Malta: crypto taxes when leaving Germany

• Coins (pure payment tokens like Bitcoin): generally tax-free when held privately and non-commercially, regardless of holding period or size of gain (exhaustive catalog of specific assets). Financial tokens (securities-like): general capital gains rules. If only non-dom status leads to the exemption, the case is structurally closer to cases in which German case law has applied § 50d(9) EStG; no ruling by the highest court and no statement from the tax administration on this scenario are known.
• Commercial activity: trading income at up to 35%; distinction under the "badges of trade" doctrine (overall assessment). Typical indications under the guidelines of the Commissioner for Revenue (CfR, November 2018): active, especially leveraged, trading; systematic "airdrop farming," active NFT trading, mining nodes. Advisory rule of thumb: no more than about ten trades a month; not legally binding.
• Mining: Expressly taxable under the CfR guidelines as income at market value on receipt, less hardware depreciation and directly attributable electricity costs.
• Staking, lending, liquidity mining: no DeFi-specific CfR guidance; advisory practice: income at market value on receipt, which becomes the acquisition cost. Airdrops: not exempted by the CfR; a one-off, passively received airdrop would likely be subject to case-by-case assessment. Hard forks: no CfR rule of their own; advisory practice treats them like airdrops.
• Non-dom (remittance basis): anyone resident but not domiciled can elect taxation on the remittance basis. Foreign capital gains — expressly including crypto gains — remain tax-free even when remitted to Malta; foreign current income becomes taxable on remittance. Anyone using the remittance basis pays an annual minimum tax of €5,000 on foreign income over €35,000. Settling Maltese invoices from a foreign account or transferring crypto assets to a Maltese exchange also counts as a remittance.
• VAT, wealth, inheritance: exchanges of crypto assets for fiat and among themselves, and platform fees, are exempt. No wealth tax, no conventional inheritance tax; stamp duty of 1.5 to 5% on real estate and shares, which doesn't affect private crypto assets.

Year of departure

• German unlimited tax liability only ends once residence and habitual abode are actually given up; in Malta, tax residency arises with at least 183 days a year. If the German home is already given up at the time of a crypto sale, the gain isn't domestic income under § 49 EStG; if both homes still exist, the tie-breaker decides.
• Non-dom status arises without an application, because the domicile of origin remains in place on relocation. A domicile of choice requires the intention to remain permanently or indefinitely and giving up any intention of returning; the burden of proof lies with whoever relies on it, and the requirements are high. Anyone establishing a Maltese domicile is assessed in Malta on worldwide income.
• Realizing gains tax-free in Germany before emigrating isn't needed for private coins; for financial tokens or commercial-looking trading, that doesn't apply.

First year after leaving

• Privately held coins: generally tax-free. A prior German classification as a trade or business doesn't bind the CfR, but can feed into the overall assessment, especially if the activity continues in Malta.

More than ten years

• Nothing changes for income tax purposes. Extended limited income tax liability, which comes into consideration in connection with the non-dom regime as preferential taxation, ends ten years after the end of the year in which unlimited tax liability ended; after that, only ordinary limited tax liability remains (current position).
• No separate inheritance tax treaty: for German nationals, extended unlimited inheritance tax liability applies if the deceased or donor was fully taxable in Germany within the last five years before the inheritance; after more than ten years, this window is closed.

Moving on to a third country

• No exit taxation for privately held crypto assets is known.

Returning to Germany

• No special tax on the Maltese side. Re-establishing a residence or habitual abode in Germany brings unlimited tax liability back into effect. The original acquisition date still counts: if a position has been held for longer than a year in total, a later sale is tax-free under § 23 EStG.