Japan: 20% separate taxation for crypto sold through a registered exchange

The act amending the income tax law and others, promulgated on 31 March 2026 as Act No. 12 of 2026, gives crypto a regime of its own in Japan. Where a resident transfers a 特定暗号資産 — a crypto-asset entered in the register of financial instruments business operators — to a crypto-asset exchange business or through one, the income is taxed separately from the rest of their income at 20% (15% income tax, 5% local inhabitant tax) instead of being added to it on the scale of 5% to 45%. A loss on such a transfer that the year cannot absorb is carried forward three years against income from the same kind of transfer.

Crypto sold any other way stays where it was, and the transfer income of crypto held outside a continuous trade becomes a category of its own: no special deduction, no halving of the long-term figure, and a loss on it set against no other income taxed on the scale.

None of it applies yet. It reaches transfers made on or after 1 January of the year following the day the act amending the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act and the Payment Services Act comes into force, and the National Tax Agency records that act as not yet passed as of 1 May 2026. That act has since passed — 令和8年法律第64号, promulgated 23 July 2026, its crypto part coming into force on a day a Cabinet Order sets within a year of that — so the separate taxation reaches the 2027 tax year at the earliest and 2028 at the latest. Until that day every year is computed as before, which is what Taxinger does.

Sources: 所得税法等の一部を改正する法律（令和8年法律第12号）, promulgated on 31 March 2026; 措法38の2 — 「20％（所得税15％、個人住民税５％）の税率による申告分離課税の対象とされました」; 措法38の3 — 「翌年以後３年間にわたり、各年分の特定暗号資産に係る譲渡所得等の金額からの繰越控除が可能となりました」; 所法33③⑤、22②、69②、48の2①; 《適用時期》 — 「金融商品取引法及び資金決済に関する法律の一部を改正する法律（令和８年５月１日現在未成立）の施行の日の属する年の翌年１月１日…の属する年分以後の所得税について適用され」; 金融商品取引法及び資金決済に関する法律の一部を改正する法律（令和8年法律第64号）, 成立 令和8年7月15日、公布 令和8年7月23日, 附則第一条 — 「公布の日から起算して一年を超えない範囲内において政令で定める日から施行する」 (国税庁, 財務省)