German Crypto Tax Return: Where to Enter Gains, Losses and Staking in Anlage SO

Paying tax in the UK? Our UK crypto tax guide covers Capital Gains Tax at 18% or 24%, the £3,000 allowance and how to report to HMRC.

Updated on 24 October 2026: rewritten with the lines of Anlage SO 2025 from the official instructions, the filing deadlines for 2025 and 2026, a guide for ELSTER and the status of the planned reform.

In a German tax return, crypto belongs in Anlage SO. Gains and losses from selling, swapping and paying with crypto within one year of purchase go in lines 45 to 49 as well as 56 and 57 of the 2025 form; income from staking, lending, mining and airdrops goes in lines 14 to 21. If you held for more than a year, or your total gain from private sales stayed below 1,000 euros for the year, you do not enter a gain. Always report losses, otherwise they are lost.

These rules apply unchanged to your 2025 and 2026 tax returns. The draft bill of the Federal Ministry of Finance dated 30 September 2026 would only cover purchases from 2027, and the federal cabinet did not adopt it on 14 October 2026. The line numbers come from the official instructions for the 2025 income tax return on ELSTER. The figures for Anlage SO come from the free CryptoTicker tax calculator: it reads your exchange export, applies FIFO and shows the taxable gain and the exemption limit for each year.

Key facts at a glance

• Anlage SO, lines 45 to 49 plus 56 and 57: sales, swaps and payments with crypto assets held for no more than one year.
• Anlage SO, lines 14 to 21: staking, lending, mining, forging and airdrops, unless they belong to another type of income.
• 1,000 euro exemption limit: if your total gain from private sales in 2025 stayed below 1,000 euros, you do not have to enter it. For joint assessment the limit applies to each spouse.
• 256 euro exemption limit: staking and lending income has its own limit, also per person.
• Always enter losses: the tax office only records losses that are declared and offsets them against later gains; line 66 covers the carry-back.
• Deadlines: with a tax adviser, the 2025 return is due on 1 March 2027; the 2026 return without an adviser on 2 August 2027.

When crypto belongs in your tax return

The obligation depends on the individual transaction, not on your holdings. If you only buy and hold Bitcoin, you have nothing to report, no matter how much the price has risen. Only a disposal counts for tax purposes, and section 23 of the German Income Tax Act sets a holding period of one year.

These transactions belong in the return:

• Selling for euros within one year of purchase, if your total gain from all private sales in the year is 1,000 euros or more.
• Swapping one cryptocurrency for another within the period, including into a stablecoin and even if no euro ever changed hands.
• Paying with crypto, for example for a voucher or a service. For tax purposes, that is a sale.
• Staking rewards, lending interest, mining income and airdrops with a consideration, once they reach 256 euros in total for the year.
• Losses from sales within the period, so that you can offset them against later gains.

You need no line for buying, holding, transfers between your own wallets and exchange accounts, or sales after more than a year. Keep the records of purchase dates and transfers anyway: they prove that the holding period had expired.

Whether you have to file a tax return at all is often decided right here. Employees with more than 410 euros of income not subject to wage tax must file under section 46(2) no. 1 of the Income Tax Act, and a taxable crypto gain is always above that because of the exemption limit. Which transactions are taxable in detail is explained in our guide to crypto tax in Germany.

Crypto gains in Anlage SO: which line is for what

Anlage SO is the form for "other income" and has two sections that matter for crypto. For tax year 2025, the official instructions name these lines:

Line numbers change from one form year to the next. A guide with fixed lines from 2022 or 2023 will therefore send you to the wrong field. What stays reliable are the section headings: "Leistungen" for income, "Private Veräußerungsgeschäfte" with the sub-item for crypto assets for sales. In ELSTER, the input screens guide you through these headings anyway.

Anlage KAP only concerns crypto in special cases, more on that below.

German crypto tax return in ELSTER: step by step

The order saves time: collect first, then calculate, then enter. If you start entering first, you end up searching for prices from ten months ago in the middle of your return.

1. Export your crypto transactions. Download the full transaction export from every exchange and wallet, not just the annual summary. You need every transaction with date, time, quantity, price and fee. Exchanges shorten their history or close down, which makes this the most important step.
2. Separate the transactions. Sales and swaps go into the private sales section, staking rewards and lending interest into the services section. Mark transfers between your own wallets so that they do not count as sales.
3. Calculate holding periods and gains. For every position sold, check whether more than one year has passed since the purchase. For several purchases of the same coin, the BMF letter of 6 March 2025 first requires specific identification; otherwise the coins bought first count as sold first (first in, first out), per wallet. Our article on FIFO across several exchanges and wallets shows how that works.
4. Add Anlage SO in ELSTER. In Mein ELSTER, open the income tax return for 2025 and select Anlage SO among the forms. Enter crypto assets under "Private Veräußerungsgeschäfte" and income under "Leistungen".
5. Enter the totals and keep the breakdown ready. The form takes totals. You do not have to send the transaction-by-transaction breakdown on your own initiative, but the tax office can request it. With many transactions, it makes sense to attach it right away.
6. Check and submit. ELSTER runs plausibility checks. Save the transmission confirmation together with your export.

For step 3 you can use the CryptoTicker crypto tax calculator: it matches every sale with the purchases used up, shows the holding period and the taxable gain and applies the exemption limit for each year. You then transfer the totals to Anlage SO. If you want to combine several exchanges, DeFi and staking, you will find suitable programs in our crypto tax software comparison. The formula and the 2026 tax table are in Calculating crypto tax.

Staking and lending in the tax return

Staking rewards and lending interest are not capital gains but income from services under section 22 no. 3 of the Income Tax Act. You value them at market value at the time of receipt, i.e. at the price on the day the reward arrives in your wallet. That applies even if you never sell the coins.

If your income for the year stays below 256 euros, you do not have to enter it according to the official instructions. From 256 euros, the full amount is taxable, not only the part above the limit. The value at receipt also becomes the acquisition cost of the coins received, and a separate one-year period starts for them. If you sell them within that year, the sale also goes into the private sales section.

How to determine the value of daily rewards and what the BMF says about claiming is explained in our guide to staking taxes in Germany.

Reporting crypto losses in the tax return

Losses from crypto sales within the one-year period only reduce your tax if you declare them. You enter them in the same place as gains, in the private sales section, as a negative result.

Under section 23(3) sentences 7 and 8 of the Income Tax Act, they can only be offset against gains from private sales, including gains from gold or foreign currencies, but not against salary or share gains. What remains can be carried back one year or forward indefinitely. You decide on the carry-back in line 66. Anyone who skips a loss year because no tax is due anyway gives away the offset against future gains.

An example: you lost 3,000 euros on Ether in 2025 and made 5,000 euros on Solana in 2026. If the loss is in your 2025 return, the tax office records it, and in 2026 you only pay tax on 2,000 euros. If it is missing, you pay tax on the full 5,000 euros in 2026.

Crypto derivatives, ETNs and futures: when Anlage KAP applies

Not every crypto investment belongs in Anlage SO. Futures, perpetuals and options on cryptocurrencies are forward transactions and fall under section 20 of the Income Tax Act, i.e. capital income with 25 percent flat tax plus solidarity surcharge. A German bank withholds the tax; with a foreign exchange you declare the income yourself in Anlage KAP. Details are in our article on tax on crypto futures and perpetuals in Germany.

For Bitcoin ETNs and ETPs in a securities account, the classification depends on how the product is structured. Depositary banks usually withhold flat tax and certify the income for Anlage KAP; whether section 23 applies to products with a delivery claim, as with Xetra-Gold, is not finally settled. More in our article on Bitcoin, savings plans and ETPs.

Deadlines for the German crypto tax return 2025 and 2026

If you prepare your return yourself, the 2025 return was due by 31 July 2026 under section 149 of the Fiscal Code. With a tax adviser, the deadline runs until the end of February of the year after next. Because 28 February 2027 is a Sunday, it ends on Monday, 1 March 2027 under section 108(3) of the Fiscal Code.

Missing the deadline risks a late filing surcharge. Under section 152(5) of the Fiscal Code, it amounts to 0.25 percent of the assessed tax minus prepayments and withheld taxes for each month or part month, at least 25 euros per month. If you are not obliged to file and do so voluntarily, for example to have a loss recorded, you have four years: the 2025 return can be filed until 31 December 2029.

How the tax office learns about your crypto transactions

Since 1 January 2026, crypto exchanges and custodians in the EU record their customers' transactions under the DAC8 directive. In Germany this is governed by the Crypto Tax Transparency Act (KStTG): providers report the data to the Federal Central Tax Office every year by 31 July, for the first time in 2027 for the year 2026. Your tax office can then check whether the reported sales appear in your return.

For 2025 and earlier years there is no automatic reporting yet. The tax office can, however, request information from exchanges in individual cases.

Anyone who does not report taxable transactions risks tax evasion under section 370 of the Fiscal Code, and for evaded taxes the assessment period is extended to ten years. A voluntary disclosure under section 371 is possible as long as the offence has not been discovered, and it must be complete. If you can no longer gather complete records, disclose that and make a traceable estimate instead of leaving transactions out.

Common mistakes in the German crypto tax return

• Forgetting swaps: Bitcoin for Ether or for a stablecoin is a sale. Many people only declare what ends up in euros in their bank account.
• Treating the exemption limit as an allowance: at a gain of 1,000 euros, the entire amount is taxable, not only the part above a threshold.
• Leaving out losses: without an entry, the tax office does not record a loss, and it is lost for later years.
• Counting your own transfers as sales: moving coins from the exchange to a hardware wallet is not a taxable event and does not interrupt the holding period.
• Applying FIFO across all exchanges: the order of consumption applies per wallet. Lumping all accounts together gets the holding period wrong.
• Valuing staking at the year-end price: what counts is the price on the day of receipt, not the price on 31 December.
• Forgetting fees: purchase fees increase the acquisition cost, sales fees reduce the gain.

What the planned crypto tax reform would change in the return

The draft changes nothing for the 2025 and 2026 tax returns. The draft bill of 30 September 2026 would turn crypto assets bought after 31 December 2026 into capital assets. Gains from them would then go into Anlage KAP instead of Anlage SO, and from 1 January 2028 exchanges would withhold the tax directly. Holdings you buy by the end of 2026 would stay in Anlage SO with the one-year period under the draft.

None of this has been passed. We track how things develop in the cabinet and the Bundestag in our overview of the status of the crypto holding period reform.

As of 24 October 2026. This article is not tax advice and does not replace individual advice from a tax adviser. Line numbers and deadlines change with every form year.