More than 68 million people are using Coinbase to buy, sell, stake, and store their cryptocurrency assets. Whatever your crypto strategy on Coinbase, Koinly can help you do your Coinbase taxes safely, quickly, and accurately.Â
If you’ve made any income or capital gains from Coinbase, you will need to notify your country’s tax office. Generally, it will be included as part of your annual tax return.Â
There are a couple of ways you can identify what needs to be included in your tax return. You can either calculate it manually by yourself or you can use a crypto tax calculator like Koinly.
If you choose to do it manually, you need to identify your taxable transactions, calculate your net capital gain or loss, and the fair market value of any crypto income.
On the other hand, if you use a crypto tax calculator your taxable income will be calculated for you, and your Coinbase tax report will automatically be generated, ready to file with your tax office.
Koinly works by importing your Coinbase transaction data to analyze what's taxable, and what's not. Let's look at an example - here are some transactions in a Coinbase account.
You can import your Coinbase transaction history via Koinly's API integration or by uploading CSV files of your Coinbase transaction history into Koinly. Once you've done this, you'll be able to see your Coinbase transactions in Koinly - like this.
This lets you manage all your crypto transactions - from Coinbase and any other exchanges you use - from one single platform, making crypto tax simple. Here's how to import your Coinbase transaction data.
Koinly lets you manage all your crypto transactions - from Coinbase and any other exchanges you use - from one single platform, making crypto tax simple. Here’s how to connect Koinly & Coinbase.
Important
1. Coinbase & Coinbase Pro are merging soon. If you've previously used Coinbase Pro, you'll still need to sync your Coinbase Pro account separately with Koinly in order to get your complete transaction history - see how here.
2. The Coinbase API now supports the new 'advanced trade' transactions.
You'll need to start by downloading a CSV file with your full trading history from Coinbase before you can upload it to Koinly - here's how.
Now you've got your Coinbase CSV file, here's how to upload it to Koinly.
Important
1. If you've set up 2-factor authentication, your Coinbase account may ask you to verify after you've selected send request. In some instances, it may take a couple of days for your email and attached CSV file to come through, so don't panic if you don't see it straight away.
2. Your Coinbase CSV file will not contain transactions to and from Coinbase Pro, so you'll need to import a separate CSV file with your Coinbase Pro transactions. If you are using both wallets, it's normal to see transactions from Coinbase Pro to Coinbase, even if you never sent those funds. This is because whenever you transfer crypto from Coinbase Pro, internally it arrives at your Coinbase account first, before being sent on. These transfers aren't taxable events and Koinly should recognize this automatically.
Having issues with your Coinbase data import? We have lots of helpful resources:
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The only tax document Coinbase provides users with currently is the 1099-MISC Form. This form is for US residents only, with more than $600 in income. Find out more about Coinbase 1099 forms. Otherwise, you'll need to use your Coinbase transaction history to generate your Coinbase tax documents.
The good news is, while you won’t receive tax forms and documents from the exchange, you can easily connect to crypto tax software via API or by uploading a CSV file of your Coinbase transaction history. Your Coinbase taxes will be calculated for you and your Coinbase tax documents automatically generated.
Yes, some users will receive IRS 1099 Forms from Coinbase. Currently, Coinbase only issues 1099-MISC forms to US residents with more than $600 in income on the exchange in a single financial year.
No, Coinbase won't provide you with an EOFY statement automatically, but the exported CSV file of your Coinbase trade history works as a Coinbase end of year statement. You can follow the instructions above to generate this statement. Remember, you'll need to download both a Coinbase trade history and a Coinbase Pro trade history CSV file.
Yes - if you have capital gains or income as a result of your Coinbase investment activities, you'll need to report these to your tax office and pay taxes on them. Don’t try and avoid paying your taxes - the penalties for tax evasion are steep and you may face fines or even jail time.
The IRS issued Coinbase with a John Doe summons and won back in 2016 - forcing the exchange to share customer data, though it’s not clear precisely what data was shared. Find out more in our guide on Coinbase & the IRS.
If you’ve earned new coins through Coinbase rewards, it’s likely these will be viewed as additional income by your tax office and you’ll need to pay Income Tax upon receipt based on the fair market value in your fiat currency at the point you received the rewards.
Coinbase is unique compared to other exchanges as it is publicly listed on the Nasdaq. This means they have to regularly report their assets and liabilities to the market - proving their users’ deposits are held 1:1 by conducting regular audits by an external third party every quarter. See a list of their financial statements here.
For more information, read our post about Proof of Reserves and why it matters to you as a crypto investor.
Yes, Coinbase reports to HMRC as it is required to by the Finance Act. In 2022, Coinbase contacted customers with more than ÂŁ3,000 in crypto to tell them that Coinbase would share account information with HMRC, and again in 2023, Coinbase contacted UK customers who received payments of more than ÂŁ5,000 in fiat currency to tell them that Coinbase would share account information with HMRC.
If you receive a 1099-MISC form from Coinbase to report miscellaneous income rewards from crypto on the exchange, you may need Coinbase’s tax identification number, also referred to as an employer identification number (EIN), which is 45-5293997. See more information in Coinbase’s help article.