How much is crypto taxed in the UK, with the actual arithmetic
Three numbers answer this question for almost everyone. £3,000, the tax-free annual exempt amount. 18%, the rate on gains that fit inside your unused basic rate Income Tax band. 24%, the rate above it. There is no special crypto tax rate in the UK, crypto gains are capital gains, and the only genuinely fiddly part is the band arithmetic, so this page does that arithmetic in public, three investors, identical £10,000 gain, different incomes, current year figures verified against HMRC’s pages today.
The same gain, three different bills
The basic rate band gives gains 18% treatment until your income plus gains cross £50,270, HMRC’s higher-rate threshold. Watch it work.
Aisha earns £30,000. Her income sits £20,270 short of the threshold, so all of her taxable gain fits in the band.
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Gain | £10,000.00 |
| Minus annual exempt amount | −£3,000.00 |
| Taxable | £7,000.00 |
| All at 18% | £1,260.00 |
Ben earns £47,000. Only £3,270 of band remains, so his gain straddles the threshold.
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Taxable, as above | £7,000.00 |
| £3,270 at 18% | £588.60 |
| £3,730 at 24% | £895.20 |
| Total | £1,483.80 |
Chloe earns £70,000. No band remains, everything above the allowance is 24%.
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Taxable | £7,000.00 |
| All at 24% | £1,680.00 |
Same gain, £1,260 to £1,680, and the spread grows with bigger gains. Run your own numbers in the CGT calculator, it applies the correct figures for any year back to 2021 to 2022 and shows this exact working.
The rates were different recently, and it matters
Older years get filed all the time, and the numbers moved twice. The allowance collapsed from £12,300 to £6,000 to £3,000 across three Aprils, and on 30 October 2024 the rates jumped mid-year from 10% and 20% to 18% and 24%, so the 2024 to 2025 year taxes identical disposals differently depending on their date. The full guide’s year-by-year table has every figure with sources, and software computing old years has to carry each year’s rules separately, which gains.tax does.
Income is the other, bigger rate
Everything above concerns disposals. Crypto that arrives as income, staking rewards, mining, getting paid in tokens, is taxed at your marginal Income Tax rate on the sterling value at receipt, which for higher earners means 40% or 45%, not 18% or 24%. The received value then becomes your acquisition cost, so nothing is taxed twice. Two ledgers, two rate schedules, one app that keeps them straight on your machine, free below 1,000 transactions.
The percentages are the easy half. The hard half is the gain itself, computed under matching rules across your whole history, and that is the half where the real money hides. General information, not personal advice, the vetted professionals exist for the edge cases.