving Germany with crypto: what actually triggers tax
Where exit taxation applies and where it does not, extended limited liability when moving to a low-tax country, and the documentation to prepare before deregistering.
The Anlage SO form, line by line
Which figures go where, how losses are entered, and which additional schedules a crypto case usually requires.
DAC8: what German tax offices receive from 2026
Which providers report, which data fields are transmitted, the timetable for the first exchange, and what it means for undeclared prior years.
Crypto and double taxation treaties
Where the right to tax sits when you hold assets in one country and reside in another, and how relief is claimed in the German return.
Author
Matthias Steger
German certified tax advisor (Steuerberater), with degrees in business administration and public finance. Nine years as a tax auditor for the German revenue, now specialised in the taxation of crypto assets as an adviser, lecturer and court-appointed expert.
- Vice President of the Tax Advisers Association Berlin-Brandenburg
- Chair of its committee on tax law
- Lecturer for the German tax advisers associations on crypto taxation
- Author of the standard German handbook on crypto taxation, Erich Schmidt Verlag
- Trained more than 5,000 German tax professionals since 2018
- Invited expert at the German Bundestag’s finance committee hearing on the DAC8 directive, October 2025
- Court-appointed expert for the Regional Court of Frankfurt (Oder) and local courts
- Member of the blockchain committee of the Institute for Digitalisation in Tax Law
- Finance director of the German Bitcoin Association
How we keep this knowledge current
since 2019
Krypto-Steuerakademie
Our training platform on the taxation of crypto assets, in German. More than 1,000 participants and monthly live sessions on new rulings and administrative guidance, which feed straight back into client work.
hybrid
TaxTobi.AI
The AI assistant we built for crypto tax questions. Trained on material from our own practice, with every answer reviewed by the team — the questions show us where the law is genuinely unclear in practice.
Frequently asked questions about crypto tax in Germany
The questions that come up first in almost every consultation. Legal position as at August 2026.
I live in Germany but I am not a German citizen. Do I have to declare crypto?
Citizenship is irrelevant. What matters is whether you have a residence or a habitual abode in Germany. If you do, you are subject to unlimited tax liability and must declare your worldwide income — including gains and rewards from crypto held on exchanges outside Germany.
Is the one-year tax-free rule real?
Yes. Where more than twelve months lie between acquisition and disposal, the gain is tax free under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act, with no upper limit. Within the twelve months the gain is taxed at your personal income tax rate. Swapping one coin for another counts as a disposal and starts a new period for the asset received.
What are the €1,000 and €256 thresholds?
They are exemption limits rather than allowances, and the difference matters. Private disposal gains stay tax free up to €1,000 per calendar year, staking and lending income up to €256. Once a limit is reached, the entire amount becomes taxable, not merely the excess.
I am leaving Germany. What happens to my crypto?
It depends on how the assets are held. German exit taxation is aimed principally at substantial shareholdings in corporations rather than directly held coins, so the answer differs sharply between someone holding Bitcoin personally and someone holding it through a GmbH. Moving to a low-tax jurisdiction can also trigger extended limited tax liability. In every case the date your unlimited liability ends, and the value of your holdings on that date, must be documented — which is why the planning belongs before deregistration, not after.
I am moving to Germany. Can I avoid exit tax in my current country?
Often the charge can be reduced or deferred, but almost always only by acting before you leave. Several jurisdictions tax unrealised gains on departure, and the German side then treats your original acquisition dates as decisive rather than the date you arrived. Coordinating both ends — the exit position there and the evidence you will need here — is what prevents the same holding being taxed twice.
My exchange is reporting my data under DAC8. What does that mean?
From 2026 crypto service providers in the EU collect and report user data to tax authorities, with the first exchange of information scheduled for early 2027. Because reporting covers existing account relationships, undeclared earlier years become visible. If prior years are open, a voluntary disclosure only protects you while the matter is still undiscovered.
Can we work together in English?
Yes. All correspondence, calls and explanations are in English. The return itself is filed in German, because German tax forms and the ELSTER portal exist only in German — we prepare and submit it, and walk you through every figure before anything goes to the tax office.
Contact
Request a consultation
Tell us briefly where you stand: which years are involved, roughly how many transactions, and which platforms you used. You will get back an assessment of effort and fees before any work starts.
- Practice
- Matthias Steger Consulting Steuerberatungsgesellschaft mbH
- Address
- Dennis-Gabor-Strasse 2
14469 Potsdam, Germany - Phone
- +49 331 76 99 100
- +49 171 348 18 12 — first contact and scheduling
- Hours
- Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm CET
- Coverage
- Potsdam, Berlin and across Germany
- Abroad
- Own offices in Barcelona and Dubai
- Languages
- English and German
Disclosure: Krypto-Steuerakademie and TaxTobi.AI are projects owned by Matthias Steger. We also link to third-party software; where a purchase is made through those links the practice receives a commission and your price is unaffected. Recommendations are made on technical merit regardless. All recommendations
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