Level one: the receipt
Staking rewards and lending interest are other income under § 22 no. 3 EStG — taxable at market value on receipt, at the personal rate. The threshold is €256 per year for all other income combined; one euro over, and the entire amount is taxable. The BMF letter of 6 March 2025 also clarified claiming — when rewards count as received is no longer a matter of style but of documentation duty. The receipt value simultaneously becomes the cost basis of the coins received.
Level two: the rewards' own clock
With receipt, each reward starts its own one-year period. Sell after more than a year: the price gain since receipt is tax-free. Sell earlier: a private sales transaction on the difference to the receipt value. A staking portfolio is therefore a calendar of dozens of small clocks — weekly rewards mean weekly deadlines, and FIFO per wallet decides which clock a given sale stops. Without a complete receipt log — date, quantity, price — neither level one nor level two can be evidenced.
Vienna sets staking rewards' cost basis to zero and waits for the sale. Berlin taxes the receipt immediately and winds a new clock. Read guides across the border and you import the wrong system — in either direction.
The limits of the private sphere
The old worry that staking stretched the staked coins' holding period to ten years is statutorily settled — twelve months stand. What remains open is where passive holding becomes infrastructure: active validators, masternodes and business-like setups can fall out of § 22 no. 3 — toward business income, with trade tax and without the holding-period privilege. Scale, organisation and outward appearance decide; the boundary is case-by-case and belongs professionally drawn before larger setups, not after.
What to do
- Log every receipt — with its euro value. Date, quantity, price on arrival: that is level one complete, and the cost basis for level two.
- Watch the €256 edge. Just over means everything taxed; planners plan with the threshold.
- Separate reward clocks from purchased stock. A dedicated rewards wallet keeps FIFO legible and the deadlines steerable.
- Classify larger setups in advance. Validator operations and masternode infrastructure are an advisory question before they become an audit question.
This page explains receipt and period rules. It is not advice on your rewards, and reading it creates no professional relationship.