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Tax loss harvesting

Tax loss harvesting is a strategy to lower your taxable income by selling assets at a loss to offset realized capital gains. For Prime and Ultra plans, CoinTracker's tax loss harvesting tool surfaces personalized opportunities based on your portfolio and allows you to swap crypto from self-custody wallets directly in CoinTracker.

Here’s how tax loss harvesting works:

  • Sell assets that are worth less than what you originally paid.
  • Use those losses to offset gains from other investments.
  • The result: a lower tax bill.

An example of tax loss harvesting is if you:

  • Buy $25,000 USD worth of crypto A.
  • Later, sell crypto A for $28,000 USD, realizing a $3,000 USD capital gain.
  • In the same year, sell crypto B for $25,000 USD, which you originally bought for $30,000 USD, realizing a $5,000 USD capital loss. 

Using tax loss harvesting, the $5,000 USD loss from crypto B offsets the $3,000 USD gain from crypto A. This means you’ve eliminated the taxable gain, and the remaining $2,000 USD loss can either offset other gains in the same tax year or reduce your overall taxable income. 

For more information about tax loss harvesting and how it affects crypto taxes, wash-sale rules, and other important considerations, refer to our Crypto Tax Loss Harvesting Guide.

Tax loss harvesting tool

The tax loss harvesting tool is available within CoinTracker's web and mobile app (iOS and Android). 

Web

On web, the tool shows your top harvestable opportunities by asset, wallet, the amount to consider selling, and the estimated maximum harvestable loss. 

To open it, sign in to CoinTracker and select the Tax loss harvesting tab. Personalized opportunities are available on Prime and Ultra plans.

Mobile

On mobile, this tool shows your year-to-date tax summary and your top harvestable opportunities by asset and wallet, along with a full list you can filter by coin or wallet. You can access the tax loss harvesting tool from:

  • The insights card on your Home screen
  • The Tax page
  • Promotional cards in the app

Within the mobile app, what you see depends on your subscription plan. Free and Base customers will have a preview of one opportunity(the third-largest), while the top opportunities are unlocked with a Prime upgrade. Prime and above will have the full un-gated list. 

When to harvest tax losses

You can harvest tax losses anytime an asset's market value drops below its original purchase price (its cost basis). To reduce your 2026 taxes, sell assets at a loss any time during the 2026 tax year. 

Once you find an opportunity to harvest a loss on, you can sell the asset on the exchange or wallet where you hold it, then sync your wallets in CoinTracker so the realized loss is reflected. 

You can also swap crypto from a self-custody wallet directly in CoinTracker. For the full swap steps, see how to harvest tax losses by swapping crypto. If a swap runs into issues, see how to troubleshoot harvesting tax loss issues.

Note: For German and Portuguese customers, long-term losses aren't deductible. To benefit from tax loss harvesting, sell assets at a loss before they reach the one-year holding period.

About the tax lots table

Whenever you buy or sell cryptocurrency, each transaction creates a tax lot, which records how much you paid for the asset and when you bought it. The tax lots table, found under the Crypto you can sell at a loss section, shows these records. 

This table helps you identify which assets to sell based on your cost basis method, making it easier to lower your taxes. Each method offers a different strategy for selecting assets that have the greatest impact on your capital gains.

CoinTracker supports multiple cost basis methods. The available options vary based on your country’s tax laws: See the supported cost basis methods for US customers or the supported cost basis methods for non-US customers.

Staked crypto and tax loss harvesting

Make sure to review your staking status before making tax optimization decisions. Staked crypto may appear in your tax loss harvesting recommendations, but their cost basis will only apply once they are unstaked. Since staked crypto forms a separate group of tax lots, their cost basis cannot be used for tax loss harvesting or gain/loss calculations until unstaked. 

Example: Selling staked and unstaked SOL with HIFO method

An individual has the HIFO (Highest In, First Out) cost basis method and the following holdings:

  • 10 SOL staked with a cost basis of $200. 
  • 10 SOL unstaked with a cost basis of $150. 
  • They sell 10 SOL for $170. 
The customer expects the $200 cost basis from the staked SOL to apply, assuming it would result in a realized loss. But because staked assets sit in a separate group of tax lots, CoinTracker applies the $150 cost basis from the unstaked SOL instead — resulting in a realized gain.

Ensure max harvestable loss accuracy 

The accuracy of the calculations depends on having an accurate account. The numbers in the tax loss harvesting tool are affected by your cost basis method and cost basis tracking settings. For accurate results, before using the tool:

Disclaimer: CoinTracker is provided for informational purposes and is not intended as tax, audit, accounting, investment, financial, or legal advice. For financial, tax, or legal advice, please consult your own professional. See our full disclaimer.

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