Crypto on the Spanish Renta: when you must declare

The ideas in this guide are there to explain when cryptocurrencies belong on Renta and what stays on Modelo 721. With Aitax you upload the documents: the AI takes care of the heavy lifting. You check that the figures are right. If a question comes up, you ask the specialised AI, trained on the law as it stands.

Holding cryptocurrency does not, by itself, mean you must put it on your Spanish income tax return (Renta). Spain’s tax agency, the Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria (AEAT), says so in writing: merely holding or buying virtual currency does not go on personal income tax (IRPF, Impuesto sobre la Renta de las Personas Físicas). What you must declare are the incomes from transactions: selling for euros or another legal-tender currency, swapping one virtual currency for another, using coins to pay for a good or a service, and staking rewards. If those transactions lost money, you declare that too: losses offset gains in the savings tax base.

Modelo 721 is a separate duty. It is a snapshot of balances held abroad at 31 December, if you reach the threshold. Because it is informative it has no tax due and it does not replace Renta. The detail is in Do I need to file Modelo 721? and 720, 721 or Renta.

Updated 10 October 2026. Sources: the AEAT 2026 Renta helper on virtual currencies, the 2025 IRPF practical manual, virtual currencies, the Spanish Personal Income Tax Act (Ley 35/2006) and binding rulings of the Dirección General de Tributos (DGT) V0808-18, V0999-18, V1604-18 and V1766-22.

Sales, swaps, payments and staking

Outside a business activity, selling virtual currency for euros is a capital gain or loss: transfer value minus acquisition value, plus costs that relate directly to the deal. It is taxed in the year you deliver the coins, not the day the cash hits your account.

Swapping one virtual currency for another is a barter (permuta). There is a gain or loss here too. The transfer value is the higher of the market value of what you give and of what you receive. That same figure becomes the cost of the new coins.

Paying for a good or a service with crypto is delivering those coins. The gain or loss is the difference against what they cost you.

If you bought the same coin on different dates and you only sell or swap part of it, Hacienda treats the oldest units as the ones that leave first.

Staking rewards, when you only lock coins to earn a return, are income from movable capital paid in kind. They are valued at the euro market price on the day you receive them and go into the savings base. If locking ether gives you a different token, that exchange is a barter.

All of this goes on the Renta for the year it happened, in the virtual-currency section.

Mere holding does not go on Renta

If you only bought and still hold, there is no IRPF income from a price rise you have not realised. The AEAT helper puts it in one sentence: do not include mere holding or a purchase.

Not having sold for euros is one thing. Not having traded is another. If you swapped bitcoin for ether, or paid in a shop with crypto, that is already a Renta transaction. You do not need to have gone through euros.

Modelo 721 is a separate question. It does not ask whether you sold: it asks how much you still held on 31 December at a foreign exchange. If that balance reaches the threshold, you must file it even if you have not sold a single coin. The detail is in Do I need to file Modelo 721?.

Losses are declared as well

Losing money does not excuse you from filing. Losses from sales and swaps go into the savings base and offset that year’s gains, within the statutory limits. If you leave them out, you cannot use them. The exchange statement and the purchase history are the proof; a closing balance is not enough.

A platform collapse is not a sale. The AEAT treats it as a loss in the general tax base when the claim becomes legally uncollectible. Filing a complaint, on its own, is not enough.

If you do not declare the transactions

Leaving out a sale, a swap or staking is not the 721 regime. Modelo 721 is informative. Here the issue is IRPF tax due: what you should have paid and did not. How to correct a Renta is in what happens if you misreport share gains. What 721 does not cover is in what happens if you do not file Modelo 721.

If you notice and file that Renta again — this time with the crypto — before Hacienda writes to you, there is usually no fine. There is a surcharge: a percentage of what you should have paid, and it rises the more months that pass. After a year the surcharge is higher and interest is added. That is in article 27 of the General Tax Act. If Hacienda writes first, that surcharge no longer applies and there can be a penalty. Spanish exchanges already send it balances and trades (models 172 and 173). The tax draft can arrive incomplete: a missing line does not mean the income does not exist.

What Aitax does with that history

A handful of sales you can do by hand. With years of history you do not have to sit down and rebuild every swap and every reward. You upload the statements — or connect the exchange read-only — and Aitax leaves sales, swaps and staking in the Renta format. You check that it fits. You file it yourself at the AEAT website.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to declare cryptocurrency if I have not sold?
Not on Renta, if you had no transactions and no rewards. Modelo 721 is a separate question, and it depends on the 31 December balance.

Do I have to declare it if I lost money?
Yes, if the loss comes from a sale or a swap. That is how you offset it. If you omit it, it does not count.

What happens if I do not declare cryptocurrency?
If there was tax to pay and you left it out, that amount still has to be paid. If you correct it yourself before Hacienda writes, there is usually a surcharge, not a fine. If Hacienda writes first, there can be a penalty. Modelo 721, if it applied, is regularised separately.

Does a bitcoin-for-ether swap tax even if no euros move?
Yes. It is a barter. You declare it in the year of the swap.

Does staking wait until I sell the coins I received?
No. The reward is declared when you receive it, at that day’s market value. When you later sell those coins, there is a second income on the difference.

How to prepare Renta with Aitax

You do not have to spend the afternoon rebuilding every movement. Upload the statements, check that it fits, and file it yourself at the AEAT.

Prepare crypto on Spanish income tax · Do I need Modelo 721?