How staking, airdrops, NFTs and DeFi are taxed in Spain

Staking rewards are investment income from the transfer of own capital to third parties (artículo 25.2 of the Ley del IRPF, the Spanish Personal Income Tax Act), received in kind. This was established by the Directorate-General for Taxes in binding ruling V1766-22 and repeated in rulings V0648-24 and V1551-25.

It does not matter whether you delegate your coins to a validator from an exchange or if you are the validator with your own node: in ruling V1766-22 the DGT ruled out staking as an economic activity, and in V2388-24 it confirms that the result is the same in both cases.

Each reward is valued at its market value in euros on the day you receive it; if you receive several on the same day, you can use the average exchange rate for that day. This amount goes to the savings base, which in 2025 and 2026 is taxed from 19% to 30% depending on the bracket.

It is taxed when received, not when sold. This value is also the acquisition cost of those coins: when you sell or exchange them, the capital gain or loss is calculated from there.

There is no withholding tax: when rewards come from the system itself, there is no party obliged to withhold, so you declare the full amount. And since cryptocurrencies are not marketable securities, you cannot deduct administration and deposit expenses.

An airdrop is a free delivery of tokens without you giving anything in return. For an individual, the DGT treats it as a capital gain not derived from a transfer: it is valued at its market value in euros on the day you receive it (artículo 34.1.b of the Ley del IRPF) and goes to the general base, not the savings base (artículos 45 and 46). It is therefore taxed at the progressive state and regional scale of your autonomous community.

If the airdrop reaches you through your professional activity, the classification changes: in ruling V2388-24, airdrops that a digital artist received from the platforms where they sold their works were considered income in kind from their economic activity.

If the token has no quote or market when you receive it, its value is zero: there is no income to declare and its cost is also zero, so when you sell it, everything will be a gain. Keep a screenshot of the price or the lack of a market on that day.

Hard forks (a new chain that assigns you new coins for the ones you already had) do not have a DGT ruling that we can cite. We review them on a case-by-case basis: the decisive factor is whether you receive something with market value and what cost is assigned to the new coins, to avoid being taxed twice for the same thing.

If you buy and sell NFTs as an investor, each sale generates a capital gain or loss in the savings base: sale price in euros minus purchase cost, including commissions.

If you pay for an NFT with ETH or another crypto, in addition to buying the NFT you are bartering the ETH you deliver: you must calculate your gain or loss with FIFO, just as if you had sold it for euros.

If you create and sell NFTs regularly, organising your resources to produce and sell digital works, it is an economic activity (artículo 27 of the Ley del IRPF). Ruling V2388-24 deals with this case: an artist registered for IAE (economic activities tax) who sells illustrations on blockchain platforms and asks if they can deduct the minting expense. It is declared as an activity, not as a capital gain, and the sale may also be subject to VAT.

Returns from lending, liquidity pools and platforms that reinvest your cryptos in DeFi (yield farming, vaults) are investment income under artículo 25.2, just like staking: ruling V0648-24 links them to the deposit or blocking of crypto assets for a period of time. They are valued in euros on the day you receive them and go to the savings base.

Exchanging one crypto for another, including a stablecoin (BTC for USDC, ETH for USDT), is a barter and is taxed at that moment even if it does not go through euros. The gain is the difference between the cost of what you deliver and the higher of two values: the market value of what you deliver or that of what you receive. This is the most common mistake: believing that you only pay when converting to euros.

The LP tokens you receive when providing liquidity are an open case: V0648-24 left out their obtaining and reimbursement. If you deliver two coins and receive a different token, the general barter rule leads to calculating the gain or loss when contributing and again when withdrawing. This is the prudent criterion we apply.

With wrapped tokens (ETH for WETH, BTC for WBTC) there is also no ruling we can cite. If you deliver one asset and receive a different one, the general criterion is that of a barter. Since both are worth almost the same, the gain is usually small, but the cost of the new token is fixed at that moment.

Mining with your own equipment (proof of work) is analysed as an economic activity: you organise resources, equipment and electricity on your own account to obtain new coins (artículo 27 of the Ley del IRPF). It is declared as income from economic activities, with its deductible expenses. This is the difference with staking, where the DGT rules out economic activity.

If you leave your cryptos as a guarantee (collateral), the DGT, in ruling V0648-24, classifies what you obtain for that delivery in guarantee as investment income. The relevant factor is whether the coins change ownership: if the protocol gives you a different token in exchange, we apply the barter criterion.

If the protocol liquidates your guarantee because the price falls, that liquidation is a transfer and generates a capital gain or loss, calculated with FIFO. The interest you pay for the loan, as an individual, is not deducted in your income tax return.

Each transaction is converted to euros at the market value of the day it occurs: the reward when received, the airdrop when received, the barter when made. Keep the price source you use and always apply it consistently.

When you sell or barter part of some coins bought at different times, the ones acquired first are understood to be transferred: this is the FIFO criterion of the practical manual of the Agencia Tributaria (the Spanish Tax Agency). It is not a rule specific to cryptos, but the general one for homogeneous elements (artículo 37.2 of the Ley del IRPF).

Coins received from staking or airdrops enter the FIFO queue on the date you receive them and with the value for which they were taxed. That is why you must cross-reference the histories of all exchanges and wallets: if one is missing, the cost will be wrong and so will the gain.

Losses from barters or sales are offset against other gains from sales or barters of the year (not against an airdrop, which goes to the general base). If there is a surplus, they are offset against investment income (staking, lending) up to 25% of these, and the rest in the following 4 years (artículo 49 of the Ley del IRPF).

Modelo 721 is the informative declaration of virtual currencies located abroad (artículo 42 quater of the Reglamento de gestión e inspección tributaria, the Spanish Tax Management and Inspection Regulation). It is submitted by a resident in Spain with cryptos custodied by a provider that is not obliged to report to Hacienda (the Spanish Tax Authority) in Spain, when their combined value as of 31 December exceeds €50,000. If exceeded, all of them are reported.

What matters is who custodies the keys. Cryptos in staking within a foreign exchange are still custodied by that exchange and are included in the calculation. Those in your own wallet (hardware wallet, MetaMask) or those deposited in a DeFi contract without a custodian are not custodied by a provider.

The deadline runs from 1 January to 31 March of the following year. In subsequent years, it only needs to be submitted again if the combined balance increases by more than €20,000 or if you cease to be the owner. It is valued using the quote as of 31 December from the main platforms or pricing websites.

The 721 only reports, it does not pay. But failing to submit it or submitting it incorrectly is penalised under the general regime of the Ley General Tributaria (the Spanish General Tax Act, artículos 198 and 199), not with the old fines, which fell after the CJEU ruling of 27 January 2022 (case C-788/19).

Exchanges with a headquarters or establishment in Spain report balances (Modelo 172) and transactions (Modelo 173) to Hacienda since the 2023 financial year. Furthermore, with the DAC8 directive, EU providers collect data from 1 January 2026 and the first exchange between administrations is scheduled for 2027; as of 1 October 2026, the Spanish transposition law had not been published in the BOE (Official State Gazette).

If you did not declare rewards or swaps from previous years, Hacienda has 4 years from the end of the deadline for each income tax return to assess them. Regularising before a formal notice from Hacienda (requerimiento) is cheaper than waiting.

At Managora we do the entire job. With the Cryptocurrency tax report card (informe_fiscal_cripto) we reconstruct your transactions from the exchanges and wallets you have used, value them in euros, apply FIFO and classify each income. With the Income tax return card (modelo_100) we submit your IRPF, and with the Modelo 721 card (modelo_721), the informative declaration if applicable. You can see the updated amount on each card.