Greece passes 10% crypto tax, 15% on DeFi returns, effective Jan 1, 2027

Greece's parliament has passed a new crypto tax framework, taxing individuals' annual net crypto gains above €500 (~$559) at 10%, and staking, lending, and DeFi liquidity returns at 15% as interest income. The regime takes effect January 1, 2027. The passage is reported by CoinDesk; the preceding draft that went to consultation is detailed in prior coverage from Decrypt and Unchained Crypto.

The regime, in numbers

• 10% capital-gains rate on individuals' annual net crypto gains, above a €500 threshold. Once the threshold is crossed, the entire gain is taxable — not just the excess.
• 15% interest-income rate on staking rewards, crypto lending income, and DeFi liquidity-pool returns, applied the same way Greece taxes conventional interest income.
• Losses above €500 per year can be carried forward for five years to offset future crypto gains.
• 12-month amnesty to declare past crypto gains without late-filing fines or interest; declared tax must be paid within 60 days of the declaration.
• Crypto-for-goods spending counts as a disposal and is taxable, not only cash sales.
• Crypto-to-crypto swaps: per the Finance Ministry, these won't be taxed — though parliament's Scientific Service flagged that the bill's wording could sweep them in.
• Effective date: January 1, 2027.

Who it applies to

The bill targets individuals resident in Greece. Corporate crypto income and mining operations run through registered companies continue to be taxed under the general corporate regime. Greece had initially floated a flat 15% rate in June for all crypto gains — Reuters-sourced coverage via Tovima — before dropping the retail capital-gains rate to 10% and keeping the 15% rate for yield-bearing products as interest income.

Why the DeFi carve-out matters

Treating staking and liquidity-pool returns as interest income — at 15% rather than the 10% capital-gains rate — aligns crypto yield products with the way Greece already taxes savings-account and bond-coupon interest. This matters for three groups:

1. Validators and stakers: ETH, SOL, ATOM, and similar rewards earned by Greek tax residents fall into the 15% bucket, not the 10% bucket, from January 1. The calculation is on fair-market value at receipt.
2. DeFi LPs: returns from Uniswap, Aave, Curve and similar positions are treated as interest for tax purposes, regardless of whether the return flows as new tokens, protocol fees, or price action on the LP token. Implementation detail is where the parliament's Scientific Service flagged wording risk.
3. Centralized-exchange yield products: earnings from CEX staking programs will fall under interest-income rules the same way CeFi lending previously did under the general income tax.

What to watch

1. Implementing decrees from the Ministry of National Economy and Finance before January 1: the bill sets the rates but leaves the method for valuing non-fiat rewards, the treatment of swap transactions, and the reporting burden on exchanges and wallets to secondary legislation.
2. Scope of the 15% interest classification: whether airdrops, liquid-staking derivative yields, and real-world-asset (RWA) income get swept in or carved out.
3. Exchange reporting obligations: Greek-authorized crypto platforms will need to report customer-level gains and interest for the first time; MiCA CASP license terms may be adjusted to support this.
4. Amnesty uptake: 12 months to declare pre-2027 gains without penalties. Low uptake signals Greek taxpayers already assume enforcement is weak; high uptake signals the authorities have better data than markets expect.

Context

Greece is now among the lower-rate EU jurisdictions for retail crypto gains, below Germany's progressive rates (0% after a 1-year hold for most private sales), below France's 30% flat rate on crypto gains, and below Italy's 26%. It joins the MiCA-era pattern of member states formalizing a clear line between gains (10%) and yield (15%), rather than taxing everything as miscellaneous income. The retroactive amnesty is distinct from the EU-wide DAC8 reporting framework that takes effect January 1, 2026: Greek residents who ignored crypto in past returns have one year to clean up before the two regimes meet.