Selling Bitcoin at a Loss and Buying Back: The Clock

Anyone who sells a bitcoin position at a loss in order to use that loss for tax purposes, and buys the same quantity back shortly afterwards, triggers two things at once in Germany. The loss is realized and remains deductible. At the same time, the one-year holding period starts again from scratch for the quantity bought back. That is the price of the decision, and it hangs on a single date: the acquisition date of the new units.

The occasion is this week's slide. On September 17, 2026, Bitcoin stood at $76,555, or €66,712, and Ethereum at $2,453 and €2,138. Cryptoticker.io retrieved these figures on the same day through CoinGecko's public price interface. Many positions opened over the past year are therefore under water, and the question of whether to take the loss and get straight back in is coming up in a great many German portfolios at the same time.

Selling at a loss and buying back: what really happens for tax

In Germany, crypto assets count as other economic assets. Selling them therefore falls under private disposal transactions in section 23 of the Income Tax Act, not under the flat withholding tax. That sounds like a technicality, but it determines everything that follows.

A private disposal transaction is a sale within one year of acquisition. The gain from it is taxed at your personal income tax rate, and in return the loss from it can be offset. Anyone who sells after the year has elapsed stays tax-free, and that cuts both ways: the gain goes untaxed, but the loss is equally without effect.