The 33% rate from 2026, what is and is not taxable, and what changes when you move to Italy with a crypto portfolio. We rebuild your cost history, plan custody and file your return.
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Crypto tax in Italy changed on 1 January 2026. Gains on crypto-assets are now taxed at 33%, up from 26%, with no tax-free threshold: the €2,000 allowance disappeared a year earlier. If a page or an adviser still quotes 26%, they are describing a regime that no longer exists.
But the headline rate is rarely the expensive part. The expensive part is a question almost nobody asks in time: where are your keys held? Under the Italian rules, that decides whether your crypto is Italian-source or foreign-source income, and so whether a special regime you moved to Italy for covers your portfolio at all. Get it wrong and the difference is 33% instead of 7%.
Italian law defines a crypto-asset as a digital representation of value or rights that can be transferred and stored electronically using distributed ledger technology. For individuals holding outside a business, gains are "other financial income" under Article 67(1)(c-sexies) TUIR, taxed at a flat substitute rate. There is no reduction for holding period: Italy cryptocurrency tax is a single flat rate on realised gains, declared in your annual return and paid with your income tax.
The 2026 Budget Law introduced a special regime for euro-denominated e-money tokens under the EU MiCA Regulation: gains on them are taxed at 26% rather than 33%, and simply converting euro into such a token, or redeeming it at face value, is not a taxable event at all. Note the boundaries: the relief is for euro e-money tokens under MiCA, not for stablecoins generally, and not for dollar-denominated ones.
This is where Italy is more favourable than many people expect. Following the Revenue Agency's Circular No. 30/E of 2023, a swap between assets with the same characteristics and functions is a continuation, not a realisation, so the cost of the asset you gave up carries over to the one you received.
If you bought 2 BTC for €40,000 and later swap 0.5 BTC for 8 ETH, those ether take a cost of €10,000, the cost of the bitcoin you gave up, not their market value on the day. For an active portfolio that is a real advantage over countries that tax every swap. It also means your entire position depends on a cost history only you can evidence.
Italian law requires the acquisition cost to be documented with "certain and precise elements". Where that documentation does not exist, the cost is deemed to be zero, and you are taxed at 33% on the entire proceeds, not on your gain.
We see the consequences constantly: coins bought years ago on an exchange that no longer exists, wallets consolidated and re-consolidated, transfers with no record of what was paid. Reconstructing a defensible cost history before a disposal is far cheaper than arguing about it afterwards, and it is one of the first things we do for a new client with a long crypto history.
Income from holding crypto, staking rewards being the obvious case, is taxed on the amount received with no deduction: if the platform keeps a fee, tax is due on the gross amount. Mining carried on as a business produces business revenue, valued in euro when the asset is mined; outside a business the position is less settled, and worth advice rather than assumption.
Where you bought the same asset at different times and prices, Italy does not let you choose which lot you sold. The Revenue Agency applies LIFO, last in first out, account by account. Buy 1 BTC in March at €60,000 and another in June at €75,000, sell one in September at €84,000, and your gain is €9,000, not €24,000. Several English-language guides say Italy uses FIFO, or lets you choose: both are wrong.
Losses on crypto offset gains of the same category in the same year, and any excess carries forward for four tax years, not five. Losses realised while the rate was 26% can still shelter gains now taxed at 33%, which makes crystallising a loss before year end more valuable than it was.
When the €2,000 allowance still existed, the Revenue Agency's filing software treated it for 2023 as a hard threshold, so that exceeding it made the whole gain taxable, while from 2024 it was applied as an exemption on the first €2,000. Taxpayers who filed for 2023 on the stricter basis paid more than they owed, and the Agency has confirmed the excess can be reclaimed. If you declared crypto gains for 2023, it is worth looking at the numbers again.
Some of the most common transactions have no settled Italian treatment, and honest advice says so. Where the amount justifies it, an advance ruling converts an unsettled question into a written answer that binds the Revenue Agency.
Italy has no special source rule for crypto, so the Revenue Agency applies the general principle that non-residents are taxed on income from assets located in Italy. In Circular No. 30/E of 2023 it set out how to locate something with no physical location.
For an ordinary Italian resident this changes nothing: 33% applies either way. For anyone who has moved to Italy under a special regime, it changes everything.
Under the lump sum tax for high-net-worth individuals, a new resident pays a fixed annual amount (€300,000 for those moving from 2026) covering all foreign-source income. Under the 7% regime for foreign pensioners, a qualifying pensioner pays 7% on all foreign-source income. In both, crypto gains are covered, but only if they are foreign-source.
A pensioner under the 7% regime who keeps a portfolio on a hardware wallet in a drawer of an Italian house is presumed to hold Italian-source crypto: that portfolio is outside the regime and taxed at 33%, nearly five times the rate they moved for. The same person, holding the same coins through a foreign intermediary, is inside the regime. For a lump sum resident, a large foreign-source portfolio is absorbed into a fixed payment that does not rise with the gain; an Italian-source one gets no such treatment.
None of this is exotic planning. It is a question of where an account is opened and where a device sits, decided before the move rather than discovered in the first tax return.
Italian residents must report crypto-assets in the RW section of the annual return, however and wherever they are held: crypto is reported even when entirely domestic, and even if never sold. One line per wallet is acceptable, with a supporting schedule of each asset; no country code is needed; and lost or stolen keys need not be reported where the loss is evidenced by a police report.
Crypto-assets also carry an annual charge of 2 per mille of their value, as stamp duty where an intermediary applies it, or as a standalone tax for self-custody and foreign intermediaries, capped at €14,000 for non-individuals. Under the lump sum and 7% regimes, reporting of covered foreign assets falls away. We handle it through our tax return preparation service.
Italy has twice allowed holders to reset the tax cost of their crypto to market value for a one-off substitute tax: 14% on values at 1 January 2023, and 18% on values at 1 January 2025, with payment by 30 November 2025. Both windows are now shut, but the pattern makes another plausible, and with the rate at 33% a step-up is worth more than ever. If you sit on a large unrealised gain and are not under pressure to sell, watch for it: we tell clients when a window opens.
If you are not Italian resident but your crypto is Italian-source, typically because it sits with an Italian intermediary, Italian law taxes the gain at 33%: the exemption protecting non-residents on ordinary financial gains was never extended to crypto. A tax treaty will usually rescue the position, as crypto gains generally fall under the residual capital gains article, which gives the taxing right to the State of residence. Where no treaty applies, the Italian charge stands.
Most crypto tax advice in Italy comes from people who understand crypto but not cross-border residence, or from people who understand residence but treat crypto as a footnote. Avv. Marco Mesina, a member of the Milan Bar (Ordine degli Avvocati di Milano) and formerly of Deloitte and Withers, advises internationally mobile clients on both at once: where the keys should sit, which regime the portfolio falls into, and whether the cost history will survive an audit.
33% from 1 January 2026, up from 26%, with no tax-free threshold. Gains on euro-denominated e-money tokens under MiCA are taxed at 26%.
If you are Italian tax resident, yes: gains are taxable at the same rate wherever the assets are held, and all crypto must be reported. Holders of the lump sum or 7% regime are the exception for foreign-source crypto.
No, where the two assets have the same characteristics and functions. The cost carries over. Converting to euro, buying goods or buying an NFT with a virtual currency are taxable.
The cost is treated as zero and tax is charged on the full proceeds. Rebuilding a defensible cost history before you sell is usually the most valuable step.
LIFO, last in first out, applied account by account. You cannot choose the lots you sell.
Only if they are foreign-source. Crypto on a device in Italy is presumed Italian-source and taxed at 33% instead of 7%. Decide where the keys sit before you move.
Yes. RW reporting applies whether or not anything was realised, and the 2 per mille annual charge on the value applies too.
Avv. Marco Mesina
Founder, Move to Dolce Vita · Avvocato, Milan Bar (Ordine degli Avvocati di Milano)
Marco is an Italian tax lawyer who advises individuals and families relocating to Italy on tax regimes, residency, citizenship, real estate and succession planning. Before founding Move to Dolce Vita he worked at Watson Farley & Williams, Withers and Deloitte in Milan.