Crypto tax in Greece, Germany, Portugal and Spain: 2026 comparison

Greece, Germany, Portugal and Spain cannot be ranked by one headline tax rate. Germany has a private-sale holding-period rule, Portugal has a statutory crypto regime with a 365-day exclusion for qualifying assets, and Spain expressly treats both sales and token swaps as capital transactions. Greece is the least certain of the four because the current public AADE material lists general income and capital-gain categories but does not provide an equally detailed crypto-specific classification. Tax residence, activity, token rights and the transaction itself must be established before comparing outcomes.

Crypto tax comparison at a glance

This matrix compares a resident individual holding ordinary fungible tokens outside a company. It does not decide the treatment of security tokens, NFTs, derivatives, mining businesses, employment compensation or a person who changed residence. Those facts can move the result into a different statutory category.

Greece: do not turn a general 15% category into a crypto rule

The Greek Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) publishes general income categories. Its English and Greek pages list business income, income from capital and a 15% category for specified capital gains such as shares, partnership interests, bonds and financial derivatives. The page does not expressly say that every sale of Bitcoin or another ordinary payment token falls into that list.

That gap is important. Many secondary articles state a flat 15% rate for all private crypto gains, while others point to business-income treatment or argue that an ordinary token is outside the enumerated financial assets. Without a transaction-specific Greek authority, binding ruling or updated return instruction, tax software should not present one of those views as an automatic official result.

A Greek workpaper should therefore calculate the economic gain in euros and preserve alternative classification evidence:

• token rights and issuer documents;
• sale, swap, staking or derivative contract;
• acquisition and disposal values in EUR;
• frequency, organisation and business purpose;
• the intended E1/E3 return category confirmed by a Greek professional or authority;
• losses kept within the same confirmed legal category.

The Greek crypto-loss guide explains why a trading loss cannot be carried or offset before its income category is settled. A report may show a review amount without calling the gain tax-free or applying 15% automatically.

Germany: private sales, one year and the EUR 1,000 threshold

For German private assets, a disposal within no more than one year can fall under section 23 of the Income Tax Act. A disposal after more than one year can be exempt if the asset remains private property and no special rule changes the result. The EUR 1,000 amount is an annual exemption threshold for the combined gain from private disposal transactions, not a deduction per token and not a general tax-free portfolio allowance.

A token swap is a disposal of the token surrendered and an acquisition of the token received. The new token begins its own holding period. The Federal Ministry of Finance's March 2025 letter also confirms that using payment tokens for staking or lending does not extend their private-sale period to ten years.

Taxable short-term private gains use the individual's income-tax framework, not a universal 25% investment-income rate. Related losses are ring-fenced within the private-sale category under the statutory rules. Salary, staking, mining, lending and a genuine business are separate income questions. The English Germany guide covers wallet-level records and Anlage SO.

Portugal: 365 days, 28% and crypto-to-crypto deferral

Portugal's Personal Income Tax Code expressly covers certain crypto-asset gains. For qualifying crypto-assets that are not treated as securities, gains from assets held for less than 365 days generally enter Category G and are usually subject to the 28% special rate, with aggregation questions under the applicable rules. Gains and losses from qualifying assets held for at least 365 days are excluded under the current provision.

The exclusion is not a blanket promise that every token is tax-free after one year. Unique non-fungible assets are excluded from the statutory crypto definition for this route, security-like instruments can follow financial-asset rules, and the residence or information-exchange status of the counterparty or platform can affect specific provisions. Business activity belongs to Category B, while some remuneration paid in crypto follows its own income rule.

Where consideration for a covered disposal consists of another crypto-asset, the code generally postpones taxation and carries the acquisition value into the asset received. This differs fundamentally from Germany and Spain. Preserve the full chain from the original fiat acquisition to the eventual non-crypto disposal; otherwise the deferred basis and holding history cannot be verified.

See the Portugal crypto-tax guide for the current annex and transaction workflow. A stablecoin is not automatically fiat for this purpose merely because its price targets one euro or dollar.

Spain: every sale and swap, savings income and FIFO

The Spanish Tax Agency (AEAT) states that a private investor's sale of virtual currency for fiat creates a capital gain or loss equal to disposal value minus acquisition value and eligible direct costs. Exchanging one virtual currency for a different one is also a reportable barter transaction. The gain enters the savings-income framework rather than becoming tax-free because no euros reached a bank account.

For homogeneous units acquired at different times and prices, AEAT applies FIFO: the first units acquired are treated as the first disposed of. Its guidance states that this applies even where acquisitions and disposals took place on different exchanges. A platform-by-platform FIFO calculation can therefore be wrong when the same taxpayer holds the same token in several accounts.

Spain uses a progressive savings-income scale whose bands must be checked for the relevant return year and autonomous-region context. The comparison does not copy one rate as though it applied to the whole gain. Foreign-custody information reporting, including Modelo 721 where its conditions are met, is separate from the IRPF gain calculation. The Spain crypto-tax guide covers the filing workflow.

Worked comparison: one token bought and later sold

Assume a resident individual buys a qualifying payment token for EUR 10,000, holds it for 400 days and sells for EUR 16,000. Ignore fees, rewards and business status for this simplified comparison.

This is not a migration recommendation. A person does not choose the result by selecting a country in software. Residence, treaty tie-breakers, departure and arrival dates, permanent home, centre of vital interests, business establishment and local filing obligations determine which country can tax which period.

Cross-border residence and evidence checklist

1. Build a day-by-day residence timeline and retain registrations, housing and travel evidence.
2. Separate transactions before and after any move; check exit or deemed-disposal rules.
3. Value every event in the local reporting currency at the transaction time.
4. Trace basis through exchanges, bridges and own-wallet transfers.
5. Identify token rights, not only ticker symbols.
6. Separate spot disposals, rewards, business activity and derivatives.
7. Confirm loss offsets and carryforwards in the same legal category.
8. Reconcile information returns with the transaction workpaper.

CARF and DAC8 information exchange does not harmonise these four tax systems. A reported gross sale value is not a gain and does not decide residence. The tax return still needs locally correct basis, classification and currency conversion.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

• AADE: income categories and taxation in Greece
• German Finance Ministry: crypto income-tax guidance, 6 March 2025
• Portugal Tax Authority: Article 10 IRS Code
• Portugal Tax Authority: crypto-assets tax guide
• Spanish Tax Agency: 2025 IRPF capital-gains manual
• Spanish Tax Agency: virtual-currency sales and exchanges

Official-source review completed 1 September 2026. The Greek classification limitation is deliberate; obtain a case-specific ruling or professional advice where material.

Disclaimer: This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute tax advice. For individual tax advice, consult a licensed tax professional.