Crypto Staking Taxes
In most jurisdictions, staking rewards are taxable income when you receive them, and any later disposal may trigger a capital gain or loss. The income amount is generally the token's fair market value on the day it hits your account, though how each jurisdiction characterizes that income varies.
Calculate your staking taxes automatically. Upload your exchange CSV and DYOR.tax separates staking income from capital gains for you.
Try the MetaMask Calculator →What counts as taxable
Every staking reward is a taxable event the moment it's credited to your account. It doesn't matter whether you claim it manually or it auto-compounds. You owe income tax on the fair market value at that time.
When you later sell, swap, or spend those staked tokens, you owe capital gains tax on any appreciation above your income basis.
Example: You receive 0.5 ETH as a staking reward when ETH is worth $3,000. That's $1,500 in ordinary income. Six months later you sell at $4,000 per ETH. Your capital gain is $500 ($2,000 sale proceeds minus your $1,500 income basis).
How DYOR.tax handles staking taxes
- Upload your CSV. Staking rewards are automatically identified by transaction type in your Coinbase, Binance, or Kraken export.
- Income basis recorded. Each reward is valued at fair market value on the date received.
- Capital gains calculated. When you sell staked tokens, the gain is computed from that income basis using FIFO (or Section 104 for UK).
- Separated in your report. Your PDF shows staking income and capital gains as distinct line items, mapped to the correct tax forms for your country.
Country-specific staking tax rules
United States
The IRS confirmed in Revenue Ruling 2023-14 that staking rewards are taxable as ordinary income in the year you receive them, valued at fair market value at the time of receipt. Report the income on Schedule 1 Line 8v, and any later disposals on Form 8949 and Schedule D.
The Jarrett case tested whether staking rewards are "newly created property" (taxable only on sale, like baking bread from flour). The IRS disagreed and maintained its position that rewards are income at receipt. Rev. Rul. 2023-14 effectively settled this question in the IRS's favor.
United Kingdom
HMRC classifies staking rewards as miscellaneous income for most individuals, confirmed in their updated 2024 cryptoassets guidance. Report on your Self Assessment (SA100). When you sell, Section 104 pooling applies. Staked tokens enter the pool at their income value.
Canada
The CRA treats staking rewards as income at fair market value on receipt. Report on your T1 as other income. Later disposals are capital gains on Schedule 3.
Australia
The ATO treats staking rewards as ordinary income at receipt. Hold the tokens for 12+ months and you may qualify for the 50% CGT discount when you sell.
Liquid staking tokens (stETH, rETH)
When you stake through a liquid staking protocol like Lido, Rocket Pool, or Coinbase, you receive a receipt token (stETH, rETH, cbETH). The receipt token has the same income treatment: value at receipt is your taxable income.
Disposing of the receipt token (selling stETH, swapping rETH back to ETH, unwrapping cbETH) is a separate capital gains event based on any price change since you received it.
Common mistakes
- Forgetting the income event. Many people only report the capital gain when selling, missing the income tax owed when they first received the reward.
- Using sale price as cost basis. Your cost basis is the value when you received the reward, not the sale price. These are often very different numbers.
- Ignoring auto-compounded rewards. Even if rewards are automatically restaked, each compounding event is separately taxable income.
- Mixing staked and purchased tokens. If you bought ETH and also earned ETH from staking, each lot has a different cost basis. FIFO ordering matters.