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Crypto tax in Canada starts with one rule: selling, swapping or spending a coin is a disposition, and any profit is taxable. For a capital gain the CRA taxes half of it. Trade often enough to look like a business and the entire profit is taxed. A $5,000 gain therefore means $2,500 of taxable income, unless you’re a trader.
What counts as a taxable crypto event?
Selling for dollars is the obvious one. But trading one coin for another counts too, and so does paying for a coffee or a laptop with crypto, which the CRA treats as a barter deal. Giving crypto away as a gift or donation is also a disposition. Moving coins between wallets you own isn’t, since ownership doesn’t change.
Buying and holding creates no tax. You owe nothing until you dispose of something.
The swap is the one that surprises people. Say you paid $2,000 for a coin, and a year later you trade it for a different coin when it’s worth $3,000. You never touched a dollar, but you have a $1,000 gain on that day, and $500 of it is taxable. The new coin’s cost for next time is the $3,000 value you just used.
Do you use an exchange like Crypto.com?
We assume you’re asking about the Crypto.com app or exchange, and about how to file for activity there. We can’t say what a given platform’s tax reports contain, what they cost or how well they match CRA rules, and none has been tried by us. What we can tell you is what the CRA wants, so you know what to check.
The CRA asks for records of every acquisition, disposal and swap. That means a description of each transaction and the other party (even if it’s only a wallet address), the addresses of each wallet you use, and your opening and closing wallet balances with cost for each year. Keep them for at least six years. And download your history from any exchange or app at regular intervals while you still have access (the CRA suggests doing this while your access lasts).
How do you value a coin in Canadian dollars?
Every transaction needs a Canadian dollar value, the fair market value on the day it happened. The CRA accepts a reasonable method if you use it the same way every year, such as the rate your broker gives you or an average across busy exchanges. Write down what you used, so you can repeat it next year.
What does a $5,000 crypto gain cost in Ontario?
Say you earn $80,000 in Ontario and buy a coin for $10,000. You later sell it for $15,000. The capital gains tax calculator shows $2,500 landing on your income and extra tax of $741.25, which is 14.8% of the gain. You keep $4,258.75.
If your other income is only $40,000, the same gain costs $476.25.
Now try it as a business. We ran an extra $5,000 of self-employment income on top of $80,000 of pay in the income tax calculator, and income tax rose by $1,437.45. That leaves out the CPP you’d owe on self-employed earnings, as the tool doesn’t add it. The gap between $741.25 and $1,437.45 is why the capital versus business question matters. The CRA points to frequent trading, short holding periods, time spent on markets and borrowing to buy as signs of a business.
You must include half of your capital gains (known as taxable capital gains) in your income for the year.
Reporting income from crypto-asset transactions, canada.ca
Where do people trip up?
Forgetting swaps is the biggest one. Every trade between two coins is a sale and a purchase at once, and each needs a value in dollars. The second is losses. You can use half of a capital loss only against taxable capital gains, and unused losses carry back three years or forward without limit. A capital loss can’t offset your salary.
Also check where the gains go on the return. The CRA says capital gains from crypto go on Schedule 3, in the section for bonds, debentures, promissory notes, crypto-assets and similar property. And we couldn’t confirm anything about mining, staking or airdrops here, so read the CRA’s page for those if they apply to you.
Once you know the gain, the marginal tax rate calculator shows what your next dollar of each kind of income costs. If tax will be owed on top of a payroll job, the tax installments calculator is worth a look.
What should you do before tax time?
Pull a full transaction history from every exchange and wallet you used, not just the one you use most. Put the trades in one spreadsheet, with the date, what you gave up, what you got and the dollar value of each at that moment. Then sort out which are sales, swaps or purchases. If the history is a mess, start with the largest trades and work down. Tidy records are the cheapest way to cut the bill from any accountant you hire.
Sources, and how we checked them
The rules on dispositions, half inclusion, records and valuation come from the Canada Revenue Agency‘s pages on crypto-assets for users and tax professionals. Our calculators produced the example figures, on 2026 federal and provincial data. We treat 2026 inclusion as 50%, the rate the CRA’s crypto pages describe. No level of government runs or endorses this site.
Frequently asked questions
Is buying crypto taxable in Canada?
No. Tax starts when you sell, swap, spend or give it away.
Is swapping one coin for another a taxable event?
Yes. The CRA treats a trade for another crypto-asset as a disposition, so it needs a value in Canadian dollars.
How much of a crypto gain is taxed?
You report 50% of a capital gain. A trader carrying on a business reports the whole profit.
How long do I keep crypto records?
At least six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to.
Where do capital gains from crypto go on my return?
On Schedule 3, in the section for bonds, debentures, promissory notes, crypto-assets and similar property.
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