Crypto Tax 2027: Rates, Allowances and What HMRC Will Know About You
Crypto tax in 2027 at a glance
The October 2026 Budget left crypto taxation untouched: Capital Gains Tax stays at 18% and 24%, the tax-free allowance stays at £3,000, and income tax thresholds remain frozen until April 2031. What does change in 2027 is visibility. Under the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework (CARF), UK exchanges and wallet providers must send HMRC details of every user and their 2026 transactions by 31 May 2027. If your returns have been loose until now, 2027 is the year that stops working.
Capital Gains Tax on crypto in 2027
You pay Capital Gains Tax (CGT) when you dispose of crypto for more than it cost you. HMRC counts the following as disposals:
selling crypto for pounds or any other currency
swapping one token for another (for example bitcoin for ether)
paying for goods or services with crypto
giving crypto away, unless to your spouse or civil partner
Moving tokens between your own wallets is not a disposal, and neither is simply holding.
Key figures for 2027 (tax years 2026/27 and 2027/28): CGT annual exempt amount £3,000 · CGT rates 18% within the basic-rate band, 24% above it · Personal Allowance £12,570 · higher-rate threshold £50,270 · trading and miscellaneous income allowance £1,000. All frozen until 5 April 2031.
To work out the gain, deduct what you paid plus allowable costs such as exchange fees from what you received. Tokens of the same type are pooled and valued at their average cost, the same way as shares. Losses reduce your gains in the same year; unused losses carry forward if you report them to HMRC.
Which rate applies depends on your other income. Add your taxable gain to your taxable income: the part that still fits inside the £37,700 basic-rate band is taxed at 18%, anything above at 24%.
Income tax on crypto you receive
Crypto you receive rather than buy is usually income, taxed at your normal rate of 20%, 40% or 45% on its pound value on the day you get it. This covers:
staking and mining rewards,
airdrops received in return for doing something,
payment in crypto for work or for goods you sell.
For occasional staking or mining, the £1,000 trading and miscellaneous income allowance applies: if all such income in the year stays under £1,000, there is nothing to pay or report. If you run a business and accept crypto from customers, record the sterling value on the invoice date; that figure is your income, and any later rise or fall in the token is a capital gain or loss.
Reporting and deadlines in 2027
Crypto has its own section on the Capital Gains pages (SA108) of the Self Assessment return, so gains and losses must be shown separately from other assets. The dates that matter in 2027:
31 January 2027 – online return and payment for 2025/26.
5 October 2027 – register for Self Assessment if 2026/27 was your first year with crypto gains or income to report (see our guide on how to register for Self Assessment as a self-employed person).
31 October 2027 – paper return for 2026/27.
31 January 2028 – online return and payment for 2026/27.
If you are registered for Self Assessment, you must report your disposals even when the gain is under £3,000 if your total sale proceeds exceeded £50,000. If you are not in Self Assessment and only have a gain to report, HMRC’s real-time Capital Gains Tax service lets you report and pay by 31 December after the tax year ends. The payment itself works like any other Self Assessment bill – our guide to paying your Self Assessment tax bill covers methods and payments on account.
What CARF changes from 2027
Since 1 January 2026, every UK crypto service provider has had to collect your name, address, date of birth and National Insurance number or tax reference. Providers must register with HMRC and tell you they are reporting by 31 January 2027, and file their first report, covering all of 2026, by 31 May 2027. Over 50 countries have signed up, so foreign exchanges you use will report to HMRC through their own tax authorities.
Refusing to give your details to a provider, or giving inaccurate ones, carries a penalty of up to £300. Far more expensive is undeclared tax: once HMRC matches exchange data to your record, the penalty can reach 100% of the tax due plus interest. If you have undeclared gains from earlier years, use HMRC’s cryptoasset disclosure service before the data arrives.
What to do before April 2027
Download full transaction histories from every exchange and wallet you used in 2026 while the accounts are still open. Check that the personal details each provider holds match your HMRC record. And if you are sitting on a gain, remember the £3,000 allowance resets on 6 April 2027 – a disposal split across the two tax years uses two allowances.
FAQ:
1. Did the October 2026 Budget change crypto tax?
No. CGT rates stay at 18% and 24%, the annual exempt amount stays at £3,000 and income tax thresholds remain frozen until April 2031. The new 10% Founders’ Relief applies to business disposals, not to crypto holdings.
2. Do I pay tax when I swap one cryptocurrency for another?
Yes. A crypto-to-crypto swap is a disposal for CGT. The gain is the pound value of what you received minus the cost of what you gave up.
3. Is staking income taxable if I only earn a few hundred pounds?
Staking rewards are income, but the £1,000 trading and miscellaneous income allowance covers small amounts. Below £1,000 in total for the year there is nothing to report; above it, the rewards go on your return.
4. Will HMRC know about my foreign exchange account?
Very likely. More than 50 jurisdictions have joined CARF, and their tax authorities exchange user data with HMRC. Assume any account opened with your identity will be visible.
5. My gains are under £3,000. Do I still have to tell HMRC?
Not usually. The exception is if you are already in Self Assessment and your total proceeds from disposals were over £50,000 – then the disposals go on your return even with no tax to pay.
Conclusion:
Nothing about the tax itself is new in 2027: a £3,000 allowance, 18% or 24% on gains, your usual income tax rate on anything you earn in crypto. What is new is that HMRC no longer has to take your word for it. From the middle of 2027 it will hold a record of every account opened in your name and every trade run through it, in the UK and in most other countries. Treat your 2026 transactions as the first year that will be checked against that record: get the figures right on the return due 31 January 2028, and use the disclosure service now for anything older.
