Help with the tax return for 2024

Did you own cryptocurrency at the turn of the year 2024/2025?
Have you bought, sold, earned or used cryptocurrency during 2024?
Then you must fill this in yourself in the tax return.
In this article you get answers to the most basic questions about cryptocurrency and the tax return.

Below are five help questions for you who are to report cryptocurrency in the tax return

1. Will I manage to complete and submit the tax return within the deadline?

If not, you can apply for extended deadline, see also our guide for this.
The deadline for submitting the tax return for non-business persons is Wednesday April 30, 2025, for business operators and companies the deadline is Monday June 2, 2025.

2. How much crypto did I own January 1, 2025?

All cryptocurrency, tokens, NFTs etc. you owned January 1, 2025 shall be included in the tax return for 2024 as your wealth. This applies regardless of whether you owned BTC, ETH, SOL, ADA, XRP etc.

It is the market value, i.e. what you could have sold the cryptocurrency for, January 1, 2025 that shall be included in the tax return. It does not matter if the price/value of the crypto has gone down or up afterwards. The market value must be converted to Norwegian kroner.

Historical prices for cryptocurrency can be found at Coinmarketcap, among others.
If you use a calculation program, such as Kryptosekken or Koinly, the program will calculate the value of your cryptocurrency at the turn of the year automatically, if you have added your transactions correctly.

You can also use Kryptosekken.no/regnskap/kurs to look up prices on a given date or find average prices. The service requires login. Prices are fetched from Coinmarketcap.

3. Have I sold, exchanged, traded, used or lost cryptocurrency in 2024?

If you have sold, exchanged, traded, used or lost cryptocurrency in 2024, you must calculate gains and losses for 2024. It does not matter if you have sold crypto for fiat or exchanged from one type of crypto to another. It also does not matter if you have used a trading platform like Firi, K33, Binance, Bittrex, Coinbase or Kraken for trading (buying and selling) or if you have bought and sold privately.

The gains and losses must be converted to Norwegian kroner.
Gains from crypto trading in 2024 must be reported in the tax return.
Crypto gains are taxable income.
Losses from crypto trading in 2024 should also be reported in the tax return.
Crypto losses reduce your taxable income, i.e. are deductible against gain income.

If you have to pay income tax on crypto gains, losses mean that you have to pay less. For some, the losses are so large that one should not pay income tax on crypto trading at all. If you overall have a loss from crypto trading in 2024, the loss will reduce the tax on other taxable income you have, e.g. salary income, share income, rental income etc.

There are several services that can help you calculate gains, losses, income and deductions for the tax return.
Kryptosekken.no is a Norwegian service that among other things provides the opportunity to retrieve information directly from exchanges you have traded cryptocurrency on and wallets you have used for storage. The service calculates and gives you the figures for the tax return.

There are also other services that do some of the same, e.g. Koinly.

4. Have I earned crypto from mining, staking or other crypto activities during 2024?

If the answer is yes, total income from staking and mining and similar shall be entered in the tax return. It is the cryptocurrency you received because of the staking, mining or other activity that is taxable income.
Crypto income must be converted to Norwegian kroner, and you must use the exchange rate on the day you received the cryptocurrency.

Expenses you have had in connection with crypto activities should also be filled in the tax return. The expenses reduce the taxable income, i.e. are deductible against crypto income. The expenses make the basis for income tax lower and mean that you have to pay less tax.

5. Does my crypto activity in 2024 constitute business activity?

If you suspect that the answer to this is yes, there are several things to think about. Remember that it does not matter if you yourself believe that you are not operating a business – the Tax Authority may assess the case differently!
Business activity entails several obligations, both regarding tax and other matters. Among other things, as a business operator you must follow bookkeeping rules, pay advance tax and submit a separate type of tax return (for business operators). It can also have significance for reporting obligations and/or the right to benefits from NAV.

What documentation should I include?

Basic information about crypto gains, losses and wealth etc.

There are two ways to provide information about cryptocurrency in the tax return, in the “Virtual assets / cryptocurrency” form:

  • fill in information for each virtual asset / cryptocurrency in a separate form or
  • fill in summarized information for all virtual assets in one form, with an attachment showing the information for each virtual currency and other virtual assets

The attachment for summarized information should show the following information for each individual Coin / type of cryptocurrency:
- name, quantity per 31.12, Asset value, Taxable gain, Deductible loss, Income from mining, Costs of mining, Other income, Management costs, Wallet address and/or name of exchange.

If you use e.g. kryptosekken.no, the service will be able to generate such an attachment for you.

Statement and explanation of figures you are uncertain about

According to the Tax Authority, you should not submit any more documentation, but you must be able to present the documentation if they ask.

But: If the Tax Authority decides to audit your tax return, and finds out that you have reported too low gains/income, and you have not provided information that could have given the Tax Authority reason to understand this or request more information, you risk being imposed additional tax.

If you are uncertain about whether you have calculated the correct figures or not for the tax return, you should provide information that gives the tax authorities the opportunity to assess the question themselves or to ask you more questions. We then recommend that you attach a letter to the Tax Return, where you explain how you have thought and what you have done regarding the transactions you are uncertain about, e.g. which assessments, principles, exchange rates and any corrections in the calculation program you have used. The Tax Authority cannot impose additional tax on you as long as you provide correct and complete information.

Transaction history from blockchain, exchanges etc.

As mentioned, you do not need to submit more information or documentation than what is basic information about your crypto (see above). You must nevertheless be able to present documentation if the Tax Authority asks, and possibly starts an audit case. According to the Tax Authority, the documentation should be able to give a complete picture of the wealth.

Documentation you should obtain and keep for income, gains, losses and wealth in cryptocurrency is:

  • bank statements showing fiat deposits and withdrawals
  • transaction history (e.g. csv files etc.) from exchanges, wallets, blockchain explorers
  • overviews, reports and other information from the same services

Remember that both crypto exchanges, wallets, blockchains and blockchain explorers can change the possibility of getting information out. What you get out today, you are not sure you will get out tomorrow. Many services disappear, go bankrupt or are shut down, so that it is not possible to retrieve history at all.

Our advice is to retrieve history from the services you use regularly, especially if it involves large amounts.

How long should I keep documentation regarding cryptocurrency?

Since the Tax Authority can potentially change your tax assessment 10 years back in time according to current rules, we recommend that you keep all documentation related to cryptocurrency for 10 years. Then you have documentation showing that you have reported correct, or tried to report correct, income and wealth for the individual years if the Tax Authority starts auditing your tax.

What if the calculation program or service I use to calculate income and wealth calculates incorrectly so that my tax return becomes wrong?

In the relationship between you and the tax authorities, it is you yourself who has the responsibility for the information you provide in the tax return being correct.

This means that you as a general rule have responsibility for errors, regardless of whether you have received help with the tax return from other persons, a computer program or otherwise.

What should I do if I have made errors in previous years or not reported income and wealth in cryptocurrency?

If you have had income and/or wealth in cryptocurrency that you have not declared in the tax returns for previous years, you should change the tax returns.

For 2021, 2022 and 2023 you can go in and change your tax returns yourself at skatteetaten.no.
You can always make changes to your tax assessment 3 years back in time.
The deadline is calculated from the submission deadline for the tax return.
You can thus change the tax return for 2021 yourself until spring 2025.
The possibility of changing the tax in this way does not apply if it is the tax authorities who have determined your tax or there has been a notice of an audit of your tax.

For 2020 or earlier years you must contact the Tax Authority and request that the tax be changed.
The ordinary deadline for changing the tax assessment is 5 years back in time, and it is the Tax Authority that decides whether the tax shall be changed or not.
The deadline is calculated from the turn of the year.

Until 31.12.2025 you can thus get the tax return for 2020 and 2021 changed, provided that the Tax Authority accepts it. (Until the tax return deadline spring 2025, you can change 2021 yourself, but after the tax return deadline you must thus ask the Tax Authority.)

In some cases you can also get the tax changed as far back as 10 years, but this only applies if you have had gains and wealth of a certain size that is not taxed.

If you yourself report to the Tax Authority about income and wealth that should have been taxed, you shall not pay additional tax, provided certain conditions are met.

The actual tax on previous income and wealth you must nevertheless pay.

You do not escape the additional tax if the reason you report is that the Tax Authority has started or will start control measures or that the Tax Authority has received information about you from others.