Holding crypto-assets through a company: IS, related-party transactions and interposition

The analysis of corporate holding of crypto-assets should keep a practical but sober tone, and avoid the simplification that usually leads the conversation: that a company “saves tax” merely by being taxed at a lower rate.

The IRPF–IS comparison cannot stop at the headline rate

The appeal of the corporate structure is usually presented as a difference in rates: that of Corporate Income Tax (IS) against the IRPF savings rates. That comparison exists, but it is incomplete. The underlying question is another: if the income is kept within the company to be reinvested, the structure may produce deferral and a degree of efficiency; if the real economic intention is to extract funds recurrently to the individual shareholder, the comparison must factor in the later toll of the dividend, the remuneration or the related-party transaction.

It is worth putting figures on the “toll”. IS is levied at the general rate of 25% (Article 29 LIS); the IRPF savings base is taxed progressively between 19% and 30%, the latter bracket applying to the portion exceeding €300,000, introduced by Law 7/2024 with effect from 2025. Proprietary activity is taxed under IRPF as a capital gain or loss (Articles 33.1 and 46 LIRPF). The rate differential only materialises if the income remains within the company; as soon as it is extracted by way of dividend, the sum of the 25% corporate charge and the 19–30% savings charge in the shareholder’s hands neutralises —or reverses— much of the advantage.

Put another way, the usefulness of the company depends less on the initial headline rate and more on three factors: the real economic substance, the fund-extraction policy and the ability to correctly support the accounting, valuation and documentation. A structure without substance, created only to “park” crypto-assets and then draw on the funds from the personal sphere, is far more exposed to challenge on audit.

Buying and selling for oneself: not an economic activity for IAE purposes

A recent doctrinal nuance can be added here. Ruling V1543-25, of 26 August 2025, reiterating settled doctrine of the Directorate-General for Taxes (DGT), concludes that buying and selling cryptocurrencies for oneself —whether carried out by an individual, a legal person or an entity without legal personality— does not, on its own, constitute an economic activity for the purposes of the Tax on Economic Activities (IAE), since there is no aim of taking part in the production or distribution of goods or services. The same threefold formula already appears, as a parallel precedent for IAE purposes, in V0213-23, of 9 February 2023.

That criterion does not, on its own, resolve all corporate taxation, but it helps deflate the simplistic thesis that one’s own activity, however intense, necessarily turns the company into an operating business for all purposes. A company may be taxed under IS on its results with crypto-assets without that meaning that such holding or proprietary trading allows it to present itself as a solid business structure for the purposes of wealth tax, the family-business exemption or a defence against an interposition challenge. The nuance is useful, precisely, to avoid over-conclusions in either direction.

The reverse of this criterion has implications for corporate income tax purposes. If the company’s own activity does not amount to an arrangement of means of production within the terms of Article 5.1 LIS, the company may be classified as an asset-holding entity (entidad patrimonial) under Article 5.2 LIS, with an impact not only on the family-business exemption of Article 4.Eight.Two of the Wealth Tax Act, but on the IS incentives themselves: an asset-holding entity is excluded from the reduced rates for micro-enterprises and small-sized entities, from the Article 21 LIS exemption on the transfer of shareholdings and from part of the loss-carryforward regime. The very absence of an economic activity that excludes IAE may hollow out the corporate advantage.

Related-party transactions, substance and interposition risk

The decisive warning lies in related-party transactions and in the substance of the structure. If the shareholder transfers crypto-assets to the company, provides it with management services, finances it or uses company funds for personal purposes, Article 18 of the Corporate Income Tax Act comes squarely into play, with the consequent need to value those transactions at market value and to document them correctly. Failure to document carries its own penalty regime (Article 18.13 LIS), and the use of company funds for private purposes may be recharacterised as a benefit derived from the shareholder’s status (Article 25.1.d LIRPF), if not open the door to simulation (Article 16 of the General Tax Act). The more personal and less institutional the structure, the more important this layer becomes.

No grandiose expressions about “shell companies” are needed to convey the risk. It is enough to state rigorously that an asset-holding company with crypto-assets does not, on its own, neutralise the shareholder’s wealth analysis, does not guarantee the family-business exemption of Article 4.Eight.Two of the Wealth Tax Act, and nor does it automatically make the economic relations between shareholder and company deductible or neutral.