Crypto Tax Portugal 2026: Mining, Staking, and Cat B Income

If you mine BTC, stake ETH, run a Lightning node that earns routing fees, or collect DeFi rewards, you’re outside the friendly long-term capital gains regime. But you are not all in the same place: Portugal splits this income across two categories, and the split decides whether you need a freelance activity at all.

This catches almost everyone off guard, in both directions. Here’s what it actually means.

Why mining is Cat B, not Cat G

PT tax law categorizes income by source:

• Cat G = capital gains (sold something for more than you paid)
• Cat E = capital income (a return on an asset you hold)
• Cat B = self-employment income (you did work, or operated a business)

Mining sits in Cat B because it is an activity: you buy and run hardware, you consume electricity, you produce a good. Validator and MEV income sit closer to that line the more infrastructure you personally operate. Passive delegation to someone else’s validator, or depositing into a lending protocol, is the opposite - you contribute capital, not work - and the code treats it as Cat E.

The practical test is whether you’re running something. If a contabilista tells you to open an activity for rewards you earn by clicking “stake” in a wallet, ask them which provision they’re relying on.

The simplified regime, applied to crypto yield

If your annual crypto Cat B revenue stays under €200,000, you’ll use the simplified regime (regime simplificado). Under this regime, you don’t track actual expenses - the law presumes a flat percentage of gross is “expenses” via a coefficient.

For mining, the coefficient is 0.95, meaning 95% of gross is taxable. It is entered in campo 422 of Anexo B. Crypto operations run as a business go in campo 419 at 0.15 instead.

€10,000 gross × 0.95 = €9,500 taxable base for IRS

That €9,500 then gets aggregated with your other income (salary, freelance, etc.) and hits the progressive IRS brackets.

Why 0.95 and not 0.75?

The 0.75 coefficient applies to “professional services” (consulting, IT, design). Mining gets the harshest treatment in the table - a 5% deemed expense allowance - which is the opposite of what you would expect for an activity whose main cost is electricity. That is precisely why the organized-accounting option below matters for anyone mining at scale.

If you can demonstrate substantially higher actual expenses (industrial-scale mining with electricity costs eating 40% of gross), you can opt into organized accounting (contabilidade organizada) and deduct real expenses. This is only worth it if expenses well exceed 5% of gross, and it triggers full bookkeeping obligations.

Social Security on Cat B crypto income

After your 12-month new-activity exemption, Cat B income triggers Segurança Social contributions at 21.4% on 70% of declared income (the contribution base). Category E rewards carry no Social Security at all - another reason the category question is worth getting right.

Contribution base: €10,000 × 70% = €7,000 SS owed: €7,000 × 21.4% = €1,498 / year

This is on top of IRS. So the full effective rate on €10,000 of mining revenue for a year-3 freelancer in IRS bracket 5:

• IRS: €9,500 × ~31.1% marginal = ~€2,955
• SS: €1,498
• Total: ~€4,453 (44.5% effective)

Year-1 benefits apply

The two first-year freelancer benefits cover crypto Cat B activity too:

1. IRS coefficient reduction: year 1 = 0.475, year 2 = 0.7125 (vs the normal 0.95)
2. 12-month SS exemption from the day you register the activity

Eligibility for the IRS reduction: no Cat A income in the same year, and no freelance activity in the prior 5 years. See the first-year freelancer guide for full details.

How to register as a crypto autónomo

1. Get your NIF and Portal das Finanças access if you haven’t already - see the NIF guide
2. Open activity at Finanças - in person at a Loja de Cidadão or online via Portal das Finanças
3. Choose your CAE - the standard suggestion is CAE 64.99 (“Other financial services not classified elsewhere”), though some contabilistas use 70.22 for crypto consulting if you also advise clients. Verify your specific situation with the CAE finder
4. Set up recibos verdes issuance - the Portal das Finanças interface for issuing electronic receipts
5. Choose the simplified regime unless you have major deductible expenses
6. Register with Segurança Social - happens automatically when you open activity at Finanças

What about CEX-paid staking rewards?

Centralized exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Binance run staking-as-a-service products. The economic substance is the same as delegating a stake yourself - you supply capital and receive a return - so the Category E analysis applies: 28%, no activity to open, no Social Security.

The form of payment matters more than the venue. If the exchange pays you in EUR (some “earn” products do), that is Cat E income to declare for the year you received it, converted at the Banco de Portugal rate for the date of payment. If it pays you in the underlying crypto, art. 5.º n.º 11 defers the tax to the eventual disposal - so nothing goes on this year’s return, but you need the receipt date and value on file for when you do sell.

DeFi: same rules, harder bookkeeping

Rewards from DeFi protocols (Aave deposits, Compound lending, Curve LP rewards, Yearn vaults) are Category E, and where they arrive as tokens the tax is deferred to disposal. The complexity is in the tracking:

• Liquidity pool tokens received on deposit aren’t a reward - they’re a position
• LP token value fluctuates with pool composition (impermanent loss/gain)
• “Reward” tokens (CRV, COMP, AAVE) received as incentives are Cat E, taxed when you dispose of them rather than on receipt
• Removing liquidity is a disposal event (Cat G)
• Swapping one token for another inside a pool is not a disposal - basis carries over

For meaningful DeFi exposure, use a crypto-specific tax tool — Koinly or CoinTracker — to capture yield events and cost basis, and have your contabilista review the output. Affiliate link — TAXCLARA earns a commission if you subscribe through it, at no extra cost to you; we only link tools we’d use ourselves.

Reporting on Modelo 3

Cat B crypto income goes on Anexo B along with any other simplified-regime income. There is no coefficient dropdown: the rate follows from which field of Quadro 4A you use, campo 422 for mining and campo 419 for everything else. You’ll also need to file Anexo SS with your annual Segurança Social contribution declaration. Category E rewards are declared as capital income, not on Anexo B.

The quarterly SS declaration (declaração trimestral) is a separate obligation - file every January, April, July, October for the previous quarter’s income. See the quarterly SS declaration guide.

When to upgrade to organized accounting

Switch from simplified to organized accounting (contabilidade organizada) when:

• Annual gross exceeds €200,000 (becomes mandatory)
• Actual expenses regularly exceed 5% of gross (industrial mining, large validator infrastructure)
• You have substantial deductible startup costs (hardware purchases, facility rent)

Organized accounting requires a contabilista certificado (mandatory by law) and full double-entry bookkeeping. Cost: typically €100-€300/month for the accountant plus their fees.

Related reading

• Crypto tax in Portugal 2026 (full guide)
• Crypto tax calculator
• First-year freelancer guide
• Quarterly Social Security declaration
• CAE activity code finder