Crypto Tax Estimator

Enter your buy price, sell price, quantity, and holding period, and the estimator returns a rough capital gains figure plus the tax bracket that applies. Long-term holds (over a year in the US) get the lower long-term rate; short-term holds get taxed as ordinary income.

The math is straightforward: (sell × quantity) − (buy × quantity) − fees = gain or loss. The hard parts — cost basis tracking across multiple lots, wash-sale-like rules where they apply, staking and airdrop ordinary income, and DeFi swap events — are NOT what this tool handles. It's a back-of-envelope check, not a tax filing.

For real filings, export your CSVs to dedicated crypto tax software or hand them to an accountant who works in this space.

The rates the estimator applies (US federal, single filer, recent years): short-term gains follow ordinary income brackets — 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, 37%. Long-term gains use a separate, lower schedule — 0% up to ~$47k taxable income, 15% to ~$520k, 20% above. High earners also pay the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax. State tax stacks on top, ranging from 0% (Texas, Florida, Wyoming) to 13.3% (California top bracket). The estimator uses the federal brackets only and asks you to add state separately.

Worked example: bought 1 BTC at $30,000, sold 1 BTC at $50,000 13 months later, paid $200 total in fees. Gain = (50,000 - 30,000) - 200 = $19,800 long-term capital gain. At a 15% LTCG rate that's $2,970 federal tax. Compare to selling at month 11 instead: same numbers, but it's now a short-term gain taxed at your ordinary rate — for a 24% bracket filer, $4,752. The 60-day delay saved $1,782. That's why holding period matters and why the estimator flags it explicitly.

Where it lies to you: anything involving multiple lots. If you bought 1 BTC at $30k, another at $40k, and sold one BTC at $50k, your gain depends on which lot you sold. The IRS defaults to FIFO unless you specifically identify the lot at sale. The estimator takes one buy price; real cost basis tracking needs every transaction. DeFi swaps, LP positions, staking income, airdrops, hard forks, and bridging events all create taxable events the estimator doesn't see. For anything past a single round-trip trade, the right answer is dedicated software (CoinTracker, Koinly, TokenTax) that ingests every transaction.