Transferring crypto ETNs to a new broker in Germany: the loss pot only moves on request

A securities account transfer of crypto ETNs costs you no tax in Germany as long as you own the securities both before and after. The transferring bank must pass your acquisition data on to the new bank, by law and without you applying for anything. The move becomes expensive in two other places: your loss offset pot only comes along if you explicitly request it and transfer the entire account, and if the acquisition data get lost on the way, the new bank treats a flat 30 percent of the sale price as gain.

These questions come up particularly often in the autumn. More and more German banks and online brokers have added crypto ETNs to the ordinary securities account, and towards the end of the year many investors compare terms and switch providers. A statutory deadline that is only open once a year falls right into this window.

Crypto ETNs are notes, not coins in a wallet

A crypto ETN is an exchange-traded note. Exchange traded notes are therefore not fund units but securities through which the issuer promises you a payment whose amount depends on an underlying. With crypto underlyings, this is usually a single coin, most often bitcoin and Ethereum. You buy the note through your broker, it sits in your securities account like a share, and you need neither a crypto exchange nor a wallet.

That is why these products are so widespread in Germany: access runs through the securities account that most investors already have. Which products exist and what to look out for when choosing is covered in our overview of crypto ETFs and ETNs for German investors.

Why it is an ETN and not an ETF

An ETF is an investment fund and therefore a segregated asset pool: if the fund company goes under, the fund's assets are unaffected. An ETN is a claim against the issuer. If the issuer becomes insolvent, you are a creditor, and that is exactly the issuer risk. Most European crypto ETNs therefore use physical collateral: the issuer actually buys the coins and has them held in trust. The collateral mitigates the risk but does not remove it, and a total loss remains possible in this asset class. We have sorted out the differences between ETNs, ETCs and certificates in a separate article on certificates and ETNs on bitcoin.

For tax purposes, the classification is decisive. Because an ETN is an other capital claim, gains from it count as investment income. The law explicitly states that the name and civil-law structure of the investment do not matter. Your bank withholds the 25 percent capital gains tax directly, plus the solidarity surcharge and, if you are liable for it, church tax.

ETN, ETC and bond: how they are classified

All three are debt securities, yet they refer to different products. A classic bond promises you interest and repayment at face value. An ETC tracks a commodity, with the physically gold-backed ETC being the best-known example of this type. An ETN tracks everything else, in our case the crypto underlying. For the classification in your account, this means crypto ETNs are held as securities, not as a separate asset class next to the securities, and therefore follow the rules for investment income rather than those for coins.

Account transfer without a change of owner: the bank passes on the acquisition data

The normal case when switching accounts is a transfer to an account that you own yourself. Here, Section 43a of the German Income Tax Act is clear about what must happen: if the taxpayer transfers the assets to another account, the transferring domestic paying agent must notify the receiving domestic paying agent of the acquisition data. This is an obligation of the banks, not a service you have to order. No sale takes place, no tax is withheld, and your original acquisition costs continue to apply.

What the acquisition data contain

What is transferred is the information from which your taxable gain will later be calculated: the purchase date, the purchase price, the number of units and the incidental purchase costs. If you sell the note two years later at the new bank, that bank deducts the old purchase price from the sale price and taxes only the difference. If the data are missing, it taxes something completely different.

In practice, this means the transfer itself is the uncritical part. What is critical is whether it carries clean data. After the move, check in your new bank's securities statement whether each position shows a cost price and a purchase date. If you see a zero or a dash, report it immediately, because a correction is more laborious later than now.

The substitute tax base: 30 percent of the sale price counts as gain

For cases where the acquisition data are not available, the legislator has built in a flat rate. If the acquisition data are not proven, the tax withheld is based on 30 percent of the proceeds from the sale or redemption of the assets. This substitute tax base is not a penalty but an assumption, and it can hit you hard.

An example shows the scale. You sell crypto ETNs for 10,000 euros that you bought for 9,000 euros. Your real gain is 1,000 euros, on which capital gains tax is due. If the acquisition data are missing, the bank applies 30 percent of 10,000 euros, i.e. 3,000 euros, and withholds tax on that amount. You thus provisionally pay tax on three times your gain.

The money is not lost. The substitute tax base only affects the bank's withholding. In your tax return you can state the actual purchase price and reclaim the excess tax paid. For that, however, you need documentation, and years later it will not necessarily still be available. Anyone who collects their purchase statements anyway has the advantage here; how to keep track is shown in our comparison of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

Transferring the account to another person counts as a sale

Things are different when the account changes owner. For capital gains tax withholding, transferring a held asset to another creditor counts as a sale. So if you transfer crypto ETNs to the account of your partner, your child or a third party, the bank treats it like a sale and withholds tax, even though not a single euro has changed hands.

The law also sets the assumed sale price. It is the market price at the time of transfer, specifically the lowest price quoted on the regulated market on the day before the transfer. If there is no quotation on the previous day, the last price within 30 days before the transfer date applies. You may deduct the costs of the account transfer as selling costs. If there is no market price at all, a flat rate applies again, this time 30 percent of the acquisition costs.

The way out for a gift

If the transfer is meant as a gift, there is a clear way around this. The deemed sale does not apply if you inform your bank that it is a transfer without consideration. To do so, you must provide the required details on the recipient: name, date of birth, address and tax identification number, plus the family or partnership relationship. The bank then reports the transaction to the tax office by May 31 of the following year.

There is a pitfall in the detail: if the bank cannot clearly identify the recipient, it still treats the account transfer as a transaction subject to capital gains tax. An incompletely reported gift is therefore taxed like a sale. This report has no bearing on gift tax itself, which is a separate procedure with its own allowances.

The loss pot only moves with a complete transfer

This is the point most investors overlook. Over the year, your bank keeps a loss offset pot: negative investment income is offset up to the amount of positive investment income, and the remainder is carried over to the next calendar year. This pot is tied to the bank, not to you. If you switch brokers, it initially stays behind there.

The law provides exactly one solution, and it is tied to two conditions. If the creditor transfers the assets in the account in full to another account, the transferring agent must notify the receiving agent of the amount of the unoffset loss upon request. Both must apply. If you transfer only some of your positions, the loss pot stays with the old bank, even if you want to take it with you. And nothing happens without your request, because the banks do not do this on their own initiative.

The order matters: submit the request before the transfer runs and get confirmation that the pot is coming along. Once the account is empty, the opportunity is gone.

The December 15 deadline: loss certificate or loss carryover

The second way to get a loss out of a banking relationship is the loss certificate. At your request, the bank issues you a certificate stating the amount of the unoffset loss. With it, you can offset the loss in your tax return against gains from accounts at other banks. The request is irrevocable and must reach the paying agent by December 15 of the current year. For this year, that means Tuesday, December 15, 2026.

The certificate comes at a price. If you have it issued, the loss carryover at the bank lapses, so the pot is reset to zero. That only pays off if you can actually set the loss against gains elsewhere. If you keep everything at a single bank, the automatic carryover into the next year is usually the better route. We have worked through the deadline and its consequences in detail in our article on the loss certificate for crypto ETNs.

Certificate and pot transfer are mutually exclusive

You cannot have both. If you have the loss pot reported to the new bank during a complete account transfer, a loss certificate may not be issued in that case. So you have to decide: either the pot travels with you to the new broker, or you take the loss on paper into your tax return. The law does not provide for a third option.

One more restriction belongs here: losses from investment income that are subject to capital gains tax may only be offset if such a certificate exists. Without a certificate, the loss remains trapped in the system of the bank where you incurred it.

Are bitcoin ETNs tax-free? The one-year holding period does not apply here

No, and this is the most common misconception in this asset class. Anyone who holds coins directly falls under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act: for other assets, the gain is taxable if the period between acquisition and sale does not exceed one year. After one year of holding, the gain on direct ownership is tax-free.

This does not apply to crypto ETNs. These notes count as investment assets, and there is no holding period there. If you sell a bitcoin ETN at a profit after five years, you pay capital gains tax on it, just as after five weeks. That is the tax price for convenient access via the securities account.

The advantage lies on the loss side

In return, you get something back. Losses from crypto ETNs are losses from investment income and can be offset against interest, dividends and gains from other securities, while the separate pot for share losses remains unaffected. Losses from investment income may not, however, be set against other types of income. Losses from directly held coins, in turn, live in a world of their own and never touch investment income.

Anyone who uses both routes therefore keeps two separate accounts: one for the coins on the crypto exchange or in their own wallet, one for the securities in the account. A securities account transfer only concerns the second.

Accounts elsewhere in the EU: when proof of acquisition data is not allowed

The automatic transfer of acquisition data works between domestic agents. If your account comes from a credit institution, financial services institution or investment firm based in another EU member state or another state party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, things work differently: you can then only provide proof by means of a certificate from that foreign institution. The same applies to a branch of a domestic institution located there.

And then comes the sentence that surprises many investors: in all other cases, proof of the acquisition data is not permitted. If the account comes from a provider outside the EU and the EEA, the 30 percent substitute tax base cannot be avoided, at least not at the withholding level. You are left having to correct the matter through your tax return.

If you are planning a transfer from abroad, it is therefore better to obtain the certificate before the transfer than after. With a closed account, the contact person may no longer be reachable.

Tax exemption order and issuer risk do not move with the account

Two things are guaranteed to stay behind in the move. The first is the tax exemption order: it only ever applies to one bank, and the new bank does not know about it. Without a new order, the new broker withholds tax from the first euro of investment income, and you only get the money back through your tax return. How to split the order across several institutions is explained in our article on the tax exemption order for crypto ETNs in the securities account.

The second is issuer risk. It is attached to the note, not to the bank. Switching accounts does not make an ETN any safer, because the issuer and its collateral remain the same. If you want to reduce the risk, you have to change the product, not the custodian.

Currency risk also remains

A third point travels unchanged. Many crypto ETNs are quoted in US dollars, even if you buy and sell them in euros on a German exchange. Your performance is then affected not only by the price of the underlying but also by the exchange rate. Switching accounts does not change this, because the quotation currency belongs to the note. Check the master data of your note to see which currency it is quoted in, and factor this effect into your annual review.

Where the transfer fails in practice

Not every broker carries every crypto ETN. If the new bank does not accept a note into custody, the transfer can be refused, and then your only option is to sell. That is a real sale with real tax on the gain, and it can turn your whole plan upside down. So clarify in advance whether your specific notes are tradable there, ideally with the securities identification number in hand.

Four checks before switching accounts

Four points decide whether the transfer becomes expensive or goes through without a sound.

• Custody eligibility: Does the new bank carry your ETNs at all? Ask with the securities identification number, not the product name.
• Loss pot: Is there an unoffset loss at your old bank? If so, decide between taking it along with a complete transfer and a certificate.
• Acquisition data: After the transfer, check every position for cost price and purchase date. Report gaps straight away.
• Tax exemption order: Place it with the new bank before the first income arises.

Switching accounts is also the natural moment to review the share of these products in your portfolio. Crypto ETNs are a way of access, not diversification: several ETNs on the same coin do not spread your portfolio, they double the same bet and the same issuer risk. Anyone looking for safety across asset classes is better off spreading between crypto, shares and bonds than within crypto notes. If, on the other hand, you want to hold the coins yourself in a wallet, direct custody is an alternative that follows completely different tax rules.

The order is no accident. Points one and two must be done before the transfer, points three and four afterwards. Anyone who swaps the order usually loses the loss pot.

Account transfer: the loss pot is decided before December 15

1. Get the current balance of your loss offset pot from your bank before you transfer anything. Only this figure tells you whether taking it along or the certificate pays off. Which broker carries which crypto ETNs and what the transfer costs is shown in our comparison of crypto brokers.
2. Decide by December 15. If you want to take the pot with you, transfer the account in full and request the handover in writing. If you want to offset against gains at other banks, request the certificate. If you plan to keep buying regularly, check the savings plan terms beforehand in our overview of the bitcoin savings plan.
3. After the transfer, check the acquisition data of every position and place the tax exemption order again. Anyone who also holds coins directly is best off separating the two accounts when choosing trading venues; which providers are licensed in Germany is listed in our overview of regulated crypto exchanges.

(As of November 1, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)