Crypto Tax in Ireland: What Every Expat Should Know

The basic rule: crypto gains are CGT

In short: selling, swapping or spending crypto you bought is a Capital Gains Tax event, at a flat 31% for disposals on or after 7 October 2026 (33% before), with the same €1,270 exemption, payment dates and filing rules as shares. Ireland has no special crypto rules; Revenue applies the existing ones. Run your own figures in the Capital Gains calculator.

If you buy crypto and later sell it, swap it for another crypto, or use it to buy something at a higher value than you paid, the profit is subject to Capital Gains Tax — a flat 31% for disposals on or after 7 October 2026, when Budget 2027 cut the rate from 33%. This applies whether you're holding Bitcoin, Ethereum or any other token, regardless of nationality, as long as you're Irish tax resident.

There are no special crypto tax rules in Ireland. Revenue's position is that the existing rules apply, which is why the answer to most crypto questions is "the same as it would be for shares." Its detailed guidance is in the Taxation of crypto-assets manual. That's worth taking literally: the annual exemption, the payment dates and the filing obligation are the same ones that apply to shares and property, and they're set out in full in capital gains tax in Ireland.

One boundary to hold onto before going further: this section is about gains on assets you bought. Crypto that arrives in your wallet without you buying it is usually a different tax entirely — see two sections down.

What counts as a "disposal"

In short: selling for euro, swapping one token for another, moving into a stablecoin, paying for goods or services with crypto, and gifting it (except to a spouse or civil partner) are all disposals. A crypto-to-crypto swap is taxable even if you never touch euro, and every transaction has to be valued in euro at the moment it happened.

This is the part that catches people out. A disposal isn't just "cashing out to euro." You trigger a taxable event any time you:

• Sell crypto for fiat currency
• Swap one cryptocurrency for another — yes, even crypto-to-crypto trades
• Swap a token for a stablecoin. Moving into USDT or USDC is a disposal like any other; the fact that the value then sits still doesn't undo it
• Use crypto to pay for goods or services
• Gift crypto to someone else, with exceptions for transfers between spouses and civil partners

So if you swapped Bitcoin for Ethereum last year and never converted anything to euro, you may still owe CGT on that swap if the Bitcoin had risen since you bought it. The tax is due in euro whether or not you hold any.

Which brings up the record-keeping consequence: every transaction has to be valued in euro at the moment it happened, not at the year-end rate and not at the rate when you eventually cash out. A swap executed at 3am in a token pair that never touches euro still needs a euro value attached to both sides.

When it's income, not a capital gain

In short: crypto you receive rather than buy is usually income at your marginal rates: salary paid in crypto goes through payroll, and crypto earned for freelance work is business income. Staking, mining and airdrops depend on the facts. The euro value when received is taxed as income and then becomes your CGT base cost for a later disposal.

Not all crypto is a capital gain, and this is a common misunderstanding.

Crypto you receive rather than buy is often income, taxed at your marginal rates — not CGT. Revenue is explicit about one case:

• Crypto paid to you as salary is pay, valued at its euro amount when it's paid, and goes through payroll like any other wages.

For the rest, Revenue's guidance doesn't spell out the treatment, and the facts matter:

• Staking rewards, mining proceeds and airdrops aren't addressed directly in Revenue's guidance, and whether they're income or something else depends on what you did to receive them
• Crypto received for freelance work is part of your business income

The value that counts is the market value in euro at the moment you received it. And then there's a second step people miss entirely: that same value becomes your base cost for CGT purposes when you later dispose of those tokens. So crypto received as income can be taxed twice over its life — once as income when it lands, and again as a capital gain on the growth after that.

Get the classification wrong — treating income as a capital gain — and you've under-declared income tax while over-declaring capital gains. That's harder to unwind than simply filing correctly the first time. If you're not sure which side of the line your activity falls on, particularly if you're doing anything that looks like trading rather than investing, that's worth resolving properly — the wider position is covered in the complete guide.

The annual exemption

In short: the first €1,270 of net gains each year is tax-free. It does not carry forward if unused and cannot be transferred between spouses, so a couple has €1,270 each, not €2,540 pooled.

Every individual gets a personal CGT exemption of €1,270 per year. That amount of net gains is tax-free.

Two rules attach to it. It doesn't carry forward if unused — it's genuinely use-it-or-lose-it each year. And it's not transferable between spouses, so a couple gets €1,270 each, not €2,540 pooled against one person's gains.

How the tax is calculated

In short: taxable gain = proceeds − cost − allowable costs such as exchange fees − €1,270, taxed at 31% (33% before 7 October 2026), with gains and losses netted first. Cost is matched on a first in, first out basis. Selling 0.6 BTC for €54,000 bought in two tranches for €23,000 of cost, with €400 of fees, gives a taxable gain of €29,330 and CGT of €9,678.90 at 33% (€9,092.30 at 31%).

The headline formula is simple: taxable gain equals proceeds, minus your cost, minus allowable costs like exchange fees, minus your €1,270 exemption. The remainder is taxed at 31% — or 33% if the disposal was before 7 October 2026. Where you've made several disposals in a year, gains and losses are netted against each other before the exemption is applied.

The complication is working out your cost when you bought the same token in several tranches — which is almost everyone.

FIFO is the usual approach. Revenue's crypto guidance doesn't set out a separate matching rule, so the approach generally taken is the one Irish law applies to shares: first in, first out. The units you're treated as disposing of are the oldest ones you hold, regardless of which ones you think you sold.

Be careful with quick sell-and-rebuy trades. For shares, a four-week rule stops people manufacturing artificial losses by selling and immediately buying back. That rule is written for shares and securities, and whether it extends to tokens isn't settled — so don't count on a loss from selling and rebuying the same token within a few weeks.

Here's what that looks like in practice.

Because the disposal happened in June, before the cut to 31%, it's taxed at 33%. The same sale on or after 7 October 2026 would cost €9,092.30. The €9,678.90 is payable by 15 December 2026 — and the return declaring it isn't due until October 2027. Those are two separate obligations, which is where people come unstuck.

Losses matter too

In short: a crypto loss offsets gains in the same year and any unused balance carries forward indefinitely. In a year with no gains you do not report the loss; you enter the carried-forward loss on the return for the year you use it, so keep the full transaction history behind it.

If you sold crypto at a loss, that loss offsets gains elsewhere in the same year, and any unused balance carries forward against future gains indefinitely.

This is an under-used part of Irish CGT — but it only works if you can prove the loss. In a year with no gains at all, Revenue doesn't require you to report a loss; instead you enter the carried-forward loss on the return for the year you use it. That might be years later, so keep the full transaction history behind it. A bad crypto year is an asset if you can evidence it, and nothing at all if you can't. If you've never filed anything with Revenue before, the general mechanics are in claiming your PAYE tax back for the first time.

When you need to pay

In short: two separate obligations. Pay CGT by 15 December for disposals from 1 January to 30 November, and by 31 January for December disposals. File the CGT return (Form CG1 for PAYE employees, Form 11 if self-assessed) by 31 October of the following year, even when no tax is due; late filing adds a 5% surcharge up to two months late and 10% after.

There are two obligations here, on two different calendars, and conflating them is the most expensive mistake in this article.

Paying. CGT runs on a split payment year:

Filing. Separately, you must file a CGT return by 31 October of the following year. For a PAYE employee that's the paper Form CG1; if you're self-assessed it goes in your Form 11.

And note this: you must file even if no tax is due because reliefs or losses wiped out the bill. Late filing carries a surcharge — 5% if you're up to two months late, 10% beyond that — calculated on the tax due.

So a disposal in June 2026 means: pay by 15 December 2026, file by 31 October 2027. Paying on time and forgetting to file is a real and common outcome.

If reconstructing several years of this sounds worse than the tax itself, that's the usual reaction — and it's what our CGT Review service is for.

What records to keep

In short: full transaction exports from every exchange, on-chain records for self-custody wallets, the euro value at the date and time of each transaction, every fee, and your full acquisition history for FIFO. Export now: exchanges that close or restrict access take the history with them.

Because every swap and disposal is a separate calculation, the practical challenge isn't the rate. It's reconstructing an accurate history across multiple exchanges and wallets, years after the fact.

Keep:

• Full transaction exports from every exchange you've used, downloaded while you still have the account
• On-chain records for any self-custody wallet — addresses and transaction hashes
• The euro value at the date and time of each transaction
• Every fee — trading, network, withdrawal — since they're allowable costs
• Your acquisition history, which FIFO makes essential rather than optional

The failure mode we see most is an exchange that closed, got acquired, or restricted access in the user's country, taking the transaction history with it. Export now, not when you need it. If you arrived in Ireland holding crypto bought elsewhere, your acquisition records from before you moved matter too — and your residence position determines what's in scope in the first place, which is covered in moving to Ireland: how cross-border taxes work.

Related reading

• Capital gains tax in Ireland
• Claiming your PAYE tax back for the first time
• Moving to Ireland: how cross-border taxes work
• Exit tax on ETFs: how funds are taxed in Ireland

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