Crypto Tax Calculator

Because the IRS treats crypto as property, you trigger a capital gain or loss every time you dispose of it — not just when you cash out to dollars. Taxable disposals include selling for USD, trading one coin for another, spending crypto on goods or services, and buying an NFT with crypto. The gain is the difference between the fair market value at disposal and your cost basis.

What is not taxable: buying crypto with dollars and holding it, moving coins between your own wallets, and gifting within the annual exclusion. The catch for active traders is the coin-to-coin rule — swapping BTC for ETH is a sale of BTC at market value, even though no dollars changed hands.

Hold for one year or less and gains are short-term, taxed at your ordinary rate (up to 37%). Hold more than a year and they are long-term, taxed at 0%, 15%, or 20%. The holding period is the single biggest lever crypto investors control. In 2025 the 0% long-term rate runs up to $48,350 of taxable income for single filers and $96,700 for married filing jointly — so realizing long-term gains in a low-income year can be genuinely tax-free.

High earners add the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax on gains once modified AGI passes $200,000 (single) or $250,000 (married filing jointly). Model it alongside the NIIT calculator.

Some crypto is taxed as ordinary income before any sale. Mining rewards, staking rewards (IRS Rev. Rul. 2023-14), airdrops, and most reward tokens are income at their fair market value on the day you gain dominion and control. That value becomes your cost basis, so when you later sell you only pay capital gains tax on the change since then — not the whole amount again. Mining run as a business can also owe self-employment tax.

Here is where crypto beats stocks for tax planning: the wash sale rule does not apply to crypto. Because crypto is property rather than a security under §1091, you can sell a coin at a loss to bank the deduction and rebuy it immediately, keeping your position while realizing the loss. With stocks you would have to wait 31 days.

Two caveats: legislation to extend the wash sale rule to digital assets has been proposed (and could pass in a future year), and the IRS can still challenge purely artificial round-trips under the economic substance doctrine. Keep the trades real and dated. See the tax-loss harvesting calculator.

Crypto reporting is tightening. Brokers report gross proceeds on the new Form 1099-DA for transactions from 1 January 2025 (forms arriving in early 2026), and add cost-basis reporting for 2026 transactions. Until basis reporting matures, your own records are the source of truth — exchanges frequently report no basis or the wrong basis, especially for coins moved between platforms.

Keep, per lot: acquisition date, cost in USD, disposal date, and proceeds. Choose a consistent basis method (FIFO by default, or specific identification if your records support it). Everyone must also answer the digital asset question on the front page of Form 1040.