Form 1099-DA Explained: What Crypto Brokers Report for 2025 and 2026

Form 1099-DA is the IRS form US crypto brokers now use to report your digital asset sales. For the 2025 tax year, brokers had to report gross proceeds, meaning what you sold for, and reporting your cost basis was optional. For the 2026 tax year, brokers must also report cost basis, but only for "covered" assets: crypto you bought after 2025 in a custodial account and kept in that same account until you sold it. Everything else is still on you to track.

This guide is built from the IRS's 2025 and 2026 Form 1099-DA instructions and its broker-reporting FAQs, reviewed in October 2026.

What Form 1099-DA is, and where it came from

The official name is "Digital Asset Proceeds From Broker Transactions." It exists because the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed in late 2021, extended the broker reporting rules in Internal Revenue Code section 6045 to digital assets. Think of it as crypto's version of the 1099-B your stock brokerage sends.

The IRS says you should get one if a broker handled your disposal of digital assets in any of these ways:

• Selling for US dollars or another currency
• Trading for a different digital asset
• Exchanging for property, goods or services
• Using digital assets to pay the broker's transaction costs

The requirement generally applies to US brokers, including US-based exchanges. Foreign platforms may not send you one, but the IRS is clear that taxable transactions on foreign platforms still belong on your return.

The rollout, year by year

A separate track starts in 2026 for real estate. Real estate professionals treated as brokers must report the fair market value of digital assets used to pay for property at closings on or after January 1, 2026.

Covered vs. noncovered: the distinction that matters most

Under the 2026 instructions, a covered security is a digital asset bought after 2025 in an account where the broker held it for you, and kept in that account until you sold it. Those are the sales where your 1099-DA must show basis.

Noncovered assets include:

• Anything you acquired before January 1, 2026
• Assets you transferred in from another exchange or a personal wallet
• Assets the broker wasn't holding for you when you acquired them

Transfers are where people get surprised. Say you bought ETH on Coinbase in 2026, moved it to Kraken, and sold it there. To Kraken, that ETH is noncovered. The IRS broker FAQ says a receiving broker can use acquisition details from the sending broker to figure out which units you sold, but not to report basis on your 1099-DA. Your own records carry the purchase price. Our exchange transfer guide covers how to keep that trail intact.

The flip side: if you buy and hold on one exchange, your future 1099-DAs will show basis for those coins without extra work from you.

Buy and hold on Kraken

Three sales, three outcomes

Here's how the rule plays out for one person selling on a single US exchange in 2026:

Same coin, same exchange, same year. Only the first sale arrives with a basis the IRS already has.

What isn't on the form

A 1099-DA is not a full tax summary. Several things are left out by design:

• Staking rewards and other rewards. The instructions say not to report them on Form 1099-DA. They're still taxable income to you, generally reported on Schedule 1.
• Certain transactions excluded by IRS notice. Notice 2024-57 carved out wrapping and unwrapping, liquidity provision, staking, lending, short sales and notional principal contracts while the IRS studies them.
• Small stablecoin activity. Brokers can skip reporting qualifying stablecoin sales if your total proceeds for the year are $10,000 or less.
• Small NFT activity. Specified NFT sales can be left off if your total proceeds are $600 or less.
• Small crypto payments. For processors of digital asset payments, sales of $600 or less for the year aren't reported.

The IRS's digital asset FAQs say gains and losses on stablecoins and NFTs are recognized even when your broker doesn't report them. A missing form doesn't mean a missing obligation.

How you use it at tax time

The basic rule from the IRS: report all income, gains and losses from digital assets on your return, whether or not you receive a Form 1099-DA, and figure out your basis before you file.

1. Gather every 1099-DA from every US exchange you sold on during the year.
2. Match each sale to your records. Where the form shows no basis, use your purchase history. Where it does show basis, check it against your own numbers.
3. Report on Form 8949, then Schedule D. The IRS FAQs say individuals report capital transactions in digital assets on Form 8949 and carry the totals to Schedule D. Form 8949's instructions explain how to handle sales your broker reported with and without basis.
4. Separate short-term from long-term. Assets held more than one year produce long-term gains or losses.
5. Answer the digital asset question on Form 1040 accurately.

If the form looks wrong

Contact the broker that issued it. The issuer is listed as "Filer" at the top left. The IRS says it can't correct the form for you, and that you shouldn't hold off filing while you wait. Keep copies of the form and all your correspondence.

Choosing which coins you sold

If you bought bitcoin at several prices, which lot you sell changes your gain. The IRS default, when you don't specifically identify units, is that the earliest-acquired units in that account are sold first.

The rules for picking specific lots changed at the start of 2026:

• For 2025 sales, temporary relief under Notice 2025-7 let you identify units through a standing order recorded in your own books, or at the time of each sale.
• For sales after 2025, the IRS FAQs say identification has to be made with the broker, using the broker's tools, and a standing order must be in place before the sale. If a broker offers only one method, that method is treated as your standing order.

If you care about lot selection, for tax-loss harvesting for example, look for your exchange's cost-basis or lot-method setting now, before you sell. Our exchange tax features comparison covers what different platforms offer.

Backup withholding and your W-9

Brokers ask US customers for a Form W-9 with their taxpayer identification number. Like other 1099 forms, digital asset proceeds can be subject to backup withholding if a broker doesn't have a valid TIN on file. The 2026 instructions point brokers to Notice 2025-33 for transitional relief from backup withholding. The simplest way to stay out of it: make sure each exchange has your correct name and SSN or TIN.

What to do before January

• Confirm your tax details on every exchange you use.
• Export full transaction histories from every platform, including ones you've stopped using.
• List your transfers between platforms, since those create noncovered lots without broker-reported basis.
• Set your lot-identification method with each broker if you want something other than the default.
• Talk to a tax professional if you staked, used DeFi, moved coins often or traded on foreign platforms. Those are the cases where a 1099-DA tells you the least.

If you're choosing an exchange partly for record-keeping, Kraken's Kraken+ membership page lists free Koinly tax reports covering up to 800 Kraken transactions, plus a discount on paid plans. Check the current terms before relying on it.

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