Latvia has changed its crypto tax rules and opened a one-off door for holders who never declared their coins. The Saeima, the Latvian parliament, passed urgent amendments to the Personal Income Tax Law in final reading on 15 October 2026, according to the parliament’s own release. Residents will be able to declare the crypto-assets they hold on 31 December 2026 and pay 10% of their market value on that date, after which their past obligations on those assets count as settled. The same law moves Latvia crypto tax for residents onto the investment-account regime already used for shares and bonds.
A second, separate piece of news came three days later. Didzis Dejus, an adviser to the prime minister on strategic planning and the new economy, told CoinDesk on 18 October that residents could pay personal taxes in crypto as early as 2027. That part is not in the law. It rests on his statement alone, and no official document describing it has been published.
For readers elsewhere in the EU, the dates matter as much as the rate. Latvia’s declaration window closes on 31 May 2027, a month before crypto platforms send their first reports on 2026 activity to the Latvian tax office under the EU’s DAC8 directive.
Latvia crypto tax law passed on 15 October: investment accounts for crypto
The bill went through the Saeima in one week. Members backed it in first reading on 8 October, the Budget and Finance (Taxation) Committee supported it for the final vote on 14 October, and the plenary adopted it on 15 October as an urgent matter. The committee chair, Aiva Vīksna, was quoted in the 14 October committee release that tax rules have to keep up with new forms of investment as financial markets change.
The core change is technical but large for anyone who trades often. Crypto-assets come under the investment-account regime. Inside such an account, tax is not computed on each trade. It becomes due when the amount a person withdraws from the account exceeds the amount they put in.
Only crypto-asset service providers licensed in the EU (CASPs, the firms authorised under the MiCA regulation) may offer these accounts. The Cabinet of Ministers has until 30 December 2026 to adopt the rules that will apply to the account providers. Until those rules exist, nobody can say which Latvian or EU platforms will offer the accounts, or on what terms.
The Saeima release does not give the tax rate applied to gains taken out of an investment account, nor any threshold. It does not say when the amendments enter into force either. Coindaro found no promulgation or entry-into-force date on the pages it checked, and the Finance Ministry and the State Revenue Service (VID) had not published guidance on the new regime at the time of writing.
The one-time 10% declaration: dates and rules
The second half of the law is a one-time declaration (vienreizēja deklarēšana in the Latvian text). It covers crypto-assets a resident holds on 31 December 2026, whether they sit with an EU-licensed CASP or at addresses the person controls directly, in self-custody. The declared assets are taxed at 10% of their market value on that date.
That year-end value then becomes the acquisition value for later tax calculations. In practice it resets the cost basis. Someone who bought bitcoin years ago and kept no record of the purchase price would start again from the 31 December 2026 value.
A worked example, our own arithmetic: a resident who declares crypto worth EUR 100,000 on 31 December 2026 owes EUR 10,000, and EUR 100,000 becomes the starting value for any future gain. Because the 10% applies to market value and not to the original gain, the bill depends on prices at the end of December, a point also made by Crypto Briefing on 18 October. Whether that is cheaper than paying tax on actual past gains depends on each person’s purchase prices. That is a question for a tax adviser, not for this article.
Those who declare and pay are treated as having met their income-declaration and tax-payment duties up to 31 December 2026 for the declared assets and for the income used to buy or blockchain, where users swap tokens directly from their own wallets without handing custody of their funds to a company.">swap them. The 8 October release adds that they would face no late-payment interest, administrative fines or criminal liability for previously undeclared income linked to those assets. The Saeima does not call the scheme an amnesty; it calls it a one-time declaration.
Who is excluded
The door is closed to anyone already facing criminal proceedings, a tax audit, tax control or an administrative offence case connected to crypto income. The authors of the bill said the measure is meant for people who began trading before clear tax rules existed and never declared what they earned. They also pointed to the automatic exchange of crypto data between EU tax authorities that applies from 2026.
| Step | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|
| First reading in the Saeima | 8 October 2026 | Saeima |
| Budget committee backs final reading | 14 October 2026 | Saeima |
| Final reading, adopted as urgent | 15 October 2026 | Saeima |
| Cabinet rules for investment-account providers | by 30 December 2026 | Saeima |
| Valuation date for the 10% declaration | 31 December 2026 | Saeima |
| Declarations to the State Revenue Service (VID) | 1 April to 31 May 2027 | Saeima |
| Last date for one correction | 30 June 2027 | Saeima |
| Tax paid into the unified tax account | by 23 July 2027 | Saeima |
Source: Saeima releases of 8, 14 and 15 October 2026.
Paying taxes in crypto from 2027 is still a plan
The other headline from Riga is softer. Speaking to CoinDesk at the UN:BLOCK Fintech conference, Dejus said the Finance Ministry had agreed to let residents pay personal taxes in crypto, and that technical work with a payment provider was still under way. Asked whether Latvians could pay taxes in crypto while the current prime minister is in office, he said: “I believe that will take place next year.”
That is an expectation from one adviser, not a decision. The Finance Ministry had not replied to CoinDesk when the article went out. Coindaro found no Finance Ministry, VID or government document on crypto tax payments, and the other reports we found simply repeated CoinDesk’s.
The idea is not new. In May 2025, the Baltic Times, crediting the Latvian Blockchain Association, reported that a national fintech strategy presented to the Fintech Sector Development Council would allow tax payments in cryptocurrency and create a framework for tokenising real-world assets such as property. Seventeen months later, no payment channel has been announced.
Dejus also linked the plan to a wider goal. He told CoinDesk that Latvia wants to attract crypto businesses beyond licensing, and that the declaration helps people who bought crypto years ago but have no record of what they paid.
Politics may decide the timing. Latvians voted in a general election on 3 October 2026. Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs’ United List won and he is expected to be renominated, CoinDesk reports, but he still needs coalition partners. CoinDesk adds that the timing of the payment plan could depend on the next government. The tax law itself was passed by the outgoing parliament.
What is not known about crypto tax payments in Latvia
CoinDesk’s report does not explain how payment would work. As of 19 October, these points are open:
- Which payment provider would process the payments: Dejus did not name one.
- Which coins would be accepted, and whether they would be converted to euros on receipt.
- Who would carry the fees and the price risk between payment and conversion, and whether refunds would be paid in euros.
- Which taxes would be covered beyond the personal taxes mentioned to CoinDesk, and whether a new government keeps the plan.
Earlier schemes elsewhere put an intermediary in the middle. In February 2021 the Swiss canton of Zug began taking bitcoin and ether for tax bills of up to CHF 100,000, with Bitcoin Suisse converting the coins into francs. Colorado followed in 2022 with payments through PayPal, converted to dollars, as CoinDesk recalls. Both date from 2021 and 2022, and Coindaro has not checked their current terms.
From a 3% withholding to a MiCA-licensed market
Latvia has spent two years adjusting how it taxes crypto. On 10 April 2025, the Saeima exempted non-residents from personal income tax on disposals of publicly traded crypto-assets, from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2027, when the trade goes through a firm licensed to provide crypto-asset services in the EU. Before that, a 3% withholding applied and non-residents had to reclaim it, a process LSM described as cumbersome. The Ministry of Economics has to tell the Cabinet whether the relief is worth keeping.
The investment-account route depends on licensed firms, and Latvia has a growing number of them. Latvijas Banka has authorised 12 CASPs under MiCA, the latest being Atrya Technologies SIA, announced on 1 October 2026, LSM reported on 2 October. Readers who want the background on how these licences work can read our guide to the MiCA regulation.
Neither the Saeima release nor the Finance Ministry pages we checked state the general tax rate that applies to residents’ crypto gains today. Commercial tax guides give figures, and some disagree with one another. Residents should check the rate with VID rather than rely on press summaries.
DAC8 reporting starts after the declaration window closes
Latvia wrote the EU’s DAC8 directive into national law in late 2025. The amendments to the law “On Taxes and Duties” were adopted on 21 November 2025 and the Cabinet regulations followed on 9 December, KPMG Latvia wrote. Crypto platforms have collected data on their clients since 1 January 2026, the first reporting year.
The schedule is set. Providers send their 2026 data to VID by 30 June 2027, and EU states exchange it with one another by 30 September 2027 (see our DAC8 first exchange page). The reports include transaction totals and transfers to addresses not known to belong to a provider. KPMG adds that fines can reach EUR 14,000 and that clients who do not provide a self-certification within 60 days can be blocked from transacting.
One detail stands out when the two calendars are read together, and it is our observation, not something the Saeima has said: the 10% declaration window closes on 31 May 2027, before the first DAC8 report reaches the tax office on 30 June 2027. A resident who declares does so before the platforms’ data on 2026 arrives. Self-custodied coins that never touched a reporting platform are a different case, but transfers from a platform to such addresses are themselves reported.
France, Italy and DAC8: what EU readers should watch
The Latvian declaration is for Latvian tax residents only. It does not apply to holders in France, Italy or anywhere else, and nothing here suggests moving countries for tax reasons.
What Latvia shares with its neighbours is the reporting calendar. DAC8 applies across the EU and France and Italy have both written it into national law. The first cross-border exchange of 2026 data is due by 30 September 2027. Tax offices in Paris and Rome will receive the same kind of data as VID in Riga.
The tax rates are where the countries differ. France taxes gains on crypto disposals under its flat tax, the prélèvement forfaitaire unique, with an option for the progressive scale. Italy’s 2025 budget law raised the substitute tax on crypto gains from 26% to 33% for gains realised from 1 January 2026, with no exempt threshold, according to the Agenzia delle Entrate’s guide to that law. The 2026 budget law then kept euro e-money tokens compliant with MiCA at 26%, smart contract holding reserves of two or more tokens, supplied by users, that a decentralized exchange uses to execute trades automatically at a price set by a formula.">pool diverge, compared with simply holding the same tokens in a wallet. It becomes permanent when the provider withdraws.">Il Sole 24 Ore reported in January. Neither country has announced a one-off settlement window like Latvia’s. French lawmakers are moving in the other direction on stablecoins: MPs voted at first reading to tax swaps into USDC and EURC from 2027.
For holders in both countries the change is the same as in Latvia: from the 2026 tax year, any platform licensed in the EU reports its clients’ activity to the tax office.
Investment accounts, CASPs and DAC8 in plain words
An investment account, in the Latvian sense, is a tax wrapper. You put money in, buy and sell inside it, and pay tax only when what you take out exceeds what you put in. Trades inside the account do not each trigger a tax calculation.
A CASP is a crypto-asset service provider: an exchange, broker or custodian authorised under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets rules (see the MiCA glossary entry). Only such firms may run the new Latvian accounts.
DAC8 is the EU directive that makes these providers report their clients’ crypto transactions to tax authorities, who then share the data between member states. It is the reason undeclared holdings on platforms are becoming visible from 2026 onward.
Next dates for Latvia crypto tax
The Cabinet must adopt the rules for investment-account providers by 30 December 2026, and the 31 December 2026 market value fixes the 10% bill. Declarations open on 1 April 2027 and close on 31 May, with one correction allowed until 30 June and payment due by 23 July 2027. The first DAC8 reports reach VID by 30 June 2027 and the EU exchange follows by 30 September.
On payments in crypto, the next sign to look for is a name: a payment provider, a list of coins or a written statement from the Finance Ministry. None has appeared yet, and a new government still has to be formed in Riga.