Tax forms: Frequently asked questions
Disclaimer: Kraken does not provide tax advice. Depending on your country's regulatory framework, you may have to pay taxes on capital gains from trading digital assets or on the value of your digital asset portfolio. You may also have to pay taxes on other income you earn such as from staking rewards or airdrops. The regulatory framework for taxation of cryptocurrencies differs from country to country. We strongly advise you to contact a personal tax advisor for further information about your personal tax circumstances.
Review the U.S. crypto tax guide 2025: Latest IRS updates here.
Tax forms eligibility criteria
For 2024, given we had shut down our U.S. Staking Program in 2023, no Forms 1099-MISC will be issued for 2024. Additionally, we will not issue the new Form 1099-DA (Digital Assets), for sales of Digital Assets, until the first year this reporting is required, which is tax year 2025. Therefore no Form 1099 will be issued to U.S. clients for tax year 2024. To determine gains, losses, income and expenses from the transactions in your Kraken account we would suggest the use of a crypto tax calculator tool, please see Since I did not receive a Tax Form for 2024, what should I know?” for more information.
For clients that are tax resident in Italy please see the section below entitled “Where Can I Find My Tax Form if am Eligible?” on how to download your Italian Stamp Duty Statement. For more information on the Italian Stamp Duty, please see Understanding the annual Italian Stamp Duty withholding on your Kraken account.
Tax forms and statements are only accessible via our websites (not the apps), at Kraken.com and Pro.Kraken.com and should be accessed via a personal computer.
In order to navigate to the documents page on Kraken.com, please click on your initials in the upper left corner, and on Kraken Pro please click on the figure of the person in the upper left corner, and select “Documents”. If you are eligible, your tax form(s) or tax statement(s) will be available in the “Account documents” section as either an “Account Statement” or a “Tax Statement” depending on the tax form or statement type.
For 2024 - For tax residents of Italy, if the Italian Stamp Duty statement has not been issued to you, it means you did not meet the eligibility criteria.
For 2023 and prior years - If a Form 1099-MISC is not available for prior years it is because you did not meet the eligibility criteria. Please review the eligibility criteria and the "Why didn’t I receive a tax form last year?" FAQ for more information.
The IRS recently finalized the Broker Regulations for Digital Asset Brokers. These regulations and the related reporting only apply to activity on the Kraken exchange, including: Kraken.com, Kraken Pro, and the related apps. These regulations will not apply to activity on our DeFi Applications (Kraken Wallet, and Ink). A different regulation package will apply in the future for tax reporting on DeFi App transactions. The impacts to tax reporting for transactions on the Kraken exchange as a result of these new regulations are summarized below:
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For Tax Year 2025 - We will begin reporting sales and dispositions of Digital Assets on the new Form 1099-DA (Digital Assets). A reportable disposition of a Digital Asset also includes a transfer of a digital asset to another party, for example, sending the Digital Asset to a third party using Kraken Pay.
Restart of the U.S. Staking Program- Additionally, with the restart of the U.S. staking program, clients should also anticipate receiving a Form 1099-MISC if they have $600 or more in rewards for 2025.
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For Tax Year 2026 - In addition to reporting the proceeds from sales on the Form 1099-DA, we will also begin reporting acquisition costs (cost-basis), gains/losses and holding periods for positions acquired on or after January 1st, 2026.
More information is available in the “What is a Form 1099-DA?” FAQ.
As stated above because we had shut down our U.S. Staking program in 2023, it was determined that no U.S. clients met the eligibility requirement of USD $600 or more in rewards for 2024; therefore, no Forms 1099-MISC will be issued to U.S. clients for 2024.
The IRS has clarified in the Broker Regulations for Digital Asset Brokers that the first time that sales and dispositions of Digital Assets are required to be reported is for tax year 2025, and the reporting will be on the new Form 1099-DA (Digital Assets). For 2024, although optional, Kraken will not provide reporting to its clients nor the IRS on another Form in the 1099 series including the Form 1099-K or 1099-B.
Payward Interactive, Inc.
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Kraken, will not be providing a gain/loss statement for your activity for 2024. Please refer to the “Since I did not receive a Tax Form for 2024, what should I know?” for more information on resources to support you with this.
For 2024, we have determined that no account identified as a U.S. Person account outside of the U.S. had $600 or more in staking rewards and airdrops. If you are a U.S. Person located outside of the U.S. and you had more than $600 in rewards for 2024 or a prior year and you have not received a tax form and believe that you should please reach out to our support team.
Kraken only provided tax forms to US clients that earned:
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USD $600 or more in staking rewards, airdrops, and referral rewards in a calendar year.
If you believe you should have received a Tax Form for a prior year and you are not seeing it in your “Documents” please notify our support team.
Tax forms issued by Kraken
Kraken historically has only provided a US Form 1099-MISC to its clients which are filed with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and a copy is provided to you (only if you are eligible). This will change in future years, as tax reporting laws are constantly changing, for how this will change for 2025 please see “What is a Form 1099-DA?”.
A Form 1099-MISC is used to report staking rewards, referral program rewards, airdrops and certain other income to the US IRS earned between January 1st and December 31st each year if a client is a US person for tax purposes and has earned USD $600 or more in total. This form is used by you (if you are eligible) to prepare and calculate your taxes. The form includes a sum of staking, Airdrops, reward income, calculated over the past year and converted to USD using the Volume Weighted Average Price on the days the rewards were credited to your account. Your Form 1099-MISC includes your name, last name, address, tax id number, and public Account ID. With the restart of the U.S. staking program, clients should anticipate receiving a Form 1099-MISC if they have $600 or more in rewards for 2025.
Beginning with Tax Year 2025, Kraken will begin reporting sales and dispositions of digital assets on the new Form 1099-DA (Digital Assets).
The Form 1099-DA, initially, will only report sales from your activity on the Kraken Exchange, including: Kraken.com, Kraken Pro, and the related apps. Your activity on our DeFi Apps (Kraken Wallet, and Ink) may be reportable in future years, with more information to come concerning this reporting. The information that will be reported on the new Form 1099-DA, includes the following (summarized):
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For Tax Year 2025 - Your name, account number, tax id, address, sales proceeds (adjusted for any fees), date of the sale, name and code of the digital asset sold, number of units sold, and if the units were transferred-in and the number of units transferred in.
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For Tax Year 2026 - In addition to reporting the proceeds from sales on the Form 1099-DA, for positions acquired in 2026 or thereafter, we will also begin reporting acquisition costs (adjusted for any fees), the acquisition date, gains/losses
and, and the character of the gain/loss (short-term, long-term, or ordinary).
For more information draft instructions for the Form 1099-DA are available here.
Kraken complies with all US IRS regulations. If you have received a Form 1099-MISC in prior years then this information has been reported to the IRS. All of the information shown on your form is shared with the US IRS and the state tax agency of the state of your residence. Though your form may only display the last 4 digits of your tax ID number, the full tax identification number is shared with the US IRS and state tax agency. If any of the information is incorrect, please submit a support ticket as soon as possible so we can correct your tax form.
A copy of your Form 1099 may be sent to the state of residence listed on your Kraken account. If this address is not correct, please update your address on file by signing into your Kraken account and following the steps here.
Tax forms should be used as documentation for your tax advisor, CPA or other tax professional that may prepare and calculate your taxes. You should download and keep a copy of your tax forms for your own records as Kraken will only retain these in your account history for a limited time (generally seven years, which is subject to change).
More information regarding the Form 1099-MISC (issued for tax year 2023 and prior years)
Airdrops are considered taxable income when received (FAQ 23), and these reportable on your Form 1099-MISC if your total rewards for the year are equal to or greater than $600.
Staking rewards are treated as taxable when a taxpayer has dominion and control over the reward, and are reportable even if you did not sell your staking rewards. In certain cases the staking rewards may be reflected in your account; however, the trading of the rewards could be restricted. For example, ETH2 staking rewards were generally unavailable trading until the Shapella upgrade of the Ethereum Network. In that instance you would have had dominion over the ETH staking rewards but you did not have control until the staking rewards were unlocked for trading by the Shapella upgrade.
Our records likely indicate that you hold multiple separate accounts with Kraken with the same name and tax identification number combination. If together these separate accounts would exceed USD $600 when aggregated then you will be issued a tax form, but to each separate account. You should sign in to your other Kraken accounts to check for other tax forms that have been issued to you. You may also receive separate tax forms below the USD $600 threshold if you earned income from different products that exceed the threshold when combined together (such as one form for your staking rewards and a separate form for your referral program rewards).
Kraken converts staking rewards into USD using Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP). VWAP is a weighted average based on trading volume and spot price over a 24 hour period.
The formula for VWAP is: (Price of an asset in USD x % of 24 hr volume traded at that price)
Example:
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John stakes DOT with Kraken, and receives 100 DOT in staking rewards on January 7th
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On January 7th, DOT is trading at the following prices / volumes:
Price of DOT in USD
Amount of DOT traded
$10
1,000 DOT
$11
2,000 DOT
$12
7,000 DOT
Total:
10,000 DOT
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VWAP is calculated using the following formula: (Price of DOT in USD x % of 24 hr DOT volume traded at that price).
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John’s staking rewards would be calculated at USD $11.60 per DOT based on the VWAP formula: ($10 x (1,000 DOT / 10,000 DOT)) + ($11 x (2,000 DOT / 10,000 DOT)) + ($12 x 7,000 DOT / 10,000 DOT).
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$1.00 + $2.20 + $8.40 = $11.60 - •
Thus, John’s 100 DOT staking rewards would be worth USD $1,160 January 7th (100 DOT & USD $11.60 per DOT).
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USD $1,160 amount would be added to his Form 1099-MISC, and the process would repeat each time he receives a staking* reward.
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Tax Year 2023 - Why are multiple years of ETH2 rewards included on my Form 1099-MISC?
ETH2 rewards become reportable to you on a Form 1099-MISC in the year when they become liquid and tradeable on Kraken. ETH2 rewards, from years prior to 2023, may have been delivered to your account; however they were not tradeable until 2023 when the Ethereum network underwent the Shapella upgrade. Therefore, your 2023
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MEV rewards, derived from ETH2 staking* are generally liquid when they were granted and may have been reporting on your Form 1099-MISC in prior years in addition to any MEV rewards granted in 2023.
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Tax Year 2022 - Why do I have a reportable ETHW amount on my Form 1099-MISC?
In addition to the ETH/ETH2 that went into client accounts as part of the ETH proof-of-staking merge around September 15th, 2022, there was also an airdrop of ETHW (proof-of-work ETH), via a "Transfer" transaction.
Other FAQ's
We have available resources that may be helpful to you. You can easily download your complete transaction history anytime, directly from your Kraken account—quick, seamless, and always at your fingertips. For step-by-step guidance, please refer to our guides on exporting your data to a CSV file. Additionally, crypto tax calculation services, such as Koinly.io, may - with your permission - access your transaction history via API to assist you in calculating gains, losses, income, and expenses related to your Kraken activity.
Here are some helpful resources:
Please note that it is your responsibility as the accountholder to determine any applicable taxes on trades made through our platform and to ensure accurate reporting and remittance of any taxes due to the appropriate tax authorities. Your tax advisor can assist you further.