How to File Your Kraken Taxes with Koinly

How to do your Kraken taxes with Koinly

One of the largest crypto exchanges worldwide, Kraken lets crypto investors of all experience levels buy, sell, trade and stake their crypto assets. Whatever your investments, Koinly can help you do your Kraken taxes.

Sign up to Koinly and choose your country and currency
Connect Kraken with Koinly to import all your Kraken trades safely and securely
Koinly categorizes Kraken transactions into gains, losses and income
Koinly calculates your Kraken Capital Gains Tax and Kraken Income Tax
Download your Kraken tax report from Koinly
File your Kraken taxes online or with your crypto tax accountant

Watch how to do your Kraken taxes fast

How are Kraken transactions taxed?

Your Kraken taxes will depend on your country's crypto tax rules, whether you're trading as an individual or as a business, and on the specific transactions you've made. You can learn everything you need to know about Kraken taxes in your country in our country crypto tax guides, but in general you'll pay one of two taxes on your Kraken transactions:

Capital Gains Tax: Whenever you sell or swap crypto on Kraken - whether that's coins, tokens, stablecoins or NFTs (soon!) - you'll likely need to pay Capital Gains Tax on any gain you make.
Income Tax: Meanwhile, if you're receiving or generating new tokens on Kraken - like staking rewards or airdrops - you'll likely need to pay Income Tax on that.

Does Kraken report to the IRS?

Yes, Kraken reports to the IRS. If you're a US resident and you earn more than $600 in income via Kraken (from staking rewards and so on), Kraken will issue you a 1099-MISC Form. Whenever you receive a 1099-MISC form from Kraken, the IRS receives an identical copy. As part of the recent changes to crypto legislation in the US, Kraken may issue different 1099 Forms to US users in the future.

How do I file my Kraken taxes?

You'll need to calculate and report any income or capital gains you made from Kraken with your tax office. For most people, this happens as part of your annual tax return.

There are a couple of ways you can do this. You can either do it yourself, by identifying your taxable transactions, calculating your net capital gain or loss, and the fair market value of any crypto income.

Or, save hours and use a crypto tax calculator like Koinly to easily calculate your taxable income for you, and generate your Kraken tax report, ready to file with your tax office.

Koinly works by importing your Kraken transaction data to analyze what's taxable, and what's not. Let's look at an example - here's some transactions in a Kraken account.

Kraken and Koinly transactions

You can import your Kraken transaction history via Koinly's API integration or by uploading CSV files of your Kraken transaction history into Koinly. Once you've done this, you'll be able to see your Kraken transactions in Koinly - like this.

Kraken and Koinly transactions

Koinly lets you manage all your crypto transactions - from Kraken and any other exchanges you use - from one single platform, making crypto tax simple.

How to connect Koinly and Kraken via API

On Kraken

Log in to your Kraken account
Go to your profile in the top right corner and select security
Select API from the drop down menu
On the API key management page, select add key
On the add API key page, enter name into the key description box, like "Koinly"
On the same page, under funds, check the following boxes: query funds, query ledger entries, query closed orders & trades and export data
Select generate key in the bottom right corner
Copy your API key and API secret

On Koinly

Sign up or log in to your Koinly account and go to the wallets page
Select add new wallet: Kraken
Select set up auto-sync
Paste your API key and API secret
Select secure import on Koinly

Important

If you created your wallet prior to November 2022, we recommend you recreate your wallet as we have since updated the Kraken API and many of the previous data limitations are no longer in place!

How to integrate Kraken with Koinly using CSV

You'll need to start by downloading a CSV file with your full trading history from Kraken before you can upload it to Koinly - here's how.

How to download and export your transaction history CSV file from Kraken

Sign in to your Kraken account and select history from the top navigation bar
Select export
From the first drop down tab, select ledgers
Select your date range
Select submit
Download the generated CSV file

How to upload your Kraken CSV to Koinly

Now you've got your CSV file, here's how to upload it to Koinly.

Sign in to Koinly and select wallets
Select add new wallet: Kraken
Select import from file
Upload your CSV file

Good to know

1. When downloading your CSV files, check that the file covers your full trading history.

2. Don't forget to tag your airdrops and forks. This will ensure that they show up correctly as income on your Kraken tax reports.

How do I troubleshoot my Kraken integration to Koinly?

Problems connecting Kraken and Koinly? No worries - there's help at hand:

Head over to our help center
Hit up our discussion boards - we might have already answered your question
Ask us on social media - we're on Twitter or Reddit
Not on social media? Join our discord!
Contact us on email or live chat
Got a feature request? Give us feedback on Canny

Calculate your Kraken taxes

Sign up free today to calculate your Kraken taxes.

Does Kraken have tax documents?

The only tax document Kraken provides users with currently is the 1099-MISC Form. This form is for US residents only, with more than $600 in income. Otherwise, you'll need to use your Kraken transaction history to generate your Kraken tax documents.

How do I get Kraken tax documents?

The easiest way to get your Kraken tax documents is to connect to crypto tax software via API or by uploading a CSV file of your Kraken transaction history. Your crypto tax calculator will then calculate your Kraken taxes for you and generate your Kraken tax documents.

Do you get a 1099 from Kraken?

Yes, some users will receive IRS 1099 Forms from Kraken. Currently, Kraken only issues 1099-MISC forms to US residents with more than $600 in income on the exchange in a single financial year. If you're going to receive a 1099-MISC Form from Kraken, you should receive it by February of the following financial year at the latest. However, with the recent changes to crypto legislation in the US, Kraken may change the 1099 Forms issued in the future.

Does Kraken provide financial or end of year statements?

No, Kraken doesn't provide financial or end of year statements specifically, but you can use your Kraken transaction history as a financial or end of year statement for tax reporting purposes.

Do I have to pay taxes on Kraken?

Yes - if you have capital gains or income as a result of your crypto investment activities on Kraken, you'll need to report these to your tax office and pay taxes on them. If you're tempted to try and avoid crypto taxes because you don't think your tax office will find out, think again - the penalties for tax evasion are steep and you may face fines or even jail time.

What does Kraken report to the IRS?

We know Kraken may send 1099-MISC forms to the IRS, but that's not all. Back in 2021, the IRS filed a John Doe Summons - a tool the IRS can use to retrieve information from companies to share data in order to ensure user tax compliance - and won, meaning Kraken may be compelled to share other data with the IRS.

Does Kraken report to other tax authorities?

So we know Kraken reports to the IRS, but does Kraken report to other tax authorities like HMRC, the ATO and the CRA?

In short? Almost definitely.

While no other tax offices have confirmed they have requested data from Kraken - as one of the largest crypto exchanges worldwide, it is highly likely that other tax offices are putting the pressure on Kraken to share KYC information to ensure tax compliance.