Crypto taxation in Europe: which country has the most favourable regime?

01Four regimes, four different logics

The headline rate only tells part of the story: the exemption threshold, the holding period, how crypto-to-crypto swaps are treated, and whether mere holding is taxed at all, change the actual outcome far more than an isolated percentage.

Full detail, official sources and country-specific nuances in the dedicated articles: France, Germany, Spain, Italy.

02The only zero-rate regime: Germany after a one-year holding period

On the rate criterion alone, Germany stands clearly apart from the three other countries reviewed: crypto held for more than a year can be resold with no tax at all on the capital gain, regardless of its amount. This is a mechanism, not a favour: it rests on classifying the crypto-asset as a private good (article 23 EStG) rather than a financial instrument, and comes with a potentially heavy trade-off, taxation at the progressive income tax scale, for any disposal made before that one-year mark. Full detail in the dedicated article on Germany.

03The highest headline rate: Italy in 2026

Conversely, Italy has applied, since 1 January 2026, the highest rate among the four regimes reviewed: 33% (2026 budget law, up from 26% until 2025), with the 2,000 € exemption threshold that used to exist now gone. Italy is also the only one of the four countries to tax, on top of capital gains, the mere holding of crypto-assets through an annual wealth-style levy of 0.2% of their value as of 31 December. Full detail in the dedicated article on Italy.

04What the headline rate doesn't show

France and Spain look similar on the surface (a rate applied at disposal, with no holding-period condition), but diverge on points that change the calculation in practice: France does not tax a crypto-to-crypto swap (taxation is deferred until conversion to euros) and calculates the capital gain on a weighted average of the entire portfolio; Spain taxes the swap as soon as it happens and applies the FIFO method (the oldest units deemed sold first). A taxpayer active on several platforms who swaps frequently between crypto-assets will see a very different outcome from one country to the other, at an almost comparable nominal rate.

05A shared pitfall: declaring assets held abroad

All four regimes share the same trap: a platform licensed under MiCA in another EU member state remains, from a tax standpoint, a foreign platform for a resident of another country. France requires a separate filing (form 3916-bis) for any account held outside France, and Spain requires modelo 721 above 50,000 € held abroad. The MiCA regulatory passport exempts you from none of these wealth reporting obligations, each specific to its own tax administration.