Tax — general information, not advice
Wallets, IRD and CARF: the New Zealand tax position
Holding is not taxable. Moving between your own wallets is not a disposal. What is taxable, what IRD has not actually ruled on, and why self-custody now puts the entire record-keeping burden on you — set out carefully, with sources.
- 1 Apr 2026 CARF reporting took effect in NZ
- 30 Jun 2027 First CARF reports due to IRD
- No CGT But crypto gains can still be income
- IR3 The return you file for cryptoasset income
On this page
Before we start
This page is general information, not tax advice. It reflects Inland Revenue's published position and reputable professional commentary as at September 2026, and where IRD has not published guidance we say so rather than guessing. Your circumstances determine your treatment. For anything material, use an accountant with cryptoasset experience. The official material is at ird.govt.nz/cryptoassets.
IRD's published position, quoted
Inland Revenue's guidance is more specific than most people assume, and it starts from a single classification that determines everything downstream. IRD states that "cryptoassets are treated as a form of property for tax purposes" and that "the tax treatment depends on the characteristics and use of the cryptoassets."
That framing matters because New Zealand has no general capital gains tax. If crypto were a capital asset held passively, most gains would simply be untaxed. Because it is property whose treatment depends on use, the question becomes whether your activity produces income — and for a great many crypto holders, it does.
On GST, IRD is explicit: "cryptoassets are not subject to GST when they are bought or sold, but do have GST implications when they are received as payment for normal business activities." Cryptoassets are also treated as excepted financial arrangements, except those economically equivalent to debt arrangements, which affects how trading stock is valued.
Where you have taxable cryptoasset income, you file an IR3 income tax return, and IRD requires you to calculate the New Zealand dollar value of your cryptoasset transactions and to keep records adequate for filing and for audit.
What is and is not a disposal
This is the practical crux for self-custody users, and the good news is that the two things you do most often are not taxable events.
Not a disposal: holding cryptoassets, however long and however much they appreciate. Moving cryptoassets between wallets you control — from an exchange to your hardware wallet, from one of your wallets to another, from a device to a new device during a migration. Nothing has been exchanged for anything, so there is no income event.
Is a disposal: selling for New Zealand dollars or any other fiat currency. Swapping one cryptoasset for another — this catches people, because no fiat was involved and it feels like a reshuffle, but you disposed of one asset and acquired another. Spending crypto on goods or services. Gifting it. Using it as collateral in certain arrangements.
Income on receipt: mining rewards. Staking rewards, most likely — see below. Airdrops in some circumstances. Crypto received as payment for work.
The practical consequence for a self-custody user is that a year of diligent accumulation and cold storage might produce no taxable events at all, while a single afternoon of swapping tokens produces several. Frequency of trading also feeds into the purpose test below.
The purpose test, which decides most cases
Because there is no capital gains tax, the question of whether a gain is taxable turns largely on why you acquired the asset. IRD's framing is that income from selling, trading or exchanging cryptoassets is taxable if your purpose in acquiring them was disposal, if you are engaged in trading, or if they formed part of a profit-making scheme.
In practice this is a wider net than it sounds, and it is worth being realistic rather than optimistic. Most people who buy Bitcoin do so because they expect to sell it for more later. That is an acquisition for the purpose of disposal, and IRD has indicated that even where staking is your main activity it views the underlying purpose of crypto holdings as being disposal. The comfortable assumption that "I'm a long-term holder so it's capital" is not a position you should adopt without advice.
Factors that point toward taxable income include a stated or evident intention to sell at a profit, frequency and volume of transactions, a short holding period, borrowing to fund purchases, and any systematic plan to profit. Factors pointing the other way are genuinely narrower — using crypto as a medium of exchange, or receiving it as a gift with no disposal intent.
Our honest reading: assume your crypto gains are taxable income unless an accountant tells you otherwise, and keep records accordingly. That is a far cheaper mistake than the reverse.
Staking and airdrops — where the guidance stops
We want to be careful here, because a lot of websites state things about staking tax with far more confidence than the evidence supports.
Staking: IRD has not published guidance specific to staking rewards. The prevailing professional interpretation is that they are treated the same way as mining rewards — income at the New Zealand dollar market value on the day of receipt, with that NZD figure becoming your cost base for any later disposal. That is the position most New Zealand crypto accountants take and it is a reasonable reading, but it is an inference rather than a ruling.
Airdrops: IRD's guidance indicates airdrops may be taxable on receipt where a person carried out activities in advance with the intention of qualifying, whereas a genuinely passively acquired airdrop may be tax free. Where taxable, the NZD market value at receipt is income and becomes the cost base. The distinction turns on what you did to get it, which means airdrop farming is on much weaker ground than an unsolicited token appearing in your wallet.
Hard forks: treatment depends on circumstances and is not covered by a bright-line rule in the published guidance.
The operational point that matters more than the legal one: staking generates a very large number of small receipts, sometimes daily. If each is income at NZD value on its date, you need a price for every single one. Nobody produces that record for a self-custody wallet. Set up tracking on day one — reconstructing eighteen months of daily rewards afterwards is genuinely miserable and you will not enjoy it.
CARF: what changed on 1 April 2026
This is the most significant development in New Zealand crypto tax in years, and it changes the practical risk of poor record-keeping rather than the underlying rules.
New Zealand has adopted the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, effective 1 April 2026. Under it, New Zealand-based Reporting Crypto-Asset Service Providers — broadly any individual or entity carrying out the exchange or conversion of cryptoassets on behalf of users as a business, including counterparties, intermediaries and trading platforms — must collect identification and tax residency information from users, together with transaction details including the types of trades and their values.
That information is reported annually to Inland Revenue in a specified electronic format, with the first reports due by 30 June 2027, covering the first year. It is then shared both domestically and internationally under the CARF rules, improving visibility over cross-border crypto activity by New Zealand tax residents. IRD has run a public campaign urging crypto investors to get tax compliant ahead of it.
The self-custody implication is the interesting part. Your wallet is not a reporting provider — there is no business behind it, no user relationship, nothing to report. But the platform where you bought reports, and the platform where you eventually sell reports. IRD therefore sees both ends of your activity and not the middle. If your own records do not reconcile the gap — if a large amount left an exchange in 2026 and reappeared somewhere in 2029 with no accounting for what happened between — you are the one who has to explain it.
What CARF does not do
It does not tax anything new, it does not make self-custody reportable, and it does not require you to register your wallet anywhere. It is an information-reporting regime aimed at businesses. The change for individuals is purely that the tax authority now receives structured data about your on-ramp and off-ramp transactions, so unrecorded activity is far more likely to be noticed.
The records you actually need
IRD requires you to be able to calculate the New Zealand dollar value of your cryptoasset transactions and to keep records sufficient for filing and audit. In practice, for each transaction, capture:
- The date and time
- What the transaction was — buy, sell, swap, spend, transfer between your own wallets, reward received
- The assets and amounts on both sides
- The New Zealand dollar value at the time, and the source of that valuation
- Fees paid, including network fees and any platform fee
- The counterparty or platform, and the wallet addresses involved
- The transaction hash where one exists
For most individuals a spreadsheet is entirely adequate and is what we would use. Where volume gets high — active trading, or staking with daily rewards — dedicated crypto tax software that imports wallet addresses and exchange history saves substantial time, though you should sanity-check what it produces rather than trusting it.
Two habits that make an enormous difference. First, record at the time rather than at year end, because historical NZD prices for a specific asset at a specific moment are tedious to reconstruct. Second, label internal transfers clearly as internal — that is the distinction between a non-event and an apparent disposal, and it is the one most likely to generate an unnecessary question.
GST, and where it does apply
IRD's position is that cryptoassets are not subject to GST when bought or sold, so an individual acquiring and disposing of crypto does not deal with GST on those transactions. GST does bite where cryptoassets are received as payment for normal business activities — a business accepting Bitcoin for goods or services has the same GST obligations it would have accepting cash.
Where GST definitely applies for ordinary holders is the hardware. A wallet device is a physical good, so 15% GST applies, normally collected at checkout by overseas suppliers with more than NZ$60,000 of annual New Zealand sales. And from 1 April 2026, New Zealand Customs applies a Low-Value Goods levy — NZ$2.21 for air freight or NZ$2.09 for sea, plus GST — per consignment valued at NZ$1,000 or less. Our GST and customs guide works through the totals.
There is one adjacent development worth noting for context. In March 2026 the Financial Markets Authority issued a designation notice declaring the NZDD stablecoin issued by ECDD Holdings not to be a financial product under the Financial Markets Conduct Act, on the basis that its economic substance is a payment tool rather than an investment. Issuing it is still a financial service, so fair conduct obligations apply. The FMA was explicit that this is product-specific rather than a general ruling on stablecoins.
When to get an accountant
We are generally in favour of people doing their own admin, and there are four situations where we would not.
If you stake meaningfully. The absence of a direct IRD ruling means reasonable people reach different conclusions, and you want yours documented by someone who can defend it.
If you have traded actively. Volume and frequency feed directly into whether you are in the business of trading, which changes your treatment substantially.
If you hold through a company, trust or partnership. Different rules, including the trading stock valuation point in IRD's guidance.
If you have several years of unrecorded activity. Particularly now that CARF gives IRD structured data on the platforms either side of your wallet. Voluntary disclosure with professional help is a considerably better position than being asked.
Our practical view
The New Zealanders who get into trouble with crypto tax are almost never the ones who took an aggressive position. They are the ones who kept no records, sold something three years later, and could not establish a cost base or explain what had happened in between. Start a spreadsheet on the day you buy your first hundred dollars of anything. It takes two minutes per transaction and it is the difference between an afternoon and a very bad month.
Frequently asked
Questions on this topic
Do I pay tax on crypto held in my own wallet in New Zealand?
Not for holding, and not for moving between wallets you control. Inland Revenue treats cryptoassets as a form of property, and tax arises on income — typically when you sell, swap, spend, or receive staking rewards or certain airdrops. New Zealand has no general capital gains tax, but gains are taxable as income where you acquired the asset with the purpose of disposal, where you are trading, or where the assets were part of a profit-making scheme. Simply holding is not a taxable event. See ird.govt.nz/cryptoassets. General information, not tax advice.
Is transferring crypto between my own wallets taxable?
No. A transfer between wallets you control is not a disposal — you have not exchanged the asset for anything, so there is no income event. You should still record the date, the amounts, both addresses and the network fee, because you may later need to demonstrate to Inland Revenue that a transaction was an internal transfer rather than a sale, and because the fee may be relevant to a later calculation.
What is CARF and how does it affect me?
The OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, which New Zealand adopted with effect from 1 April 2026. Reporting Crypto-Asset Service Providers — broadly, businesses that exchange or convert cryptoassets on behalf of users — must collect identity and tax residency information plus transaction details, and report annually to Inland Revenue, with the first reports due by 30 June 2027. That data is shared domestically and internationally. Your self-custody wallet is not a reporting entity, so nobody reports for it — which puts the entire record-keeping burden on you.
How does IRD tax staking rewards?
Inland Revenue has not published guidance specific to staking, and we will not pretend it has. The widely held professional view is that staking rewards are treated like mining rewards: income at the New Zealand dollar value on the day of receipt, with that figure becoming the cost base for a later disposal. IRD has separately indicated that where crypto is held with an underlying purpose of disposal, subsequent gains remain taxable income. Because there is no direct ruling, get advice for anything material. See our staking wallets page.
Do I have to pay GST on crypto?
Inland Revenue's published position is that cryptoassets are not subject to GST when they are bought or sold, but do have GST implications when received as payment for normal business activities. So an individual buying and selling crypto does not deal with GST on those transactions; a business accepting crypto as payment for goods or services does. GST does apply to the hardware — a wallet device is a physical good and attracts 15% GST, usually collected at checkout by the overseas supplier. See our GST and customs guide.
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