Capital Gains Tax Ireland Exemptions: Crypto and Spouses

Capital gains tax Ireland exemptions include an annual personal exemption of €1,270. For an individual with crypto gains, it applies to total chargeable gains for the tax year after deducting losses. It is not a separate allowance for each asset or disposal. Spouse transfers and allowable losses have their own rules, which should not be confused with transferring the annual exemption.

Risk warning: Crypto-assets such as bitcoin are high risk and speculative. Their value can go down as well as up, sometimes sharply, and you could lose all the money you put in. Past performance doesn't necessarily give a guide to the future. Some crypto products and services are unregulated, and even under MiCA crypto is not covered by the Deposit Guarantee Scheme or the Investor Compensation Scheme. Crypto isn't suitable for everyone, so only use money you can afford to lose.

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Tax note: This is general information based on Revenue guidance, checked on 4 November 2026. It isn't tax advice. Your position depends on your circumstances.

How the annual exemption applies to crypto

Revenue's exemptions page, published on 25 November 2024, exempts the first €1,270 of an individual's total gains each tax year after losses. Resident and non-resident individuals can claim it. Companies and trusts cannot.

The allowance belongs to the individual. A crypto disposal does not receive a fresh exemption simply because it involves a different coin or takes place through a different account. The relevant figure is total chargeable gains across assets for the year.

Revenue's crypto manual, reviewed in January 2026, illustrates this in section 1.3.3: the personal exemption has already been used against share gains before a later crypto disposal. The crypto gain does not receive another allowance.

The exemption only reduces a chargeable gain. Revenue's manual says an amount exceeding total annual chargeable gains cannot be used. This distinguishes the personal exemption from allowable losses, which can have a role in later years.

For the broader calculation, see capital gains tax in Ireland. This page focuses on exemptions and the interaction with losses and spouses. Our crypto tax in Ireland guide covers the wider crypto tax topics.

An exemption does not remove the disposal calculation

Revenue's crypto manual says the treatment depends on the facts and circumstances. A sale, transfer or redemption is most likely a CGT disposal unless the activity constitutes a trade of dealing in crypto-assets.

Section 1.3 requires a separate calculation for each asset on each disposal, using proceeds less asset cost and allowing loss relief against gains. The annual exemption comes into the overall calculation after losses. It does not replace the individual disposal calculations.

Spending crypto can also matter. Section 1.3.3 treats crypto used to purchase goods as a CGT disposal, requiring calculation and declaration of the gain and payment of any CGT arising. Paying with crypto therefore cannot be assumed to avoid the CGT calculation.

Which other exemptions does Revenue list?

Revenue lists exemptions for gains from betting, lottery wins, prize bonds and sweepstakes. It also lists National Instalments Savings Scheme bonuses, government stocks and certain life assurance policies.

Its list includes animals and private motor cars, as well as moveable property such as furniture where the gain does not exceed €2,540. That list should not be read as classifying crypto as moveable property eligible for that exemption. The researched Revenue material does not establish that treatment for crypto.

The distinction is between an exemption that applies to a particular asset or transaction and the personal exemption available against an individual's total chargeable gains. The presence of other exemptions on Revenue's page does not establish a general crypto exemption.

There is a separate distinction for VAT. Section 2.1 of the crypto manual describes a VAT exemption for certain bitcoin exchange services acting as principal. That is VAT treatment. It does not establish that an individual's crypto gains are exempt from CGT.

Losses come before the personal exemption

Revenue's losses guidance, published on 2 May 2025, says a disposal loss is allowable where a gain on the same transaction would have been chargeable. Allowable losses can be deducted from chargeable gains in the same tax year, subject to exceptions.

The order matters: losses are deducted before the annual personal exemption. Section 1.3.2 of the crypto manual also illustrates carried forward losses being deducted before the exemption.

Losses exceeding gains, or arising in a year without gains, can carry forward against the next available capital gains in later years. Revenue generally does not allow losses to offset gains from earlier years. Its exception allows unused allowable losses in the year of death to offset the deceased's gains for the previous three years.

There is also a restriction involving development land: losses on development land may offset other chargeable gains, but other losses cannot offset development land gains. A calculation involving different asset types therefore needs to respect more than the annual exemption alone.

Reporting losses when there are no gains

Revenue says that where there are no chargeable gains in the loss year, the loss need not be included in that year's return. It is deducted in the return for the next chargeable period with a chargeable gain. Carried forward losses are included in later CGT calculations and returns.

That specific loss reporting rule is separate from Revenue's requirement to file where reliefs or exemptions leave no tax due. A year with no chargeable gains and a year with gains covered by an exemption are different situations.

Spouses: three separate rules

The annual personal exemption, an asset transfer between partners and the use of a partner's losses each have different treatment. One rule should not be used to infer the outcome under another.

The personal exemption cannot be transferred

Revenue states that an individual cannot transfer the annual personal exemption to a spouse or civil partner. A partner's unused exemption cannot simply be added to your own allowance against your gains.

Asset transfers are usually exempt, with exceptions

A gain on an asset transferred between spouses or civil partners is usually exempt. Revenue also discusses divorced spouses and separated or former civil partners, subject to exceptions.

Revenue lists exceptions for transfers of the transferor's business trading stock and transfers to a non-resident spouse or civil partner who is not liable to CGT. The exemption also does not apply to transfers to a former spouse or civil partner without a court order.

The researched guidance establishes the transfer exemption and those exceptions. This page does not set out the acquisition cost or later disposal calculation for crypto received through such a transfer.

Joint assessment affects allowable losses

For spouses or civil partners jointly assessed for CGT, allowable losses are automatically set against the other partner's chargeable gains.

Revenue says an application to retain one's own allowable loss must be made on or before 1 April in the following year. It lists MyEnquiries in myAccount, ROS or a written request to the Revenue office as application routes. This loss rule does not make the annual personal exemption transferable.

Death, gifts and a different tax

Generally, no CGT arises on the transfer of an asset on death. A sale by a personal representative during administration may incur CGT, however, and receiving an asset may have Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT) implications.

Section 6 of Revenue's crypto manual says receiving crypto by gift or inheritance may create a CAT liability. Valuation is based on the euro equivalent market value at the valuation date. An exemption from CGT therefore does not, by itself, settle the recipient's CAT position.

No CGT payable can still mean a return

Revenue's CGT reliefs overview, published on 21 January 2026, says a return must be filed even where reliefs or exemptions leave no tax due.

For an exemption calculation, the relevant information includes each disposal's proceeds and asset cost, allowable losses and total chargeable gains across assets. Keeping those figures together makes the distinction between losses and the personal exemption visible, including where share gains have already used the allowance.

Our guide to reporting crypto to Revenue covers the reporting process. The exemption changes the amount of gain subject to CGT; it does not automatically remove the return requirement.