Kraken Tax UK: Export Your CSV and Report Crypto to HMRC (2025/26)

Worried you've got crypto tax to sort out from your Kraken account and no idea where to start? You're not alone, and the good news is it's more manageable than it looks. Kraken won't work your UK tax out for you. It gives you the raw history and leaves the tax to you. But Kraken is one of the exchanges CryptoCGT reads natively, so once you've exported a full transaction-history CSV it imports cleanly and the calculator applies HMRC's rules for you.

The single most important choice is which export to take. Kraken offers Trades, Ledgers and Balances. For tax you want the Ledgers export, because it records every balance change on your account (trades, deposits, withdrawals, fees and staking / Earn rewards), whereas the Trades export only shows buy/sell executions and would miss your reward income. Export the Ledgers as a CSV covering your whole account history.

How is Kraken activity taxed in the UK?

There are two separate UK taxes and Kraken activity can trigger both. Capital Gains Tax (CGT) applies when you dispose of crypto: selling for GBP, swapping one coin for another (a crypto-to-crypto trade is a disposal even though no cash leaves Kraken), spending it, or gifting it to anyone other than your spouse or civil partner. Moving coins between your own Kraken account and your own wallet is not a disposal.

Income Tax applies to staking and Kraken Earn rewards (and mining): the GBP value on the day you receive each reward is miscellaneous income. That same GBP value then becomes the acquisition cost of those tokens for CGT when you later sell them. See crypto staking and airdrops tax. For the headline rates and allowance, see crypto tax rates UK 2025/26.

UK 2025/26 figures that apply to Kraken activityRates are for disposals on or after 30 October 2024. Scotland has different Income Tax bands; CGT rates are UK-wide.

Item	2025/26 figure
CGT rate within unused basic-rate band	18%
CGT rate above the basic-rate band	24%
Capital Gains annual exempt amount (AEA)	£3,000
Report a gain if total gains exceed	£3,000
…or if total disposal proceeds exceed	£50,000
Staking / Earn rewards (Income Tax)	GBP value on day received
Trading allowance (vs misc. income)	£1,000
2025/26 Self Assessment deadline (online)	31 Jan 2027

Which Kraken export should I use: Trades, Ledgers or Balances?

Use Ledgers. Kraken's three export types do different jobs: Trades shows execution detail for margin and non-margin trades only; Ledgers records every balance change (deposits, withdrawals, fees, trades and staking/Earn rewards); Balances is just a snapshot of holdings on one date. Only Ledgers gives the complete picture HMRC needs, including your reward income.

In a Ledgers CSV each transaction is described by a type (such as `trade`, `deposit`, `withdrawal`, `transfer`, `earn`, `staking`, `spend`, `receive`) plus the asset, amount, fee and resulting balance. The `earn`/`staking` rows are your reward income; the `trade` rows are your disposals and acquisitions. The calculator reads these for you, so you don't need to interpret them by hand.

Sign in to Kraken on a desktop browser (the export tools are easier to use than in the app).
Click your profile icon in the top-right corner.
In Kraken Pro, choose Statements from the dropdown, then click Export Statement. (On the older account view the menu is Documents → Create Export, so use whichever your account shows.)
For the statement/export type, select Ledgers (this is the complete one, so it includes staking and Earn rewards, not just trades).
Set the start and end dates to cover your entire history on Kraken. Go back to your first ever deposit/trade, not just this tax year, because HMRC's Section 104 pool needs every acquisition.
Leave the asset/field filters at their defaults so nothing is excluded, and choose CSV as the file format (not PDF).
Submit the request. Processing can take from a few minutes up to about a week, and Kraken does not email you when it is ready, so check the Statements/Documents page yourself.
When the download icon appears, save the CSV. Exports stay available for about 14 days, so download it before it expires.
Drop the CSV into the free calculator. CryptoCGT reads Kraken Ledgers natively and applies the HMRC matching rules automatically.

Watch out

Don't export Trades only, or you'll miss your staking income

The Trades export looks tempting because it's purely buys and sells, but it omits staking and Kraken Earn rewards, deposits and withdrawals. Reward tokens are Income Tax on receipt and also form the cost basis for a later sale, so leaving them out understates your income now and can overstate your gain later. Always take the Ledgers export, since it is the superset that contains the trades too.

Watch out

Known Kraken export gaps to check

A few things to verify before you trust the file: (1) the export only covers the date range you chose. If you set a narrow window you'll silently miss earlier acquisitions, which breaks the cost basis, so always start from your first transaction. (2) Exports can take up to a week and there is no email alert, so check back manually. (3) Each export is downloadable for only ~14 days. (4) Kraken's Order history can't be exported directly, but you don't need it; the Trades/Ledgers data is the executed record that matters for tax. (5) If you also used Kraken margin or futures, that is derivatives activity and is outside this CSV calculator's scope. Those are taxed differently and the futures product isn't supported here.

Worked example

A simple Kraken year: one swap plus staking rewards

You bought 1 ETH on Kraken for £1,500 (this sits in your Section 104 pool). During the year you earned 0.05 ETH of staking rewards, worth £120 in total at the GBP value on each receipt date. Later you swapped all 1.05 ETH for SOL when the ETH was worth £2,400, and a crypto-to-crypto swap is a disposal.

Staking rewards (Income Tax this year, GBP value on receipt)£120

Disposal proceeds (market value of ETH given up)£2,400

Less: pooled cost of the original 1 ETH−£1,500

Less: cost of the 0.05 ETH rewards (= the £120 already taxed as income)−£120

Capital gain on the swap£780

The £120 is reported as miscellaneous income; the £780 gain goes to CGT. The £780 gain is within the £3,000 annual exempt amount, so no CGT is due on it, but you may still need to report if your total proceeds across all disposals exceed £50,000. Note how the £120 reward value is used twice: taxed as income now, then deducted as cost basis on the swap so it isn't taxed twice. Figures are illustrative.

What do I do after I've uploaded the CSV?

The calculator pools your acquisitions (HMRC's same-day → 30-day → Section 104 matching) and works out the gain or loss on each disposal. See the Section 104 pool explained. It separates CGT disposals from staking/Earn income so you can report each in the right place.

When you file, the capital gains go in the cryptoassets boxes 13.1–13.8 of the SA108 Capital Gains pages, and staking/Earn rewards go in the miscellaneous income section. Full walkthroughs are in how to report crypto on Self Assessment and the SA108 crypto boxes guide. If you made losses, claiming crypto losses can reduce your bill. Our methodology shows exactly how each figure is calculated. If you want to step back and see how the whole system fits together, read the complete UK crypto tax guide.

Sources

See your own number — free, no account

Drop your exchange CSV and read your full Capital Gains Tax figure on screen, with the Section 104 working shown. You only pay if you download the report.

Start free →

This guide is information, not tax advice.Figures and thresholds are for the tax year shown (England, Wales & Northern Ireland; Scottish income tax bands differ). Rates and rules can change, and your own position may differ — check your circumstances and speak to an accountant before you file. CryptoCGT is an information tool, not a regulated tax adviser.