Earning Bitcoin instead of buying it

You don’t have to buy bitcoin: you can also receive them as part of your salary, as fees, when you sell second-hand things or as tips. For the tax office, though, bitcoin you earn are usually income, and not every offer to ‘earn bitcoin’ is genuine. To receive them, you need your own wallet – Setting up your first wallet shows how.

Basic rule: earned means acquired

If you get bitcoin for work, goods or a service, for tax purposes you acquire them in exchange.^[1] That has two consequences:

1. The income can be taxable, depending on the route as employment income, business income or other income.
2. The holding periodGlossaryHolding period (speculation period)In Germany, the gain from selling privately held bitcoin is tax-free if more than one year passes between purchase and sale (§ 23 EStG, as of September 2026). Each purchase has its own holding period.On the learning path: Stage 6 · Step 3 – Bitcoin & tax →In the glossary →× starts on receipt. If you sell bitcoin from private assets after more than a year, the gain is tax-free. Within a year, it is a private disposal transactionGlossaryPrivate disposal transaction (privates Veräußerungsgeschäft)A German tax term from § 23 EStG: if you sell or swap privately held bitcoin within one year of buying them, the gain is taxable – unless all such gains in that year together stay below the €1,000 exemption limit.On the learning path: Stage 6 · Step 3 – Bitcoin & tax →In the glossary →× – tax-free only if your gains from all private disposal transactions in the year total less than €1,000 (exemption limitGlossaryExemption limit (€1,000 Freigrenze)In Germany, gains from private disposal transactions stay tax-free if they total less than €1,000 in a calendar year. From €1,000, the entire gain is taxable.On the learning path: Stage 6 · Step 3 – Bitcoin & tax →In the glossary →×).^[1]

For every payment you receive, note the date, amount, transaction ID and value in euros – the German tax office calculates in euros. As a price source, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) accepts trading platforms and price lists such as CoinGecko.^[1]

Bitcoin & tax in Germany explains the details, and the holding period calculator works out your dates. Abolishing the holding period is being discussed but has not been decided (as of September 2026); the reform tracker follows it. This is not tax advice.

Salary in bitcoin

Under Germany’s Trade Regulation Act (Gewerbeordnung), wages must be calculated and paid in euros. Employers and employees can, however, agree on payments in kind as part of the pay if this is in the employee’s interest or suits the nature of the job.^[2]

In 2025, the Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht) ruled that crypto assets can be such a payment in kind; the case concerned commissions in Ether. The portion of wages protected from garnishment must, however, be paid in money, otherwise the agreement is void to that extent.^[3] So part of your pay in bitcoin is possible, but the basis stays in euros.

For tax purposes, the bitcoin portion is employment income. Income that isn’t paid in money is valued at the usual final price at the place where it is provided.^[4] The BMF guidance on crypto assets expressly leaves out employment income and wage tax withholding.^[1] So ask for your payslip to be explained in detail.

Self-employed: accepting payments in bitcoin

Issue the invoice in euros and add a Bitcoin address or a Lightning payment request. A tried-and-tested tool is BTCPay Server: open source, self-hosted or on a shared server, with no fees of its own, and payments go straight to your wallet.^[5]

Client payments in bitcoin are business income, valued at the market price when the payment arrives. For business assets there is no tax-free holding period: a later sale is taxable too.^[1] Agree with your tax adviser in advance how you record prices and receipts.

• Price swings: the price can move between the invoice and the payment. It’s best to exchange the share you need for tax and running costs into euros promptly.
• Confirmations: for larger payments, wait until they have at least one confirmationGlossaryConfirmationA transaction has one confirmation as soon as it is in a block; each further block adds one. With every confirmation, it becomes harder to displace the payment after the fact.On the learning path: Stage 5 · Step 4 – First withdrawal →In the glossary →×, and preferably several for high amounts. Bitcoin transactions & fees explains why.

Selling things for bitcoin

If you privately sell a bike for bitcoin, for example, that is an exchange for tax purposes: you acquire bitcoin, and their holding period starts with the payment.^[1]

• Only accept payments to an address from your own wallet.
• Only hand over the item once the payment is visible and, for larger amounts, confirmed.
• Don’t fall for ‘I accidentally sent too much, please pay back the difference’.

Tips via Lightning

For small amounts, the Lightning NetworkGlossaryLightning NetworkA second layer on top of Bitcoin for fast, low-cost payments. Amounts move off the blockchain via payment channels; only opening and closing a channel ends up in a block as a normal transaction.On the learning path: Stage 1 · Step 3 – How does Bitcoin work? →In the glossary →× is a good fit. A Lightning address is handy: it looks like an email address (name@example.com), and the payer’s wallet uses it to fetch a payment request automatically.^[6] You can put it in your profile, under a blog post or on a flyer. The Lightning Network explains the wallets and the technology.

For tax purposes, a tip isn’t automatically a gift. If you upload your own images, photos or videos to a platform and receive crypto assets for them, the BMF sees a taxable service. Such other income stays tax-free if, together with other income from services, it is below €256 a year.^[1] Anyone who regularly offers content for payment may be self-employed.

Mining at home: usually a loss-maker

The whole network is currently running at 969 EH/s. A single machine contributes only a tiny fraction of that but uses a lot of electricity. According to BDEW, the German energy industry association, households have paid an average of 37.0 euro cents per kWh so far in 2026 (as of August 2026).^[7] At that price, the electricity generally costs more than the machine earns in bitcoin. The worked example with the break-even electricity price, which you can compare with your own, is in Mining & proof of work.

As a learning project or to heat with the waste heat, a small machine can still make sense. For German tax purposes, mining is a commercial activity if it is set up to last and can make a profit; otherwise the proceeds are usually other income subject to the €256 limit.^[1]

Be wary of ‘earn bitcoin’ promises

The European supervisory authorities name typical warning signs: an unsolicited offer, the promise of a fast, high return without risk, time pressure.^[8]

• Apps that pay sats for games, surveys or adverts: the amounts are usually small, and often you pay with your data. If you hand over more data than technically necessary in return for crypto assets, the BMF even treats that as a taxable service.^[1]
• ‘Interest’ on bitcoin: you have to hand over your bitcoin so that they can be lent out. Understanding custody shows why that’s risky.
• Cloud mining and ‘trading bots’: you usually can’t check whether any mining or trading happens at all. If a platform demands further payments before a withdrawal, stop. More in Spotting & avoiding scams.

Your checklist

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