Crypto tax in Switzerland

If you have moved to Switzerland from the UK, Germany or France, you are probably used to paying tax when you sell crypto at a profit. Switzerland is kinder – but not as simple as "crypto is tax-free here", the line that circulates on Reddit. Only half of that is true: private capital gains really are untaxed. In exchange, your canton wants to know every year what your coins are worth, and anything your coins earn you counts as income.

This guide explains how the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (FTA, or ESTV in German) and the cantons tax cryptocurrencies – from bitcoin in a hardware wallet to staking rewards. For the practical side – which form, which price, which documents – see our guide on declaring crypto in your tax return.

Is Switzerland crypto tax-free?

Capital gains: yes. Crypto as a whole: no. In its working paper on cryptocurrencies, the FTA treats bitcoin, ether and other payment tokens like foreign currencies. Buying and selling as part of your private wealth produces tax-free capital gains – or, the flip side, non-deductible capital losses (Art. 16(3) of the Federal Direct Tax Act). The same applies when you swap one coin for another or cash out into francs: the sale itself triggers no tax for a private investor.

There is no capital gains tax on crypto, no flat crypto rate and no holding-period clock like Germany's one-year rule. Instead, three mechanisms apply:

1. Wealth tax on your holdings at year end – every year, whether you trade or not.
2. Income tax on yields: staking, lending interest, airdrops, mining and salary paid in crypto.
3. Income tax on capital gains – but only if the tax office classifies you as a professional trader.

Wealth tax: 31 December is what counts

Cryptocurrencies are movable capital assets and fall under cantonal wealth taxAnnual cantonal and municipal tax on your net wealth – everything you own minus debts – as at 31 December. Switzerland has no federal wealth tax.. What matters is market value at the end of the tax period. For the most widely held coins the FTA sets an official tax value in its price listThe FTA's official list of year-end values for securities, currencies and cryptocurrencies, published free of charge at ictax.admin.ch. (Kursliste): for the end of 2025 it covered 82 cryptocurrencies, with one bitcoin at CHF 69,571.99. If a coin is missing from the list, you use the year-end price of a leading trading platform. If no price exists at all, you declare the original purchase price in francs.

The Confederation levies no wealth tax; the cantons do, each with its own tariff. Typically there is a tax-free amount or threshold, followed by progressive rates in per mille (thousandths). In many cantons the tariff produces a "simple tax", which canton and municipality then multiply by their own tax multipliers. Some examples from the FTA's cantonal tax sheets:

The Zurich and Geneva figures apply from tax period 2026. Geneva and Ticino also cap the combined income and wealth tax at 60% of taxable income. A worked example for Basel-Stadt: a single person holding CHF 300,000 in crypto is taxed, after the allowance, on CHF 225,000 at CHF 4.50 per thousand – CHF 1,012.50 of cantonal wealth tax a year. In Zurich the same amount produces a simple tax of CHF 109.50, which the multipliers of canton and municipality roughly double. For your own numbers, use the FTA tax calculator.

One point that often surprises newcomers: the tax follows the price on the valuation date, not what you paid. The tax value of one bitcoin fell from CHF 85,926.49 (end of 2024) to CHF 69,571.99 (end of 2025), about 19% lower – and the tax base fell with it. If prices spike in December, you pay on that high value, even if it evaporates in January.

Income tax: when your coins earn something

Simply holding generates no income. Receiving new coins as a reward, however, is taxable – valued in francs at the moment they arrive:

• StakingLocking coins on a proof-of-stake blockchain to help secure the network, in return for newly issued coins as a reward.: according to the FTA, rewards from a staking pool are income from movable assets (Art. 20(1) DBG). If you act as your own validator, the tax office also checks for self-employment. Providers and terms are compared in our crypto staking guide.
• Lending: the working paper does not specifically address interest from lending out crypto. Under the general rules on investment income it should be declared as income; if unsure, ask your cantonal tax office.
• AirdropFree distribution of tokens, for example to holders of a particular coin or users of a protocol.s: taxable at market value when allocated.
• Mining: the reward is taxable income, classed as self-employment if the general criteria are met. Canton Thurgau's practice states that bitcoin mining is self-employed income "in any case".
• Salary in crypto: employment income, shown on your salary certificate (box 1 or 3) at its franc value when paid.

Costs directly linked to earning these yields are deductible; transaction fees for buying, switching or selling are not. Switzerland's 35% withholding tax (Verrechnungssteuer) does not apply to payment tokens – the FTA states they are not subject to it – so staking rewards are declared as income without withholding tax.

Professional trader: when tax-free becomes taxable

If your activity goes beyond the "simple management" of private wealth, capital gains become self-employment income (Art. 18(2) DBG). To draw the line, the FTA applies Circular No. 36 on professional securities trading to crypto by analogy. It contains a safe haven: if all five criteria are met at the same time, the tax authorities assume private asset management in every case.

1. Coins sold were held for at least six months.
2. Trading volume – the sum of all purchases and sales – in a calendar year does not exceed five times your securities and account balances at the start of the tax period.
3. Realised capital gains are less than 50% of your net income.
4. Your investments are not financed with borrowed money – or your investment income exceeds the corresponding debt interest.
5. Derivatives are used only to hedge your own positions.

An example: start the year with CHF 50,000 and buy and sell CHF 400,000 worth during the year, and you exceed five times your portfolio (CHF 250,000) by a wide margin. That does not make you a professional automatically – the tax office then looks at all the circumstances, chiefly volume, short holding periods, borrowed money and speculative derivatives. For crypto, the strongest red flags are futures, margin trading and leveraged perpetuals. Cantons add their own nuances: Thurgau's practice, for instance, names a minimum holding period of one year rather than six months.

Social security is often overlooked. A professional trader's gains are self-employment income, subject to contributions to AHV (8.1%), IV (1.4%) and EO (0.5%) – 10% in total, on a sliding scale for annual incomes below CHF 60,500 (leaflet 2.02).

Losses, hacks and lost seed phrases

Because private gains are tax-free, private losses are not deductible. That includes losses from an exchange collapse, a hack or a crypto scam. The tax office shares neither your gains nor your losses. The only indirect effect: wealth tax is calculated on the lower value at 31 December. If you have demonstrably lost access to a wallet, agree the valuation with your tax office rather than simply leaving it out.

DeFi, NFTs and tokens with special rights

The FTA working paper covers payment, investment and utility tokens, but not DeFi protocols or NFTs in detail. The general principles apply: new tokens received as a reward – for providing liquidity, say – are income when they arrive. A straight swap within private wealth remains tax-neutral. NFTs are part of your wealth and declared at market value; if you create and sell your own NFTs, the proceeds are income.

For investment tokens carrying debt or equity rights, withholding tax can apply: interest on debt tokens and dividends on equity tokens are subject to it, just like bonds and shares. Crypto ETPs are securities and appear in the price list under their security number. Pillar 3a is a special case: finpension and VIAC offer bitcoin products with an allocation cap. Inside 3a there is no wealth or income tax during the term; only the withdrawal is taxed, via the capital withdrawal tax.

What differs from canton to canton

Thanks to tax harmonisation, the principles are the same everywhere. Differences lie in tariffs and allowances (see the table above), forms and practice details. Zug and Aargau, for example, ask for the code "KR" for crypto in the securities list, while Zurich requires a wallet statement as at 31 December as proof. Filing deadlines vary too. If you are taxed at source (Quellensteuer) on a B permit, crypto may still matter: an ordinary assessment becomes mandatory, for example, once your gross salary reaches CHF 120,000 – check with your canton what applies to your assets. US citizens remain taxable in the US on top of everything here.

Two places go one step further: Canton Zug has accepted tax payments in bitcoin and ether since 2021, and the city of Lugano accepts municipal fees and taxes in BTC or USDT. Details are in our guide to paying taxes in bitcoin.

CARF: foreign exchanges will report to Switzerland

Until now, Swiss tax offices only knew about accounts at foreign crypto exchanges from what you declared yourself. That changes with CARFThe OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework: a standard for automatically exchanging account data between crypto providers and tax authorities in different countries., the automatic exchange of information on crypto-assets. Kraken, Coinbase and other providers in partner states will then report data on their Swiss-resident customers to the FTA – and Swiss providers will report on foreign customers.

1. June 2025

   The Federal Council adopts its dispatch, proposing 74 partner states including all EU members and the United Kingdom.

2. 26 Sep 2025

   Parliament approves the legal basis in its final vote.

3. 1 Jan 2026

   Amendments to the exchange of financial account information (CRS) take effect; certain crypto-assets now count as financial assets.

4. Next step

   According to SIF, the data exchange under CARF starts only once Parliament has approved the partner states.

Until CARF exchanges with partner states begin, Switzerland receives no crypto data from abroad, according to the State Secretariat for International Finance (SIF). If you have not declared crypto correctly in past years, a penalty-free voluntary disclosure lets you put it right: once in a lifetime you pay only back taxes and late-payment interest, with no fine – provided the authorities do not already know (Art. 175(3) DBG).