In brief
- Greece's parliament approved a 10% tax on annual net cryptocurrency gains exceeding €500 ($557), with the rules scheduled to apply from January 2027.
- Income from staking, crypto lending and DeFi liquidity provision will face a separate 15% tax.
- A parliamentary review warned that crypto-to-crypto swaps could be taxable under the law's wording, despite the government's stated intention to exempt them.
Greece's parliament passed a bill Thursday imposing a 10% capital-gains tax on cryptocurrency profits, marking a shift from a proposal discussed in October to legislation approved by lawmakers.
The measure also puts a 15% tax on income from staking, crypto lending and decentralized finance, or DeFi.
The legislations crypto provisions sit inside a wider Finance Ministry package dealing with debt servicing, financial oversight, and government accounting, with the new crypto income-tax rules scheduled for January 1, 2027.
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Individual investors with annual net crypto gains of €500 ($557) or less will be exempt. Cross that threshold, though, and the 10% tax applies to the entire gain, rather than just the amount over €500 ($557).
For example, an investor with €600 ($669) in net gains would face a €60 ($67) tax under the new rate, not €10 ($11). The rules generally calculate gains by subtracting the acquisition cost from the value received when the crypto is disposed of.
Selling Bitcoin for euros is one taxable event, but spending crypto on goods or services can also count as a disposal. Investors will need transaction records to establish what they paid for their assets and what those assets were worth when sold or spent.
Yield from staking, lending, and providing liquidity to DeFi protocols is treated differently. Greece will classify those returns as interest income and tax them at 15%, according to the Finance Ministry.
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Qualifying crypto losses exceeding €500 ($557) can be carried forward for five years and offset against future crypto gains. The bill also gives investors a 12-month window to voluntarily declare previously unreported crypto income without late-filing penalties or interest, provided they meet its conditions and pay within 60 days of filing.
The passage follows an October public consultation on the proposal.The draft proposed a 10% rate that was already lower than the 15% levy Greek officials had discussed in June.
Crypto swaps remain a tax question
Athens says exchanging one cryptocurrency for another should not itself trigger a capital-gains tax. But the wording lawmakers approved may not make that exclusion as clear as the government intended.
A review by parliament's Scientific Service flagged the bill's broad language covering disposals made “for consideration.” That phrase could include token-to-token trades, the review said, even though the accompanying explanation says such swaps should not create taxable gains.
The reviewers recommended an explicit exemption and suggested clearer rules for exchanges involving stablecoins and electronic-money tokens. Those details matter for traders who rotate between assets without cashing out to fiat currency.
Greece is also preparing the administrative rules needed to put the tax into practice. A senior Finance Ministry official told Reuters that guidance on transaction transparency and tax audits would be issued in the coming weeks.
The government has not estimated how much the tax will raise. Officials say the market is difficult to measure because many Greek crypto investors use trading platforms based overseas.
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