Step-by-step guide to reporting cryptocurrency capital gains on your Australian tax return in myTax, including what records the ATO needs and what exchanges already report to them.
A persistent myth among Australian crypto holders is that crypto transactions are private. They are not. The ATO runs an active data-matching program: Australian crypto exchanges are legally required to provide user transaction data — including names, addresses, dates of birth and full transaction histories — directly to the ATO.
The ATO estimates it receives data covering up to 1.2 million individuals annually, and this data is automatically cross-referenced against lodged tax returns to flag discrepancies. If you've traded on any Australian exchange such as CoinSpot, Swyftx, or Independent Reserve, the ATO likely already has a record of your transactions. It also has international data-sharing agreements that capture some overseas exchange activity.
For every crypto transaction, you need to record:
Records must be kept for five years after the relevant tax return is lodged. The ATO accepts digital records including exchange transaction exports, screenshots, and spreadsheets — but they must clearly show the date and AUD values.
Before opening myTax, you need to have already calculated your net capital gain for the year. Here's the process:
When you lodge via myTax on the ATO website:
If you have many transactions, crypto tax software (covered below) can generate a summary report specifically formatted for myTax input — saving you from adding up dozens of individual disposals manually.
Staking rewards, airdrop tokens, and mining income are not capital gains — they are ordinary assessable income at the AUD market value on the date you received them. These go in a different section of your return:
If you've had more than a handful of transactions, calculating everything manually is tedious and error-prone. Crypto tax software automates most of this by connecting to your exchange accounts and calculating your gain/loss summary automatically. See our full guide to the best crypto tax software for Australians. Top picks: Koinly (best overall, 800+ integrations) and Summ (best for DeFi and complex on-chain activity) for a detailed comparison.
The output you need from any crypto tax software is an ATO-compliant tax report showing your total net capital gain, total discount applied, and any carry-forward losses — these three figures are what actually go into myTax.
Work out your capital gain for the year before opening myTax — our free calculator handles the 50% discount and loss offsets automatically.
Open Crypto Tax Calculator →Many Australians reported crypto incorrectly, or not at all, in earlier years — often because they believed no tax arose until they withdrew Australian dollars.
The position improves considerably if you correct it before the ATO contacts you. A voluntary disclosure made before an audit or review commences generally attracts substantially reduced penalties, and demonstrates a genuine attempt to comply.
The most common practical obstacle is a defunct exchange, a lost wallet, or an API that only exposes recent history.
The ATO expects you to make a reasonable, good-faith attempt to determine your cost base, and to document how you arrived at it. That can include bank statements showing transfers to an exchange, blockchain records, email confirmations, and historical price data for the relevant dates.
Where records are genuinely irrecoverable, document your methodology and your attempts to reconstruct them, keep that documentation, and take advice before lodging.
Pre-fill data from banks and employers populates progressively after the end of the financial year. Crypto disposals are generally not pre-filled in a form you can rely on, so the calculation is yours to prepare and substantiate.
Lodging early with incomplete crypto records commonly leads to an amendment later, which delays any refund rather than accelerating it. If your activity is substantial, a registered tax agent generally has access to a later lodgment date, which buys time to reconcile properly.
Keep every record for five years after the CGT event to which it relates. Where a loss is carried forward, keep the supporting records for as long as the loss remains unused, plus the standard retention period after it is finally applied.
Reporting crypto correctly comes down to four things: capturing every disposal including swaps, excluding transfers between your own wallets, classifying staking and similar rewards as ordinary income rather than capital gains, and substantiating each cost base.
If earlier years were reported incorrectly, correcting them voluntarily produces a materially better outcome than waiting. If records are missing, reconstruct them in good faith and document how you did it — an unsubstantiated cost base risks being treated as nil.
This page provides general information only and is not tax advice. Speak with a registered tax agent experienced in crypto before lodging or amending.
A disposal is what triggers a CGT event — not withdrawing dollars. Swapping one coin for another is the case most often overlooked.