Allowance
£3,000
Annual exempt amount for an individual in 2026/27. The same figure applied in 2025/26. It is not a tax-free amount of proceeds. It is an amount of gains.
Haddington desk · 2026/27
Crypto tax considerations, written in pounds and dates.
Opsigamytensor publishes notes for UK individuals who hold tokens. The question is rarely “is crypto legal”. It is whether a sale, a swap, a reward or a gift has to be measured, pooled and told to HMRC.
Within the band
18%
Capital Gains Tax on the part of a taxable gain that sits in the unused UK basic rate band. Scottish income tax bands do not set this slice.
Above the band
24%
The rate on the rest of a taxable gain from non-residential assets, including typical cryptoasset disposals, for 2026/27.
These three figures are the spine of the notes. Confirm them on GOV.UK Capital Gains Tax before you use them on a return. A personal allowance taper, savings income or other gains can move the result.
The desk
Five notes, one tax year
Capital Gains Tax
What counts as a disposal
Sales, swaps, spending and most gifts. Rates of 18% and 24% sit above a £3,000 annual exempt amount.
Read the note
Income Tax
Rewards, mining and airdrops
Some tokens are income on the day they arrive, and only later become a capital gains question.
Read the note
Self Assessment
Telling HMRC, and CARF
SA100, the SA108 cryptoasset section, deadlines, and what platforms start reporting from 2026.
Read the note
Section 104
Pools, the 30-day rule, records
Fungible tokens share a pool. The order of matching changes the gain, and the history has to go back to the first buy.
Read the note
Illustrations
Four figures, worked in pounds
Constructed examples for a salary, a reward, a reporting threshold and a buy-back. Not a client's file.
Read the note
A disposal is an event
Holding a token is not, by itself, a Capital Gains Tax event.
HMRC treats exchange tokens as assets. You can buy them, leave them in your own wallet, and move them between wallets you control without that movement being a disposal. The tax point usually arrives when you sell for pounds, swap one token for another, spend tokens, or give them away to someone who is not your spouse or civil partner.
The gain is measured in sterling at the time. There is no HMRC exchange rate for bitcoin or ether. You keep a note of a consistent, reasonable sterling value and of where it came from. The allowable cost is not “what it feels like I paid”. For fungible tokens it comes out of a pool that has to include the earlier buys.
Income sits beside this, not inside it. Staking rewards, some mining and some airdrops can be income on the day the tokens arrive. That sterling value then becomes the acquisition cost if you later dispose of those same tokens. Getting the two taxes the wrong way round is how small histories turn into messy returns.
From 1 January 2026
Platforms are collecting records. That is not a new tax.
Under the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework, UK cryptoasset service providers collect identity and transaction details and report them to HMRC. The first reports cover 2026 and are due by 31 May 2027. Overseas platforms can feed the same exchange of information. Self Assessment is still the individual’s return. CARF does not fill it in for you, and it does not forgive an earlier year that was never reported.
Read the reporting note
What this site will not do
File a return
We do not act as tax agents, complete SA100 or SA108, or submit anything to HMRC. A note on a deadline is not a reminder service.
Price a portfolio
There is an illustration calculator on the gains page. It is a teaching tool with the limits printed beside it. It is not a computation of your pool.
Tell you to buy or sell
Nothing here is an invitation to acquire a token, a fund or a scheme. Tax is a consequence of a transaction. It is not a reason to invent one.