Crypto glossary
DAC8
DAC8 is the EU directive that makes crypto service providers report their customers' transactions to tax authorities, with data collected from 1 January 2026.
DAC8 is the eighth amendment to the EU Directive on Administrative Cooperation in taxation, adopted in 2023. It brings crypto-assets into the system that EU tax authorities already use to exchange information on bank accounts and other income, and it closely follows the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF).
Crypto-asset service providers serving EU residents must identify their users, including a tax identification number, and record their transactions: exchanges between crypto and fiat, swaps between crypto-assets and certain transfers. Data collection runs from 1 January 2026, and each provider reports annually to one member state, which then shares the information with the user's country of residence.
For users, DAC8 means that tax authorities will see crypto activity on reporting platforms without relying on self-declaration. It does not set tax rates, which remain national, and transactions made only through self-custody wallets are not reported by a provider in the same way.
Example
A Spanish resident who sells 5,000 EUR of bitcoin on an exchange licensed in another EU country in 2026 will have that sale reported to the tax authority of the exchange's home country and passed on to the Spanish tax agency.
