Form 721 for crypto: do I have to file it?

Form 721 (modelo 721) is the Spanish information return on crypto-assets held abroad: you report, you do not pay anything. It is filed by Spanish tax residents who, on 31 December, hold more than €50,000 in cryptocurrency custodied by an entity that is not resident in Spain and has no permanent establishment here, adding up all such platforms. What you keep in a wallet of your own, with your keys, does not count, whatever it is worth. For balances at 31 December 2026, the window runs from 1 January to 31 March 2027, online through the Agencia Tributaria's electronic office. If you filed in an earlier year, you only file again when the total has risen by more than €20,000 since the last return. Not filing when you should is penalised at €20 per item, with a minimum of €300. Answer three questions and we will tell you whether it applies to you.

1. Are you tax resident in Spain?
2. Where is your cryptocurrency?

Tick everything that applies.

3. Value on 31 December of what non-Spanish entities hold for you

What should you understand before you trust the answer?

Your own wallet does not count. Really.

Form 721 reports what a third party custodies. If you hold the private keys, there is no third party: there is nothing to report on this form, whatever it is worth. A Ledger with a million in bitcoin stays out. What decides is not how much you hold, but who keeps it. The Agencia Tributaria's own FAQ puts it the same way: the type of wallet decides nothing on its own; what decides is whether the keys are yours.

It is a snapshot of 31 December

Not the high of the year, nor the average, nor what it is worth when you file. It is what it was worth on that day. If on 12 November you held €90,000 and on 31 December €40,000, you are not over the threshold.

Reporting is not paying, and not reporting does cost

Filing form 721 produces no tax bill. It is an information return, full stop. What has consequences is not filing it when you should. That is why it is one of the few formalities where there is no rational reason to take the risk.

And it is separate from income tax

Whether or not you file form 721 does not change what you pay when you sell. They are two different things: form 721 reports what you hold abroad; the IRPF taxes what you gain when you sell or swap. You may have to file both, one, or neither. For the second there is the crypto tax calculator: if you trade on foreign exchanges, that is where you upload their CSVs and get the tax return report for the year.

Who has to file form 721?

Individuals and companies tax-resident in Spain who, on 31 December, hold cryptocurrency custodied abroad with a combined value above €50,000. It covers the holder and also anyone who is a beneficiary, an authorised person or a beneficial owner, or who has any other power of disposal. The threshold is checked by adding up every foreign platform: two accounts of €30,000 on two foreign exchanges trigger it just as one of €60,000 does. And once it is crossed, you report all the coins, not only the part above the limit.

Does an exchange authorised under MiCA count?

It can, and it is the mistake many people will make in 2027. The regulation does not speak of «Spanish» platforms: it treats coins as located abroad when their custodian is not required to file form 172, and that form is filed only by residents of Spain and by permanent establishments here of foreign entities. A platform based in another EU country that serves Spain under its European authorisation is not, for that reason alone, either of the two: what you keep there can count for form 721 even though it operates lawfully here.

The list of authorised providers shows, for each one, which country it is registered in and which authority supervises it. If it is foreign, ask the platform whether it files form 172 in Spain: that is the answer that decides.

What is reported, and how is it valued?

For each custodian: its name, its tax number in its own country and its address or website. And for each cryptocurrency you hold there: which one it is, the units on 31 December and their value in euros on that day. The rule says which rate: the 31 December price offered by the main trading platforms or price-tracking websites; failing that, a reasonable estimate of market value. You also have to state the price used, so keep a note of where each figure came from.

When is the 2026 form 721 filed?

From 1 January to 31 March of the year after the one being reported, online, through the Agencia Tributaria's electronic office: for balances at 31 December 2026, from 1 January to 31 March 2027. The first filing season was 2024, for balances at 31 December 2023; it is a recent form, which is why many people who have held crypto abroad for years do not know it exists.

Does it have to be filed every year?

No. Once filed, it only comes round again if the combined value on 31 December has risen by more than €20,000 over the value that triggered the last return. If you filed with €60,000 and on 31 December 2026 you hold €75,000, the rise is €15,000 and you do not file; with €85,000, the rise is €25,000 and you do.

The regulation adds that the return is required «in any case» for coins you stopped holding during the year, with the balance on the day you stopped. How that fits with the threshold when you never crossed it is not settled by the text; if you closed or emptied an account you had already reported, file it.

What happens if you do not file?

Form 721 was born in 2023, after the Court of Justice of the European Union struck down the form 720 penalty regime in 2022, so it is penalised under the general regime of the General Tax Act: for not filing, €20 for each item or set of items, with a minimum of €300 and a maximum of €20,000 (article 198); if you file late without the tax authority having asked you to, half of everything, the minimum and the maximum included. Filing it incomplete or with wrong data carries its own penalty, in article 199.

How the items are counted is set by the regulation itself: each custodian is a set, each balance of each coin is another, and the identification of each coin is one item. With one exchange and two coins that makes five: €100, which rises to the €300 minimum; filed late of your own accord, €150. It is money paid for not filling in a form that costs nothing.

Is form 721 going to change for 2026?

It may. In March 2026 the finance ministry put out for consultation a draft order with a new form 721, on crypto-assets located abroad, applying for the first time to 2026 balances. It went hand in hand with the reform bringing in the EU's DAC8 directive, and that reform had not reached the official gazette when Royal Decree 806/2026 dissolved Parliament on 6 October 2026. As of 16 October 2026 the form in force is still the one in Order HFP/886/2023, with the threshold and deadlines on this page. If the new one is published, this page changes with it.

Does it apply to me? Four cases

  • €60,000 on a foreign exchange and €10,000 on a Ledger. You do file: the exchange custodies €60,000, above the threshold. The Ledger does not go into the count, and it did not need to.
  • €30,000 on one foreign exchange and €30,000 on another. You do file: the threshold is per person, not per platform, and they add up to €60,000.
  • €200,000 in a wallet of your own and €5,000 on a foreign exchange. You do not: the only thing custodied by a foreign third party is €5,000. The rest is yours and nobody else's, and form 721 does not ask about it.
  • €55,000 on a platform based in another EU country, authorised to operate in Spain and with no permanent establishment here. You do file: being authorised does not make it resident, and it does not file form 172.

If the platform is Spanish —Bit2Me, say— it stays out of form 721 as well: it already reports to the Agencia Tributaria through forms 172 and 173.

What does this page NOT resolve?

  • It does not say whether, having filed in earlier years, you have to file again this year: that rule depends on how much has changed since the last return.
  • It does not cover wealth tax (Impuesto sobre el Patrimonio), which is a different tax, with rules of its own in each autonomous region.
  • It is no good for the Basque Country or Navarre: they have their own foral regimes.
  • It does not add up for you: the value you type has to be the total across every foreign platform of yours, not one of them.

For the rest of the tax picture —FIFO, swaps, savings bands, staking and the 2027 filing calendar— the guide to crypto tax in Spain, and for where to start, the guides hub. And if you are looking for somewhere to trade with an authorised platform, the list of providers with a MiCA licence — which also tells you where each one is registered, the first thing to check for this form.

Sources

All of them are published in Spanish only, and were consulted on 16 October 2026. Text reviewed on 16 October 2026.

This content is for information and is not tax advice. If your case involves several platforms, earlier years already reported or doubts about valuation, check it with an adviser.

Choose the theme
Choose the accent colour