Crypto tax and withholding at source from 2028: what to check now

The German Federal Ministry of Finance’s draft bill on the taxation of crypto assets held privately has had a date since September 30, 2026: on October 14, 2026 the federal cabinet is due to take it up. For you, what matters about it is less the date than a figure that has barely featured in the coverage so far: January 1, 2028. From that day, crypto exchanges and other service providers are to withhold the tax on your gains directly and pass it to the tax office, the way a German bank does today with shares.

The short answer to the question of what that means for your trading account: for most purchases, nothing at all changes at first about the duty to declare for yourself. Deduction at source comes two years after the new rules, it affects only certain providers, and with self-custody it does not apply at all under the draft. Anyone who mixes that up is counting on relief that never arrives.

A note on the sources, because it counts for placing all this: the draft is not publicly available on the ministry’s pages. What is public is the covering letter, which Blocktrainer has published, and a detailed legal assessment of the draft version presented by the tax lawyer David Hötzel in the specialist portal Der Betrieb. Everything below is the state of the draft, not law in force.