Crypto Tax in the United Kingdom: Capital Gains, Pooling, and the 30-Day Rule
2026-09-08
General information, not tax or legal advice. UK rules turn on the facts of each person, so treat this as a map of the HMRC guidance, not a personal answer.
The Key Distinction: Disposals Versus Receipts
Most UK individuals pay Capital Gains Tax when they dispose of exchange tokens at a gain, and Income Tax when they receive tokens as income. HMRC sell-cryptoassets guidance covers the CGT side, while the receive-cryptoassets guidance covers mining, staking, lending, and pay in crypto. Whether buying and selling amounts to trading is a question of fact turning on frequency, organisation, and sophistication; only in exceptional cases would HMRC expect an individual to be a financial trader, per CRYPTO20250, with Income Tax then taking priority over CGT.
Sales, Swaps, Spending, and Gifts
A disposal includes selling for pounds, swapping one token for another, paying for goods or services, and giving tokens away, apart from gifts to a spouse, civil partner, or charity, per HMRC sell-cryptoassets guidance. Gains are worked out per transaction across the 6 April to 5 April tax year against the annual exempt amount, using market value where connected persons are involved. Check current rates and the exempt amount on GOV.UK before filing, because both move over time.
Pooling, the Same-Day Rule, and the 30-Day Rule
Instead of tracking individual coins, group each token type into a Section 104 pool whose allowable cost rises with each acquisition and falls with each disposal, as the Cryptoassets Manual on pooling explains. A disposal is matched first with same-day acquisitions, then with acquisitions of the same token in the following 30 days (earliest disposal first), and only any remainder comes out of the pool. NFTs are separately identifiable and skip pooling entirely.
Staking, Mining, and Being Paid in Crypto
Tokens from mining, staking, lending, or liquidity pools received outside a trade count as other taxable income, with a small miscellaneous allowance absorbing the first slice each year, per HMRC receive-cryptoassets guidance. Salary paid in exchange tokens like bitcoin is money's worth handled through PAYE. Amounts already taxed as income form your cost base, so a later sale triggers CGT only on the further gain.
Losses
Capital losses on tokens can reduce your gains, but you must report them to HMRC before using them, per HMRC sell-cryptoassets guidance. Fees, valuation costs, and a share of pooled cost are allowable; mining equipment and electricity are not deductible in the CGT calculation, and costs already relieved against Income Tax cannot be deducted again.
Simple Hypothetical Example
Say you buy 100 units of token XY at 2 pounds each, then 300 more at 1 pound each: the pool holds 400 units costing 500 pounds, averaging 1.25 pounds. Selling 200 units assigns 250 pounds of pooled cost to the sale, and the gain is proceeds minus that 250 pounds and any fees. This assumes no same-day acquisitions, no repurchases in the following 30 days, and no other allowable costs, and mirrors the structure of HMRC own pooling illustration.
Recordkeeping and Residency Cautions
Keep per-transaction records for every pool: token type, dates, quantities, sterling values, bank statements, and pooled costs before and after, plus wallet addresses, as the Cryptoassets Manual on pooling requires. Exchange reports may be incomplete across wallets and platforms, so keep your own books and file in sterling through Self Assessment or the real-time CGT service. Generally, UK residents face tax on worldwide disposals wherever the exchange sits; platform location does not set residence, and cross-border and new-arrival reliefs are outside this article's scope.
Sources and Scope
Sources checked: 8 September 2026. This article follows Check if you need to pay tax when you sell cryptoassets, Check if you need to pay tax when you receive cryptoassets, and CRYPTO22200 on pooling. It covers UK-resident individuals holding exchange tokens, not trading businesses or security-like tokens. For the wider picture see Crypto Tax by Country and Crypto Regulatory Landscape Evolving 2026.