UK Crypto Capital Gains Tax: Your Complete HMRC Guide for 2026-27

Updated 24 October 2026: rates and allowance confirmed for the 2026-27 tax year, the reporting timeline corrected to match HMRC's CARF guidance, and our separate guides on whether you pay tax on crypto and the tax-free allowance folded into this one.

If you bought crypto at any point in the last five years and you've sold, swapped, spent or gifted any of it, there's a reasonable chance you owe HMRC money. Not because you've done anything wrong — but because the UK tax rules around crypto are far more sweeping than most people expect. Understanding them properly is the difference between a clean self-assessment return and an unwelcome nudge letter from the Revenue.

The good news is the framework isn't complicated once you know the shape of it. The bad news is that almost every crypto action counts as a taxable event, and the new CARF reporting regime means HMRC will shortly know your transaction history better than you do.

What counts as a disposal?

HMRC treats cryptoassets as capital property — not currency. That means every time you part with a crypto token, in any form, you're making a taxable disposal that may create a capital gain or allowable loss. The list includes: selling crypto for sterling, swapping one token for another (yes, BTC-to-ETH is taxable), spending crypto on goods or services, gifting crypto to someone other than your spouse or civil partner, and donating crypto to charity in some circumstances.

What this means in practice is that a trader who buys Bitcoin, converts it to Ethereum, then sells the Ethereum for cash has made two separate taxable disposals — even if they never touched pounds at any intermediate stage.

The rates and the £3,000 allowance

For the 2026-27 tax year (6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027), every individual has a Capital Gains Tax annual exempt amount of £3,000. Only gains above that threshold are taxable. The rate you pay depends on which income tax band your total income falls into: basic-rate taxpayers pay 18% on gains that fit within their unused basic-rate band; higher and additional-rate taxpayers pay 24%. These are the same rates that have applied since 30 October 2024 — before that date, the old rates of 10% and 20% applied.

One nuance worth noting: if your crypto gain straddles the basic-rate band — that is, part of the gain falls within your remaining basic-rate band and the rest pushes into higher-rate territory — you pay 18% on the first part and 24% on the rest. It's worth modelling this before the tax year ends if you're close to the threshold.

The £3,000 is an allowance on profit, not on how much crypto you hold, and it isn't a crypto-only figure: it covers all your capital gains together, so gains on shares or a second property share the same £3,000. If you bought crypto for £10,000 and sold it for £12,500, your £2,500 gain sits inside the allowance. Sell for £15,000 instead and the £5,000 gain uses the £3,000 allowance, leaving £2,000 taxable. The allowance has shrunk sharply — it was £12,300 a few years ago — which is why far more ordinary investors now cross the line.

Gains or income? The two crypto taxes

Not all crypto is taxed as a capital gain. Crypto that arrives as income — a salary or fee paid in tokens, staking or mining rewards, some airdrops — falls under income tax at the sterling value when you receive it, and uses your income tax allowances rather than the £3,000 gains allowance.

Situation	Tax type	Allowance	Rate
Selling, swapping or spending at a profit	Capital gains	£3,000 annual exempt amount	18% or 24%
Paid a salary or fee in crypto	Income (+ NI)	Personal allowance	20%–45%
Staking, mining, some airdrops	Income	£1,000 trading allowance may apply	20%–45%
Buying and holding	None	—	0%

That's why the same coins can be taxed twice: once as income when you receive them, and again as a capital gain if you later sell them for more than their value on receipt. Our income tax guide for staking, mining and airdrops goes through that side.

Buying crypto with pounds, holding it, moving it between your own wallets and gifting it to your spouse or civil partner are not taxable events. You can hold any amount of crypto without paying tax; it's disposals and income that count.

The Section 104 pool — and why it matters

HMRC uses a specific pooling method to value your crypto holdings. Each type of token you hold sits in its own "Section 104 pool". When you buy more of the same token, the cost base of the pool increases. When you sell, you calculate a proportional gain or loss against the pool's average cost.

So if you bought 1 Bitcoin at £20,000 and another at £40,000, your pool contains 2 BTC with a total allowable cost of £60,000 — an average of £30,000 each. Sell one BTC at £50,000 and your gain is £20,000, not £10,000. The average-cost method prevents investors from selectively picking their cheapest coins to minimise gains on a disposal.

The 30-day rule — crypto's 'bed and breakfast' anti-avoidance trap

This is the rule that catches the most people out. If you sell crypto and then rebuy the same token within 30 days, HMRC ignores the Section 104 pool and instead matches your disposal against the reacquisition at its actual cost. The same-day rule extends this: if you sell and rebuy on the very same day, that's matched first.

The practical effect is that loss-harvesting — selling a position to crystallise a capital loss before the end of the tax year, then immediately buying back in — doesn't work for crypto. If you sell on 1 April and rebuy on 15 April, your loss is deferred. You'd need to wait 31 days before buying back if you want the loss to count.

Records HMRC expects you to keep

HMRC's guidance makes clear that investors should retain records of the date and quantity of every transaction, the value in sterling at the time, any pooling calculations, and the fees paid. Gas fees and exchange fees are allowable costs and can reduce your gain — but you need the receipts.

This record-keeping requirement applies even if you made a loss for the year. Losses can be carried forward indefinitely and offset against future gains, so they're worth tracking even when they don't produce an immediate benefit.

Do you have to report if you're under the allowance?

Sometimes, yes. The reporting rules are separate from the tax threshold: even if your gains are within the £3,000 allowance and no tax is due, you may still need to report disposals if your total sale proceeds pass HMRC's reporting limit or you already file Self Assessment. Keep a record of every disposal, its proceeds and its gain so you can show you were within the allowance if asked. Our Self Assessment walkthrough covers the filing step, and our step-by-step pooling guide shows the gain calculation worked through.

What's coming next

Under the OECD's Cryptoasset Reporting Framework (CARF), UK crypto service providers have had to collect customer and transaction information since 1 January 2026, and their first reports to HMRC — covering the 2026 calendar year — are due by 31 May 2027. HMRC has also been sending "nudge letters" to people it believes have undeclared gains; we cover the data-sharing mechanics in our piece on CARF crypto data-sharing. The era of HMRC relying on voluntary self-disclosure for crypto is drawing to a close. Getting your records in order now is far less painful than reconstructing years of trades under pressure later, and if you've under-declared in past years, correcting it before a letter arrives is the sensible order.

Frequently asked questions

Do I pay tax if I just buy and hold crypto? No. Buying crypto with pounds and holding it creates no tax charge, however much it rises on paper. Tax only applies when you dispose of it or receive crypto as income.

How much crypto profit is tax-free in the UK for 2026-27? Up to £3,000 of total capital gains is tax-free under the annual exempt amount, covering crypto and other assets combined. Gains above that are taxed at 18% or 24% depending on your income band.

Is the £3,000 allowance just for crypto? No. It applies to all your capital gains together — crypto, shares, second properties and more — so gains from other assets share the same £3,000.

Do I pay tax when swapping one coin for another? Yes. Swapping BTC for ETH is a disposal of the BTC at market value, and any gain counts toward your £3,000 allowance, even though no pounds changed hands.

Is crypto income covered by the £3,000 allowance? No. Staking rewards, mining, being paid in crypto and some airdrops fall under income tax and your income tax allowances, not the capital gains allowance. See our staking tax guide.

Do I need to report crypto if I'm under the allowance? Possibly. You may need to report if your total sale proceeds pass HMRC's reporting limit or you already file Self Assessment, even when no tax is due.

What if I made a loss? Losses aren't taxed, and you can report them to HMRC to offset gains in the same or future years. Our tax losses guide explains how. This isn't tax advice; for a complicated position, an accountant who knows crypto earns their fee.