Every Australian who traded crypto in the 2025–26 financial year needs to report it. The Australian Taxation Office knows about your activity — it data-matches with every licensed exchange in the country — so reporting is no longer optional, even for small positions. The good news is the process is more straightforward than most traders expect. This is your step-by-step guide to filing crypto trades on ATO myTax for the year ending 30 June 2026, with a lodgement deadline of 31 October 2026.
Before you start: gather what you need
The hardest part of crypto tax isn’t the lodging — it’s the record-keeping. The ATO requires detailed transaction history for at least five years, in Australian dollars, with timestamps and the purpose of every transaction. If you’ve used a single exchange and your record-keeping is tidy, you can probably do this manually. If you’ve used multiple platforms or done any DeFi activity, you’ll save hours by using a crypto tax tool.
What you need for each trade:
- Date of acquisition (purchase or receipt)
- Date of disposal (sale, swap, spend, or gift)
- Cost base in AUD at the time of acquisition (including fees)
- Proceeds in AUD at the time of disposal
- Wallet addresses or exchange account references
- Purpose of the transaction (investment, personal use, business)
Most exchanges let you export a full CSV of your account history. Download it now — it’s quicker to do this before EOFY than to chase it down later when you actually need it.
The two tax treatments you need to know
The ATO treats crypto activity in two different ways, depending on what you did.
Capital gains tax (CGT)
If you bought crypto as an investment and later sold it, swapped it, spent it, or gifted it, that’s a CGT event. You calculate the gain or loss as proceeds minus cost base. Holding the asset for at least twelve months as an individual investor currently entitles you to a 50% CGT discount on the gain — though this discount is being scrapped from July 2027 under the 2026–27 federal budget.
Ordinary income
If you earned crypto — staking rewards, mining rewards, airdrops, salary paid in crypto, or yield from DeFi protocols — that’s assessable income. The Australian dollar value at the time you received it is what counts. Later, when you sell that received crypto, you trigger a separate CGT event using that received-value as the cost base.
One nuance worth knowing: initial allocation airdrops are not taxable on receipt under current ATO guidance. They become taxable as CGT only when later disposed of.
Step-by-step: filing crypto on ATO myTax
Here’s the process from start to lodgement.
Step 1 — Calculate your totals
Before opening myTax, work out the four numbers you’ll enter: total current year capital gains, net capital gain after CGT discount, net capital loss to carry forward (if applicable), and total crypto income earned. A crypto tax tool will calculate these automatically; manually you’ll work line by line through every disposal.
Step 2 — Log in to myGov and select myTax
Sign in to myGov, link your account to the ATO if you haven’t already, and open myTax. Select “Prepare” for the 2025–26 return. The system will pre-fill some information from your employer, bank, and any data the ATO already has — if you see a flag indicating known crypto holdings, that’s the ATO’s data-matching at work.
Step 3 — Personalise your return
On the “Personalise return” screen, tick three boxes that relate to crypto: “You had Australian interest, or other Australian income or losses from investments or property” (for any crypto income); “You had capital gains tax (CGT) related items” (for crypto disposals); and “You had deductions you want to claim” (if you have related expenses).
Step 4 — Enter your capital gains
On the “Prepare return” page, click “Add/Edit” next to Capital gains or losses. Enter your total current year capital gains in the first box, then your net capital gain (after the 50% CGT discount and any losses) in the net capital gain box. If you only made a capital loss for the year, enter that figure in the net capital loss carried forward to later income years box.
Step 5 — Enter your crypto income
Crypto income from staking, mining, airdrops, or yield gets reported under “Other income” — section 24 of the return. Enter the AUD value of crypto received as ordinary income during the financial year.
Step 6 — Review and lodge
Run through the summary screens, check the figures match your records, and lodge. You’ll receive a notice of assessment within a couple of weeks if everything balances. Keep your supporting records — CSV exports, tax tool reports, screenshots — for at least five years, which means until at least 2031.
Five mistakes that cost Australian crypto traders
The ATO has been increasingly active on crypto compliance. Avoid these in particular.
- Treating swaps as non-events. Swapping BTC for ETH is a CGT event. So is providing liquidity to a DeFi protocol. The ATO views these as a disposal of one asset and acquisition of another.
- Forgetting about wallet-to-wallet transfers. Moving crypto between your own wallets is not a taxable event, but you must keep records proving both wallets belong to you. Otherwise the ATO may treat it as a disposal.
- Wash sales. Selling a losing position purely to claim the loss, then buying back immediately, can be disallowed under the ATO’s anti-avoidance rules.
- Missing the deadline. Individual returns are due 31 October 2026. Lodging through a registered tax agent extends this to 15 May 2027.
- Not lodging at all. Penalties for failure to report income range from 25% to 75% of the tax shortfall, plus interest. Voluntary disclosure can reduce this to as low as 5%.
When to bring in a tax agent
Most retail traders with straightforward activity can lodge through myTax themselves. Bring in a registered tax agent if you’ve done any of the following: more than a thousand transactions in the year, significant DeFi or wrapped-token activity, business-level trading (not investing), crypto held in an SMSF, NFT trading at scale, or any disposal of crypto received from before 2017 where records are thin.
The cost of a competent crypto tax agent is usually less than the penalty for getting it wrong.
Key dates to mark
- 30 June 2026 — End of the financial year. Last day to realise losses for the 2025–26 tax year.
- 1 July 2026 — Start of the 2026–27 financial year. ATO begins processing 2025–26 returns.
- 31 October 2026 — Individual lodgement deadline (self-prepared via myTax).
- 15 May 2027 — Lodgement deadline if using a registered tax agent.
- 1 July 2027 — Proposed end of the 50% CGT discount for new long-term gains under the 2026–27 federal budget.
For more on AI-assisted trading and how a regulated platform handles record-keeping, our How It Works page walks through the platform. The FAQ covers tax-adjacent questions in plain English.
This article is general in nature and does not constitute tax, legal, or financial advice. Tax laws and ATO guidance change. Speak to a registered tax agent or qualified accountant for advice tailored to your situation. Information is current as of the date of publication.