NFT Tax UK: The 2026/27 Guide to Mints, Sales, Royalties and Wash Trades

HMRC published dedicated NFT guidance in its Cryptoassets Manual in 2022, and the enforcement posture in 2026 is a lot more active than in prior years. NFT trading is opaque, publicly visible on-chain, and consistently under-reported. Here is the treatment you need to apply for the 2026/27 tax year.

The starting point: NFTs are chargeable assets

An NFT is a chargeable asset for CGT purposes under TCGA 1992. Every disposal is a taxable event under HMRC CG12100. There is no separate "collectibles" rate — NFTs are taxed like any other crypto, at 18 or 24 percent (see <a href="/blog/crypto-tax-basic-vs-higher-rate-uk">CGT bands</a>).

Minting an NFT you plan to hold

Cost basis of the minted NFT = mint price (ETH paid) valued in GBP on the mint date, plus gas fees paid in ETH, valued in GBP on the mint date. Both are allowable acquisition costs under HMRC CG15250.

The ETH used to mint is itself a disposal under HMRC CG12100 — you spent it at that day's market value.

Example: mint an NFT for 0.1 ETH plus 0.02 ETH gas. ETH is £2,000 that day. The NFT acquires at £240 cost basis. You have simultaneously disposed of 0.12 ETH at £240 proceeds; check against your ETH Section 104 pool for gain or loss.

Secondary sale — you sell an NFT you own

Sold on OpenSea, Blur, Rarible, Magic Eden or any secondary market: proceeds = ETH received (or SOL, or MATIC), minus marketplace fees and creator royalties actually paid, valued in GBP on the sale date. Gain or loss versus your acquisition cost basis is a CGT event.

Marketplace fees (OpenSea 0.5 percent, Blur variable) and royalty payments are allowable deductions from proceeds under CG15250.

Buying an NFT on secondary

Cost basis = price paid in the underlying token (ETH, SOL), valued in GBP on that day, plus gas plus marketplace fee. The ETH spent is a separate disposal from your Section 104 pool.

Creator royalties

If you minted an NFT collection and receive royalties on secondary sales, HMRC treats the royalties as:

- **Trading income** under Part 2 ITTOIA 2005, if creating and selling NFTs is your business (badges-of-trade test — see <a href="/blog/crypto-mining-tax-uk-hobby-vs-trade">the badges-of-trade guide</a> applied by analogy). This is the treatment for most active NFT creators. - **Miscellaneous income** under Chapter 8 Part 5 ITTOIA 2005, if you are an occasional creator selling one small collection with no expectation of ongoing revenue.

Either way, the royalty is income at the GBP value on the day received. The received token then becomes a CGT asset with cost basis equal to the receipt value.

Airdropped NFTs

An NFT airdrop received for no service (a snapshot of your wallet at a particular block, no action required) is a capital acquisition at nil cost per HMRC CRYPTO21250. When you later sell, the whole proceeds are gain.

An NFT airdrop received in return for a service (holding a base collection, doing a task, promotional posts) is miscellaneous income at the GBP fair value on the receipt date. Cost basis for the received NFT equals that receipt value.

Wash trades and non-arm's-length disposals

HMRC's NFT manual explicitly flags that transactions between connected persons or self-dealing (buying and selling to yourself through a second wallet to inflate volume or crystallise losses) are recharacterised at market value. There is no "loss" available from selling an NFT to your own second wallet at £1.

The Blur bidding pool where users effectively trade with each other to farm token rewards is a grey area — the trades themselves are real market-price disposals, but the reward tokens are income at receipt. Treat both separately.

The 30-day and same-day rules

Yes, they apply. If you sell an NFT (say CryptoPunks #5000) and buy an identical NFT (say CryptoPunks #5000 back from the same or another wallet) within 30 days, the 30-day matching rule applies. In practice, NFTs are non-fungible so identical repurchase is rare — but for semi-fungible collections and generative art where you often rebuy from the same collection, the rule can bite. See <a href="/blog/bed-and-breakfast-30-day-rule-crypto-explained">the 30-day rule guide</a>.

Wrapped and bridged NFTs

Bridging an NFT to a Layer 2 (Base, zkSync) or wrapping into a claim-check token: no disposal in the conservative reading, provided the redemption right is 1:1 and unconditional. HMRC has not published bespoke NFT-bridging guidance; apply the CRYPTO22050 wrapper principle by analogy.

Practical filing pipeline

1. Scan every wallet address you used with <a href="/import">/import</a> — the tool detects NFT mints, purchases, sales and airdrops on 29 chains. 2. Review the NFT ledger on <a href="/tax">/tax</a>. Each collection is grouped for readability, but each NFT is its own disposal. 3. Split the SA108 total between capital gains (secondary trading) and the SA100 income box for royalties and service-airdrops. 4. Export the CSV, keep it and every OpenSea/Blur receipt for six years.

What HMRC actually checks

The 2026 nudge letters (see <a href="/blog/hmrc-crypto-nudge-letter">HMRC crypto nudge letter</a>) explicitly listed NFTs as an example of "tokens received" that must be declared. Etherscan makes NFT activity trivial to enumerate; do not assume it is invisible. See also the <a href="/blog/nft-tax-uk-guide">core NFT tax UK guide</a>.