The savings base: sales, swaps, yields
Into the savings base go capital gains derived from a transmission — selling for euros, swapping one crypto for another, paying with crypto — and investment income: staking rewards and lending interest, taxed on receipt at market value. The brackets: 19% to €6,000, 21% to €50,000, 23% to €200,000, 27% to €300,000 and 30% beyond — the top bracket rose from 28 to 30%, a reminder that these scales move. Gains compute against FIFO cost: first units bought are first sold, with no lot-picking.
The general base: where the gifts land
Into the general base — the one your salary lives in, with marginal rates approaching 47% depending on the region — go gains not derived from a transmission and economic activities. The star case: airdrops. A token received for nothing given up is a gain without a transmission, taxed at your general marginal rate, entering with an acquisition cost of zero — so the later sale generates a second, savings-base gain on the full amount. Mining and organised operations are economic activity: registration, deductible expenses, progression.
The same token can cost you 19% or 47% depending on how it reached your wallet. Spain's most expensive tax question is not how much you gained — it is by which route.
The error Hacienda hunts with a magnifying glass
Declaring an airdrop as staking moves the income from the general base to the savings base — a saving of up to twenty points that does not survive a review: the chain records whether crypto was committed in exchange for the reward or simply credited. The technical distinction — yield for ceding your assets versus a gratuitous gain — is verifiable in the very data forms 172/173 and DAC8 deliver. In the opposite direction the error also costs: staking declared in the general base overpays, year after year.
The two-month rule, honestly
The anti-application rule defers a loss when homogeneous securities are repurchased within two months before or after the sale. Its transfer to cryptoassets remains technically debated — the DGT has not settled it with the clarity practice needs. Our editorial position: we mark it unresolved, we document repurchases near loss sales, and the decision to apply the rule in your case belongs to an adviser, not an article.
What to do
- Label every income at origin. Sale, swap, staking, lending, airdrop, activity: the label decides the base, and reconstructing it years later is the expensive part.
- Record the euro value on receipt. For yields and airdrops, the day's value is both the income to declare and the cost of the future sale.
- Watch repurchases within two months of a loss sale. Documenting them today beats arguing them tomorrow.
- With volume or DeFi, classify with advice. The frontier between the bases is the terrain where a review is won or lost.
This page explains classification and computation rules. It is not advice on your operations, and reading it creates no professional relationship.