The Bundestag decided on October 8, 2026 that German tax authorities may in future exchange data on crypto transactions with countries outside the European Union as well. What passed is a treaty act on an international agreement from 2023 that implements the crypto-asset reporting framework. If you hold coins at an exchange in Singapore, the Cayman Islands or Switzerland, that account no longer sits beyond the reach of the German tax office, as soon as the partner state delivers in return.
This piece sets the vote in context: what exactly gets reported, from when, which countries take part, and where the figures in press coverage diverge. The tax liability itself does not change. What changes is the likelihood that the tax office can cross-check a figure.
What the Bundestag decided on October 8
Parliament adopted the government bill in the version agreed in committee. The full title is the “Act on the Multilateral Agreement of 8 June 2023 between the Competent Authorities on the Automatic Exchange of Information pursuant to the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework”. It is on file as Bundestag printed paper 21/7195, the finance committee’s recommendation as printed paper 21/8425.
The majority was broad. According to the Bundestag, CDU/CSU, SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and Die Linke voted in favour, while the AfD group voted against. The federal government justifies the measure with the aim it words as follows: “To effectively combat cross-border tax evasion”.
A treaty act is not new tax law. It grants domestic approval to an agreement under international law that Germany has already signed. Only then may the Federal Republic actually send and receive the data.
CARF: the crypto-asset reporting framework in one sentence
CARF stands for Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework and is the OECD reporting standard that obliges crypto service providers to report user data and transaction totals to their tax authority, which then passes them on to the countries where those users are resident. The model is the Common Reporting Standard, under which banks have been exchanging account data for years. CARF carries that pattern over to exchanges, brokers, custodians and swap services.
We have taken the standard and its relationship to the CRS apart in a separate piece on the OECD reporting standards for crypto-assets. The October vote is the step with which Germany makes that framework usable beyond the EU border.
The data points the bill lists
The bill sets out what is transmitted for every reported user: “name, address, countries of residence, tax identification number and date of birth”. Added to that is the type of each individual crypto-asset. And finally the transaction data: gross transaction amounts, the number of units and the number of reportable transactions.
The term gross transaction amount deserves attention. What is reported is not your profit but your turnover. Move the same 2,000 euros around twenty times in a year and you appear with 40,000 euros in volume, even though the profit can be zero. We have described what that distinction means in practice here: what your exchange reports to the tax office.
Why the gross figure triggers follow-up questions
A tax office that sees a high gross total and finds no corresponding entry in the tax return has a starting point for a query. That is neither suspicion nor an estimate, but first of all a discrepancy between two data sets. It can only be resolved with a breakdown of the individual transactions. Without that breakdown you have to reconstruct it after the fact, and that is laborious at an exchange you left three years ago. A portfolio tracker with tax reporting solves the problem in advance, because it records the transactions as they happen instead of rebuilding them later.
DAC 8 and CARF: two routes, one tax office
Inside the European Union the exchange already exists. The Bundestag points out that for platforms and cryptocurrencies the corresponding European and national reporting obligations under DAC 7 and DAC 8 are already in place. DAC 8 is the EU administrative cooperation directive that brings crypto service providers into the reporting regime; the Bundestag had passed the German implementation back in November 2025.
That makes the division of labour clear: DAC 8 covers the EU, CARF covers the countries outside it. We wrote up what DAC 8 requires in detail when the German implementation was adopted. The October vote closes the gap that had sat between the two worlds until then.
The timeline: collection in 2026, reporting in 2027
Precision matters here, because several years get mixed up in press coverage. The sequence that follows from the available information looks like this: the service providers subject to reporting collect the transaction data from 2026 onwards. Reporting to the respective tax authority begins in 2027. Under the OECD’s plans, the international exchange between the authorities also starts in 2027.
The Bundestag’s own text names neither a start date for the exchange nor a collection year. If you read a specific month, treat it as the reporting outlet’s figure rather than as something the law fixes. The direction is certain: the current year is already a collection year. Nothing about that can be changed retroactively.
There is also a condition that is easy to miss. An exchange relationship does not come into being through the signature alone. Both states have to bring their rules into force, notify the OECD and name each other as partners. Until that has happened, nothing flows between two signatories.
27, 46 or 55 countries? Why the numbers differ
Three figures circulate for the number of countries involved, and all three can be explained once you tie them to the right question.
For the signing, the Bundestag gives a clear figure: the multilateral agreement was signed in November 2024 by Germany and 26 further countries, so by 27 states. The signing took place in Asunción, Paraguay. Separate from that is the number of states that actually intend to start the exchange from 2027: for that, the OECD names 46 jurisdictions, according to the specialist site Blocktrainer. The third figure, 55, comes from the Bundestag debate itself; the AfD member Jörn König spoke of 55 further states. Blocktrainer considers that figure inaccurate and points to the OECD number.
The middle figure is the most useful one in practice, because it describes where data is meant to flow from 2027. The agreement is also open-ended: further states will join later. The United Arab Emirates and Turkey are named for 2028, the United States has committed to taking part from 2029 and is absent from the first wave.
What a missing country does not mean
A country missing from the first wave does not make gains there tax-free. In Germany, tax liability attaches to your residence, not to where the exchange is based. A missing exchange relationship only lowers the chance that a figure gets matched automatically. The duty to file a complete return applies regardless, and an incomplete return stays incomplete even if nobody checks it.
Exchanges outside the EU: where reporting applies
The reporting duty falls on the providers, not on the users. A provider is caught where it is resident or carries on its business. One simple question follows from that: in which country is the provider holding your balance based, and does that country have an exchange relationship with Germany?
For a platform licensed in the EU, DAC 8 answers that anyway. For a provider in a non-EU state, the partner list decides. And there is a third case that has become very concrete in Germany this year: providers that fail to get their licence and rebuild their business. The marketplace bitcoin.de shows what that looks like after BaFin refused it a MiCAR licence; we set out the situation for balances held there in October. If you move for a reason like that, choose the destination by its licence and not by its fee table; an overview of the trading venues regulated in the EU is in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
Documentation: the records a data match requires
Matching two data sets only works if you have your own. For every position, what counts is the date of acquisition, the acquisition cost, the date of disposal and the disposal proceeds. At a single exchange with a handful of purchases that is manageable. It gets messy with moves between platforms, with coin-to-coin swaps and with transactions at providers that can no longer be reached.
Two points are especially error-prone. First, swapping one coin for another: for tax purposes that is a disposal and an acquisition in one transaction, even though no euro moved. Second, transfers to your own wallet, which are not a sale but can appear as a transaction in a reported data set. Both can only be explained with a breakdown that shows the transaction.
The exemption threshold for private disposals and the one-year holding period under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act continue to apply unchanged. Motions by the Greens and the Left to abolish the holding period found no majority in the Bundestag. Check the amounts that apply for your year before you file, with the tax office or in your tax software, because they have been adjusted several times in recent years.
The criticism: data protection in non-EU states and Article 2
The dissent came from the AfD group. According to Blocktrainer’s report, the member Jörn König raised two objections. First, sensitive data should not go to states whose level of data protection falls below the European one. Second, he criticised Article 2 of the act: it allows the federal finance ministry to change the scope of the exchanged data by regulation, without the Bundestag voting again. König called for that article to be deleted. His group also demanded that transfers between a user’s own wallets be excluded and that a de minimis threshold be introduced.
The second objection concerns a mechanism that is notable regardless of the political verdict: after the vote, the scope of reporting is not fixed for good; it can be widened by regulation. To know what will be reported in two years, you therefore have to keep an eye on the regulations, not just on the act.
There is reticence inside the coalition too, though on a different question. On the debate about taxing crypto-assets like shares, the CDU/CSU member Georg Günther was sceptical, according to the same report: “There is no convincing reason for a change of system”, crypto-assets were “not classic securities”, and he summed up: “Tax transparency yes, but no tightening for its own sake.” The distinction in that is useful for context: transparency and the tax rate are two different building sites, and so far only transparency has been decided.
What CARF does not change: the tax liability stays
A reporting framework does not levy tax. It only shifts who knows what. That comes down to three points which remain unchanged after the vote.
The amount of your tax still follows German income tax law, not the law of the state where the exchange is based. The duty to file a complete return rests with you and not with the service provider; a report from the exchange does not replace an entry in your tax return. And the burden of proof for acquisition cost and holding period also stays with you, which is why patchy documentation is a problem even when nothing was reported at all.
That reporting duties are growing beyond exchanges is shown by a development of late summer: wallet manufacturers are now covered in the EU as well. Across all the individual measures the direction is the same: what only you used to know is becoming matchable.
Crypto tax reporting: from 2027 the 2026 data is on file
The vote of 8 October only takes effect in the future, but the collection year is running now. Three steps follow from it.
- Take stock. Note which providers hold balances for you and which country each of them sits in. That shows which positions DAC 8 already captures and which will be added through CARF. Which trading venues are licensed in the EU is shown in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
- Close the gaps in your history. Export the transaction history everywhere you can still retrieve it, and store it off the platform. At a provider that is rebuilding or winding down its business, the export is no longer available later. A tax tool with portfolio reporting handles that part on an ongoing basis.
- Move long-term holdings into your own custody. A transfer to your own wallet is not a sale, but it can appear as a transaction in a reported data set. Note the date and the destination address so the transaction stays explainable later. Which devices are suitable for that is shown in our hardware wallet comparison. If you failed to declare gains for a past year, settle that with tax advice beforehand.
You can read the vote itself: the Bundestag documents it in its text archive for the sitting week, and the DAC 8 implementation from November 2025 is documented there as well.
(As of October 18, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)
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