Crypto taxation: stamp duty as of 31 December

We are approaching December 31st, the date that many investors of crypto world they remember because it marks an important transition from a taxation point of view. In fact, at the end of the year the Italian tax authorities ask all taxpayers to photograph their financial situation in terms of investments in the crypto sector, on which stamp duty will then be applied.

Don’t know what stamp duty is? Do you also have funds in DeFi and don’t know how to declare them? Are you afraid of making mistakes and incurring sanctions? Not don’t worry, in this article we explain everything you need to know.

Taxation: what is stamp duty on cryptocurrencies

Technically it is defined as “stamp duty on the value of crypto assets” (IVACA) and represents a property tax to be paid to the tax authorities every year. All crypto holders are required by law to calculate the euro value of all assets held as of December 31st.

A tax must be applied to the resulting amount rate equal to 0.2%regardless of whether the investments are making a profit or a loss. Anyone, even those who operate on decentralized markets, must pay this tax, under penalty of a fine from the competent authorities. However, all those who invest in crypto via ETFs or traditional assets are excludedas they do not fall into the category of “crypto assets”.

HERE WE LEAVE YOU A PROMO OF $500 IN ASSET ON ETORO: Use it if you don’t want to pay stamp duty, and if you don’t want to switch to 33% taxation on capital gains from 2026. We remind you that ETFs and futures will remain at 26%while spot trading will rise by 7 percentage points.

Difference between crypto holdings on exchanges and private wallets

There is an important clarification to make regarding crypto stamp duty, because not exactly all investors are involved to pay this tribute, or rather, there is someone who will do it for you.

OC: those who operate through an exchange such as Bitget, Bybit or Kraken have a great added convenience. In this case it is the broker himself who acts as the tax withholding agentthat is, he takes care of blocking the corresponding amount of tax on your account, and then paying it to the tax authorities. You users do not have to do anything, you will see 0.2% of your crypto assets deducted on December 31st, obviously subject to formal communication.

WALLET: different situation for those who hold crypto directly on their private wallet (Ledger, MetaMask, Rabby, Phantom etc.). In this case You, the users, will have to equip yourself to calculate and pay the tax to the tax authorities within the established times. ATTENTION: December 31st is the date on which the calculation must be performed, but the payment can be made later.

We remind you once again that on CEX, in addition to this convenience, you also have the opportunity to trade via futures to stay on the 26% tax regime with regards to capital gains. One more reason to learn these tools and take advantage of the bonus we gave you at the beginning of the article.

How and by when do you pay stamp duty on cryptocurrencies?

Italian legislation establishes that stamp duty on cryptocurrencies must be paid by 30 June of the following year to the reference one (in our case by June 2026). Exchanges usually withhold and remit the tax as early as December 31st or in the first few days of theNew Year, for practical reasons.

If you hold crypto in your wallet, you can also wait and pay it by the summer deadline. As we said before, however, you must be the one to do the calculation yourself, considering all the holdings as assets, staking and LPs in DeFi, and then make the payment.

How do you pay stamp duty yourself? You have to download the F24 form directly from Revenue Agency website. Once you have filled in your personal data, fill in the Tax section as follows:

-Tribute Code: enter “1727”

-Instalments/Region/Province / Ref. month: leave blank

-Reference year: “2025”

-Debit amounts paid: the amount (in euros) calculated at 0.2% of the balance as of December 31st.

-Compensated credit amounts: leave blank except in special cases.

IMPORTANT: below 12 euros you are not required to pay any tax (only for private wallets). However, if the tax exceeds 51.56 euros, the advance payments for the following year must also be paid. In this case, you are probably better off relying on an accountant.

The declaration in the Reference Frameworks

Up to now we have talked about PAYMENT of stamp duty, specifying that the exchanges take care of it for the user, while on wallets the task falls to the taxpayer himself. However, we have not told you that, again on the basis of the overall value held as of 31 December, a DECLARATION obligation.

Ergo, the values ​​indicated in the F24 or those paid by the exchange, or both in cases where you operate both on CEX and independently, must then be reported within the quadro RW o Wdepending on the reference tax model (Personal Income Model or 730). The deadline for the declaration is set at November 30th of the following year for the RW framework, et al September 30th for those who fill out form W.

The most attentive will have noticed that in chronological order, taxes are paid first by June 30th, and then what has been paid is subsequently declared. It works exactly like that.

How are the various tables compiled? We are a little early in the compilation, and we will defer to a more in-depth explanation later. In the meantime, we would like to inform you that for the RW section it is necessary to fill in line RW8 in column 1, while for the W section, line w8 in column 7.