MSTR Cat

Crypto Law/Level VIII · Around the world/8.2 Europe/Lesson 2

DAC8: EU tax reporting

How the EU’s eighth amendment to its tax-cooperation directive makes crypto platforms collect tax residence data and report every customer’s yearly activity, and what is still unfinished in member-state law.

Education, not legal, tax or investment advice. Crypto law differs between countries and states and changes often. Check the current rules where you live with a qualified lawyer or tax adviser before you act.

The lean path

The cheapest, lowest-tax, simplest and most private route the law allows, best first. Each step names the rule it rests on and the condition that keeps it lawful.

  1. Coins in your own wallet are not reported as a balance under DAC8; only a provider’s transfers out to unknown wallet addresses appear in its yearly totals. Catch: self-custody gives no privacy from tax; gains are still declared.
  2. Give each provider a correct tax-residence self-certification and TIN at onboarding, or for existing customers by 1 January 2027. Catch: after two reminders and at least 60 days, Annex VI requires the provider to block your reportable transactions.
  3. Using a non-EU platform brings no reporting advantage: crypto-asset operators serving EU residents must register in one member state under Article 8ad(7). Catch: national penalties apply to providers, and your own home-country reporting duties apply regardless.
  4. Keep your own records reconciled with each platform’s yearly totals, since data for 2026 reaches your home tax authority by the end of September 2027. Catch: providers keep records for five to ten years, so mismatches can surface late.

MaterialsCouncil Directive (EU) 2023/2226 (DAC8), especially new Article 8ad and Annex VI, on EUR-LexYour crypto platform’s tax self-certification form and its privacy notice about tax reportingThe annual statement or transaction export from each EU platform you useLesson 7.2.7 on the OECD’s CARF, which DAC8 builds on

Wonder

  1. Will my exchange really send my name and trading totals to the tax office, and from when?
  2. Does DAC8 see coins I hold in my own wallet?
  3. What can my exchange do if I refuse to give it my tax number?

Explore

  1. DAC8 is Council Directive (EU) 2023/2226 of 17 October 2023, published in the Official Journal on 24 October 2023. It amends Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in taxation, which already made banks and digital platforms report to tax authorities. DAC8 adds crypto, bringing the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (lesson 7.2.7) into EU law, with updates to the bank-account rules as well. Because it is a tax directive adopted unanimously by the Council, it does not apply directly the way MiCA does: member states had to adopt and publish national laws by 31 December 2025 and apply them from 1 January 2026. Germany, for example, did so through the Kryptowerte-Steuertransparenz-Gesetz (KStTG) of 22 December 2025.
  2. The reporting duty falls on Reporting Crypto-Asset Service Providers. These are MiCA-authorised service providers, plus ‘crypto-asset operators’, meaning providers outside the EU that serve EU residents. Under Article 8ad(7) an operator must register with the tax authority of a single member state, and the Commission had to set up a central register of such operators by 31 December 2025. A provider authorised under MiCA does not register separately. The approach is deliberate: an offshore exchange serving EU residents cannot avoid reporting simply by staying outside MiCA, and losing its registration means it can re-register only after giving assurances that it will comply, including on reports it failed to file.
  3. What gets reported is set out in Article 8ad(3). For each reportable user the provider sends name, address, residence, tax identification number (TIN) and date and place of birth. For each type of crypto-asset it reports yearly totals, not individual trades: acquisitions and disposals against fiat, exchanges into and out of other crypto-assets, retail payments above USD 50,000, other transfers in and out, and transfers to wallet addresses not known to belong to a service provider. That last item means coins moved to self-custody are not reported as a balance, but the outflow is. Central bank digital currencies and e-money fall outside crypto reporting and are covered by the updated account-reporting rules instead.
  4. The due-diligence rules have teeth. Providers must obtain a self-certification of tax residence when onboarding a customer, and for customers they already had, by 1 January 2027. Under Annex VI, Section V, if a user still has not provided the information after two reminders, and no earlier than 60 days after the first request, the provider must prevent that user from carrying out reportable transactions. Records must be kept for at least five and no more than ten years. Penalties are set nationally under Article 25a and must be ‘effective, proportionate and dissuasive’. Germany’s KStTG requires providers to report to the Federal Central Tax Office by 31 July each year.
  5. Under Article 8ad(6) the tax authority holding the providers’ reports must pass the data to the users’ states of residence within nine months after the end of each calendar year. The first reportable year is 2026, so the first cross-border exchange is due by the end of September 2027. Use of the data is wider than income tax: amended Article 16 allows its use for VAT, other indirect taxes, customs and anti-money-laundering, and without the sender’s permission for EU sanctions purposes. From taxable periods starting on or after 1 January 2028, the directive also requires TINs in several other information streams.
  6. Implementation is uneven. On 30 January 2026 the Commission sent letters of formal notice to 12 states for failing to fully transpose DAC8: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal. In Spain, the bill amending the General Tax Law to partly transpose DAC8 lapsed when Parliament was dissolved on 6 October 2026 (lesson 8.2.5). Late national law does not mean no reporting: large platforms are collecting data across the Union, and the directive itself dates the obligation from 2026. A practical check: confirm that the tax residence and TIN each platform holds for you are correct, and keep your own records reconciled with its yearly totals.

Key facts

  • DAC8 is Council Directive (EU) 2023/2226 of 17 October 2023, amending Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in taxation.
  • Member states had to adopt DAC8 rules by 31 December 2025 and apply them from 1 January 2026.
  • A crypto-asset operator from outside the EU serving EU residents must register with the tax authority of a single member state under Article 8ad(7).
  • Providers report yearly per-asset totals, including transfers to wallet addresses not known to belong to a service provider.
  • If a user ignores two reminders, and no earlier than 60 days after the first request, the provider must block that user’s reportable transactions.
  • Tax authorities must exchange DAC8 data within nine months after the calendar year, so data for 2026 is due by the end of September 2027.

Exercise nine, six, three, one

9CollectList up to 9 crypto accounts, platforms or wallets you use or know of, noting for each whether it is EU-authorised, outside the EU, or self-custody.
6ClusterSort them into 6 groups: MiCA-authorised EU platforms, non-EU platforms with EU users, self-custody wallets, accounts with missing tax details, accounts with large transfers out, and accounts you have closed.
3DistillReduce the 6 to 3: the accounts whose DAC8 report would most likely differ from what you would expect it to show.
1CrystallizeWrite 1 sentence describing what a tax authority would see about your crypto activity for 2026 if every platform reported correctly.

Fact check

Dates, figures and claims checked against the published sources listed below.

Open in the interactive academy →

PT ES ZH JA KO RU DE FR MS