UK Government to Start Cracking Down on Crypto Tax Avoidance in January

U.K. resident users of major cryptocurrency exchanges will kick off the New Year with detailed transaction data automatically collected as the country’s authorities prepare to crack down on tax avoidance.

According to the new HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) rules, crypto exchanges operating in the United Kingdom are required to start collecting the full transactional record from Jan. 1, 2026, of all their U.K. customers.

“With platforms set to keep a record of this information from January 1, 2026, ahead of sharing it with HMRC the year after, the tax office will be able to cross-check tax returns against the data they’ve received,” Seb Maley, CEO of tax insurance provider Qdos, told FT.

British tax experts say that this gives crypto users, traders, and investors until the end of 2026 to get their digital asset affairs in order to avoid sanctions.

The new HMRC guidelines align the U.K. with the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), which is designed to bring greater transparency to the fast-growing digital asset market and is already being rolled out in the European Union, Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Korea, among others.

Crypto exchanges, classified as "Reporting Cryptoasset Service Providers," must send the information in full detail directly to the HMRC in 2027. That data will enable the HMRC to determine the amount of tax crypto users must pay. The HMRC will sanction non-compliant platforms.

“This marks a major shift in how crypto trading is monitored from a tax perspective,” Maley told FT.

Read more: UK Proposes ‘No Gain, No Loss’ Tax Rule for DeFi in 'Major Win' for Users