2026 is the year cryptocurrencies stopped being a grey area for the Romanian tax authority. The tax on gains rose from 10% to 16%, platforms became required to report user transactions annually directly to ANAF, Romania's national tax administration, and from 6 July 2026 Anti-Fraud inspectors can themselves review individuals' wealth. The question is no longer whether ANAF will find out, but what it will find when it compares the data received from the platforms with your returns.
From 1 January 2026, gains from the transfer of virtual currency made by individuals are taxed at 16%, up from the 10% rate that applied until the end of 2025. The increase was introduced by Legea nr. 239/2025 and applies to income obtained from 1 January 2026 onwards. The rest of the rules has remained, in essence, unchanged:
A historical clarification, because a lot of confusion is circulating: the widely publicised crypto tax exemption “until 31 July 2025” never came into force; the law was challenged before the Constitutional Court, sent back to Parliament, and the relief was removed. Gains made in 2025 remain taxable at 10%.
As for losses: gains and losses within the same year are offset when calculating the annual gain, and if the year closes at a loss, you owe no tax. Carrying forward a net annual loss into later years is not, however, expressly regulated for income from other sources; the prudent treatment is that the net loss is not carried forward.
The Tax Code does not impose a single method for calculating the acquisition cost (FIFO, weighted average cost, etc.). What matters is that the method chosen is applied consistently, from one year to the next, and can be supported with documents.
The obligation to file rests entirely with you; the platform withholds and pays over nothing on your behalf. Crypto income is declared through the Declarația unică (Form 212), Romania's single annual return for income tax and social contributions owed by individuals, by 25 May of the year following the one in which you realised the gain.
In concrete terms: gains made in 2025 had to be declared by 25 May 2026 (at the 10% rate); if you missed the deadline, a return filed now, on your own initiative, is incomparably more favourable than one filed after an ANAF notification. Gains made in 2026 are declared by 25 May 2027, at the 16% rate.
Besides the tax, you owe CASS at 10% if your annual net crypto income, combined with your other non-salary income (rent, dividends, interest, investments), reaches the threshold of 6 gross minimum wages, the calculation base being capped in tiers of 6, 12 and 24 minimum wages. For 2026 income, the thresholds are set against the 4,050 lei minimum wage in force at the start of the year: approximately 24,300 lei, 48,600 lei and 97,200 lei, with CASS of around 2,430 lei, 4,860 lei and 9,720 lei respectively. The increase in the minimum wage to 4,325 lei from 1 July 2026 (HG nr. 146/2026) does not change the thresholds for 2026, but will count for later years; always check the figures in force on the filing date. CAS (the state pension contribution) is not owed on income from virtual currency.
The tax is paid in lei, and gains realised in foreign currency or in crypto are valued at the relevant exchange rate at the time of realisation, one more reason why the record of transactions needs to be kept up to date, not reconstructed in a hurry, years later.
This is the substantive change of 2026, and the reason why the strategy of “not declaring, because they have no way of finding out anyway” has become one of the riskiest tax decisions possible.
Through OUG nr. 71/2025 (Official Gazette no. 1146 of 10 December 2025), Romania transposed Directive (EU) 2023/2226. From tax year 2026, crypto-asset service providers report annually to ANAF the user's identity, the aggregate values of transactions, the types of operations and the balances. The first reporting takes place in 2027, for 2026 transactions, with fines of up to 150,000 lei for non-compliance and the possibility of blocking unregistered platforms.
In parallel with DAC8, the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework extends the automatic exchange of information to jurisdictions outside the EU. The idea that an exchange “somewhere else” keeps you invisible has a very near expiry date.
On 1 July 2026, the transitional period under Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 expired: unauthorised platforms can no longer lawfully serve EU customers, including the roughly 600,000 Romanian investors. The market is concentrating in authorised, supervised providers, precisely the ones that report.
Even before the first DAC8 reporting, ANAF already sees where the money enters and leaves the system: transfers between bank accounts and exchanges, withdrawals in lei, card payments funded from crypto. Practice in 2025-2026 shows a visible increase in compliance notices (notificări de conformare) and checks in the crypto area.
The practical conclusion: from 2026, ANAF will have, for the first time, data from the source about your transactions. The gap between what the platforms report and what you have declared becomes automatically visible.
The 16% tax applies to the gain, not to the amount withdrawn. But the gain can only be calculated if you can prove the acquisition price and date. If you cannot prove them, you risk having the tax authority treat the entire sum as income, or, worse, as income from an unidentified source. The problem is real especially for those who entered the market in 2017-2021: closed exchanges, deleted accounts, cash purchases, DeFi transactions with no “official” statement at all. The good news: the history can be reconstructed in most cases, if you work methodically.
Full transaction reports (CSV/PDF) from every exchange you have ever used, including deposits and withdrawals. Now, because platforms are closing, withdrawing following MiCA, or limiting the history available.
Many respond to data export requests, including under GDPR, the right of access to your own data.
On-chain transactions are public and permanent: wallet addresses, cross-checked with blockchain explorers, can prove flows, dates and historical values.
Transfers to and from exchanges fix the timeline and the amounts invested, the essential proof of “money entering the system”.
Specialised crypto record-keeping tools can consolidate data from multiple sources and apply a consistent calculation method (for example FIFO), with reports for each tax year.
Mining, staking, airdrops, purchases from individuals, payments received in crypto: each needs at least minimal documentation of the time and value of acquisition.
A professionally reconstructed history does not just serve the correct calculation of the tax: it is your defence file in the event of a notification or a review. In cases with real stakes, a reconstruction carried out together with a tax adviser or a forensic tax expert carries evidential weight that an improvised spreadsheet will never have.
What happens if you cannot document the history? This is where the harshest tool in ANAF's arsenal comes in: the 70% tax on income from unidentified sources, applicable since July 2024. If the risk analysis shows a significant difference between declared income and the actual tax position, more than 10% of declared income but at least 50,000 lei, ANAF can open a review of personal tax position. If, at the end, you cannot justify the source of the funds, the difference is taxed at 70%, plus interest and penalties. And from 6 July 2026, under Order of the President of ANAF no. 768/2026, this review can also be carried out directly by Anti-Fraud inspectors, who can themselves issue the tax assessment decision (decizie de impunere).
The typical scenario: you withdraw 300,000 lei from a portfolio built up over years. Without a documented history, you cannot prove that 200,000 lei is the invested capital and only 100,000 lei is the gain. The difference between 16% on the actual gain and the risk of 70% on the whole unjustified amount, plus late-payment charges (accesorii), can mean hundreds of thousands of lei. At this level, the discussion is no longer purely a tax matter: large undeclared sums can also bring a criminal dimension (tax evasion, money laundering), and the tax defence and the criminal defence need to be coordinated from the outset.
The time dimension is also worth noting: ANAF can, as a rule, review the period within the 5-year limitation period (prescripție), so the decisions you make today about documenting the history matter for many years to come.
WARNING. Do not try to “reconstruct” the history with documents created after the fact, backdated loan agreements, accommodation receipts, or circumstantial explanations. Faced with a review, such documents not only fail to help, they can turn a tax problem into a criminal case. Legitimate reconstruction is built from real data: statements, exports, on-chain evidence, and where gaps exist, they are managed legally, not covered up artificially.
While the platforms still exist and the data is still accessible, not after you receive a notification, when the 30-day time limit is already running.
For 2026, the deadline is 25 May 2027. For past years not declared, a return filed on your own initiative before any notification fundamentally changes your position: you pay the tax and the late-payment charges (accesorii), but you move out of the area of unjustified income and criminal risk.
Run the flows through your own accounts, avoid cash and “intermediaries” when converting crypto to fiat; every missing link in the banking chain is a link you will have to prove some other way.
Staking, airdrops, payments in crypto, at the time they occur, not retroactively.
If you have already received a compliance notice (notificare de conformare) or a notice of inspection, do not send undocumented explanations: a hasty response becomes evidence. The 30 days are enough for a professionally built response, and often the last window in which the problem can be closed simply.
No. Merely holding the assets and an increase in the portfolio's value generate no tax and are not declared. Obligations arise when the gain is realised: a sale for fiat, a crypto-to-crypto swap or payments in crypto. Data about your accounts will, however, reach ANAF through DAC8, so the consistency between the balances and your future returns matters.
Under ANAF's interpretation, yes: any transfer of virtual currency that generates a gain is taxable, including a swap between cryptocurrencies or into a stablecoin. The gain is calculated at the value at the time of the swap.
Yes, this is exactly the point of DAC8 and CARF: the reporting obligation also covers providers outside the EU that have clients resident in the EU, and the automatic exchange of information between states brings the data to ANAF. The first reporting, for 2026, takes place in 2027, but bank transfers to exchanges are already visible.
The most important thing is to act before ANAF contacts you: reconstructing the history, correctly calculating the obligations and filing the returns on your own initiative bring you back into the area of a simple regularisation with late-payment charges (accesorii). After a notification, the room for manoeuvre narrows significantly, and undocumented sums risk being treated as unjustified income. Each situation, however, must be assessed on its own facts before any filing.
Informative material, updated on 17 July 2026. It reflects the state of the legislation at the time of writing; it does not constitute legal or tax advice, individual situations must be assessed on their own facts.
If you have an inspection under way or have just received a notification, the related analyses are grouped under tax inspection and the review of individuals. For how such matters are handled, see tax assistance.
Time limits run from the date of communication. A first conversation clarifies what is being alleged, what you need to substantiate and how the defence is built, before an estimate becomes a tax assessment decision.