Spanish income tax on crypto: how IRPF works

Spanish personal income tax (IRPF) is levied on the income of individuals resident in Spain, and it is the tax that most often affects crypto investors. Selling crypto-assets for euros, exchanging one crypto-asset for another, earning staking rewards, receiving an airdrop or being paid in crypto-assets are all events with tax consequences, and they do not all receive the same treatment. The decisive question is how each item of income is characterised: capital gains and losses join the savings base, whereas income —from capital, from employment or from a business activity— may end up in the general base, at higher rates.

The analyses in this section cover the usual transactions (disposals, swaps, mining, staking, airdrops) as well as the scenarios the statute does not expressly address, such as DeFi transactions, wrapping or liquidity provision. In all of them, the rulings of the Spanish Directorate-General for Taxes (DGT) are cited after verification against their original source.