2028年起加密货币税收与预扣税：现在需核查的事项

German Private Cryptocurrency Tax Draft: Key Time Points and Response Strategies before the Implementation of Withholding Tax in 2028

The German Federal Ministry of Finance's Draft on Taxation of Privately held Cryptocurrency Assets has set a timetable: The Federal Cabinet will review the draft on October 14, 2026. However, for investors, what is more important than the date is a number rarely mentioned in current reports: January 1, 2028 . From this day on, cryptocurrency exchanges and other service providers will directly withhold your capital gains tax and turn it over to the tax authorities just as German banks handle stock gains.

In short, what does this mean for your trading account? For most purchases, the first thing you need to be clear is that the reporting obligation itself has not changed at the beginning. The source tax deduction will not be implemented until two years after the new rules are implemented and will only affect certain providers, while in the case of self-custody, it will not apply at all under the draft. If you confuse these concepts, you may be expecting tax breaks that will never come.

Explanation of sources of information: The following analysis is based on the status of the draft rather than current law. The draft text was not made public on the Ministry of Finance website. What is available to the public is the attached letter (published by Blocktrainer) and a detailed legal assessment posted by tax lawyer David Hötzel on the professional portal Der Betrieb. The following contents reflect the current status of the draft.

Two strictly differentiated time nodes: 2027 and 2028

尽管常被混为一谈，但草案中设定的两个时间点管辖着不同的事项：

• 2027年1月1日：新实质税法生效日。在此日期之后获得或收到的加密资产收益，将被视为《德国所得税法》第20条意义上的投资收入。这意味着，对于这些持仓，一年后的免税期将不再适用。它们将按照投资收入的税率征税，根据草案规定为25%加上团结附加税。无论持有五年、十年还是二十年，这一规则均适用。
• 2028年1月1日：源头扣税启动日。只有从这一天起，服务提供商才被要求代扣投资收入税。因此，2027年是一个过渡年，拥有新的实质法律和旧的程序实践：新持仓的收益通常不会被源头扣税，而必须自行填入纳税申报表。

草案中的“加密资产”是指符合欧洲MiCA法规定义、作为交换手段接受且不由中央银行发行或担保的加密资产。解释备忘录明确指出包括比特币（Bitcoin）和以太坊（Ether）。NFT、证券型代币以及MiCA法规第四篇下的电子货币代币将被排除在外；对于这些资产，继续适用各自权利所衍生的规则。

直至内阁审议的时间表：咨询截止与立法进程

财政部已于9月30日将草案发送给协会和利益团体。2026年10月6日Is the deadline for submitting comments. For a systematic consultation involving institutional changes, six days are very tight, which sends a clear signal that the process is being forced forward.

Cabinet will discuss the draft on October 14 . If this barrier is passed, the ministerial draft will become a government bill. This is not just a formal shift, as the content will shift from a working version of a single ministry to an official position of the federal government. The Bundestag and the Bundestag will then review it, and changes may still be made during the period.

It is worth noting that cabinet deliberations are agenda items and not final decisions on wording. Such appointments may be delayed and drafts may change between consultation and cabinet review, which is why the October 6 deadline was set. Therefore, the statement "this will apply from 2027" is inaccurate today. To put it accurately: This is the current status of the draft that will be reviewed by the Cabinet on October 14.

Is the deadline of December 31, 2026 fixed?

No, it is uncertain for two reasons, which are independent of each other:

1. The Grandfathering clause for existing positions currently exists only in the ministerial draft and has not yet become an established fact protected by law. Deliberations by the Cabinet, the Bundestag and the Bundestag have not yet taken place.
2. If the schedule changes during the process, the deadline may be postponed.

Before this, the only thing you can rely on is: According to In the current draft , crypto assets acquired as of December 31, 2026 still belong to the old personal disposal regime (system).

The specific meaning of the grandfather clause in the draft is as follows: positions that have been tax-free will remain tax-free when disposed of. For old positions that are still in the one-year holding period on January 1, 2027, once one year has expired, they can still have a tax-free effect. There is no step-up in the cost base; historical acquisition dates are still the decisive factor. We detailed the positioning of the deadline in our analysis in early September, and the cabinet date was added later.

In practice, two systems will persist, depending on the date of acquisition or acceptance. For your records, this means: The document proving when the coin arrived in your hand will become the most important document you hold.

Illustration: December 31, 2026 serves as a barrier in the draft: New applicable laws arrive after that, old positions remain before.

Who will withhold taxes starting in 2028: Domestic crypto asset service providers

This becomes specific to your trading account. According to the draft, the entities obligated to withhold taxes are domestic crypto asset service providers and crypto asset operators, as well as domestic branches or permanent establishments of foreign providers , provided they pay or credit the corresponding income.

The key term is Domestic paying agent 。The meaning is not simply a "large well-known exchange", but an organization that is located in a German entity in the tax sense and actually credits you with the amount. A platform with European authorizations but no domestic branches does not literally automatically meet this standard.

This will be a hard distinguishing feature for your trading venue selection starting in 2028, and this information will not appear on any product pages today. If you want to know which providers are authorized within the European Union and where they are based, refer to our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges. As for whether a specific provider will withhold tax for you, it is currently impossible to answer because the law has not yet been established, but the question of domicile (place of residence/registration) is certain.

Self-hosting, DeFi and foreign platforms will still need to be handled by themselves in the evaluation process

Even from 2028, tax withholding will not fully apply under the draft . Anyone who deposits coins in a self-managed wallet, transacts through a decentralized application, or uses a foreign platform without a domestic payment agent will still have to fulfill their obligations in principle: these proceeds should still be included in the tax return.

常见的观点认为“加密货币届时将像股票一样运行”，但这仅涵盖部分情况。评估义务并没有消失，只是变得更少见了。在实践中，将出现两个并存的世界：国内代扣案例（提供商计算数字）和外国或去中心化案例（您自己计算）。法律评估中已明确指出，这两个世界共同产生的行政工作量要多于统一的解决方案。

由此产生了一个令人不安的实践后果：您仍然需要建立完整的自有记录，特别是在钱包和平台之间转移时。如果某人的购买日期和购买价格仅存在于交易所的界面中，那么他拥有的不是证明，而是显示数据。

加密资产互换：提供商出售部分资产以欧元缴税

一般报道中通常忽略草案的一点，但它直接影响您的账户。将一种加密资产兑换为另一种资产仍然是具有税务相关性的交易，因为捕获的是处置收益，而根据税务机关和税务法院的观点，之前的法律也将加密对加密的互换纳入“处置”范畴。

由此产生了一个程序问题，草案对此作了明确规定：在互换中，没有欧元流入您的账户，但税款必须以欧元支付。因此，解释备忘录指出，负有代扣义务的方必须能够清算部分用于互换的加密资产，以便以货币形式缴纳税款。

The result: After 2028, swaps on platforms that are obligated to withhold may sell some positions to pay taxes. Investors who expect to retain a specific number of units should take this deduction into account. The specific process of liquidation, the order of application and how to value it have not yet been finalized in the draft.

Missing acquisition data: Use 50% of the disposal as the substitute base

If the platform does not know the acquisition date and cost, according to the draft, in principle, your own specific data can be returned for use, as long as no conflicting data is available. If these data cannot be applied, the program assumes that the coins were obtained after December 31, 2026, at which time the tax withholding will be measured based on 50% of the entire disposal proceeds .

There are two placement points here that belong to the same category. This 50% is not a final profit fiction: excessive deductions can be corrected during the appraisal process. However, before that, funds had been lost, creating considerable liquidity risk. The most affected are transfers from self-managed wallets or foreign platforms to German platforms that are obligated to withhold, which is the path many people take when selling. We discuss this mechanism in detail in a separate article on alternative evaluation bases.

由此得出的一个准备措施，无论法律最终如何规定，今天就已经有帮助：所有购买的完整历史记录，包括日期、数量和价格，以及您地址之间的转账。哪些工具可以从交易所和钱包自动汇总这些历史记录并构建用于税务局的报告，请参阅我们的加密货币税务工具比较。

亏损抵消无追溯期：从2027年起出现两个独立的亏损池

新持仓的损失未来将在投资收入体系内予以确认。因此，原则上可以与其他正投资收入抵消，并结转至未来几年。消失的部分是：向紧邻的前一年追溯抵消（Carryback），这在个人处置制度下是可能的，但在新系统中不再提供。

旧损失保留在前期的抵消池中。草案中没有包含过渡性规则，使系统变更前的损失在有限期限内与新加密资产的收益相抵消。因此，从2027年起将出现两个独立的亏损池：一个用于旧持仓和其他个人处置，另一个用于新加密资产和剩余的投资收入。

任何在旧持仓中仍持有未实现损失的人，应在年底前审视这种分离，因为根据草案，事后无法弥合。我们在关于亏损结转的文章中详细介绍了现行法律下的亏损结转方式及适用的截止日期。

Illustration: Starting from 2028, whether a domestic payment agent is involved determines who performs the arithmetic calculation: the provider or you.

Comparison of fixed tax rates on cryptocurrencies to stock taxes since 2009

Structurally, this model is similar to the model introduced in 2009 for fixed withholding taxes for private equity investments: a rigid deadline, two systems that run permanently in parallel, and the acquisition date as a switching point. But in one respect, the draft deviates from this precedent and works against you: There was a time-limited transition rule for old losses in 2009, and no such rule is provided here.

Another difference in impact positioning is that for stocks, bank withholding comes in sync with the new law. For crypto assets, there was a year between the two, and even after that, taxpayers were still responsible for most cases. The fixed tax rate on stocks is effective because almost every custodian bank is a domestic payment agent. This is an exception for crypto assets.

It is impossible to generalize here who benefits and who suffers. Long-term holders lose their full post-year tax exemption. Short-term traders might perform better if their gains were previously levied at a personal marginal tax rate above 25%, and their losses could be leveraged in a broader pool. Therefore, this model may not be conducive to long-term holding.

Loans and passive pledges become investment income

The scope of the draft's impact extends beyond disposal income and extends to recurring income. Income from providing crypto assets to participate in transaction processing is also regarded as investment income. It mainly refers to classic lending and passive pledge.

This is important for old positions and can easily be ignored: according to the explanatory memorandum, Loans or pledge rewards from old positions that flow in after December 31, 2026 are themselves regarded as new positions. Basic old positions remain in the old system, but the rewards they generate are not. Therefore, anyone who has lent or pledged positions for many years will continue to generate new positions with their own tax consequences starting in 2027.

In the process, many issues in the decentralized space remain unresolved: liquidity pledges, pooling, packaging tokens, the exact moment of inflows, and boundaries with the processing of commercial transactions. There is another unresolved issue that may have a significant impact on gifts and inheritance: crypto assets acquired for free should be recorded at a cost of 0 euros. It is impossible to clearly determine in the draft whether this also applies to recipients or heirs who received bitcoins purchased before 2027. This should be clarified in the legislative process.

Expected revenue increase of 160 million euros in 2028: The draft's own expectations

The draft lists the additional revenue expected by the country as a whole, and the series is quite moderate: zero euros , approximately 160 million euros in 2028, approximately 305 million euros in 2029, approximately 325 million euros in 2030, and approximately 350 million euros in 2031. Zero income in 2027 is in line with the logic of the program, because there is no source tax deduction and funds will only flow in at the time of assessment.

For comparison: During the spring budget debate, billions of dollars were circulating every year. There is no such content in the impact assessment of the draft. Compliance costs for citizens, businesses and administration are marked as "pending" in the draft and have not yet been priced. These regulations will be evaluated six years after they take effect.

For political positioning: By its own calculations, this reform brings in less national revenue than mid-sized items in the federal budget, while requiring new document disciplines for every private holder. This difference was undoubtedly an argument in comments submitted before October 6.

Cryptocurrency taxation: Key points of your decision-making

Regardless of the final outcome of the law, there are three things you can do now. None of these steps presupposes the draft is passed without modification.

1. Save the obtained data completely. The date, quantity and price of each purchase, as well as transfers between your addresses. This is proof of preventing the application of the 50% substitution base and helps you in various legislative scenarios. Where you buy and how you export your history depends on the provider; export routes for common trading venues can be found in our exchange comparison.
2. Separate custody and liability. According to the draft, even after 2028, the self-trusteeship reporting obligation will still belong to you. Anyone considering keeping it on their own should know that no service provider will do tax calculations for them at that time; see Hardware Wallet Comparison for the type of equipment and how it operates.
3. 在跨年之前审查经常性收入。根据草案，从2027年起流入的来自旧持仓的借贷和质押奖励被视为新持仓。持有此类头寸的人应查看条款和流入节奏；提供商及其模型的概览见借贷比较。

相反，您不应从本文推导出的结论是买入决策。在当前草案状态下，2026年12月31日之前的收购留在旧制度中是一项税务后果。购买对您来说是否有意义是完全不同的问题，没有任何解释备忘录能回答它。

（截至2026年10月1日。本文不构成投资建议。价格和费用结构会发生变化；购买前请与提供商核实条款。）