Crypto tax rates in the UK for 2025/26

If you sold, swapped, spent or gifted crypto this year and you're wondering how big the tax bill might be, here's the honest answer. Any profit above your allowance is taxed as a capital gain. The rate isn't a single flat number. It depends on your income, and the size of the gain depends on rules HMRC applies in a fixed order. Here's the whole picture, in plain terms.

The short answer

For 2025/26, crypto gains above the £3,000 annual exempt amount are taxed at one of two rates, based on where the gain sits relative to the basic-rate income band:

These rates have applied to all disposals made on or after 30 October 2024, so they cover the whole of 2025/26. There is no separate, lower “long-term” rate in the UK, and how long you held the asset makes no difference. If you see 10% or 20%quoted anywhere, that's the old pre-30-October-2024 rate, now out of date.

Your £3,000 tax-free allowance

Every individual gets an annual exempt amount of £3,000 for 2025/26. Only gains above this are taxable, and the allowance covers allyour chargeable assets combined (crypto, shares, a second property), not crypto alone. It's use-it-or-lose-it: you can't carry an unused allowance into the next year.

• Total gains at or below £3,000 → no CGT to pay.
• Total gains above £3,000 → you pay CGT on the excess only.
• Capital losses can be set against gains first, before the allowance, so use them.

How your rate is decided

The 18% / 24% split works like income tax bands. You stack your taxable gains on top of your taxable income for the year. Any part of the gain that falls within the remaining basic-rate band (up to £50,270 of total income) is taxed at 18%; anything above that is taxed at 24%. A single large gain can therefore be taxed partly at 18% and partly at 24%.

What decides the size of the gain

Your gain is proceeds minus cost, but with crypto, “cost” isn't simply what you paid. When you've bought the same token many times, HMRC uses three matching rules, applied strictly in this order, to decide which cost to use:

• Same-day rule. A disposal is matched first to any acquisition of the same token on the same day.
• 30-day rule (bed & breakfast). Then to acquisitions in the following 30 days, earliest first. This stops you crystallising a loss and instantly buying back.
• Section 104 pool. Everything else draws from the pooled average cost of your remaining holding of that token.

What about staking and airdrops?

Not everything is a capital gain. Crypto you receive, such as staking rewards, most airdrops and mining, is usually Income Tax, not CGT: it's valued in pounds on the day you receive it and reported separately. When you later sell those coins, thatdisposal is CGT, using the value at receipt as your cost. CryptoCGT computes your CGT and flags income events so you can declare them, but it doesn't work out Income Tax.

When you must report it

You report crypto gains through Self Assessment, on the SA108 Capital Gains Summary pages (these now include a dedicated cryptoassets section). For 2025/26 you must report if either of these is true:

• Your total gains are more than £3,000, or
• Your total disposal proceeds are more than £50,000, even if the gain is within your allowance.

Miss the deadline and HMRC charges an automatic penalty, even if no tax is due. Keep the dates, GBP values and fees behind every transaction; that record is what turns a pile of CSV exports into a figure you can defend. If you want to see how the rates, allowance and matching rules fit together with everything else, start with the complete UK crypto tax guide.

Sources

• GOV.UK: Capital Gains Tax rates
• GOV.UK: Capital Gains Tax: rates and annual exempt amounts
• HMRC: Cryptoassets Manual