Crypto tax Germany: the holding period and €1,000 rule

Germany does not have a special "crypto tax." It uses an existing rule for private asset sales. If you buy and sell within one year, your gain is taxable once your yearly total of such gains reaches €1,000. Hold past one year, and many private sales fall outside this rule.

Not tax advice: this guide explains the general rules. Your own situation can differ, so check with a Steuerberater or your Finanzamt before you file.

DISCLOSURE: CompareCEX may earn a commission when you sign up through our links. This does not influence our editorial scores. RISK: Crypto assets are volatile and unregulated in many jurisdictions. Not financial advice.

Is crypto taxable in Germany?

Yes, under the rule for private sales, or private Veräußerungsgeschäfte. German law taxes gains from selling an asset you held for personal reasons, and crypto falls under this rule. § 23 Abs. 1 Nr. 2 EStG says a gain is taxable when the time between buying and selling the asset is not more than one year (gesetze-im-internet.de/estg/__23.html). Germany's Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) applies this same rule to crypto assets in its guidance (bundesfinanzministerium.de).

People search for this as the "krypto haltefrist," meaning the holding period. Sell more than one year after you bought, and the gain sits outside § 23. Sell within one year, and the threshold rules below apply.

So is crypto tax free in Germany after one year? Under this law, a private sale made after the one-year mark is not caught by § 23. That describes the statute. It is not a suggestion to time your trades around it.

What does the €1,000 threshold mean?

§ 23 Abs. 3 EStG sets a yearly threshold for private sale gains, not an allowance (gesetze-im-internet.de/estg/__23.html). Below €1,000, the gain stays tax-free. At €1,000 or above, the whole gain becomes taxable, not just the part above €1,000. German guides call this a Freigrenze, not a Freibetrag, for exactly that reason.

No partial exemption applies once you cross the line. This table only adds up gains and compares them to the threshold. It does not show how much tax you would owe, because that depends on your personal tax rate, and the Finanzamt handles that part.

Is staking income taxed differently?

Staking rewards sit under a separate rule from sale gains. § 22 Nr. 3 EStG covers "other income" and says it is not taxable if the total was under €256 in the calendar year (gesetze-im-internet.de/estg/__22.html). Staking rewards can fall under this rule according to BMF guidance. Check before you assume it's exempt.

The €256 figure is a separate pot from the €1,000 private sale threshold above. Mixing the two up is an easy mistake. Both look like small, round numbers meant to keep casual activity out of the tax system.

What are the new reporting rules for exchanges?

The Kryptowerte-Steuertransparenz-Gesetz (KStTG) sets reporting duties for crypto service providers operating in Germany (gesetze-im-internet.de/ksttg/__1.html). Its definition of crypto services covers staking and lending, not only buying and selling. More of what happens on an exchange account can end up reported, not just spot trades.

That part stays unchanged. The KStTG does not change what counts as a taxable gain under § 23 or § 22. It changes who tells the tax office what, and that is a separate question from how much tax you owe.

How do you keep records with your exchange?

Tax records for crypto come down to three things: what you bought, what you sold, and when. Most exchanges let you export a transaction history file, and that file is your starting point.

1. Download your full transaction history from your exchange account, ideally as a CSV file, well before you need it for a tax return.
2. Write down the buy date, sell date, and amount for each coin lot as you go, not months later from memory.
3. Keep the file and your notes somewhere safe, backed up outside the exchange itself.

Step 2 matters more than people expect. Traders who keep a log written at the moment of each trade, rather than reconstructed later, catch far fewer errors than traders who try to rebuild history from memory at year end . The same habit works for tax records. Write it down immediately, not in April.

All five exchanges we list for Germany require identity verification before you can trade^{†††††}. Your transaction history is already tied to your name, which makes it a usable record once you download it.

• Coinbase
• Kraken
• Bybit
• OKX
• KuCoin

Our fee calculator can show what you paid in fees on a trade, and our exchange finder tool can help you pick a platform before you start trading in Germany. See our methodology for how we check exchange facts, and our affiliate disclosure for how we earn from this site.

Common mistakes

• Treating the €1,000 threshold as an allowance. Reach €1,000, and the whole gain counts, not just the amount above it.
• Tracking all your coins as one pile instead of separate lots. Each purchase has its own date, and the one-year rule runs from purchase to sale. Blending lots together works like mixing two different timeframes into one decision, a documented pattern where a rule meant for one case gets wrongly applied to another .
• Confusing the €256 "other income" threshold with the €1,000 private sale threshold. They sit under separate sections of the law.
• Waiting until the Steuererklärung deadline to start gathering records. Old transaction history gets harder to pull by then, and gaps get filled from memory instead of fact.
• Assuming an exchange files your German tax return for you. It does not. The KStTG adds reporting duties for the provider, not a filing service for you.

FAQ

Is crypto tax free in Germany after one year?

Under § 23 EStG, gains from private sales held longer than one year fall outside this rule in most cases. This describes the statute, not personal advice for your situation.

What is the crypto tax threshold in Germany right now?

§ 23 Abs. 3 EStG sets the private sale threshold at €1,000 a year, current as of this guide's publish date. Check the BMF guidance or a Steuerberater before you file, in case anything has changed.

Do I have to report small staking rewards?

§ 22 Nr. 3 EStG says other income under €256 a year is not taxable. Staking rewards can fall under this section according to BMF guidance, so confirm your case against the current guidance.

Does my exchange report my trades to the Finanzamt?

The KStTG sets reporting duties for crypto service providers. We have no verified fact on which exchanges report what for Germany specifically, so check in the app or with your provider directly.

Updated 2026-10-31.