Crypto Currency Tax Reporting Revolution – OECD CARF 2026

The days of crypto currency living in a regulatory grey area are numbered. From 2026, there will be a game-changing global system to trace, report and tax crypto transactions the world over. The Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, otherwise known as CARF and proposed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, is the most ambitious attempt so far by the international community to shed light on the digital asset universe.

What is CARF?

The Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework provides for the automatic exchange of tax information on transactions in crypto-assets in a standardized manner with the jurisdictions of residence of taxpayers. Think of it as the crypto currency equivalent of how banks currently report your savings account interest to tax authorities, but on a truly global scale.

In October 2022, the OECD issued its final report, outlining new and modified reporting requirements related to crypto-assets and e-money. The scheme was adopted by the OECD in June 2023. The challenge, of course, is that crypto-assets can be transferred and held without the need for traditional financial intermediaries, making it very hard for tax administrations to trace assets and ensure appropriate tax compliance.

What Happens & When

Implementation of CARF is done via a carefully coordinated global rollout. The rules come into effect in the EU from 1 January 2026, with the first reports to be submitted therefore in 2027. The UK committed to the same timeline, meaning reporting obligations will begin for the 2026 calendar year.

By 17 June 2025, 69 jurisdictions committed to the implementation of CARF, many requiring reporting crypto-asset service providers to make their first annual reports in relation to the calendar year starting 1 January 2026.

Who Must Report?

CARF places the compliance burden squarely on Crypto-Asset Service Providers, known as CASPs. CASPs include crypto currency exchanges, wallet providers, brokers and operators of crypto-asset ATMs. These entities will be required to act much like traditional banks do under existing financial reporting standards.

The scope is intentionally broad. Whether you are using Coinbase in New York, Binance in Singapore, or a local exchange in Berlin, if that platform qualifies as a CASP under CARF, they’ll be collecting and reporting your transaction data to their local tax authority.

What Information Will Be Reported?

The reporting under CARF is broad in scope and highly detailed. CASPs have to gather extensive information from their users, including their tax residences and transaction data, and report it to their tax authority of nexus for onward exchange across participating jurisdictions.

Specifically, platforms need to report various transaction types, like crypto-to-fiat exchanges, crypto-to-crypto trades, and retail payments. The EU’s version of CARF, DAC8, mandates the reporting requirement for crypto-to-fiat exchanges, crypto-to-crypto trades and crypto-assets transfers.

This implies that tax authorities will receive annual reports showing, besides your account balance, the full scope of your trading activity: purchases, sales, exchanges between different crypto currencies and significant retail transactions.

What’s Covered Under CARF?

The definition of reportable crypto-assets is deliberately broad in order to capture the fast-changing market. It is conceived to catch those assets that can be held and transferred in a decentralized manner, without traditional financial intermediaries intervening, including stablecoins, derivatives issued in the form of a crypto-asset, and certain NFTs.

However, not everything falls under CARF. CARF does not apply to crypto-assets that cannot be used for payment or investment purposes, central bank digital currencies and certain electronic money products that represent a single fiat currency are redeemable at any time in the same fiat currency at par value.

Global Coordination and Information Exchange

But perhaps the most powerful feature of CARF is the automatic information exchange framework between countries. Unlike previous regulations, which greatly vary from country to country, CARF creates a standardized approach across many nations with automatic information exchange where countries will share crypto tax data automatically.

This creates a worldwide system where tax authorities share information with each other. For example, if you live in the UK but use a crypto exchange in Japan, the Japanese tax office will tell HMRC (the UK tax office) about your trading. This is a major change in how crypto is taxed around the world.

What This Means for Crypto Users

If you buy, sell, or trade crypto currency, everything is now much more visible to tax authorities. You can no longer assume that crypto transactions are hidden or that tax rules don’t apply to you. What the government purpose to achieve is to bridge the loopholes that allowed capital to flow through crypto with no proper oversight, which presented avenues for evasion and underreporting.

It is essential for users to keep proper records of every crypto currency transaction since tax authorities will have adequate records to counter-check against your filings. The difficulty in calculating crypto tax, especially when you have many trades over different tokens, makes record keeping an absolute must.

Consider utilizing specialized crypto tax software able to track your transactions across a range of platforms and calculate precisely what your tax obligations are. When CARF data starts flowing to tax authorities, discrepancies between your reporting and what they get will be apparent in real-time.