Crypto profit calculator
What you made on a cryptoasset disposal and what capital gains tax it costs — stacked on your income, because a gain has no rate of its own — with the pooling rules that decide your cost stated rather than applied.
Calculator
The sterling value of what you received on disposal. Selling for money, swapping one token for another, spending it on something, and giving it away to anybody other than a spouse or civil partner are all disposals — a swap is taxed on the sterling value of what you gave up, even though no money moved.
The allowable cost of what you disposed of. If you bought the same token more than once this is NOT simply what you paid for the coins you think you sold: HMRC pools acquisitions of the same token and takes cost out of the pool in proportion, with same-day and thirty-day rules on top. This calculator does not work that pooling out — see the note above the answer.
Exchange fees and transaction costs on acquiring and disposing of it, which are deductible. The costs of simply holding it — subscriptions, wallet software, hardware, electricity — are not.
Gross income before tax, from all sources. A gain is stacked on top of your taxable income to decide which capital gains rate it meets, so this changes the answer — and it is why a calculator that asks whether you are a higher-rate taxpayer cannot be right for anybody whose gain straddles the boundary.
Capital gains tax is not devolved, so the rates and the exempt amount are the same across the UK. Your region is asked for because it changes the income tax on your income, and therefore the taxable income the gain is stacked on.
A disposal falls in the tax year it was made, and the exempt amount and the rates are annual.
Capital gains tax is charged only on the part of a gain above the annual exempt amount of £3,000. This calculator makes one disposal calculation and deducts one exempt amount, so running it twice for two disposals and adding the answers would deduct the exemption twice and understate the bill.
Your profit, and the capital gains tax on it
Your profit is £20,000.00, and the capital gains tax on it is £4,063.80
That leaves £15,936.20 — 20.32% of the profit goes in tax, on a return of 200.00% against what you paid.
The percentage above is not a capital gains tax rate. It is the tax divided by the whole profit, and the annual exempt amount means part of the profit bears no tax at all — so the share is always lower than the rate, and it moves with the size of the gain as well as with your income.
The profit
| What you sold it for | £30,000.00 |
|---|---|
| What it cost you | −£10,000.00 |
| Transaction fees | −£0.00 |
| Gain | £20,000.00 |
This is the only arithmetic on the page that is not done by an engine, and it is a subtraction. Everything below it comes from the same capital gains engine the general capital gains page uses, on the same asset class — so the two cannot disagree about the same taxpayer.
The tax, stacked on your income
A gain is not taxed on its own. It sits on top of your taxable income of £37,430.00 — your income of £50,000.00 less the £12,570.00 of personal allowance it actually used — and the part landing below £37,700 of taxable income is charged at the lower rate, the rest at the higher one. One gain routinely meets both.
| Band | Rate | Gain in it | Tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual exempt amount | 0.00% | £3,000.00 | £0.00 |
| Basic rate | 18.00% | £270.00 | £48.60 |
| Higher rate | 24.00% | £16,730.00 | £4,015.20 |
| Capital gains tax | £20,000.00 | £4,063.80 |
Your income leaves £270.00 of the lower-rate band for gains to sit in before the rate steps up. The annual exempt amount does not consume any of that band, which is why the exempt slice of a gain never pushes the rest of it into the higher rate.
Bought or sold in another currency?
The two figures above have to be in sterling. If your purchase and sale were priced in another currency, this converts them at the European Central Bank’s published reference rates and shows the arithmetic. It fills nothing in above — read the sterling figure and type it in.
One currency for both legs, on purpose: HMRC asks for a reasonable method applied consistently, and a single selector is how that is guaranteed rather than requested.
Nothing is shown until you choose a currency. Your figures above are unaffected either way.
Five things this figure does not know
It does not apply the pooling rules, so the cost is yours to work out
Stated again here because it is the limitation that most often makes a correct calculation the wrong answer. HMRC pools acquisitions of the same token and takes cost out of the pool in proportion, with a same-day rule and a thirty-day rule on top — so the allowable cost of a disposal out of a holding built up over several purchases is not the price paid for any particular purchase. This page taxes the cost you enter and does not derive it.
It is one disposal, and it deducts the exemption once
Every run of this calculator deducts a full annual exempt amount of £3,000. So the figure is right for somebody whose only chargeable disposal this year is the one on screen, and too low for anybody who has already used part of the exemption elsewhere — and running the page twice for two disposals and adding the answers deducts it twice. A year with several disposals needs them netted into one gain first.
It cannot tell a gain from income
Not everything received in tokens is a capital gain. Mining rewards, staking rewards, airdrops received in return for doing something, and tokens paid by an employer are usually income — charged to income tax, and to National Insurance where they come from employment — with a capital gains calculation only later, when they are disposed of. This page has no way to ask which you have, and applies the capital gains treatment to everything entered.
It does not model losses beyond telling you that you have one
A loss is not simply the absence of tax. It can be set against gains in the same year and, if reported to HMRC within the time limit, carried forward against later gains indefinitely — but it has to be claimed, and setting a loss against gains reduces them before the annual exempt amount is applied, which can waste part of the exemption. None of that is computed here.
It says nothing about how or when to report
Capital gains on cryptoassets are reported through Self Assessment, with deadlines and record-keeping requirements of their own, and there are thresholds for when a return is required at all that depend on proceeds as well as on gains. This page produces a figure and not a filing. HMRC’s own guidance is linked above; a disposal of any size is worth checking against it.
Worked example: the same disposal, two incomes
Two people make exactly the same £20,000.00 profit on exactly the same disposal. One pays £4,063.80 and the other £4,080.00. Nothing about the asset differs. Only their salaries do — because a gain is stacked on top of taxable income to decide which rate it meets.
Ines earns £50,000, which leaves £37,430.00 of taxable income and £270.00 of the lower-rate band unused. Her £20,000.00 gain has £3,000.00 taken off it by the annual exempt amount, and the rest straddles the boundary: part of it is charged at the lower rate and part at the higher one. Her bill is £4,063.80.
Jonah earns £80,000, which uses the lower-rate band up entirely, so every pound of his chargeable gain meets the higher rate from the start. The same disposal costs him £4,080.00 — £16.20 more than Ines pays.
| Figure | Ines — £50,000 | Jonah — £80,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Profit on the disposal | £20,000.00 | £20,000.00 |
| Taxable income the gain stacks on | £37,430.00 | £67,430.00 |
| Lower-rate band left for gains | £270.00 | £0.00 |
| Capital gains tax | £4,063.80 | £4,080.00 |
| Left after tax | £15,936.20 | £15,920.00 |
Both figures assume the cost is right, and for anybody who bought the same token more than once that is the assumption most likely to be wrong. HMRC pools acquisitions and takes cost out of the pool in proportion, so “what I paid for the coins I sold” is usually not the allowable cost. This calculator does not work that out, and says so above the answer rather than here.
Methodology and sources
The calculation, in order
- Profit is proceeds less cost less fees. That subtraction is the only arithmetic on this page that an engine does not do — and it is the step where the cost figure has to already be the pooled one HMRC expects.
- Work out taxable income through the income tax engine, rather than by subtracting a personal allowance. The allowance tapers above a threshold, and this page has no business knowing that — the engine already does.
- Deduct the annual exempt amount from the gain, once. What remains is the chargeable gain. The exempt amount consumes no band, which is why the exempt slice never pushes the rest of a gain into the higher rate.
- Stack the chargeable gain on taxable income. The part landing below the lower-rate ceiling is charged at the lower rate for gains and the rest at the higher one. One gain routinely meets both.
- A loss is reported as a loss and charged nothing. It is not treated as a nil gain.
A cryptoasset is charged as an “other” asset, which is the same class the general capital gains page uses for shares and funds — and this page imports that page’s own income bridge and band derivations rather than writing its own, so the two cannot give one taxpayer two different answers. Residential property rates do not apply, and Business Asset Disposal Relief is not offered here at all: it is a relief for a disposal of a business or of shares in one’s own trading company, with qualification tests nothing on this page could check.
Rates and allowances
| Figure | 2025/26 | 2026/27 |
|---|---|---|
| Annual exempt amount | £3,000 | £3,000 |
| Rates on other assets — lower / higher | 18.00% / 24.00% | 18.00% / 24.00% |
| Taxable income at which the higher rate starts | £37,700 | £37,700 |
| Personal allowance | £12,570 | £12,570 |
| Personal allowance taper starts at | £100,000 | £100,000 |
Capital gains tax is not devolved: the rates, the exempt amount and the band boundary for gains are the same across the UK. Scottish income tax bands differ and change the taxable income a gain is stacked on, but they do not change which capital gains rate it meets.
What this page does not model
- Share identification and pooling. Same-day, thirty-day and section 104 pooling all apply to cryptoassets, and none of them is applied here. The cost you enter is the cost that is used.
- More than one disposal. One call, one exempt amount.
- Receipts that are income rather than gains — mining, staking, airdrops for a service, and tokens from an employer.
- Losses beyond reporting one: setting them against gains, carrying them forward, and how they interact with the exempt amount.
- Reporting. Deadlines, thresholds for when a return is required, and record keeping are all outside a calculator.
Where the figures come from
- gov.uk — Check if you need to pay tax when you sell cryptoassets
- gov.uk — Check if you need to pay tax when you receive cryptoassets
- gov.uk — Capital gains tax rates and annual tax-free allowances
- gov.uk — Capital gains tax: rates
- gov.uk — Income tax rates and allowances: current and past
The rates and allowances in the table above were verified against gov.uk on 12 August 2026. That check covers the published figures this page computes with. It does not verify any result the page produces, and it has not yet been signed off by a person — the verification recorded in the source repository is an automated one. Check anything that matters against gov.uk or with an accountant.
Every calculation runs in your browser. There is no application server and no database, so nothing you type is transmitted or stored. A share link is the exception: it carries your figures in the URL. More on what that means. Information, not advice.
Crypto tax questions
- Do I pay tax on crypto profits in the UK?
Yes, in most cases. HMRC treats cryptoassets as chargeable assets, so a profit on disposing of one is a capital gain and capital gains tax applies to the part above the annual exempt amount of £3,000. It is not exempt because no bank was involved, and it is not treated as gambling. Some receipts are income rather than gains — mining, staking rewards, airdrops received for doing something, and tokens paid by an employer — and those are charged to income tax instead, with a capital gains calculation only later when they are sold.
- Is selling for money the only thing that counts as a disposal?
No, and this is where most unreported gains come from. Swapping one token for another is a disposal of the first, taxed on its sterling value at the moment of the swap, even though no money reached your bank account. So is spending it on something, and so is giving it away to anybody other than a spouse or civil partner. Somebody who has never converted anything back to pounds can still have a substantial chargeable gain.
- How do I work out what my crypto cost me?
By pooling. HMRC applies the same identification rules to cryptoassets that it applies to shares: acquisitions of the same token go into a pool, a disposal takes cost out of that pool in proportion to the amount sold, and there are same-day and thirty-day rules that take priority over the pool. So the allowable cost of a disposal is almost never the price paid for any particular purchase. This calculator taxes the cost you enter and does not derive it — which is stated above the answer as well as here, because it is the figure most likely to be wrong.
- Why does this calculator ask for my income?
Because a gain is stacked on top of your taxable income to decide which rate it meets, and the rates for gains are 18.00% and 24.00%. On £50,000 of income the same £20,000.00 profit costs £4,063.80; on £80,000 it costs £4,080.00. A calculator that asks "are you a higher-rate taxpayer?" and applies one rate to the whole gain cannot be right for anybody whose gain straddles the boundary — which is most people with a gain worth calculating.
- What if I made a loss?
There is no tax to pay, and the loss is worth more than nothing: an allowable loss can be set against gains in the same tax year and, if it is reported to HMRC within the time limit, carried forward against gains in later years indefinitely. It has to be claimed to be usable. This page tells you that you have a loss and stops there — it does not set it against other gains, carry it forward, or account for the fact that setting a loss against gains reduces them before the annual exempt amount is applied, which can waste part of the exemption.
- Does the annual exempt amount apply to each disposal?
No — it is annual, not per disposal, and this is the easiest way to under-declare using a calculator. Every run of this page deducts one full £3,000, so running it twice for two disposals and adding the answers deducts the exemption twice. A year with more than one disposal needs the gains and losses netted into a single figure before the exemption is applied.
- Does it matter where in the UK I live?
Not for the capital gains tax itself: the rates, the annual exempt amount and the band boundary for gains are the same across the UK, because capital gains tax is not devolved. It matters indirectly, because Scottish income tax bands differ and the gain is stacked on your taxable income — so the region box on this calculator changes the income half of the answer and never the gains half.
- What does the calculator show on the figures it opens with?
Selling for £30,000 what cost £10,000 is a profit of £20,000.00. On £50,000 of income in England for 2026/27, taxable income of £37,430.00 leaves £270.00 of the lower-rate band, so the chargeable gain meets both rates and the tax is £4,063.80 — leaving £15,936.20. The cost figure is taken as entered; HMRC's pooling rules are not applied to it.