Answer

Do businesses pay taxes on crypto?

Updated October 2026. Evergreen page — refreshed in place as facts change.

IRS treatment

Property

Since Notice 2014-21

Buying with dollars

Not taxable

Tax attaches at disposal

Crypto received

Income

At its dollar value when received

C corporation rate

21%

Federal, on income and gains

Crypto-to-crypto

Taxable

Every swap is a disposal

Broker forms

1099-DA

Proceeds from 2025; basis from 2026

Contractor 1099

$2,000

1099-NEC threshold for 2026 payments

Staking rewards

Income

When received (Rev. Rul. 2023-14)

Do businesses pay taxes on crypto? Yes — at two moments, measured with one habit. Everything here is general information about how US federal rules commonly work, not tax advice; a CPA who knows digital assets is worth every dollar. That said, the framework is simpler than its reputation: income when the business receives crypto, gain or loss when it disposes of crypto, and dollar-valued records that make both computable.

This page walks through every common event and whether it's taxable, two worked examples, how the answer differs for a C corporation and a pass-through, what happens when the business pays vendors or contractors in crypto, what brokers now report to the IRS, the records to keep, and the corporate minimum tax point that matters to the largest holders.

When does a business owe tax on crypto?

The IRS has treated virtual currency as property since Notice 2014-21, so the rules for property apply: acquiring it with dollars sets a cost basis, receiving it as payment is income, and getting rid of it — by selling, swapping or spending — realizes gain or loss. Most of the confusion comes from events that feel like non-events but aren't, and vice versa.

Taxable moment one: receiving crypto as revenue

When a customer pays your business in crypto, you've earned ordinary revenue equal to the payment's dollar value at receipt — exactly as if they'd paid cash. That value also becomes your cost basis in the asset you now hold. A $5,000 invoice paid in USDC is $5,000 of revenue and $5,000 of basis.

This is why stablecoin invoicing is accounting-friendly: value at receipt equals face value, and later conversion produces little or no additional gain. An invoice paid in bitcoin works the same way at receipt, but the coins then carry price exposure until the business disposes of them.

Taxable moment two: disposing of crypto

Selling for dollars, converting one asset to another, or spending crypto on anything are all disposals: you recognize gain or loss equal to value at disposal minus basis. Note the middle one — swapping BTC for USDC is a taxable event even though no dollars appeared; crypto-to-crypto trades don't defer anything.

Buying crypto with dollars and holding it, by contrast, triggers nothing. Unrealized price movement isn't taxed for most operating businesses under current federal rules. The worked example below follows one purchase through to sale, with round numbers for illustration.

How is the gain taxed — C corporation or pass-through?

A C corporation pays federal tax at a flat 21% on its taxable income, capital gains included — there's no lower long-term rate at the corporate level. Its capital losses can only offset capital gains, not operating income; unused losses carry back three years and forward five.

In a pass-through — a disregarded single-member LLC, a partnership or an S corporation — gains and losses flow to the owners' own returns. Owners who are individuals get the long-term capital gains rates for assets held more than a year, and can use capital losses against gains plus up to $3,000 a year of other income. Which applies to you depends on how the entity is classified for tax, not what it's called.

What happens when a business pays vendors or contractors in crypto?

Two things happen at once. The payment is an expense valued in dollars at the time it's made — deductible if the underlying cost is. And handing over the coins is a disposal, so the business recognizes gain or loss on them against their basis. Paying a $10,000 invoice with bitcoin bought for $6,000 is a $10,000 expense and a $4,000 gain. Paying it with USDC bought at $1 produces essentially no gain, which is why most companies run crypto payouts in stablecoins.

Information reporting doesn't change because the rail did. US contractors paid in crypto get a Form 1099-NEC at the payment's dollar value; for payments made in 2026 the reporting threshold is $2,000, up from $600 for 2025 payments. Employees are different: wages paid in crypto are still wages, valued in dollars, with withholding and payroll taxes, which is why most employers pay W-2 wages in dollars and keep crypto for contractors or supplemental compensation.

What will brokers report to the IRS?

Custodial platforms that act as brokers now file Form 1099-DA. For sales in 2025, brokers report gross proceeds, with cost basis optional; for sales from January 1, 2026, they must also report basis for 'covered' assets — generally those acquired on or after that date and held in the same account. Non-custodial wallets and decentralized platforms don't file them, so coins that pass through those won't appear on any 1099-DA.

Treat the forms as a cross-check, not your records. A 1099-DA can't see basis for coins bought elsewhere, transferred in from a wallet, or received as payment, and since 2025 basis has to be tracked wallet by wallet and account by account rather than pooled across everything the company holds. Your books, not a broker's form, are the source of truth.

What the records need to capture

Every crypto event needs the same core fields: the date and time, the asset and amount, the dollar value at the time, what kind of event it was (receipt, purchase, disposal, transfer), and which wallet or account it sat in. From those, your preparer computes everything. Without them, year-end becomes forensic reconstruction across wallets and block explorers.

On Anytime Capital, Crypto → History lists every purchase and sale made for the business with its dollar amount, method and status, and the Reports screen downloads files formatted for QuickBooks Online and Xero, plus a payouts file. Invite your CPA with the Accountant role: read-only access to payments and the balance, with statements, reports, accounting exports and tax forms.

• Date and time, asset, quantity and dollar value of every event
• Event type: receipt, purchase, sale, swap, payment out, or own-wallet transfer
• Which wallet or account held the coins — basis is tracked per wallet since 2025
• Fees paid on each purchase and sale
• The invoice or counterparty behind each receipt and payment

What about the corporate minimum tax and state rules?

The largest companies have one more question. The corporate alternative minimum tax applies to groups whose average annual adjusted financial statement income exceeds $1 billion, and fair-value accounting puts unrealized crypto gains into financial statement income. On September 30, 2025 the IRS issued interim guidance (Notices 2025-46 and 2025-49) that lets companies disregard unrealized gains and losses on digital assets held at fair value when computing that income. For everyone else, tax still follows realization.

A few other areas deserve professional attention rather than a page's summary: receiving tokens with no liquid market (valuation questions), businesses that hold crypto as inventory rather than an investment (ordinary rather than capital treatment), and state-level rules layered on top of federal ones. None are blockers; all are 'ask your CPA' items.

What should a business bring the accountant at year-end?

A complete, dollar-valued export covering every wallet and account, reconciled to the bank statements — so that every dollar that entered or left for crypto has a matching record on the crypto side:

• Transaction exports from every platform and wallet, with dollar values
• Opening and closing holdings by asset and by wallet
• Basis and acquisition date for each lot sold during the year
• Transfers between the company's own wallets, so none looks like a sale
• Crypto received as revenue, matched to invoices
• Crypto paid out, with recipients and 1099 details for US contractors
• Any 1099-DA forms received, for cross-checking