Crypto Taxes in Spain: What DAC8 Changes from 2026

If you have to pay tax on crypto and live in Spain, the situation changed in January 2026. Until then, reporting your trading gains was largely a matter of personal honesty, because the Agencia Tributaria received hardly any automatic data from foreign exchanges. With the EU directive DAC8 that era is over: trading platforms and wallet providers have been collecting customer data since January 1, 2026 and passing it on to the tax administrations. Whether this concerns you at all depends first on your status, which our guide to tax residency on Mallorca clears up.

What DAC8 is and what changed in January 2026

DAC8 is Directive (EU) 2023/2226 of October 17, 2023. It extends the EU directive on administrative cooperation to crypto assets and obliges exchanges, brokers and wallet providers to record user data and transactions and report them to their national tax administration, which automatically forwards them to the other member states.

The timeline is unambiguous. The due diligence and reporting obligations have applied since January 1, 2026. Providers file the data for 2026 with their authority in early 2027, and the authorities exchange it with each other within nine months of the year end. The first big data exchange therefore takes place by the end of September 2027 and covers the entire year 2026 retroactively.

Spain is implementing the directive through a law that amends, among other things, the Ley General Tributaria. The finance ministry sent the draft to parliament on June 3, 2025. Two points in it matter for you as a private individual: the previous legal term "moneda virtual" is replaced by the broader "criptoactivo", and crypto assets are expressly recognized as seizable property.

How crypto gains are taxed in Spain

Selling cryptocurrency for euros triggers a ganancia patrimonial, a capital gain. The gain is the difference between the acquisition cost and the sale value. It goes into the savings base of the Spanish income tax and is taxed under its own bracket system, independent of your salary.

For 2026 these rates apply in the savings base:

• 19 percent on the first 6,000 euros
• 21 percent from 6,000 to 50,000 euros
• 23 percent from 50,000 to 200,000 euros
• 27 percent from 200,000 to 300,000 euros
• 30 percent on everything above

Three points regularly surprise newcomers. First, there is no minimum holding period: some countries, Germany among them, exempt gains after a one-year holding period, but Spain has no such rule, so a gain after ten years is taxed exactly like one after ten days. Second, swapping one cryptocurrency for another is itself a taxable event, even if not a single euro ever reaches your bank account. Third, acquisition costs are matched under the FIFO rule, so the units you bought first count as sold first.

You can offset losses against gains of the same year and carry any remainder forward for the next four years. How investment income is treated in the Spanish return overall is covered in our post on capital gains tax on investments in Spain.

Staking, airdrops and mining go into different buckets

Not every crypto inflow is a capital gain. The Spanish tax administration distinguishes three cases in its rulings, and the classification decides the tax rate.

• Staking and lending: The rewards count as rendimientos del capital mobiliario, income from capital made available to others. They land in the same savings base as sale gains and are taxed at 19 to 30 percent. They are valued at market value at the moment they accrue.
• Airdrops: A token allocated for free is an increase in wealth that does not stem from a transfer. Such inflows belong in the general tax base and are taxed at the progressive scale, which can go well above 30 percent. The market value on receipt is at the same time your future acquisition cost.
• Mining: Anyone who mines regularly is, in the Spanish reading, running an economic activity. That means registering as an autonomo, paying Seguridad Social contributions and taxation under the general scale.

Modelo 721: reporting is not taxation

Alongside the tax there is a pure information duty. Via the Modelo 721 you report cryptocurrencies held in custody by a provider outside Spain. The obligation kicks in when the balances of all affected currencies together are worth more than 50,000 euros on December 31. No tax is due on the filing itself; it serves information purposes only.

According to the Agencia Tributaria page on the Modelo 721, the filing window runs from January 1 to March 31 of the following year. For 2026 the deadline is therefore March 31, 2027, the same as for the Modelo 720 covering other foreign assets. Both reports and how they differ are explained in our post on Modelo 720 and 721.

The line to self-custody matters: a hardware wallet whose keys only you hold is, under current practice, not reported via the Modelo 721, because no foreign custodian sits in between. This has no effect on the taxability of the gains.

Frequently asked questions about crypto tax on Mallorca

Do I have to pay tax on crypto even if I do not sell?

No. Merely holding triggers no income tax. The event becomes taxable only when you sell, swap into another currency or pay with crypto. Staking rewards, however, must be recognized as soon as they accrue.

Does crypto count toward the Spanish wealth tax?

Yes. Crypto assets are part of your taxable wealth and are valued at market price on December 31. Whether you actually pay depends on the allowances in the Balearics. Details are in our guide to the wealth tax.

What happens with coins I bought before moving to Spain?

They remain acquisition events at the price of the day you bought them. If you sell as a Spanish tax resident, the entire gain is taxed in Spain, including the part that built up before your move. Check the exit rules of your home country before relocating.

Conclusion

Little changed in Spanish crypto tax law in 2026, but a great deal changed in visibility. Sale gains and staking income still run through the savings base at 19 to 30 percent, airdrops and mining through the general scale, and above 50,000 euros on foreign platforms the Modelo 721 comes on top. What is new is that the Agencia Tributaria will see these transactions even without your involvement, at the latest once the data exchange starts in September 2027.

If you have open years, sort them out before that date rather than after. A voluntary corrective filing is far cheaper than a demand letter with surcharges. How the return itself works and which spring deadlines apply is covered in our guide to filing a tax return in Spain.