Australia's CGT overhaul: what crypto holders need to know before 1 July 2027

What actually changed

Since 1999, an Australian resident who held a CGT asset for more than twelve months paid tax on only half the gain. Hold Bitcoin for eighteen months, sell at a $20,000 profit, and $10,000 was added to your assessable income. Simple, and generous.

The 2026–27 Federal Budget replaced that with the system Australia used between 1985 and 1999: cost base indexation. Instead of halving your gain, you uplift the original purchase price by inflation, and pay tax on whatever real gain remains above it.

Layered on top is a 30% minimum tax rate on net capital gains. Whatever your marginal rate would otherwise produce, capital gains under the new method are taxed at no less than 30%.

Why this matters more for crypto than for most assets

Indexation rewards slow, steady growth. If an asset appreciates roughly in line with inflation, indexation can wipe out most of the taxable gain — a better outcome than the old 50% discount.

Crypto is the opposite case. Assets that multiply in value over a few years derive almost no benefit from an inflation uplift, because inflation is a rounding error against the size of the gain. A holding that went up 400% gets its cost base lifted by perhaps 15%, and the rest is taxed — at a minimum of 30%.

Put plainly: the higher the growth rate, the worse the new system is relative to the old one. For volatile, high-growth assets, this is a meaningful tax increase.

The transitional rules, which matter enormously

This is the part most summaries skip, and it is the part that determines whether you need to do anything.

The new rules apply only to gains that accrue on or after 1 July 2027. Not to the whole gain on an asset sold after that date. The legislation treats your holdings as though they were sold on 30 June 2027 for the purpose of splitting the gain, but the tax on that notional gain is deferred until you actually dispose of the asset.

So a single sale after 1 July 2027 can produce two differently-taxed slices:

• Growth from purchase to 30 June 2027 — assessed under the old 50% discount rules
• Growth from 1 July 2027 to the date you sell — assessed under indexation and the 30% minimum

Does it make sense to sell before 30 June 2027?

For most long-term holders, probably not — and the deemed-sale mechanism is precisely why. Because gains accrued up to 30 June 2027 keep the old treatment whether you sell or not, crystallising early to "lock in" the discount achieves very little. You would trigger a real tax bill years ahead of schedule to secure treatment you already have.

Where the calculation gets genuinely close is for holdings you expect to grow sharply after 2027, or where you were planning to sell in that window regardless. Those are cases for a registered tax agent with your actual numbers, not for a general article.

What this does not change

A great deal of the crypto tax landscape is untouched:

• Crypto is still a CGT asset. The ATO has classified it that way since December 2014 and the reform does not disturb it.
• Disposals are still disposals. Selling for AUD, swapping token for token, spending crypto on goods, and gifting all remain CGT events.
• The 12-month rule survives. You still need to hold for more than twelve months to access the concessional treatment, whichever regime applies.
• Staking and airdrops are still income. Rewards are generally assessed as ordinary income at their market value on receipt, then separately subject to CGT on later disposal.
• Capital losses still only offset capital gains, and still carry forward indefinitely.
• Record-keeping obligations are unchanged — five years from the later of preparing the record or completing the transaction.

Who is exempt

The 30% minimum tax does not apply to recipients of prescribed income support payments, including the Age Pension, in the year of sale. Investors in new residential builds can elect between the old discount and the new arrangements — an exception aimed at housing supply that has no crypto application.

Note the sharp edge on the income support carve-out: it depends on actually receiving a qualifying payment in the year you sell. A self-funded retiree just above the threshold is caught in full, and can face a 30% rate on a gain that would otherwise have been taxed far lower. That outcome has drawn criticism from economists across the political spectrum, but it is the law as passed.

What to do now

Nothing urgent, and that is worth saying clearly — the change is nearly a year away and the transitional rules do most of the protective work automatically. But two things are worth attention:

Get your cost base records straight. The transitional calculation depends on knowing what your holdings were worth on 30 June 2027 and what you originally paid. If your records are scattered across exchanges you no longer use, that reconstruction gets harder every year. Export your full transaction history from every exchange you have used and store it somewhere durable.

Understand which slice your gains sit in. If you are considering a purchase you intend to hold for a decade, it now falls almost entirely under the new regime. That does not make it a bad purchase — it makes the after-tax maths different from what the last twenty-five years would suggest.

Sources

This article draws on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026 and the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026, the 2026–27 Budget papers, and ATO guidance on the reform. For the ATO's own summary, see its page on reforming negative gearing and capital gains tax, and for general crypto CGT mechanics, how to work out and report CGT on crypto.

Related reading