Complete Guide to Cryptocurrency Tax Declaration in Spain 2025

Declaring cryptocurrencies in Spain has become an unavoidable obligation for any investor. Since 2014, the General Directorate of Taxes (DGT) has established clear criteria on the taxation of crypto assets, and the AEAT’s control has become increasingly thorough.

Failing to correctly declare your cryptocurrency transactions can lead to serious consequences:

• Financial penalties ranging from 50% to 150% of undeclared amounts
• Late filing surcharges between 5% and 20%
• Interest on arrears calculated from the deadline
• Tax crimes when the amount defrauded exceeds €120,000

Beyond avoiding legal issues, declaring correctly allows you to optimize your tax situation and ensure you pay exactly what is legally required.

1. Capital Gains and Losses: Form 100

This is the most common scenario for most cryptocurrency investors. A capital gain or loss occurs in the following situations:

• When you sell cryptocurrencies for euros or another fiat currency
• When you exchange one cryptocurrency for another (e.g., Bitcoin for Ethereum)
• When you use cryptocurrencies to buy goods or services
• When you receive cryptocurrencies as payment for your work

Calculating Gains: The Mandatory FIFO Method

The AEAT requires applying the FIFO (First In, First Out) method. This means the first cryptocurrencies you bought are the first ones considered sold when you make a transaction.

The basic formula is:

Gain or Loss = Sale Price - Purchase Price (FIFO)

Detailed Practical Example

Imagine the following Bitcoin operations:

Purchases made:

• January 2023: 0.5 BTC at €20,000 (total cost: €10,000)
• March 2023: 0.3 BTC at €25,000 (total cost: €7,500)

Sale made:

• June 2023: 0.6 BTC at €30,000 (total income: €18,000)

Applying FIFO:

First, 0.5 BTC from January are sold:

• Income for 0.5 BTC: 0.5 × 30,000 = €15,000
• Acquisition cost: €10,000
• Partial gain: €5,000

Then, 0.1 BTC from the March purchase are sold:

• Income for 0.1 BTC: 0.1 × 30,000 = €3,000
• Acquisition cost: 0.1 × 25,000 = €2,500
• Partial gain: €500

Total capital gain: €5,500

2025 Tax Rates

Capital gains are taxed under the Savings Base as follows:

In the previous example, with a €5,500 gain, the tax due would be:

5,500 × 21% = €1,155

2. Investment Income: Staking and Lending

When you earn passive income from your cryptocurrencies, it is considered investment income and also taxed under the Savings Base.

Common cases include:

• Staking: Participating in transaction validation on Proof-of-Stake blockchains (Ethereum, Cardano, Polkadot), receiving rewards
• Lending: Loaning cryptocurrencies through DeFi (Aave, Compound) or CeFi (Nexo, BlockFi) platforms, earning interest
• Crypto savings accounts: Offered by exchanges such as Binance Earn or Crypto.com Earn

Taxation Moment

According to AEAT’s interpretation, taxation occurs when you effectively receive the tokens as rewards, meaning:

• When you withdraw staking rewards to your personal wallet
• When you end a lending period and receive the interest
• When rewards become available and usable

Staking Example

Suppose you stake 10 ETH in 2023 and earn 0.5 ETH as a reward. At the time of receipt, ETH’s market value is €1,800.

Calculation:

• Investment income: 0.5 × 1,800 = €900
• Tax: 900 × 19% = €171

3. Other Capital Gains

Airdrops: Free Tokens

Airdrops are free distributions of tokens, usually as promotional campaigns or participation rewards.

Tax Treatment: Considered a capital gain at their market value upon receipt.

Hard Forks: Blockchain Splits

When a blockchain splits and you automatically receive new tokens (e.g., Bitcoin Cash in 2017), taxation differs from airdrops.

AEAT’s criterion: New tokens from a hard fork are taxed only when sold or exchanged, not upon receipt. Their acquisition cost is considered zero.

Cryptocurrency Mining

Tax treatment depends on whether mining is professional or occasional:

Professional mining (regular economic activity):

• Requires registration as self-employed
• Income taxed as business income
• Related expenses deductible (electricity, equipment, depreciation)
• Requires Social Security contributions

Occasional mining (hobby):

• No registration required
• Considered a capital gain upon sale of mined coins
• Acquisition value: market value at the time of mining

Obligation to File

You must submit Form 720 if the total value of your cryptocurrencies held on foreign exchanges or platforms exceeds €50,000 as of December 31.

What Qualifies as Foreign

Any exchange, custody platform, or service not domiciled in Spain is considered foreign.

Must be declared in Form 720:

• Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Crypto.com
• Bitpanda, Bitstamp, Gemini, Bybit
• Any international exchange

Not required:

• Personal non-custodial wallets (Ledger, Trezor, MetaMask)
• Spanish exchanges
• Cryptocurrencies held directly without intermediaries

Key Details for Form 720

Filing period: January 1 to March 31 of the following year.

Nature: A purely informative declaration. It does not generate direct taxation or additional payment.

Penalties: Extremely severe. Non-compliance or incorrect submission carries a minimum fine of €10,000, potentially much higher depending on undeclared amounts.

Form 721 was introduced in 2023 as part of the enhanced crypto tax control framework.

Who Must File

This form is mandatory only for:

• Entities providing virtual currency custody services
• Spanish exchanges or those with tax presence in Spain
• Providers offering crypto-fiat exchange services
• Platforms facilitating crypto asset operations

Individual Users

Individual investors do NOT have to file Form 721. The obligation lies with service providers, not end users.

What if I Only Bought and Hold?

If you’ve only bought and hold cryptocurrencies (the HODL strategy), you don’t have to declare gains under IRPF, as no gain or loss has been realized.

However, you must file Form 720 if your foreign exchange holdings exceed €50,000 as of December 31.

This holding strategy effectively defers taxation — you pay only when you sell and realize gains.

Do Wallet Transfers Incur Tax?

No. Transferring cryptocurrencies between wallets you own does not trigger a taxable event. It’s equivalent to moving money between your own bank accounts.

Non-taxable examples:

• Transferring Bitcoin from Binance to your Ledger wallet
• Moving Ethereum from MetaMask to Trezor
• Consolidating funds from multiple wallets into one
• Transferring crypto between exchanges you use

Only transactions involving a disposal (sale, exchange) or income generation are taxable.

Offsetting Gains and Losses

Capital losses can be offset against capital gains within the same fiscal year. Remaining losses can be carried forward and offset over the next four years.

Example:

2023:

• Ethereum sale gain: +€8,000
• Solana sale loss: -€3,000
• Net taxable base: €5,000

2024:

• Gains: +€2,000
• Losses: -€6,000
• Net base: -€4,000 (net loss)
• Losses carried forward to 2025–2028: €4,000

NFT Taxation

NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are treated similarly to cryptocurrencies but with nuances:

Occasional buying/selling: Taxed as capital gains at 19%–28% under the Savings Base.

Professional artists creating and selling NFTs: Considered business income and requires self-employment registration.

NFT-for-crypto exchange: Treated as a taxable swap for both parties.

Receiving NFTs as payment: Taxed as employment or business income depending on the context.

High-Frequency Trading

If you engage in active trading with hundreds or thousands of annual transactions, the AEAT may consider it a regular economic activity, not just investment.

This entails:

• Registration as self-employed
• Income taxed as business income, not capital gains
• Monthly Social Security contributions
• Formal accounting requirements

AEAT criteria include:

• Volume: Over 500 annual trades may indicate professional activity
• Frequency: Daily or intraday trading
• Revenue: If it’s your primary income source
• Infrastructure: Use of professional tools or offices
• Organization: Level of planning and systematization

Tax-Loss Harvesting: Crystallizing Losses

This strategy involves selling loss-making assets before the fiscal year ends to offset realized gains, thereby reducing your taxable base.

Example

As of December 15, 2025:

Realized gains:

• Bitcoin sales gain: +€15,000

Unrealized portfolio losses:

• Ethereum: -€4,000
• Solana: -€2,000

Strategy:

1. Sell Ethereum before December 31 to realize a €4,000 loss
2. Taxable base for 2025 becomes: 15,000 - 4,000 = €11,000
3. Tax saving: 4,000 × 21% = €840 saved

Optional: Rebuy Ethereum in January 2026. The 2025 tax loss remains valid.

Splitting Sales Across Years

If you have substantial gains, consider spreading sales over multiple tax years to avoid higher tax brackets.

Example:

Option A – Sell all in one year:

• Gain: €55,000
• Tax: (6,000 × 19%) + (44,000 × 21%) + (5,000 × 23%) = €11,530

Option B – Split over two years:

• Year 1: €27,500 → €5,655 tax
• Year 2: €27,500 → €5,655 tax
• Total: €11,310 → Saving: €220

While modest, savings can be significant for larger portfolios.

Incorporation via a Company Structure

For large crypto portfolios (over €100,000) with professional activity, structuring investments through a company may offer tax advantages.

Potential advantages:

• Corporate tax (23–25%) vs. personal income tax (up to 28%)
• Ability to reinvest profits without personal taxation
• Improved business cash flow management
• Deductible operational expenses

Disadvantages:

• More complex accounting and audit obligations
• Setup and maintenance costs
• Double taxation on dividends
• Greater scrutiny and reporting requirements

Step 1: Gather Information

Export from every exchange and wallet:

• Full transaction history (CSV, Excel, or API)
• Exact dates and times
• Values in euros using exchange rate at transaction time
• Fees per transaction
• Operation type (buy, sell, swap, transfer, staking, etc.)

Step 2: Consolidate and Clean Data

This is labor-intensive but crucial:

• Combine all CSVs into a single format
• Remove duplicates
• Reconcile transfers between platforms
• Verify final balances match real ones
• Standardize data formats

Step 3: Apply FIFO Methodology

For each sale or swap, calculate acquisition cost via FIFO:

• Keep chronological order of all purchases
• Compute FIFO cost basis per sale
• Track crypto balances continuously

Step 4: Generate Supporting Documents

Prepare:

• Detailed list of transactions with gain/loss per trade
• Summary of total capital gains/losses
• Summary of investment income (staking, lending, etc.)
• Supporting docs for Form 720 if applicable
• Exchange screenshots or PDFs

Step 5: File the Declaration

Deadlines:

• Form 100 (IRPF): April 11 – June 30
• Form 720: January 1 – March 31

Submission methods:

• Online with digital certificate or Cl@ve PIN
• In-person at AEAT offices (Form 100 only)

EU MiCA Regulation

The MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) regulation took effect progressively in 2024–2025, standardizing crypto laws across the EU.

Main impacts:

• Stronger regulation and supervision of exchanges
• Capital requirements for providers
• Better consumer protection
• Standardized fiscal reporting between countries
• Specific stablecoin regulation
• Greater transparency

DAC8 Directive: Automatic Information Exchange

DAC8 establishes automatic tax information exchange for crypto across the EU, similar to bank reporting under CRS.

For investors, this means:

• Exchanges automatically report to tax authorities
• Cross-border data sharing
• Concealing crypto operations is nearly impossible
• Transparency ensures legal security for compliant investors

Before filing, ensure you:

• Have complete transaction history from all platforms
• Know exact purchase dates and prices
• Know exact sale/exchange details
• Applied FIFO correctly
• Calculated staking/lending income separately
• Checked if Form 720 applies (over €50,000 abroad)
• Have all supporting documents
• Considered legal tax optimization strategies

Crypto tax declarations can be complex, especially if:

• You’ve done 100+ trades
• Used multiple exchanges (CEX and DEX)
• Participated in complex DeFi protocols
• Staked across several networks
• Struggle to apply FIFO correctly
• Want to optimize legally
• Combine crypto with traditional assets
• Deal with high transaction volumes

Why Choose Cleriontax

At Cleriontax, we specialize in the intersection of tax and technology. Our team combines:

Certified Tax Expertise: Licensed tax advisors with deep AEAT and DGT knowledge.

Data Engineering: Experts in blockchain transaction processing, reconciliation algorithms, and FIFO automation.

Automated Workflow: Integration with 50+ exchanges and DeFi protocols, automatic verification, and validation.

Professional Reports: Ready-to-submit tax reports with full documentation and explanations.

Ready to declare your crypto correctly? Our expert team is here to help.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute personalized tax advice or investment recommendations. Tax laws are subject to change, and each situation is unique. Always consult a certified tax advisor for your specific case.

Last updated: January 2025

Published by: Cleriontax Team – Experts in Cryptocurrency Taxation and Financial Data Analysis