Updated Checked by the Tax-Services.ca editorial team How we check
Crypto tax software reads your exchange and wallet history, matches buys to sells and produces a gains report you can use on your Canadian return. The CRA doesn’t endorse any product, though it does recommend exporting your transaction records regularly. So the software does the sums. The filing, and the records behind it, stay your job.
What does crypto tax software actually do?
It pulls in transactions, values them in Canadian dollars and works out gains and losses per sale. Koinly is one example of a product in this category, and we say nothing about how well it or any other product works. Whichever you pick, the report is only as good as what you feed it.
That matters because a crypto sale isn’t the only taxable event. The CRA treats crypto-assets as property, not currency. Sales and trades count, and so do barter (paying for goods or services with crypto), gifts and donations, gambling and rewards. Depending on what you do, the profit is either business income or a capital gain. The CRA’s page on crypto-assets and your tax obligations lists these transaction types.
What should you check before you choose one?
Ask questions of the software, not the marketing. We couldn’t confirm prices, discounts or feature lists for any product, so treat the table as a checklist.
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Does it report in Canadian dollars? | Each transaction has to be valued in Canadian dollars |
| Can it export a full transaction history? | Records must be kept for six years after the last tax year they cover |
| Does it show every wallet and balance? | The CRA lists wallet addresses and opening and closing balances among the records to keep |
| How does it work out cost per coin? | The method changes your gain, so compare it with the CRA’s guidance |
| Does it cover trades, barter and gifts? | These are all reportable events |
Mining, staking and airdrops have their own rules. So do losses on repurchases of the same coin. We didn’t verify those, so read the CRA pages on them, and ask the vendor if the software covers them.
How is the tax worked out on a sale?
Say you bought coins for $9,000 and sold them for $15,000, and your other taxable income is $70,000 in Ontario. The capital gains tax calculator shows a $6,000 gain, and $3,000 of it, half, lands on your income. The extra tax is $973.25, or 16.2% of the gain, so you keep $5,026.75.
The half comes straight from the CRA’s description of taxable capital gains.
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
The page adds that capital losses can only be deducted against taxable capital gains, so a bad year on crypto won’t lower your salary income.
The result changes with your income. Curious about the tax on the next dollar? The marginal tax rate calculator shows it, while the income tax calculator covers the whole year.
Trade often enough that the CRA sees a business and the rules change. Your profit becomes ordinary business earnings, and the self-employed calculator is closer, with CPP on top. Enter $80,000 of net profit from self-employment in Ontario and it shows $22,126.47 for income tax and CPP together. EI and GST/HST aren’t in that figure.
What do you do with the report?
Read it line by line for the biggest trades, then carry the totals to the capital gains or business income part of your return. Keep the full report and the raw exchange exports together, since the summary alone won’t show how a figure was reached if the CRA asks. A short note on how you valued each coin and which cost method you used saves you from reconstructing it later.
What goes wrong with crypto records?
- Importing one exchange and forgetting a wallet. Money moved between your own accounts then looks like a sale.
- Trusting the report without reading it. Odd numbers, like a huge gain on a tiny trade, usually mean missing data.
- Losing access to an exchange. Custodial platforms keep history for different lengths of time, so export it while you can.
- Ignoring GST/HST. The CRA says some crypto transactions may have GST/HST implications.
- Missing the instalments. If your net tax owing passes $3,000, the tax instalments calculator shows how it splits into four payments.
Take Mike, who bought a few coins on one exchange, moved them to his own wallet, then sold from there. Imported on its own, the exchange showed the move as a withdrawal and the later sale as a mystery. The software had no way to know the wallet was his. Adding the wallet fixed the report.
A program can’t tell if you’re an investor or running a business. That call rests on how you trade, and with a big or odd portfolio, an accountant who works with crypto earns the fee.
Where this information comes from
The treatment of crypto-assets, the records to keep and the six-year rule come from the Canada Revenue Agency‘s guide for crypto-asset users, read in 2026. Tax amounts use 2026 federal and Ontario data built into the calculators on this site. No government body is connected to this website.
Frequently asked questions
Does the CRA recommend a crypto tax program?
No. The CRA does not endorse specific products, but it recommends exporting your transaction records regularly.
How long must I keep crypto records?
Six years after the end of the last tax year the records relate to.
Is crypto a capital gain or business income?
It can be either, depending on your activity, and the CRA says your facts decide which.
Which crypto transactions are reportable?
Sales and trades, barter, gifts and donations, gambling and rewards are all listed by the CRA.
Can software tell me if I'm a trader?
No. Whether it's business income or capital gains depends on the facts of your activity, so read the CRA guidance.
- How Canadian income tax works: brackets and credits
How federal and provincial Canadian income tax stack up, what marginal and average rates mean, and how credits and deductions change your bill