How to do your Coinbase Pro Taxes

Coinbase Pro features advanced charting features and a huge range of crypto trading pairs - making it an ideal exchange for more experienced crypto traders. But when it comes time to file your Coinbase Pro taxes - it can get a little complicated. Here’s everything you need to know about Coinbase Pro taxes and reporting, including transaction statements, profit and loss calculations, CSV exports and more.

How to prepare Coinbase Pro taxes

Tax deadline looming and no clue where to start with your Coinbase Pro tax reporting? Wherever you live, your tax office wants to know about your taxable Coinbase Pro transactions, including capital gains, losses, income and expenses. You are required to report your crypto activity to your tax office for each tax year.

Don’t panic - getting your Coinbase Pro taxes (formerly GDAX) done is easy. Start by getting your Coinbase Pro transaction history. 

How to download & export Coinbase Pro transaction history

There’s a couple of ways to get your Coinbase Pro transaction history -download it from your account as a file, or automate this with the Coinbase Pro API:

1. Use the Coinbase tax report API with crypto tax software. You can generate an API in Coinbase Pro and input this into your chosen crypto tax app to automatically calculate your crypto taxes and generate your crypto tax report.
2. Export Coinbase Pro transaction history in a CSV file. You can download a CSV file of your Coinbase Pro transaction history. Then you can either upload this to a crypto tax app or do your Coinbase Pro yourself.

Log in to your Coinbase Pro account and select your profile in the top right, then statements. On the statements page, you can generate both an accounts statement and a fills statement as either a CSV or a PDF file. This file will get emailed to the email address associated with your Coinbase Pro account and may take a couple of days to arrive. 

Please note if you're using Coinbase, you'll need to import a separate CSV file with your Coinbase transaction history too. See our guide on Coinbase tax reporting.

Does Coinbase Pro provide tax documents?

No, Coinbase Pro doesn’t provide a tax report. However, Coinbase Pro works with some great crypto tax apps - like Koinly crypto tax software - to help you get your Coinbase Pro tax report in no time at all. The easiest way to do this is with API, but you can use CSV files and do your crypto taxes yourself too. 

Does Coinbase Pro issue a 1099 form?

Both Coinbase Pro and Coinbase issue 1099-MISC IRS forms if you’re a US resident and you’ve made more than $600 in income.

Previously, Coinbase Pro used to issue 1099-K forms if a user had made 200 or more transactions valued at more than $20,000 - however, the exchange has stopped doing this as of the 2022 financial year. This could all change again when the directives from the crypto executive order are issued.

Does Coinbase Pro supply a financial statement?

Yes - you can generate a PDF or CSV file of your Coinbase Pro transaction history which is the equivalent of a financial statement. This account statement will include your complete trading history on the exchange, which you can use to create a Coinbase Pro tax statement.

When will I pay Coinbase Pro taxes?

Lost on what is and isn't taxable? It'll all depend on where you live (check out our country guides for more info). This said, we can do a general overview for US tax as most other countries follow suit.

You'll pay Capital Gains Tax on any profits any time you dispose of crypto from your Coinbase Pro account. This includes:

• Selling crypto for USD (including selling through stop orders or limit orders).
• Trading crypto for crypto.
• Spending crypto on goods or services (and even on trading fees - though you can often add these to your cost basis and deduct them from your taxes).

Meanwhile, you'll pay Income Tax on the following kinds of transactions on Coinbase:

• Staking rewards or interest: Users can stake and earn interest of up to 5% APR on ALGO, ATOM, DAI, USDC and XTZ on Coinbase... but all these rewards are classed as a kind of additional income.
• Coinbase incentives: If you're referring other investors to Coinbase - you can earn up to $5 a user. But you'll need to report these referral bonuses as additional income.
• Coinbase Earn: Earning for learning? You'll need to pay Income Tax on any tokens you receive as a reward.
• Coinbase Sweepstakes: Been lucky enough to take part in one of the exchange sweepstakes and win? Congratulations! But in the US, lottery winnings are seen as income and taxed as such.
• Hard forks: Hard forks don't happen too often - but there have been a couple of notable ones since GDAX rebranded to Coinbase Pro. Any tokens you receive as a result of a hard fork are unfortunately seen as a kind of additional income in the US and subject to Income Tax.
• Research payouts: If you've taken part in one of the many studies that Coinbase Pro do - you'll notice you're often compensated for your time. That reward, like any other, is seen as a kind of additional income and taxed as such.
• Payments in crypto: Using Coinbase Commerce and being paid out in crypto to your Coinbase Pro account? Income Tax.

When you pay Income Tax on crypto - you need to identify the fair market value of your crypto in your country's fiat currency on the day you received it. You'll then pay Income Tax (at your regular Income Tax rate) on that amount.

You won't pay tax when you:

• Buy crypto with fiat currency (including through stop and limit orders).
• Transfer crypto from your Coinbase Pro account.
• HODL crypto in your Coinbase Pro account.
• Gift crypto (in the US - this is taxed in other countries).

Now you know how your Coinbase Pro crypto is taxed - let's figure out how to generate a tax form.

How to generate a Coinbase Pro tax form

You can generate a Coinbase Pro tax form manually, or with a crypto tax app. Let’s look at both.

Doing your Coinbase Pro taxes the old fashioned way? Your tax office wants to know about each taxable transaction on Coinbase Pro. This includes each capital gain or loss from any time you’ve sold or traded crypto. It’ll also include any income you’ve made from crypto - like through airdrops, mining, staking and so on. Take all this info, tally up your net capital gains and losses and include it in your tax return. 

This is quite a lot of work if you have a lot of transactions on Coinbase Pro, so we suggest option two - using a crypto tax app.

All you need to do with a crypto tax app is add your Coinbase Pro API keys or upload your Coinbase Pro CSV files and let your crypto tax calculator do the rest. It’ll calculate your crypto taxes and generate a custom tax report based on your location and tax office, or even specific reports for your chosen tax app.

Coinbase Pro CSV exports

It’s easy to get your Coinbase Pro CSV exports. Just log in to your Coinbase Pro account and select your profile (should be your account name) in the top right corner. Now select statements - you should see a drop down menu with accounts and fills as the options. You'll need both of these if you're uploading your CSV files to a crypto tax app.

When you select a report to generate, a new pop up window will come up which will let you set the time period, the format of the file and the email address you'd like your report to be sent to. Make sure you pick the CSV file type and that your date range covers the entire period you've been using your Coinbase Pro account. This lets your crypto tax calculator identify your short-term and long-term gains correctly.

Coinbase Pro API

Want to automate your crypto tax with the Coinbase Pro API? Easy. 

Just log into your Coinbase account and select your profile (should be your account name) in the top right corner. Now select API from the drop down menu, then +New API Key. Under permissions, you only need to check view - your crypto tax app should only need read-only access. Make sure to create a passphrase for your API key and store it somewhere safe. Similarly, when your new API secret pops up make sure you copy it and store it somewhere safe - it won't appear again!

Does Coinbase Pro provide an end of year statement?

No, Coinbase Pro won’t issue you an EOFY statement - but you can generate a CSV file of your Coinbase Pro transaction history and set the date range to reflect the financial year you’re reporting on. 

Does Coinbase Pro report to the IRS?

Yes. Coinbase Pro reports to the IRS. Coinbase Pro issues users with more than $600 in income a 1099-MISC to you. Remember - when you get a 1099 form, so does the IRS. 

Coinbase also lost a John Doe summons case to the IRS in 2016. This meant the exchange was legally compelled to share KYC data for some customers with the IRS. Though Coinbase Pro was formerly GDAX - the exchange is an owned property of Coinbase and is subject to the same reporting requirements.

The best way to remain tax compliant with the IRS is to report your crypto taxes accurately.

Does Coinbase Pro report to other tax authorities?

Yes. HMRC confirmed they’ve put pressure on Coinbase to share KYC information to ensure tax compliance. It’s likely as one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, other tax offices like the ATO and the CRA are putting similar pressures on Coinbase Pro. 

Koinly is a Coinbase Pro tax calculator & reporting tool

If you’ve been wondering is Koinly a Coinbase Pro tax calculator tool, the answer is, yes! Not only can Koinly import Coinbase Pro transaction history, but Koinly can also calculate your Coinbase Pro taxes in a format that makes sense for your country’s tax office. As a Coinbase Pro tax calculator, Koinly is able to do a bunch of impressive tasks that save you time and can even save you from paying too much taxes.

• Koinly will import all your Coinbase Pro trades including purchases, sales, swaps, income and more!
• Koinly will then convert your Coinbase Pro transactions into your country’s currency, at fair market value. This in itself is a massive time saver.
• Finally, Koinly works out which of your Coinbase Pro trades are taxable, and which are not - calculating your Coinbase Pro gains/losses, crypto income and more. All of this is really important for being able to submit an accurate Coinbase Pro tax return to your tax office.

Sign up free and try our Coinbase Pro tax software today.