Crypto.com Tax UK: App vs Exchange, Earn Rewards, CRO Card Cashback and How to Export for HMRC (2026/27)

Crypto.com is unusual among UK-facing platforms because one account can produce five different kinds of taxable event: exchange disposals, Earn rewards, card cashback, card spending and CRO staking for a card tier. Each has its own treatment under HMRC's Cryptoassets Manual, and the platform's exports split them across two products. This guide goes through each one and shows what a typical year looks like on the return.

Two products, two exports

Crypto.com App is the retail product: buy with a card or bank transfer, swap between tokens, Earn, the Visa card. Crypto.com Exchange is the separate order-book platform with its own login and its own history. Transfers between the two are moves between wallets you own and are not disposals, but you need both histories to build a complete picture.

In the App, transaction history is exported from the Accounts section (Transaction History, then Export, choosing the date range and the wallet — fiat, crypto, Earn and card ledgers are separate selections). The Exchange has its own export under Wallets. Download every ledger for the full tax year plus a month either side, before you start; exports covering old periods are occasionally restricted.

Buying and selling in the App

Buying crypto with pounds is an acquisition. The sterling amount you paid, including any fee shown, goes into your Section 104 pool for that token (TCGA 1992 s.104; CRYPTO22200). Crypto.com's App quotes an all-in price with the spread built in — the price on the confirmation screen is your cost.

Selling to pounds, or swapping one token for another, is a disposal (CRYPTO22100). Proceeds are the sterling value received; the cost comes from the pool via the same-day, 30-day and pooling rules in the order set by s.105, s.106A and s.104. The Section 104 worked example shows the arithmetic line by line.

Trading on the Exchange

Same rules, more volume. Each filled order is a disposal of the token sold and an acquisition of the token bought, valued in sterling at the time. Pairs quoted in USDT or USDC need a GBP conversion on each trade date — HMRC requires every figure in sterling per transaction, not a year-end rate. Maker and taker fees are incidental costs under s.38 and are deductible; the fees guide covers which ones.

If Exchange activity is frequent and organised enough it could be a trade rather than an investment, taxed as income rather than CGT. HMRC's bar is high (CRYPTO20250) and most retail users are investors, but if you are placing hundreds of orders a week, read the trader vs investor guide.

Crypto Earn

Earn pays a return for locking tokens for a flexible, one-month or three-month term. Two questions arise.

The reward. HMRC's default treatment of returns from lending or staking tokens with a platform is miscellaneous income at the sterling value on receipt (CRYPTO21200), reported on SA100 box 17. The tokens received also start a new pool entry at that value. Most UK filers and most tools treat Earn rewards this way.

The deposit. HMRC's DeFi guidance at CRYPTO61000 onwards says that where you transfer beneficial ownership of tokens to a platform in return for a right to get equivalent tokens back, the transfer can itself be a disposal for CGT, and the return can be capital rather than income depending on the terms. Crypto.com's Earn terms are a loan to the platform, which arguably fits that description. HMRC consulted in 2022 and 2023 on a simpler no-gain/no-loss treatment for lending and staking; at the time of writing it has not been legislated. In practice most users and tools report the deposit as a non-taxable transfer and the reward as income. If your Earn balances are large, this is the question to put to an accountant, not one to guess.

Locking CRO for a card tier

Getting a Ruby, Jade or higher Visa card requires staking a sterling-value amount of CRO for six months. Buying the CRO is an ordinary acquisition. Locking it in your own account is not a disposal — you still own it, it is still in your pool. Unstaking is not a disposal either. Only when you later sell or spend the CRO does a gain or loss arise, measured against the pool cost.

CRO rewards paid for the stake itself are miscellaneous income on the same basis as Earn.

Card cashback

Cashback paid in CRO on card purchases is income at the sterling value when credited (CRYPTO21250 treats tokens received for doing something as income; HMRC applies the same logic to platform rewards). It is small per transaction and adds up. The CRO received then has a cost basis equal to that value, so spending it later produces only the change in CRO's price as a gain or loss. Card rebates such as Spotify or Netflix reimbursements are also paid in CRO and are treated the same way.

Spending on the card

Every card payment is a disposal of the crypto that funded it at the sterling value of the purchase (CRYPTO22100). A £4 coffee paid from a CRO balance is a £4 disposal of CRO, with cost from the pool. The card spending guide goes into this in depth. If you top the card up from a fiat balance and spend pounds, there is no disposal — the card ledger export shows which it was on each line.

Worked example: one year on Crypto.com

Rachel, salary £35,000, uses only the App during 2025/26:

• Buys £6,000 of ETH in April 2025 (2 ETH at £3,000).
• Puts 1 ETH in flexible Earn; receives rewards worth £48 across the year.
• Buys £3,500 of CRO and locks it for a Ruby card. Receives CRO cashback worth £62 over the year.
• Spends £900 on the card, funded from a CRO balance bought separately for £850.
• Sells 1 ETH in February 2026 for £3,400.

Income: £48 + £62 = £110 of miscellaneous income on SA100 box 17. With £35,000 of salary that is taxed at 20%: £22.

Gains: the ETH sale is a disposal of 1 ETH from a pool of 2 ETH at £6,000. Cost £3,000, proceeds £3,400, gain £400. The card spending is a disposal of CRO: proceeds £900, cost £850, gain £50. Total gains £450, well under the £3,000 annual exempt amount (TCGA 1992 s.1K), so no CGT and — if Rachel is not already in Self Assessment and total proceeds of £4,300 are under £50,000 — nothing to report for CGT. The £110 of income is technically reportable; in practice HMRC will not pursue a return for that amount alone, but it should be declared if a return is filed for any other reason.

The Earn deposit of 1 ETH is treated as a transfer, not a disposal, on the majority approach described above. Rachel has £3,000 of ETH still in her pool for 2026/27, and £3,500 of CRO locked for the card.

Getting the data into a return

Three ledgers matter: the App crypto wallet (buys, sells, swaps, Earn rewards), the App card ledger (spends and cashback) and, if used, the Exchange. Combine them, price everything in sterling on the day, apply the matching rules per token, and separate income from gains. Card cashback in particular is easy to miss because it sits in a different export from the trades. Tools that read the Crypto.com export directly — cryptolens.uk accepts the App CSV and merges the card lines into the same Section 104 calculation as the trades — remove the reconciliation step; a spreadsheet works if the volume is low.

This is general information, not personal tax advice.