The honest short answer to "is an airdrop taxable" is: sometimes at receipt, often at sale, and it depends on where you live. The useful work you can do today is the same in every country, which is to keep good records. The rest of this page is built around that.
Four concepts that appear in every system
- Receipt
- The moment the tokens are yours to control. For a claim airdrop that is normally the claim transaction. For a push airdrop it is when the transfer lands in your wallet. The IRS FAQs on forks say receipt generally happens when the airdrop is recorded on the distributed ledger.
- Fair market value
- The price in your local currency at the moment of receipt. If a token has no market yet, the value may be hard to define. The IRS FAQs say that where no published value exists, the value of the property or services exchanged is used. For a free airdrop that rule does not obviously apply, which is one reason to ask a professional.
- Disposal
- Selling, swapping into another token, spending, or gifting. Moving tokens between wallets you own is generally not a disposal. The IRS says so for wallets you control, except for any asset used to pay the fee.
- Cost basis
- The starting number used to compute gain or loss on disposal. The IRS says that basis in forked assets received as income equals the amount you included in income. For tokens you bought, it is the purchase cost including fees.
These four ideas are enough to read most official guidance. Where authorities differ is the first step: whether receipt is itself a taxable event, and if so under which category.
What the authorities say, country by country
We opened the pages below and describe only what they state. For countries where we could not open an official page, the table says so rather than guessing. A third-party blog is never a substitute.
| Country | What the authority page says (as we read it) | Official link |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Digital assets are treated as property. The Form 1040 digital asset question lists receipt of an airdrop related to a hard fork among the cases that call for a Yes answer. The IRS FAQs say that new cryptocurrency received after a hard fork and airdrop is ordinary income equal to fair market value when received, and basis equals the amount included in income. They also say that receiving nothing new from a fork is not taxable. | irs.gov digital assets, FAQs (2025 onward) |
| United Kingdom | HMRC’s manual says airdropped tokens received personally may not be subject to Income Tax if received without doing anything in return and not as part of a trade or mining. Airdrops given in return for, or in expectation of, a service are taxed as miscellaneous income or trading receipts. Disposing of an airdropped token may create a chargeable gain for Capital Gains Tax. HMRC’s receive-tokens guidance says to keep separate records of tokens received. | CRYPTO21250 |
| Canada | The CRA hub lists guidance on tax obligations, record-keeping, valuation and reporting income from crypto-asset transactions, and says it updates pages as developments emerge. The hub page itself does not address airdrops, and we could not open the sub-pages. Check the CRA. | CRA crypto-asset hub |
| Australia | Could not verify. The ATO pages we tried would not open for us. Check your tax authority. | ato.gov.au (home page) |
| Germany | Could not verify. The ministry page we tried was unavailable. Check your tax authority. | bundesfinanzministerium.de (home page) |
| India and others | Could not verify. We found no official page we could open. Check your tax authority. | Your national revenue authority |
Two details deserve emphasis. First, the US FAQs we cite for the airdrop wording are the set covering transactions before 1 January 2025, while the later FAQs we opened address forks and income from services but not airdrops by name. Second, HMRC’s sentence has an if: it turns on whether you did something in return. A claim that required farming, bridging or social tasks is a different fact pattern from tokens that simply arrived. Both are covered in how we describe airdrop farming.
A hypothetical cost-basis example
The numbers below are invented round numbers for illustration. They are not a real token and not a forecast. The example follows the US-style treatment described by the IRS (income at receipt, basis equal to that income). Under a system where receipt is not taxed, the starting basis could differ, which is exactly why you check locally.
| Step | What happens | Number |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Claim | You receive 1,000 tokens when the price is 0.50 per token | Value at receipt: 500 |
| 2. Basis | Basis set to the amount treated as income | Basis: 500 (0.50 per token) |
| 3. Sale | You sell 400 tokens at 0.80 per token | Proceeds: 320 |
| 4. Gain | Proceeds minus basis of the 400 sold (400 x 0.50 = 200) | Gain: 120 |
| 5. Remaining | 600 tokens left, each still at 0.50 basis | Remaining basis: 300 |
Notice what the example does not include: the fee on the claim transaction, the fee on the sale, and a second claim of the same token later at a different price. Each of those changes the arithmetic. Unit tracking also matters. The IRS FAQs describe identifying specific units by date and keeping records, and a default of earliest-acquired first where the identification rules are not met. That is a US rule from the FAQs we opened, not a universal one.
Try the numbers yourself
This small calculator runs in your browser only and stores nothing. It follows the same simple method as the table, and it is for orientation, not for filing.
What to log for every claim
Authorities differ on tax, but they agree on records. HMRC says to keep separate records of tokens you receive, and the IRS says records must be sufficient to support the positions on your return. Capture these items at the time of the claim, because explorer pages, prices and dashboards change later. A plain spreadsheet is enough.
Per-claim record template
0/12If you use a burner wallet for farming, also record which burner funded which, and when you moved tokens to a main wallet. The IRS FAQs say that moving assets between wallets you own is generally not taxable, but the move is only provable if you wrote it down. The airdrop tracker on this site can hold the project side of the log.
Cases the official pages do not settle
Tokens with no market at receipt
If nothing trades, there may be no price. Authorities we opened do not give a worked answer for free airdrops of illiquid tokens. A professional can advise on how your authority wants this handled, and your own note of what you did to find a value will help.
Locked or vesting allocations
The IRS FAQs link taxable receipt of fork assets to the ability to transfer, sell or otherwise dispose of them. We have not seen a page that works through a vesting schedule, so keep the terms and dates of each unlock.
Points that convert later
Points programmes may convert into tokens months after the activity. Which date counts as receipt is a question for your authority. See points programmes explained for how conversions are usually described.
Unsolicited tokens and NFTs
Spam tokens that arrive without a request are common. We found no official statement in the pages we opened that addresses them directly. Our NFT airdrop guide explains why interacting with them is risky, which is a separate question from tax.
Closed campaigns
If you took part in a campaign that has ended, such as the Notcoin claim, keep your records for the same period your authority asks you to keep any investment records. We do not state that period because we did not verify it for each country.
What we would do next
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Start the log today
Backfill from your wallet history using the template above while explorers still show the data.
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Find your authority page
Use the table, or search your national revenue authority for its crypto-asset guidance. Prefer official pages over blogs.
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Separate claim from sale
Keep two columns: what you received and what you disposed of. They may be taxed differently.
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Ask a professional for the gaps
Bring your log and the list of unanswered cases. It makes the conversation shorter and cheaper.
When you decide to sell, the records you need grow. Our guide on where to sell airdrop tokens covers what each venue gives you in the way of statements, and the site disclaimer explains the limits of what we publish. If you are weighing a custodial account for sales, read custodial versus non-custodial first.
Primary sources
Sources last checked 19 Oct 2026. Links open the project's own pages, not summaries from other sites.
- IRS: Digital assetsirs.gov
- IRS: FAQs on virtual currency transactions (before 1 Jan 2025)irs.gov
- IRS: FAQs on digital asset transactions (from 1 Jan 2025)irs.gov
- HMRC Cryptoassets Manual: CRYPTO21250 (airdrops)gov.uk
- HMRC: Tax on cryptoassets (collection)gov.uk
- HMRC: Check if you need to pay tax when you receive cryptoassetsgov.uk
- CRA: Information for crypto-asset users and tax professionalscanada.ca
Frequently asked questions
Is a crypto airdrop taxable?
It depends on the country and on how you received it. The IRS says that new digital assets received after a hard fork and airdrop are ordinary income at fair market value when received. HMRC says some airdrops received for nothing may not be subject to Income Tax, but a later disposal can create Capital Gains Tax. Check your own tax authority.
Do I owe tax when I claim an airdrop or only when I sell?
Those can be two separate events. Receipt may create income in some systems, such as the US treatment described by the IRS. Selling or otherwise disposing of the tokens later can create a capital gain or loss in many systems. Whether receipt is taxed at all depends on your jurisdiction, so treat claim and sale as separate lines in your records.
How do I find the value of an airdrop at the time I received it?
The IRS FAQs say that for peer-to-peer or other transactions the value is set as of when the transaction is or would have been recorded on the ledger, and that blockchain explorer values are accepted as evidence. Note the timestamp of the claim transaction, save a price source for that moment, and keep a screenshot or export.
What records should I keep for each airdrop?
At minimum: the date and time of receipt, the transaction hash, the wallet address, the token and amount, a fiat value with its source, any fees paid, and later disposals. HMRC lists the type, date, number received and sterling value among records to keep for tokens received. The IRS expects records sufficient to support the positions on your return.
Do I have to report spam tokens or NFTs I never asked for?
We could not find an official statement that covers unsolicited tokens in the pages we opened, so we cannot say. The IRS FAQs tie income to when you have the ability to transfer or sell the asset, and HMRC distinguishes airdrops received without doing anything. A tax professional in your country can answer this for your case.