FREE TOOL · TAX YEAR 2026

Bitcoin Tax Estimator

Enter what you sold. Get an estimate of US federal capital gains tax, split into short- and long-term, with loss netting and NIIT applied — using the official 2026 IRS brackets.

1 · Your situation

FILING STATUS
OTHER INCOME (WAGES ETC.)
Gross income before deductions. We subtract the 2026 standard deduction for you ({{ deductionLabel }}).

2 · What you sold

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One row per disposal — selling, trading, or spending bitcoin all count. Use the acquisition date of the specific coins you disposed of.
BTC AMOUNTBUY DATEBUY $/BTCSELL DATESELL $/BTC
ESTIMATED 2026 FEDERAL TAX ON THESE GAINS
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SHORT-TERM ({{ stRateLabel }})
{{ stGain }}
tax {{ stTax }}
LONG-TERM ({{ ltRateLabel }})
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tax {{ ltTax }}
Net investment income tax (3.8%){{ niit }}
Capital loss deducted this year{{ lossDeduction }}
Loss carried to future years{{ carryforward }}
YOUR NUMBERS NEVER LEAVE THIS PAGE
Every figure you type stays in your browser's memory and is discarded the moment you close the tab. Nothing is sent to our servers, saved to a database, written to a cookie or to local storage, logged, or shared with any third party — there is no form submission and no analytics event carrying your inputs. We never ask for your name, email, wallet address, or exchange account, and this tool works with JavaScript-only computation, so you can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and it will still calculate. Refreshing the page clears everything.
READ THIS BEFORE YOU USE THE NUMBER
This is an estimate of federal tax only, and it is not tax advice. It ignores state tax, transaction fees (which adjust your basis), wash-sale and straddle rules, mining or staking income, gifts and inheritances, AMT, and prior-year loss carryforwards. It assumes you take the standard deduction and that all gains are from bitcoin held in a taxable account. Retirement accounts work differently — see our bitcoin IRA guide. Confirm anything you act on with a qualified tax professional.

How the calculation works

Each disposal is sorted by holding period. Coins held more than one year are long-term; one year or less is short-term. That single distinction is usually worth more than any other tax decision a bitcoin holder makes — the gap between ordinary rates and long-term rates runs to 17 percentage points.
Gains and losses are then netted the way the IRS requires: short-term against short-term, long-term against long-term, and any remaining loss of one type against the gain of the other. If a net loss survives that, up to $3,000 comes off your ordinary income this year and the rest carries forward indefinitely.
Short-term gains are added to your ordinary income and taxed at your marginal bracket. Long-term gains are then stacked on top of that total — which is why a large short-term gain can push your long-term gain into a higher capital-gains bracket. Finally, the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax applies to the lesser of your investment income or the amount your income exceeds $200,000 ($250,000 married filing jointly).

2026 rates used by this tool

LT RATESINGLEMARRIED JOINT
0%up to $49,450up to $98,900
15%to $545,500to $613,700
20%above $545,500above $613,700
Head of household: 0% to $66,200 · 15% to $579,600 · 20% above. Thresholds are taxable income, after the standard deduction ($16,100 single / $32,200 joint / $24,150 HoH). Source: IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32.

Frequently asked questions

How is bitcoin taxed in the US?

The IRS treats bitcoin as property. Selling, trading it for another asset, or spending it are all disposals that realize a gain or loss. Buying and holding is not a taxable event, and neither is moving coins between your own wallets — see our full bitcoin tax guide for the four events that trigger tax and the four that don't.

Can I deduct bitcoin losses?

Yes. Losses offset gains of the same type first, then the other type. Any net loss left over deducts up to $3,000 against ordinary income this year, with the remainder carrying forward indefinitely. This tool shows both figures.

Which cost-basis method does this use?

Specific identification — you tell it which lot each disposal came from by entering that lot's purchase date and price. If you use FIFO or HIFO across a large number of lots, run each matched pair as its own row, or use dedicated crypto tax software.

Does spending bitcoin count as a sale?

Yes. Buying a coffee with bitcoin is a disposal at the coffee's fair market value, and the gain is taxable. Enter the purchase price as your "sell $/BTC" for those rows.
TERMS IN THIS TOOL: cold storage self-custody DCA
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SOURCE
All brackets, thresholds, and deduction amounts come from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 (tax year 2026). Nothing on this page is stored or transmitted — the calculation runs entirely in your browser.