Crypto Tax Guide Romania 2024 [Taxe Crypto Romania]
Want to know how much tax you'll pay on crypto in Romania? Our Romania crypto tax guide covers everything you need to know, including Capital Gains Tax on crypto, Income Tax on crypto, and how to calculate and report your crypto taxes to the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (Agenția Națională de Administrare Fiscală) by the 25th May deadline.
Do you have to pay tax on crypto in Romania?
Yes, any profits from crypto in Romania are subject to Income Tax - although the Agenția Națională de Administrare Fiscală (ANAF) is yet to release detailed guidance on the taxation of cryptocurrency.
How much tax do you pay on crypto in Romania?
You’ll pay 10% Income Tax on any capital gain or any additional income from your crypto investment activities in Romania if your total earnings throughout the financial year exceed 600 lei.
This guide is regularly updated
The Agenția Națională de Administrare Fiscală (ANAF) is yet to release detailed guidance on cryptocurrency taxation in Romania. We keep a close eye on any updates from the ANAF on crypto policies and regularly update this guide to keep you informed and compliant.
19 December 2023: Updated for 2024
3 October 2022: Welcome to your Romania crypto tax guide! (Bine ați venit la ghidul cripto taxelor pentru România!)
Can ANAF track crypto?
Yes - the ANAF can and does track cryptocurrency. Although their guidance isn't particularly detailed, the ANAF has made it clear that they expect investors to pay taxes on any gains or income from digital assets.
As an EU member state, Romania will be part of the EU directives on data sharing and anti-money laundering. These directives mean every company that provides financial services to customers in the EU must have KYC processes in place, and the data collected by these processes is made available between EU member states.
In June 2022, the ANAF confirmed inspectors were checking the revenues declared by local crypto traders, auditing 63 investors with more than €131 million in gains, and discovered more than €49 million was unreported. The ANAF has since confirmed inspectors will continue to verify revenue declarations from crypto investment activities like trading, mining, and staking, to increase compliance.
Is any crypto tax free?
We’ll start with the good news - not all of your crypto transactions will be subject to tax in Romania. Transactions that are tax free include:
Buying crypto with lei or euros.
Holding crypto.
Transferring crypto between your own wallets.
As Romania has no gift tax - excluding the transfer of real estate in specific circumstances - it is likely that gifting crypto or receiving a gift of crypto is also tax free, although the ANAF is yet to confirm this.
With the good news out the way, let’s dive into how crypto is taxed in Romania.
How is crypto taxed in Romania?
As we've hinted at already, the ANAF hasn't released much guidance on crypto tax in Romania - but there is some regulation.
The Romanian government, like most other governments, does not consider cryptocurrencies to be a legal tender under Romanian law.
Transactions with virtual currencies including cryptocurrencies are regulated in Article 116(1) of Law 227/2015, which states that income from crypto falls under the category of income from alternative sources. As such, profits - whether that is gains or income - are subject to Income Tax. As well as this, the determination of income, applicable tax, and social contributions is the responsibility of investors, not any businesses involved in the transactions, like crypto exchanges. In other words, it's your responsibility to calculate and report your crypto profits to ANAF.
The way your crypto is taxed will depend on the specific transaction you’re making, and whether it’s viewed as a capital gain or as income.
Crypto Gains
When you dispose of crypto, you’ll have a profit or a loss. Disposals of crypto include:
Selling crypto for fiat currency (including using a Bitcoin ATM to do so).
Swapping one cryptocurrency for another.
Spending crypto on goods and services - like a barter transaction.
Any of the transactions above is a taxable event. As such, any time you sell, swap, or spend crypto you’ll need to calculate your gain or loss as a result.
If you have a gain, you’ll pay Income Tax on that gain. If you have a loss, you don’t need to pay tax and you may be able to use these losses to reduce your tax liability.
Capital Gains Tax Rate Romania
Romania has no specific Capital Gains Tax rate. Instead, individual investors pay the 10% Personal Income Tax (PIT) on any gain from crypto.
Crypto tax breaks
If your gain from a single transaction is less than 200 lei, you do not need to declare or pay tax on this transaction. However, this is only the case if your total earnings in a financial year do not exceed 600 lei.
Additional taxes
If your total profits from alternative sources including crypto investments exceeds 12 times the gross national minimum wage (30,600 lei in 2022), then you'll also need to pay social security contributions. This is capped at 10% of the taxable income, so 3,060 lei.
Crypto losses
In general, losses in Romania are tax deductible, meaning you can offset them against your capital gains to reduce your overall tax liability in a given financial year. You may also carry forward unutilized losses for a period of 7 years.
Lost and stolen crypto
Scams, hacks, rug pulls and more… many Romanian crypto investors have fallen foul of crypto criminals. Unsurprisingly, the ANAF hasn’t clarified whether lost or stolen crypto would be considered a loss. As such, it would be advisable to speak to a crypto accountant if you have a potential claim for a capital loss due to theft.
How to calculate gains and losses
The ANAF is clear that the responsibility of calculating and reporting capital gains and losses falls on the taxpayer - so you need to know how to calculate your crypto taxes, starting with calculating your gains or losses.
To do this, you need to start by identifying and calculating your cost basis. Your cost basis is whatever it cost to buy your crypto (or otherwise acquire) plus any allowable expenses related to acquiring or disposing of the asset, like exchange fees or network fees. If you otherwise acquired the asset, use the fair market value (in RON) on the day you acquired it instead.
Once you have your cost basis, subtract this from your sale price to calculate your subsequent gain or loss. If you otherwise disposed of your asset - like swapping or spending it - use the fair market value (in RON) on the day you disposed of the asset instead.
If you have a gain, then you’ll need to pay 10% PIT on that gain. If you have a loss, under the current rules, you can offset this against your gains to reduce your overall tax bill.
Cost basis method
Our example above is pretty simplistic. The reality is most Romanian crypto investors have many transactions, and disposals, of multiple assets of the same kind - and calculating cost basis in these instances can get tricky.
For example, if you owned 3 ETH and later sold 1 ETH, but you bought each ETH for a different price on a different date throughout a given financial year - how do you know which cost basis to use when calculating your gain or loss?
The ANAF hasn’t released specific guidance about allowable cost basis methods for crypto assets. However, for corporations, FIFO, LIFO, and ACB are permissible when determining income. For individual investors with shares, the weighted average cost basis method is allowed.
Crypto Income Tax
With capital gains out of the way, let’s look at crypto income.
Though the ANAF has not released guidance, there are a number of investment activities that could be viewed as earning additional income. As such, 10% PIT may apply upon receipt. This could include:
Mining crypto.
Staking crypto.
Earning new tokens through DeFi protocols.
Earning new tokens via third-party products, for example, crypto exchange staking products, investment saving accounts or other earn products.
If your crypto is deemed to be additional income, you’ll pay Income Tax upon receipt. Not only that, but if you later dispose of your coins or tokens by selling, swapping, or spending them, you’ll need to pay 10% PIT on any gains even if you’ve already paid tax upon receipt.
Income Tax Rate Romania
Unlike most other countries, Romania doesn’t have a tiered tax structure. Instead, all taxpayers pay a flat 10% Personal Income Tax rate.
How to calculate crypto income
To figure out your tax bill, you need to know how much you made first.
Calculating crypto income is simple - just identify the fair market value of the coins or tokens you earned in RON, on the day you received them. That’s the figure you’ll pay 10% PIT on.
How are specific crypto transactions taxed?
Buying crypto with fiat currency
TAX FREEBuying crypto with fiat currency - whether that's lei or euros - is a tax free transaction.
Hodling crypto
TAX FREEAs Romania has no Wealth Tax, hodling crypto is also tax free, whether that's short-term or to the moon.
Transferring crypto between your own wallets
TAX FREEWhen you move crypto between wallets you own, you're not disposing of an asset from a tax perspective as you still retain ownership. As such, this is a tax free transaction.
A word of warning though - transaction fees might not be quite so simple. The ANAF has released no guidance on this, but there is the potential that transfer fees may be viewed as spending crypto and as such, a taxable transaction. You should speak to an accountant for more detailed advice.
Gifting crypto
TAX FREEWhile the ANAF has given no specific guidance on gifting crypto and the potential tax consequences, Romania does not have a Gift Tax for other assets, as such, it's likely gifting crypto or receiving a gift of crypto is tax free.
Selling crypto for fiat currency
INCOME TAXYou'll pay 10% PIT on any profits when you sell crypto for fiat currency - whether that's lei or euros.
Swapping crypto for crypto
INCOME TAXYou'll pay 10% PIT on any profits when you swap one crypto for another crypto. This is seen as a disposal, as such you'll need to subtract your cost basis from the fair market value of the crypto in RON on the day you swapped it to calculate your gain or loss.
Spending crypto on goods or services
INCOME TAXSpending crypto is viewed as a disposal of an asset and as such you'll need to pay 10% PIT on any profits you make as a result. You can calculate your gain or loss by subtracting your cost basis from the fair market value of the crypto in RON at the time you spent it.
Mining and staking rewards
INCOME TAXAlthough the ANAF hasn't released any specific guidance on the taxation of mining or staking rewards, it is likely these rewards will be seen as a kind of additional income. As such, you'll need to pay Income Tax upon receipt based on the fair market value (in RON) of mining or staking rewards on the day you received them.
As well as this, you'll also be liable for 10% PIT on any profits if you later sell, swap, or spend mined coins or staking rewards.
When to report crypto taxes in Romania
The Romanian tax year runs from the 1st of January to the 31st of December each year. Taxpayers with revenue from alternative sources - like crypto- must file their annual tax return by May 25th of the following year.
How to file crypto taxes in Romania
You file your crypto taxes with the ANAF using the Personal Income Tax Return form. You can also do this via the ANAF online portal.
How to calculate and file your crypto taxes with Koinly
Now you know how crypto is taxed and how to calculate and file your taxes with ANAF - let’s take a look at how it works with Koinly.
Koinly saves you hours by calculating your crypto tax obligations for you. Here's how easy it is:
Sign up for a free Koinly account.
Select your base country (Romania), currency (RON), and cost basis method.
Connect Koinly to your wallets and exchanges. Koinly integrates with Binance Romania, Coinbase, Kraken, and hundreds more. (See all)
Let Koinly crunch the numbers. Make a coffee.
Ta-da! Your data is collected and your full Complete Crypto Tax Report is generated!
To download your crypto tax report, upgrade to a paid plan from €39 per year.
Send your report to your accountant, or complete your tax return yourself using the figures from your Koinly report.
What records do the ANAF need?
With the ANAF auditing crypto investors, it’s more important than ever that you keep good records of your crypto transactions in case you’re ever faced with an unwelcome audit. As a minimum, you should keep records of:
Dates of taxable transactions.
Details about the assets involved in a transaction (the kind of cryptocurrency).
The value (in RON) of assets at the time of any transactions.
Details of those involved in the transaction (i.e. wallet address) and the reason for the transaction.
Koinly can help with your crypto record-keeping too. Many exchanges only keep your transaction data for a limited time, but Koinly stores your historical transaction data, so should you ever get a request from the ANAF to share your records, you can easily get what you need.