Crypto in a divorce: what happens to bitcoin in the equalisation of accrued gains

Anyone who holds bitcoin or other crypto assets and gets divorced usually asks the wrong question first, namely this one: do I now have to split my coins? Under German law the answer is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, no, your coins remain your coins. What gets divided is something else, namely the increase in assets accumulated during the marriage, and it is divided as a sum of money. That sounds like a technicality, but it decides whether you have to sell or not, and whether tax falls due when you do.

This piece explains how the equalisation of accrued gains works when part of the assets sits in a wallet: which key dates apply, what you have to disclose, who bears the price risk between the key date and payment, and at which point a family law question turns into a taxable disposal. All the provisions come from the German Civil Code and the Income Tax Act and can be read in the original wording.

One framing note that belongs here: this is a general explanation of the legal position and not legal advice for your case. Family law is decided case by case, and with larger holdings a lawyer’s advice is no luxury.

Community of accrued gains does not mean joint assets

The error is already in the term. Anyone who marries without a prenuptial agreement lives under the statutory matrimonial property regime of the community of accrued gains. Section 1363 paragraph 2 of the Civil Code makes that expressly clear: “The assets of each spouse do not become their joint assets; this also applies to assets acquired by a spouse after the marriage.”

Translated into practice: if you bought bitcoin in 2019 and married in 2021, those bitcoin continue to belong to you alone. The wallet does not become joint property through the marriage, and your spouse acquires no ownership in it. Equalisation happens only at the end, and it happens as a calculation.

The exception is holdings that were genuinely acquired jointly, such as a joint account at an exchange or a wallet to which both hold the keys. There, the additional question arises of who owns which share of the holding, and that is answered not through the equalisation of accrued gains but through ordinary property law.

How the accrued gain is calculated: initial assets, final assets, equalisation claim

The calculation consists of three figures, and each one is defined in the statute.

The initial assets are, under Section 1374 of the Civil Code, the assets belonging to you when the property regime begins, that is on the day of the marriage, after deduction of debts. The final assets are, under Section 1375, the assets at the end of the property regime. The accrued gain is, under Section 1373, simply the amount by which the final assets exceed the initial assets.

From that follows the actual claim. Section 1378 paragraph 1 of the Civil Code: “If the accrued gain of one spouse exceeds that of the other, half of the excess is due to the other spouse as an equalisation claim.” The equalisation claim is a claim for payment in euros and is not directed at handing over particular objects, and therefore not at handing over coins.

A worked example with crypto assets

Suppose you had 10,000 euros in bitcoin at the time of the marriage and nothing else. By the key date at the end of the marriage that has grown to 90,000 euros, and there are no other assets. Your accrued gain therefore comes to 80,000 euros. Your spouse had nothing at the start and savings of 20,000 euros at the end, so their accrued gain is 20,000 euros. The excess is 60,000 euros, and half of that, 30,000 euros, is what you owe by way of equalisation. Whether you sell coins for it, take out a loan or pay from savings is your decision.

One detail often overlooked with crypto assets: under Section 1374 paragraph 2 of the Civil Code, assets acquired by a spouse during the marriage through inheritance or gift are added to the initial assets. Inherited or gifted coins therefore do not increase your equalisable accrued gain by their full amount. Their increase in value during the marriage does, however, feed into the calculation. Anyone who received coins as a gift should be able to evidence the transaction together with its date and the value at the time.

Duty of disclosure under Section 1379: what you must reveal about your wallets

Here lies the point at which crypto assets differ from a savings account. A bank can be questioned by the court, a self-custodied wallet cannot. That is precisely why the duty of disclosure is framed so sharply.

Under Section 1379 paragraph 1 of the Civil Code, each spouse may demand information from the other about their assets, in so far as it is relevant to calculating the initial and final assets, and in addition about their assets at the time of separation. The statutory wording is terse and effective at this point: “On request, supporting documents are to be produced.” It can also be demanded that the schedule be drawn up by a notary or a public authority.

In practice, for crypto assets that means the schedule covers holdings in exchange accounts just as much as self-custodied holdings. Supporting documents may include account statements and transaction overviews from the venues, plus the records of purchases, sales and transfers. Disclosure that names an exchange and stays silent about your own hardware wallet is not complete disclosure.

The fact that the legislator does not use the word wallet changes nothing. The duty attaches to the assets, not to the form of safekeeping.

Three key dates instead of one: marriage, separation, service

One peculiarity of the procedure regularly causes confusion, because three different days play a role and each measures something different.

• Day of the marriage: decisive for the initial assets under Section 1374 of the Civil Code.
• Day of separation: decisive for the additional disclosure under Section 1379 paragraph 1 number 1. This day has a function of its own that is underestimated, and we come to it shortly.
• Day the divorce petition is served: decisive for the final assets. Section 1384 provides that, in a divorce, the end of the property regime is replaced by “the point in time at which the divorce petition becomes pending”.

Pending means the day on which the petition is served on the other spouse. With a volatile asset, that is a date with considerable effect: the value of your holding on precisely that day feeds into the calculation. A price jump a week later no longer counts, and neither does a slump.

Which price applies? Valuing a volatile asset

The statute prescribes no valuation method for crypto assets. What matters is the market value on the key date, that is the price that could be obtained in the market. With an asset quoted differently at dozens of venues, that becomes a question of presentation.

A record stands up when it can be followed: the price on the key date at an established venue, better still the average across several, in each case in euros and stating the time of day. With a holding spread across several wallets and exchanges, complete capture of the quantities comes on top. Anyone reconstructing this only months later has an evidence problem, and it is one that software can solve: portfolio trackers keep holdings and price history together and produce key-date valuations. Our comparison of crypto tax software gives an overview of the usual tools.

It gets harder with holdings that have no functioning market, such as barely traded tokens or locked holdings from staking programmes. There the market value itself is contentious, and there are no blanket answers.

A price slump between the key date and payment: who carries the risk

This is the most uncomfortable feature of the rules, and it hits precisely the person holding crypto assets. Between the key date and the day on which payment actually happens, months frequently pass in practice. The equalisation claim, however, is fixed as a euro amount, calculated on the key date.

If the price halves in that time, your holding shrinks and the debt remains. If it rises, you keep the gain. The price risk over that period therefore sits with whoever holds the coins. Section 1378 paragraph 2 of the Civil Code does cap the claim at the value of the assets present when the property regime ends, but that cap too is measured by the key date and not by the day of payment.

Anyone who can foresee a larger equalisation payment should therefore think early about how to raise it. Shifting part of the holding into a less volatile asset is one option. The tax consequences of that shift are in the next section, and they are the reason this step is not a pure arithmetic exercise.

What happens if a wallet is concealed

The notion that a self-custodied wallet is invisible is persistent. In law it is risky, and that is because of a rule many do not know.

Section 1375 paragraph 2 of the Civil Code adds back to the final assets amounts by which the assets were reduced through gratuitous transfers not made out of a moral duty, through dissipation, or through “acts performed with the intention of disadvantaging the other spouse”. What matters is the sentence that follows: if the final assets fall below the assets stated in the disclosure as at the time of separation, the spouse concerned must set out and prove that the reduction does not rest on such acts.

That reverses the burden of proof, and it is exactly here that disclosure as at the time of separation becomes important. Anyone who states 100,000 euros in coins at separation and only 40,000 euros on the day of service has to be able to explain where the rest went. With a volatile asset that showing is often possible, because a price slump can be evidenced from public data. With a transfer to an unknown address it is not.

On top of that, blockchain analysis has long removed part of the anonymity, and venues in the EU are subject to identification duties. Anyone who has bought at a regulated exchange leaves a trail that can be matched to a name. A deliberately false schedule of assets can moreover carry criminal consequences where it has been affirmed under oath.

Tax: when transferring coins triggers a disposal

Now to the point at which a family law question becomes a tax one. Crypto assets held privately fall, on sale, under private disposal transactions in Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Within one year of acquisition the gain is taxable, and after that tax-free. An exemption threshold of 1,000 euros per calendar year applies, and once it is exceeded the entire gain counts.

Selling in order to pay the equalisation claim

If you sell coins in order to pay the equalisation in euros, that is an entirely ordinary sale. If the acquisition was less than a year ago, tax falls due. The fact that you are selling because of court proceedings changes nothing. Anyone who has a choice therefore checks which holdings have already completed the one-year period before selling.

Handing over coins instead of money

Some couples agree to satisfy the equalisation claim by transferring coins rather than remitting euros. That is possible under civil law but by no means neutral for tax. On the view prevailing in tax law, performance in lieu is a transaction for consideration, because the coins are given up against the extinction of a claim. A disposal therefore takes place, with the same consequences as a sale. This arrangement accordingly belongs on a tax adviser’s desk before the signature, not after it.

Transfer without consideration: gift tax and the allowance

The position is different where coins are transferred without consideration, that is, not in satisfaction of an equalisation claim. In that case it is a gift. Between spouses, under Section 16 paragraph 1 number 1 of the Inheritance and Gift Tax Act, an allowance of 500,000 euros applies, and it becomes available afresh every ten years.

The allowance applies to spouses for as long as the marriage exists. After the divorce, the parties are unrelated third parties for tax purposes and the allowance falls to 20,000 euros. The timing of a voluntary transfer is therefore anything but arbitrary. How gifts between spouses are treated in detail is something we set out in our piece on gifting bitcoin to your spouse of September 22, 2026.

What a prenuptial agreement can change

Everything described so far applies to the statutory property regime. A prenuptial agreement can change a great deal about it, and for people with highly volatile assets that is a serious thought.

Separation of property excludes the equalisation of accrued gains entirely. More common and milder is the modified community of accrued gains, under which individual assets are taken out of the equalisation or valuation rules are laid down. It is conceivable, for instance, to carve out a particular holding, or to agree for volatile assets an average value over a longer period instead of a key-date price. A prenuptial agreement requires notarial recording.

For proceedings already under way, that comes too late. Anyone who is only now considering it, however, still has the better moment ahead of them.

How to prepare without hiding assets

Between full disclosure and careless unpreparedness lies a lot of room, and that room is lawful. The following points help regardless of which side of the calculation you are on.

Keep a clean schedule of your holdings with acquisition dates and acquisition costs. You need that for your tax return anyway, and if it comes to it, it is the basis of every negotiation. Secure the transaction history of your venues as an export while you still have access. An account at an exchange that leaves the market takes its history with it.

Document the origin of inherited or gifted holdings. Under Section 1374 paragraph 2 of the Civil Code they improve your position, but only if you can evidence them. And record when the separation took place: that day triggers the disclosure under Section 1379 paragraph 1 number 1 and is the reference point for the burden-of-proof rule in Section 1375 paragraph 2.

If holdings have so far sat in exchange accounts, the question of safekeeping is worth a thought in any case. For keeping separated holdings over the long term, your own keys are the cleaner route. What to bear in mind there is shown in our comparison of hardware wallets. Anyone who wants to think through the event of death at the same time will find the parallel questions in our piece on passing on crypto assets.

The most common misconceptions at a glance

Four assumptions crop up particularly often in this context, and none of them withstands scrutiny.

The first misconception holds that the wallet becomes joint property through the marriage. Section 1363 paragraph 2 of the Civil Code says the opposite. The second holds that the equalisation is directed at handing over half of the coins. It is a monetary claim under Section 1378. The third holds that self-custodied holdings are exempt from the duty of disclosure. Section 1379 attaches to the assets, not to the form of custody. The fourth holds that handing over coins instead of money is harmless for tax. On the prevailing view it is a disposal.

Crypto in a divorce: what to take away

1. Establish the key date first, then the value. For the final assets, what counts under Section 1384 of the Civil Code is the day the divorce petition is served. Record that day’s price, in euros, with the source and the time of day. Tools that keep holdings and price history together can be found in our comparison of crypto tax software.
2. Disclose in full and evidence the origin. The duty of disclosure under Section 1379 of the Civil Code covers exchange accounts and self-custodied holdings alike. Inherited and gifted coins improve your calculation under Section 1374 paragraph 2, but only with evidence.
3. Check the holding period before you sell to pay. Holdings held for more than a year are tax-free on sale, more recent ones are not, and handing over coins instead of money counts as a disposal. For keeping holdings separately afterwards, our comparison of hardware wallets will help.

You can read the provisions cited in their original wording, for instance Section 1379 of the Civil Code on the duty of disclosure and Section 23 of the Income Tax Act on private disposal transactions.

(As of September 23, 2026. This article is not investment advice. It is not legal advice either. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)