How IRD taxes crypto, in plain Kiwi English

Is crypto taxed in New Zealand?

Yes, in most cases. Inland Revenue treats crypto-assets as a form of property for tax purposes — not currency, not a special class of its own. That puts crypto under the same rules as any other property you might buy and sell, and the key rule is simple to state and harder to apply: if you acquired the property for the purpose of disposing of it, the profit when you dispose of it is taxable income.

IRD’s buying and selling guidance lists three ways crypto profits become taxable: you bought with the main purpose of selling or exchanging later; you are in the business of trading crypto; or the purchase was part of a profit-making undertaking or scheme. The first test catches most people. Bitcoin doesn’t pay a dividend or rent, so for most buyers the only way to benefit is to sell or swap it eventually — and IRD reads that as purpose of disposal, even if you planned to hold for years.

So when you hear “there’s no capital gains tax in New Zealand”, it’s true in general but mostly irrelevant for crypto. The profit isn’t taxed at a special capital gains rate; it is ordinary income, added to your salary, interest and anything else, and taxed at your marginal rate.

What counts as a disposal?

Tax arises when you dispose of crypto, not while you hold it. IRD is explicit that unrealised gains and losses are neither taxable nor deductible. A disposal includes more than a sale for NZ dollars, though, and this is where people get caught:

The crypto-to-crypto rule is the one that surprises people most. If you bought 1 ETH for NZ$3,000 and later swapped it for SOL worth NZ$5,000, you have NZ$2,000 of income in that tax year, even though no NZ dollars ever reached your bank. The SOL then starts life with a cost of NZ$5,000. Moving coins between your own wallets and accounts is not a disposal — but keep the records so it doesn’t look like one.

How to work out your crypto income in NZD

IRD’s formula on its calculating cryptoasset income page is: income = sale price − purchase cost − transaction fees, all in New Zealand dollars. If you traded in USD or USDT, convert each leg to NZD using a reasonable rate for the day. When you have bought the same coin at different prices, IRD allows two ways to work out the cost of what you sold: first-in first-out (FIFO) or weighted average cost. Pick one and use it consistently; tax software built for New Zealand supports both.

The New Zealand tax year runs from 1 April to 31 March. Crypto income goes on your individual income tax return, the IR3, which is normally due on 7 July after the year ends (later if you use a tax agent). If PAYE on your salary is your only other tax, you still need to file an IR3 when you have taxable crypto income — it won’t be picked up automatically.

Crypto tax rates in NZ, with worked examples

Crypto profit is taxed at whatever marginal rate it falls into once it is added to your other income. These are the individual rates IRD lists from 1 April 2025:

Example 1 — a typical salary. Aroha earns NZ$60,000. She bought bitcoin for NZ$4,000 and sells it for NZ$10,000, paying NZ$40 in exchange fees across both trades. Her crypto income is NZ$10,000 − NZ$4,000 − NZ$40 = NZ$5,960. Her total income rises to NZ$65,960, all of the extra sitting in the 30% band, so she owes about NZ$1,788 on the crypto.

Example 2 — a student. Sam earns NZ$14,000 from a part-time job and makes NZ$3,000 on a coin he bought to flip. The first NZ$1,600 of the gain fills the rest of the 10.5% band (NZ$168) and the remaining NZ$1,400 is taxed at 17.5% (NZ$245): about NZ$413 in total.

Example 3 — crossing into 39%. Mere earns NZ$175,000 and realises a NZ$20,000 crypto gain. NZ$5,000 is taxed at 33% (NZ$1,650) and NZ$15,000 at 39% (NZ$5,850), so about NZ$7,500. Timing matters here: the same gain realised in a lower-income year would cost less.

These figures ignore tax credits and other adjustments, and they assume the crypto was acquired for disposal. They are illustrations, not a calculation of your bill.

Staking, mining, airdrops and getting paid in crypto

Mining and staking. IRD’s mining guidance says mining rewards are generally taxable, and it treats staking as a form of mining. The rewards are income at their NZD value when you receive them, and that value becomes their cost for working out any profit when you later sell. Running a mining operation as a business brings trading-stock rules into play — worth a conversation with an accountant.

Airdrops and hard forks. These may be taxable on receipt, on disposal, or both, depending on whether you did something to receive them and why you hold them. A random airdrop you did nothing for is treated differently from tokens you earned by providing a service.

Salary in crypto. Employers can pay part of a salary in crypto. IRD’s binding ruling BR Pub 23/04 says regular, fixed-amount salary or wages paid in crypto-assets that meet the ruling’s conditions are PAYE income, so tax is deducted like any other pay. Crypto given as a perk may instead attract fringe benefit tax; IRD’s business pages cover both.

Crypto and GST

Buying and selling crypto is not subject to GST. Parliament excluded crypto-assets from GST in the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2021–22, GST, and Remedial Matters) Act 2022, backdated to 1 January 2009, so you won’t see GST on an exchange invoice. If you run a business that takes crypto as payment, GST is still charged on the goods or services you sell, at their NZD value, as IRD’s GST page explains. Our guide to accepting crypto payments in New Zealand walks through that from the shop counter.

CARF: exchanges now report to IRD

The biggest change for ordinary holders is visibility. New Zealand has adopted the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, and IRD’s CARF overview sets out the timetable: NZ-based reporting crypto-asset service providers began collecting information on their users and transactions from 1 April 2026, the first reporting period ends 31 March 2027, and the first report is due to IRD by 30 June 2027. Providers register through myIR from March 2027.

For you, that means an exchange may ask for your IRD number, date of birth and confirmation of tax residency, and IRD’s note for crypto-asset users warns that penalties can apply if you don’t provide the information or give false details. You don’t register for anything yourself. Through annual exchanges with other tax authorities, IRD will also receive information about New Zealand residents trading on overseas platforms — using an offshore exchange no longer keeps activity out of view.

Can you legally reduce crypto tax?

You can arrange your affairs sensibly; you can’t hide income. Legitimate ways to pay no more than you owe include claiming every allowable cost (exchange fees and network fees on disposals), choosing FIFO or weighted average and applying it consistently, realising losses on coins you have genuinely decided to sell so they offset gains, and being aware of which tax year a disposal falls into when your income changes. IRD confirms that losses from taxable disposals offset other crypto profits first and then other income.

What doesn’t work: assuming crypto-to-crypto swaps are tax-free, routing trades through an overseas exchange in the hope IRD won’t notice, or cashing out through P2P or ATMs to avoid a bank trail. Leaving income off a return is evasion, which carries penalties and, in serious cases, prosecution. If you are leaving New Zealand, tax-residency rules matter too — that is a question for a professional, not a forum thread.

Records IRD expects you to keep

IRD’s record-keeping page asks for the type of crypto, the date and type of each transaction, the number of units, the NZD value at the time, opening and closing holdings for the year, exchange records and bank statements, and the wallet addresses you used. Keep them for at least seven years.

Download CSVs from every platform at least once a year, including ones that have closed or changed hands. Easy Crypto customers who moved to Swyftx should make sure their history before 30 March 2026 is saved — our Easy Crypto page covers what happened. If you keep coins in a hardware or app wallet, note the public addresses as well; the wallet guide explains where to find them.

Got it wrong? Voluntary disclosure

If you’ve left crypto income off past returns, telling IRD before it tells you is the cheapest fix. Under IRD’s shortfall penalty rules, a full voluntary disclosure made before you receive notice of an audit or investigation can reduce the penalty by 75–100%; disclosing after the first notice but before the audit begins earns a 40% reduction. You still pay the tax and use-of-money interest, but the penalty difference can be large — and with CARF data arriving from mid-2027, the window for an “early” disclosure is narrowing.

When to use an accountant or tax agent

A spreadsheet is fine if you bought a few coins on one exchange and sold once. Bring in a chartered accountant or registered tax agent if you trade often, use DeFi, staking or lending, hold through a company or trust, received crypto from an employer, moved to or from New Zealand, or need to make a voluntary disclosure. A tax agent can also extend your IR3 deadline. Ask whether they have handled crypto before and which software they use — a good one will want your full export from every platform, including any you used on the way to cashing out to NZD.

Tax sits alongside the rest of the rulebook: our guide to crypto law in New Zealand covers the FMA, DIA and anti-money laundering rules that make exchanges ask for ID in the first place. If you’re just getting started, the how-to-buy guide shows platforms that make exporting records easy, and the platform comparison on our home page notes which ones take NZD directly.