Crypto Tax UK: Capital Gains, Allowances and Reporting to HMRC (2026 to 2027)

In the UK, most crypto tax is Capital Gains Tax. You pay it when you sell, swap, spend or give away tokens at a gain and your total gains for the year are above the £3,000 annual exempt amount. Crypto you receive as pay or from staking is taxed as income instead. HMRC does not treat crypto as currency, so every disposal needs its own calculation in pounds.

This guide sets out the rules as of October 2026, for the 2026 to 2027 tax year, with links to the GOV.UK pages they come from. It is general information, not tax advice. Your position depends on your circumstances, so check it with a tax adviser.

Key takeaways

• Selling crypto, exchanging it for another token, paying for something with it and giving it away are all disposals for Capital Gains Tax.
• For 2026 to 2027 the annual exempt amount is £3,000 and the rates are 18% within the basic-rate band and 24% above it.
• Gains are worked out with pooling rules, not by picking which coins you sold.
• Losses reduce gains, but only if you report them, within four years of the end of the tax year.
• Since 1 January 2026, UK crypto providers collect your National Insurance number or UTR and report your transactions to HMRC.

When does crypto tax apply in the UK?

Capital Gains Tax applies when you dispose of tokens. HMRC's guidance lists four ways to dispose of them: selling them for money, exchanging them for a different type of cryptoasset, using them to pay for goods or services, and giving them away. A gift to your spouse, civil partner or a charity is the exception. Swapping bitcoin for a stablecoin is a disposal, even though no pounds were involved.

Income Tax applies to tokens you receive as income. HMRC says tokens from employment, or from activities such as mining, staking or lending, count as income, and that includes returns from decentralised finance. If you carry on a trade, different rules apply.

Buying crypto with pounds and holding it is not a disposal.

The numbers for 2026 to 2027

Your taxable income and gains are added together to decide how much of the gain falls in each band. The £3,000 exempt amount has been fixed since the 2024 to 2025 tax year.

How HMRC works out your gain

The gain is the sterling value you received minus your allowable costs. Allowable costs include transaction fees and a proportion of the pooled cost of your tokens.

The pooled cost comes from HMRC's matching rules, applied to each type of token separately:

1. Same day. Tokens bought on the same day as a disposal are matched with it first.
2. Next 30 days. Tokens bought in the 30 days after a disposal are matched with it next.
3. Section 104 pool. Everything else sits in one pool per token type, with a single average cost that changes with every purchase and sale.

The 30-day rule matters if you sell to realise a loss and buy back soon after: the buy-back is matched with the sale, so the loss you hoped to crystallise may shrink or disappear. Exchange statements help, but HMRC is clear that they are not tax calculations and do not track pooled costs. You have to keep your own records.

How to report crypto tax to HMRC

You must report and pay if your total gains for the tax year are above the annual exempt amount. If you are registered for Self Assessment, you also have to report gains when your total proceeds from disposals are above £50,000, even if the gain itself is under the allowance.

There are two routes:

• Self Assessment. Returns from the 2024 to 2025 tax year onwards have a dedicated cryptoasset section, which you complete in pounds. The online deadline for the 2025 to 2026 return, and for paying what you owe, is 31 January 2027.
• The real-time Capital Gains Tax service. Useful if you are not otherwise in Self Assessment.

If you owe tax from earlier years, HMRC's Cryptoasset Disclosure Service is the route to put it right.

HMRC can see more than it used to

From 1 January 2026, the UK applies the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework. UK cryptoasset service providers collect your name, date of birth, address and a tax identification number, which for UK residents means a National Insurance number or UTR, along with data on your transactions, and report it to HMRC. If you do not give a UK provider the details it needs, HMRC says you could face a penalty of up to £300.

The practical consequence is simple: assume HMRC will be able to see disposals made through mainstream platforms, and make sure your return matches.

How to cash out crypto without paying tax

The honest answer: if a disposal creates a taxable gain above your allowance, you cannot legally avoid paying tax on it. Moving to another token, cashing out through a foreign platform or splitting withdrawals across accounts does not change whether a gain arose. What the rules do allow is paying no more than you owe. These are the legitimate levers:

• Use your annual exempt amount. The first £3,000 of net gains each tax year is tax-free. Gains realised across two tax years, before and after 5 April, use two years' allowances.
• Claim your losses. A loss is deducted from gains in the same year, and unused losses carry forward. You can claim up to four years after the end of the tax year of the disposal, but only if you report the loss. If tokens you still hold become worthless, a negligible value claim may let you register the loss without selling.
• Transfers between spouses and civil partners. Gifts or sales to a husband, wife or civil partner do not trigger Capital Gains Tax, unless you were separated and did not live together at all in that tax year. Your spouse takes over your original cost and may pay tax when they dispose of the tokens. This means a couple can use two allowances and, potentially, two basic-rate bands.
• Count every allowable cost. Transaction fees reduce your gain, and they are easy to forget.
• Gifts to charity are not disposals for Capital Gains Tax.

What you should not do is leave gains off your return and hope. Under-reporting is a much bigger problem than the tax itself, and if it has already happened, the Cryptoasset Disclosure Service exists for exactly that. We cover cross-border rules and international reporting in our wider guide to crypto taxes.

Records to keep

HMRC expects separate records for each transaction in each token pool:

• the type of token;
• the date of the disposal;
• the number of tokens disposed of and the number left;
• the value in pounds;
• bank statements;
• the pooled costs before and after the disposal.

Download statements from every platform at least once a year, before an account is closed or a service changes. When you exchange crypto in an app, save the confirmation showing the rate, amount and costs, because that is your evidence of the sterling value at the time.

If you are planning a sale, our guide to cashing out crypto in the UK covers the FCA side and getting the money to your bank.