How Long Should You Hold Crypto Before Selling? The Rules in 5 Countries
A friend texted me in November a couple of years ago: "I'm up like $14,000 on an ETH bag I bought in January. Selling now or waiting?" I did the math for him. Selling at 11 months meant short-term rates — basically his income tax rate. Waiting one more month meant long-term rates. The difference was a bit over $3,000. He waited.
That conversation is worth repeating because the math is so lopsided. In several countries, the date on the calendar is one of the few things that can change your tax rate without you doing anything clever at all. No lawyer, no offshore structure — just patience. But the exact threshold and the reward differ a lot depending on where you pay tax, and in two of the five countries we cover, waiting doesn't help at all.
Here's how it actually works in each place, with the kind of numbers you'd see on a real sale.
United States: 12 months flips your rate
The US divides gains into two buckets. Sell within 12 months of buying and the gain is short-term, taxed at your ordinary income rate — anywhere from 10% to 37%. Hold for more than 12 months and the gain is long-term, taxed at 0%, 15% or 20% depending on your total income.
Take someone single earning $75,000 with a $10,000 gain:
- Sell at month 10: the gain stacks on top of salary and falls in the 22% ordinary bracket — roughly $2,200 in tax.
- Sell at month 13: long-term rate is 15% — $1,500. Same coins, same price, $700 difference.
The gap gets silly at higher incomes. A single filer earning $100,000 who realizes a short-term gain at the 24% bracket pays 24%; the same gain long-term is 15%. At the very top, short-term hits 37% plus the 3.8% net investment income tax, while long-term tops out at 20% plus that 3.8%.
One detail people miss: it has to be more than 12 months, not "12 months this year at some point." Day after purchase to sale day. You can check the exact outcome for your sale on the US crypto tax calculator.
Australia: 12 months halves the taxable gain
The Australian version is even more generous in its own way. Hold a crypto asset for more than 12 months and you get the 50% CGT discount — only half your net capital gain is added to your assessable income. Hold it for less and the full gain counts.
Numbers: say you made a $20,000 gain and your marginal rate is 34.5% (including the Medicare levy, in the 30% income bracket):
- Sell within 12 months: $20,000 × 34.5% = $6,900 tax.
- Sell after 12 months: $10,000 × 34.5% = $3,450 tax.
The discount is a flat 50% regardless of your bracket, so the higher your income, the more dollars it saves. Capital losses are applied first, then the discount goes on the remaining net gain. The Australian calculator models this directly.
Germany: 365 days and the tax bill vanishes
Germany has the most dramatic rule of any major country, and somehow the one most investors outside Germany haven't heard of. Crypto counts as a private asset under §23 of the income tax law. If you hold it for at least 365 days, gains from selling it are completely tax-free. Not a lower rate — zero. No cap on the gain amount.
Sell within the year and the picture changes fast. Short-term gains over the €1,000 annual Freigrenze are taxed as part of your income at your marginal rate — 14% up to 45%, plus the 5.5% solidarity surcharge at higher levels. For someone earning €50,000, a €10,000 gain adds roughly €3,400 in tax and solidarity surcharge. Hold the same coins 365 days and that bill disappears entirely.
Two things to know. The €1,000 is a hard threshold, not a deduction — go one euro over it and the whole amount is taxable, not just the excess. And the one-year exemption doesn't cover rewards from staking, lending or mining, which have their own rules. Run your own numbers on the German crypto tax calculator.
United Kingdom: waiting doesn't change the rate
Here's where the pattern breaks. The UK has no holding-period discount for crypto. Whether you held Bitcoin for 11 days or 11 years, your crypto capital gains are taxed at 18% (basic-rate taxpayer) or 24% (higher/additional rate). Your rate is decided by how much of your basic-rate band your salary leaves over, not by the calendar.
What the UK does give you is the £3,000 annual exempt amount — gains under that total are tax-free — plus time-related rules that work against you rather than for you. The 30-day "bed and breakfast" rule means selling at a loss and buying the same coin back within 30 days kills the loss for tax purposes. If you're timing a UK sale for tax reasons, the move isn't waiting longer; it's managing which year you sell in and staying aware of that allowance. The UK calculator handles the basic/higher-rate split.
Canada: no holding period, but a structural discount anyway
Canada also has no time-based discount. A day trade and a five-year hold face the same mechanics: only the taxable portion of the gain counts. Since 2026 that's 50% of gains up to $250,000, and 66.67% of anything above. The taxable portion then gets added to your income and taxed at your federal plus provincial marginal rate.
So a Canadian in a combined 30% marginal bracket pays roughly 15% of a gain under the threshold — a discount built into the inclusion rate rather than the clock. Timing a sale still matters in Canada, but mainly to shift gains between tax years, not to earn a cheaper rate. See the Canadian calculator for the federal-plus-provincial math.
The five-country summary
| Country | Holding threshold | Reward for waiting |
|---|---|---|
| 🇩🇪 Germany | ≥ 365 days | Gain is fully tax-free (0%) |
| 🇺🇸 United States | > 12 months | 0/15/20% long-term rate instead of 10–37% income rate |
| 🇦🇺 Australia | > 12 months | 50% CGT discount — only half the gain is taxable |
| 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | None | No discount; 18% / 24% regardless of hold time |
| 🇨🇦 Canada | None | No time discount; 50% / 66.67% inclusion rate regardless |
Before you delay a sale for tax reasons
The holding period is a genuinely powerful lever, but it's not free. You're taking on extra market risk to save tax — the coin can always drop more than the tax would have cost. My own rule of thumb: if you'd sell tomorrow for investing reasons and you're within a month or two of the threshold in the US, Australia or Germany, the savings are usually large enough to justify waiting. If you're months away, I wouldn't let the tail of tax savings wag the dog of investment judgment.
And remember that different lots have their own clocks. Buy some Bitcoin in January and more in October, and each lot crosses the long-term / 365-day line on its own date. That matters when you're choosing what to sell first.
Want the exact number for your own sale? Put your buy and sell price into the calculator for your country — you can toggle the holding period and watch the rate change before your eyes. Nothing leaves your browser.
This is general information, not tax advice. Thresholds and rates change year to year, and edge cases (staking, transfers, multiple wallets) can complicate things. For large positions, check with a tax professional.