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Austria shows the problems of a crypto tax

Practical experience shows that higher taxes do not automatically lead to higher tax revenue.

When the abolition of the Bitcoin holding period is being discussed in Germany, there’s no need for anyone to speculate.

Our neighbor Austria has already taken this step.

Since 2022, profits from cryptocurrencies have been subject to ongoing taxation there. Since 2024, Austrian cryptocurrency service providers have even been automatically collecting the tax on behalf of the government.

This makes Austria the most important real-world test to date for the German debate.

The key question, therefore, is:

Has the reform proven effective?

The answer is much more down-to-earth than many people expect.

What Austria Has Changed

With the 2022 tax reform, Austria abolished the previous holding period for newly acquired cryptocurrencies.

Since then, the following rules have generally applied to newly acquired Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies:

• Profits are subject to tax on a permanent basis.
• A special tax rate of 27.5 percent applies.
• Losses can be offset against other investment income.
• Since 2024, Austrian crypto service providers have been automatically remitting the tax to the government.

At the same time, an important point was taken into account:

Existing Bitcoin holdings remained protected.

Anyone who had already purchased Bitcoin before the deadline was allowed to continue selling it tax-free under the old rules.

Austria, too, recognized that grandfathering provisions are necessary.

The Big Reality Test

At first glance, the reform sounds like an attractive source of revenue.

The reality, however, is quite different.

In 2024—a particularly strong year for Bitcoin, marked by high prices and frequent profit-taking—Austria collected only

33.8 million euros

one.

That amounts to just

0.57 percent

of total Austrian capital gains tax revenue.

In other words:

Even in an exceptionally strong market year, the crypto tax played virtually no role in the Austrian national budget.

What would that mean for Germany?

If we carefully extrapolate these findings to Germany, the order of magnitude is approximately

100 to 110 million euros per year.

Of course, a direct comparison is never entirely possible.

Germany is bigger.

There are more investors.

Other market structures.

Nevertheless, Austria clearly illustrates the scale of potential actual revenue.

This stands in stark contrast to the figures currently being discussed in Germany.

Among other figures, the following amounts were cited in the political debate:

• approximately 2 billion euros by Federal Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (in connection with measures to combat financial crime),
• at least 5 billion euros in the Greens’ draft bill,
• and even 11.4 billion euros, according to a much-discussed study.

Given Austria’s experience, these expectations seem extremely ambitious.

Austria itself never expected hundreds of millions of euros

Interestingly, the highest figures do not come from Austria at all.

The Austrian federal government itself had anticipated significantly lower revenues.

The official impact assessment for the reform merely anticipated the following:

• 5 million euros for 2023
• 10 million euros for 2024
• 30 million euros for 2025

The actual tax revenue of 33.8 million euros in 2024 is thus even slightly higher than originally expected.

However, the claim that Austria had hoped to generate revenue of up to 300 million euros keeps cropping up.

That’s not true.

This figure comes neither from a law nor from a government forecast.

It stems from a journalistic misreading in 2021 and has since been widely reproduced without verification.

This is important for the debate in Germany.

Even without this incorrect figure, Austria is already making it very clear that:

Higher taxation of cryptocurrencies does not automatically lead to significant additional tax revenue.

A lot of work for banks and stock exchanges

The relatively low revenue was offset by a considerable amount of technical effort.

Austrian banks and crypto service providers had to completely overhaul their systems.

Among other things, they had to:

• Save acquisition costs,
• Calculate average prices,
• Distinguish between existing and new holdings,
• Prepare tax reports,
• automatically calculate and remit the capital gains tax.

Bitpanda, in particular, invested significant resources in the implementation.

Bitpanda co-founder Eric Demuth later publicly described the elimination of the holding period as an “extremely stupid decision” because it had tied up enormous development resources.

The real problem remains

Austria, too, was unable to solve a fundamental problem.

Automatic tax withholding only applies if the cryptocurrencies are held with an Austrian provider.

On the other hand, anyone who

• uses international stock exchanges,
• keeps his Bitcoin in his own custody,
• or moves wallets between different platforms,

is not automatically covered by this system.

Germany, in particular, is likely to be affected even more by this.

While Bitpanda holds a very large market share in Austria, German investors are significantly more likely to use international providers such as Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, or Bitget, as well as self-custodial hardware wallets.

It is precisely this international structure that makes automatic tax collection considerably more difficult.

What Germany Can Learn From This

Austria by no means demonstrates that a crypto tax would be technically impossible.

It basically works.

But Austria also clearly shows that,

• that actual tax revenues remain relatively low,
• that banks and crypto service providers must make significant technical investments,
• that international providers and self-custody continue to create significant enforcement gaps,
• and that eliminating the holding period is by no means a new, lucrative source of tax revenue.

That is precisely why Germany should carefully analyze Austria’s experience before adopting similar regulations.

Conclusion

Austria provides the best real-world test to date for the German debate on the Bitcoin holding period.

Experience shows:

Eliminating the holding period is technically feasible.

However, it neither automatically leads to significant additional tax revenue nor does it eliminate the practical problems associated with international exchanges or self-custodial wallets.

The relatively low tax revenue is offset by significant transition costs for banks, crypto exchanges, and government agencies.

Anyone calling for a similar reform in Germany should therefore not focus solely on potential additional revenue.

He should also explain openly,

• What are the costs involved?
• What technical problems exist,
• and why the situation in Austria is expected to be different in the future than it has been so far.

Sources and Further Information

• Austrian Eco-Social Tax Reform Act of 2022
• § 27b of the Income Tax Act (Austria)
• Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance – Tax Treatment of Cryptocurrencies
• Response to Parliamentary Question 1948/AB (Tax Revenue for 2024)
• Impact-Oriented Impact Assessment (WFA) on Government Bill 1293 d.B.
• Budget Office of the Austrian Parliament
• EY Crypto & Digital Assets Report 2025
• BT-Drs. 21/5752 (Bill introduced by Alliance 90/The Greens)
• German Federal Ministry of Finance – Press Conference, April 29, 2026