UK Crypto Tax Software Comparison 2026: Koinly, Recap, CoinTracker, CryptoLens

Most "crypto tax software comparison" pages on the internet are affiliate-link farms that recommend whatever pays them the most. This is a UK-specific comparison of the four tools UK retail filers most commonly choose, with a focus on whether each one actually implements HMRC's matching rules correctly. The author runs one of these tools (CryptoLens) so take that into account — but the substance below is checkable.

What "correctly" means for UK crypto tax

HMRC's matching order is documented in CRYPTO22000-22300. Disposals are matched in this order:

1. Same-day acquisitions (TCGA s.105) — disposals on day X are matched against acquisitions on day X, regardless of pool average cost. 2. Bed-and-breakfasting (s.106A) — remaining disposals are matched against acquisitions in the following 30 days. 3. Section 104 pool — anything left is matched against the running-average-cost pool, with cost basis proportionally reduced.

Then the £3,000 annual exempt amount is applied, then the 18%/24% rate split based on whether the disposal was before or after 30 October 2024.

A tool that fails to implement steps 1 and 2 — i.e. defaults to FIFO or LIFO without matching rules — will produce wrong numbers for any year in which a UK holder both bought and sold the same asset within 30 days. Which is most years for most active holders.

Koinly

Koinly is the dominant tax tool by UK install base. Strengths: very wide exchange CSV import support (50+ exchanges including obscure ones), clean UI, reliable on common cases.

For UK filing it does implement same-day and 30-day matching — you have to select "United Kingdom" as your country and the rules turn on. The SA108 export is formatted reasonably and includes the matching method per disposal.

Weaknesses observed in 2025-26 testing:

- Rugged Solana memecoins often get £0 cost basis or are silently dropped, which means a UK holder loses legitimate losses (HMRC allows you to claim a loss on a worthless token via s.24 negligible value, but Koinly doesn't surface the candidate). - Multi-year carry-forward losses must be entered manually for each prior year — there is no automatic CG14580 propagation from a prior year's Koinly output. - Pricing for active UK traders is £79-249 per year depending on tier; the "free" tier doesn't include the actual tax export.

Best for: standard CGT cases on major chains where every disposal has a clean oracle price.

Recap

Recap is UK-built and UK-focused. Strengths: deeper UK-tax-rule awareness than Koinly (the same-day and 30-day rules are first-class, not a country toggle), strong support for less-common UK cases like spousal transfers and inter-wallet labelling.

Pricing is per-disposal: £79/year for up to 100 disposals, £179/year for up to 1,000, £329/year for up to 10,000. For high-volume Solana memecoin traders the per-disposal pricing scales worse than per-wallet pricing of other tools.

Weaknesses: Solana memecoin coverage is similar to Koinly — rugged tokens often don't get priced and quietly drop out of the engine. Recap's strength is on EVM chains and centralised exchange CSVs, not memecoin-era Pump.fun activity.

Best for: UK holders with primarily ETH/BTC/major-altcoin activity and complex life events (gifts, spousal transfers, business activity) where the UK-specific rules matter more than the obscure memecoin coverage.

CoinTracker

CoinTracker is the US-flavoured incumbent. Strengths: broad US-IRS support, decent UI, integrated with H&R Block-style filing services.

For UK filing CoinTracker does implement Section 104 pooling and labels disposals appropriately. The SA108 export is functional. But UK-specific edge cases (the 18%/24% rate split based on 30 October 2024, the £3,000 AEA specifically for 2025/26) need to be sanity-checked manually — the tool's defaults are US-tax-year oriented and the UK rate handling has been imperfect in 2025 testing.

Pricing: $59 free up to 25 transactions; $99-249 for higher tiers. Premium tiers are typically priced in USD which means UK customers pay 25-40% more than equivalent UK-priced tools after FX.

Best for: dual-resident UK/US filers who need both tax jurisdictions in one tool.

CryptoLens

CryptoLens is the one this article is published on, so take this paragraph with appropriate scepticism. The pitch is that the matching rules are first-class for UK only (no country toggle — the engine is UK-only by design), the SA108 PDF export is the primary output rather than an afterthought, and memecoin coverage uses the SOL leg of every swap as cost basis (so rugged Pump.fun tokens still produce usable disposals with claimable losses, where the other three tools tend to drop them).

Specific features: - Same-day → 30-day → Section 104 in HMRC order, with the 18%/24% rate split applied per disposal date. - Multi-year carry-forward losses loaded automatically from the prior 4 years (CG14580). - Negligible value claim candidates surfaced for accountant review (s.24 TCGA). - 29 chains, including all major EVM L2s, Solana, Bitcoin, XRP, Cardano, Cosmos, Polkadot, NEAR, Sui, Aptos. - Exchange CSV imports for Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, Crypto.com, Gemini, Bitfinex.

Pricing: free tier covers a full SA108 PDF export for one wallet. Pro at £4.99/mo unlocks multi-wallet, exchange CSVs, alerts. Business at £49.99/mo adds per-client pools, branded PDF for accountants, audit-trail export.

Weaknesses to be honest about: smallest install base of the four, brand-new in 2026, no track record of HMRC enquiry support to compare against, fewer obscure exchange integrations than Koinly.

Best for: UK retail holders with significant Solana or memecoin activity, anyone whose accountant wants HMRC-aligned audit trail in the SA108 PDF, accountants serving multiple crypto clients (per-client pools tier).

How to choose between them

A few honest heuristics:

1. **If your activity is mostly on Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken via fiat-in/fiat-out and you do major-altcoin holds** — any of the four work. Koinly's broader integration list is probably the lightest setup.

2. **If you trade Solana memecoins** — CryptoLens or accept that the other three will drop tokens and your loss claim will be lower than it could legitimately be. Use the s.24 negligible value claim mechanism either way to recover what you can.

3. **If you need spousal transfer / gift / business activity handled specifically** — Recap's depth on these edge cases is best in class.

4. **If you're a US/UK dual filer** — CoinTracker is unique here. CryptoLens is UK-only by design and won't help with the US side.

5. **If your accountant needs the SA108 PDF and audit-trail file to drop straight into their workflow** — CryptoLens or Koinly Pro tier; Recap's accountant tier is also strong.

6. **If price is the deciding factor and you only need a one-off filing** — CryptoLens free tier covers a full SA108 export for one wallet. The others charge for the export.

All four are legitimate tools. The "wrong" answer is using FIFO accounting via a US-only tool because it was cheaper, and producing a Self Assessment that doesn't match what HMRC's matching rules would produce. With CARF reporting now flowing data to HMRC directly, the cost of a discrepancy is higher than it used to be.