CRA Crypto Tax Canada: Adjusted Cost Base Guide 2026

You bought Bitcoin on one exchange, moved some to another, swapped part of it for ETH, and sold a bit near the bottom. Now tax season is coming and nothing lines up. The second exchange shows your transferred coins with no cost at all. One P&L screen says you made money. Another says you lost. Neither one knows about the other.

The CRA doesn't care what each exchange's screen says. It wants one number per coin, in Canadian dollars, worked out its way. This guide explains how crypto tax works in Canada in 2026, how the adjusted cost base is calculated, and what you need to report.

Capital gain or business income?

The CRA says you must first decide whether your gains or losses come from a business of trading crypto-assets or are on account of capital. The answer changes how much of your profit is taxed.

The CRA decides case by case. On its crypto guide, it lists factors that may point to a business:

• Frequency of transactions
• Period of ownership
• Knowledge of crypto-asset markets
• Time spent
• Financing
• Advertising

Even a one-off deal can be business income if it's an "adventure or concern in the nature of trade". If you're carrying on a business, you report the full amount of your profit or loss, not half. The CRA points business filers to Guide T4002, Self-employed Business, Professional, Commission, Farming, and Fishing Income.

Otherwise, you have a capital gain or capital loss. The facts decide, not the label you pick.

The inclusion rate is still 50%

Only half of a capital gain is taxed. The CRA calls that half your taxable capital gain. Section 38 of the Income Tax Act still sets it at one-half.

You may remember the 2024 plan to raise the inclusion rate to two-thirds. It was first pushed back to January 1, 2026. Then, on March 21, 2025, the government announced it would cancel the increase altogether. The CRA confirms the proposal was cancelled. So for 2025 and 2026, the rate is still 1/2 (50%).

The same rate works for losses. Half of a capital loss is an allowable capital loss. You can only use it against taxable capital gains, not against your salary. Unused net capital losses can be carried back three years or forward indefinitely.

Crypto-to-crypto trades are taxable

Swapping BTC for ETH feels like you never cashed out. The CRA disagrees. Trading a crypto-asset for government-issued currency or for another type of crypto-asset is a disposition.

When you trade one crypto for another, you must convert the value of what you received into Canadian dollars. Report the gain or loss on the coin you gave up. Paying for goods or services with crypto counts as a barter transaction, and gifting or donating crypto is also a disposition.

Moving crypto between wallets you own is not a taxable disposition. You still need records to prove the wallet is yours.

How the adjusted cost base works

Your capital gain is your proceeds of disposition minus your adjusted cost base (ACB) and any selling costs. The ACB is what you paid for the crypto-asset, plus the costs of buying it.

Units of the same coin are identical properties. The CRA's capital gains guide says that when you buy identical properties at different prices over time, you have to work out the average cost each time you buy. You divide the total cost of the identical properties by the total number you own. Section 47 of the Income Tax Act sets out the same averaging rule. A CRA tax tip for crypto users describes the ACB as "usually the weighted average cost of a crypto-asset".

Two things follow from that:

• Selling doesn't change the average cost per unit. It only reduces how many units you hold.
• The pool is yours, not your exchange's. All your BTC is one pool, whether it sits on one exchange, three exchanges or a hardware wallet. An exchange that only sees its own trades can't give you the right ACB.

That's why your second exchange's CSV is wrong: it sees coins arrive with no purchase price.

The superficial loss rule

Selling at a loss and buying straight back doesn't work. A loss is superficial when both of these are true:

• You, or a person affiliated with you (your spouse, for example), buy the same or identical property in the period from 30 calendar days before the sale to 30 calendar days after it.
• You, or that affiliated person, still own the substituted property 30 calendar days after the sale.

That's a 61-day window, counting the day of the sale. If the rule applies, you can't deduct the loss. You can usually add the denied loss to the ACB of the substituted property. The loss isn't gone. It's deferred until you sell those units later.

Where you report it

In the CRA's 2025 capital gains guide, crypto-assets have their own line on Schedule 3, Capital Gains (or Losses). You report them on line 7 in Part 3. Total proceeds go on line 15200 and the total gain or loss on line 15301, in Canadian dollars. Your taxable capital gain then goes on line 12700 of your return.

Deadlines for the 2025 return:

• April 30, 2026 for most people.
• June 15, 2026 if you or your spouse or common-law partner were self-employed.
• Any balance owing is due April 30, 2026, even if your filing deadline is June 15. Pay late and you pay interest.

What records the CRA wants you to keep

The CRA lists the records it expects for crypto-assets:

• The number of units and type of crypto-asset in each transaction
• The date and time of each transaction
• The value in Canadian dollars at the time of each transaction
• What each transaction was, and the other party, even if it's only their wallet address
• The addresses of each digital wallet you use
• Your beginning and ending balance of each crypto-asset each year, including the cost of the beginning balance
• From exchanges: trade ledgers (buys, sells, swaps) and transfer ledgers (deposits and withdrawals of crypto and cash)

Keep them for at least six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to. The CRA tells crypto users to download their original data at regular intervals.

CARF: exchanges will report to the CRA

Budget 2024 announced that Canada will implement the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). Crypto platforms will collect user information and share it with tax authorities. Budget 2025 deferred the start to January 1, 2027. The rules are in Bill C-31, introduced in May 2026 and still in committee in the House of Commons as of October 2026. Assume the CRA will see your platform activity.

Worked example: pooled ACB, a swap and a superficial loss

The numbers below are invented to show the method. Fees are kept simple.

Step 1. In January you buy 1 BTC on Exchange A for $60,000 plus a $60 fee. Cost: $60,060.

Step 2. In March you buy 0.5 BTC on Exchange B for $45,000 plus a $45 fee. Cost: $45,045.

Step 3. Pool them. You own 1.5 BTC with a total ACB of $60,060 + $45,045 = $105,105. Average cost: $105,105 ÷ 1.5 = $70,070 per BTC.

Step 4. In May you move 0.5 BTC from Exchange A to Exchange B. It's your own account, so nothing is disposed of and the pool doesn't change, even if Exchange B shows a cost of zero.

Step 5. In August you trade 0.4 BTC for 10 ETH on Exchange B. The ETH is worth $40,000 at that moment, and you pay a $40 fee.

• Proceeds: $40,000
• ACB of 0.4 BTC: 0.4 × $70,070 = $28,028
• Selling cost: $40
• Capital gain: $40,000 − $28,028 − $40 = $11,932

You now hold 1.1 BTC with an ACB of $105,105 − $28,028 = $77,077, still $70,070 per BTC. Your 10 ETH have an ACB of $40,000, or $4,000 each.

Step 6. On November 3 you sell 4 ETH for $12,000. Their ACB is 4 × $4,000 = $16,000, so you have a $4,000 loss. On November 20 you buy 4 ETH back for $12,400, and you still hold them on December 3, 30 days after the sale. The loss is superficial and denied.

Step 7. Add the denied loss to the ACB. Your ETH pool is now 6 ETH at $24,000, plus 4 ETH at $12,400 + $4,000 = $16,400. That's 10 ETH with an ACB of $40,400, or $4,040 per ETH.

Result for the year: a capital gain of $11,932. Your taxable capital gain is 50% of that, $5,966, on line 12700. If you'd ignored the superficial loss rule, you'd have reported a net gain of $7,932 and a taxable capital gain of $3,966.

How TheCryptoHub helps

TheCryptoHub connects to your exchanges with read-only or trade API keys, never with withdrawal permission. It builds one P&L across all of them and matches transfers between your own accounts, so moving coins isn't counted as a sale. Sales with no known purchase price are flagged for you to review instead of being dropped.

For Canada, the Tax Center keeps one pooled adjusted cost base per coin across all your exchanges, applies the superficial loss rule's 61-day window and uses the 50% inclusion rate. It exports a Schedule 3 worksheet (CSV) for you or your accountant to check. It's a supporting schedule, not the filed form and not tax advice.

See it with sample data in the free demo, no signup needed. Or drop a Bybit or Binance trade-history CSV into the free P&L calculator. The file never leaves your browser.