Divly's Nordic Crypto Taxation Report 2026

Crypto taxes are no longer a fringe issue. They are one of the clearest blind spots in the digital asset economy, including in the Nordics.

In our Global Crypto Taxation Report 2026, we estimated that only 1.76% of crypto owners appear to declare for tax purposes, with even the highest scenario reaching just 3.00%. This Nordic report builds on that research by taking a closer look at a region known for strong tax systems and high levels of public trust.

Here, we focus on Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark. For each country, we compare official declaration counts with available data on the number of crypto owners to estimate a crypto tax compliance rate. We then compare those results with patterns seen in countries across the globe.

That matters because the Nordics are often seen as digitally advanced and relatively compliant. If reporting rates still appear low here, it suggests the global crypto tax gap may be even more significant than it seems.

This report also comes at a key moment. Across Europe, DAC8 and the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) are set to expand the flow of crypto data to tax authorities. As that happens, the gap between crypto activity and tax reporting is likely to come under increasing pressure.

This report therefore shows where the Nordics appear to stand just before that new reporting environment fully takes hold, and how the region compares with the rest of the world.

What the Nordic data shows

The year-on-year comparison shows a clear pattern: declaration counts are rising, but they still appear low relative to the likely number of crypto owners.

Norway

Norway stands out with the strongest and most consistent increase in declarants. According to Skatteetaten, the number of reported crypto declarants rose from 6,470 in 2020 to 14,825 in 2021, 44,560 in 2022, 50,837 in 2023, 55,880 in 2024, and 73,131 in 2025.

This is one of the clearest upward trends not just in the Nordics, but also in our broader global dataset. But the increase does not appear to be organic alone. Skatteetaten has explicitly said that part of the rise is linked to targeted “nudge letters” sent to people it suspects of owning crypto. Norway also differs from many other countries in that crypto ownership itself is taxable, not just disposals or income events, which increases the number of people expected to report.

Another important part of the picture is market structure. Norway has relatively strong exchange concentration, with Firi playing a major role. For users who stay within that ecosystem, reporting is easier because Firi offers tax documentation and also directs more advanced users to specialized crypto tax tools. Together, this suggests that enforcement, clear reporting expectations, and integrated tooling can materially lift declaration levels.

Finland

Finland provides one of the clearest examples that improved visibility does not automatically translate into broad compliance. Public reporting from Yle states that there were 18,000 crypto taxpayers in 2025, compared with an estimated 450,000 crypto owners.

The same reporting notes two important caveats. First, not every crypto owner is necessarily required to declare, Juho Hasa from the Finnish Tax Administration shared that around 100,000 people had failed to declare their crypto income in 2025. Secondly, YLE reports that only around 10% of crypto transactions are declared. Even with those qualifications, the gap remains substantial.

In addition, figures shared with us by the Finnish Tax Administration show 3,500 declarants in 2020, 16,200 in 2021, and 9,800 in 2022. On paper, 2025 is the highest point in the series, but the broader picture is less impressive than it may first appear. Reporting remains modest relative to the likely number of people with taxable crypto activity.

Sweden

Sweden offers a shorter but still useful series. Through our relationship with Skatteverket, we retrieved figures showing roughly 2,660 declarants in 2021, 8,218 in 2022, and 6,088 in 2023. In addition, Skatteverket has published that the number of declarants in 2024 was around 6,000 and in 2025 around 9,000.

That means Sweden saw a noticeable increase from 2021 to 2022, followed by lower but still meaningful reporting levels in subsequent years. Even so, the bigger story is not the short-term movement in the series, but how small these figures remain compared with the likely number of crypto owners.

In the same source, Skatteverket estimated that the number of crypto owners in Sweden lies somewhere between 320,000 and 740,000. That range is wide, but revealing. It shows that even the tax authority has only partial visibility into the market. Still, even if one uses the lower end of that ownership range, the implied share of crypto owners declaring remains low.

Denmark

Denmark provides a different type of evidence. While we were not able to retrieve official year-by-year declaration counts, academic research offers one of the clearest insights into crypto tax compliance in the Nordics.

A 2025 study by Hjalte Fejerskov Boas (University of Copenhagen) and Mona Barake (Skatteforsk, NMBU), titled Enforcing Taxes on Cryptocurrencies (EU Tax Observatory Working Paper No. 29), finds that non-compliance exceeded 90% in every year studied between 2017 and 2021.

Importantly, “non-compliance” in this context is defined narrowly. It refers to taxpayers who had at least one crypto sale in a given year but did not report it in their tax return. In other words, this is not the share of all crypto owners, but specifically the share of investors with a clear reporting obligation who failed to declare.

Denmark therefore stands out as a case where, despite strong tax administration and data capabilities, non-compliance appears to remain structurally high.

Our own estimates, which instead compare the likely number of all Danish crypto owners with the number of people who appear to declare, suggest that roughly 5% of Danish crypto owners have declared their crypto. That is not directly comparable to the paper’s 90%+ non-compliance figure, because the denominator is different, but the broader message points in the same direction: crypto tax reporting in Denmark appears low.

How the Nordics compare globally

The Nordic figures become more meaningful when placed in a global context.

In our Global Crypto Taxation Report 2026, we estimated that just 1.76% of crypto owners worldwide declare their crypto to tax authorities. The chart below shows how individual countries compare using the same methodology.

To ensure comparability, we apply a consistent framework across both the global and Nordic analysis:
compliance = number of declarants ÷ estimated number of crypto owners.

For the Nordic countries, the ownership estimates are based on a mix of official data and regional surveys:

• Finland: We use the 450,000 crypto owner estimate referenced by the Finnish Tax Administration via Yle
• Norway: We use a rough estimate of 500,000 crypto owners, based on Norges Bank research on the share of adults holding crypto
• Sweden: We use the K33 Nordic Crypto Adoption Survey 2025, excluding ETF exposure to ensure comparability with Skatteverket’s declaration figures
• Denmark: We also rely on the K33 Nordic Crypto Adoption Survey 2025 for ownership estimates

This allows us to place the Nordic countries on the same scale as the global dataset.

A strong region, but not an outlier

At first glance, the Nordics appear to perform relatively well. But the broader comparison shows that the Nordics are not a clear outlier.

Even Norway, the strongest performer in the region, still sits below Japan (~20%), where compliance is significantly higher.

Japan illustrates what higher compliance can look like when the system is designed around ease of reporting:

• Taxpayers can use an official crypto tax calculator instead of reconstructing full transaction histories
• Exchanges provide standardized annual transaction reports (年間取引報告書) which can be used with the tax authorities’ calculator.
• The use of gross average cost accounting (総平均法) removes the need for transaction-by-transaction calculations

In other words, Japan reduces the practical burden of compliance, not just the legal requirement.

By contrast, the Nordics rely more on general tax frameworks adapted to crypto, rather than purpose-built systems. While these systems are robust, they still require taxpayers to track transactions, calculate gains, and interpret rules themselves, which creates friction.

It is also useful to look at other countries where official figures are available. In Poland, official government guidance published on 21 January 2026 stated that 18,545 taxpayers declared cryptocurrency income in 2025 for the 2024 tax year. In Romania, reporting cited by Economedia and Wall-Street.ro shows that the number of declarants fell from 3,198 in 2022 to 1,613 in 2024.

These examples matter because they show that the Nordic picture is not unique. Across countries with official data, the same broad pattern appears again and again: declaration levels remain low relative to the likely size of the crypto-owning population.

Taken together, this points to a broader conclusion. The Nordics perform relatively well, but they still follow the same underlying pattern seen across much of the world. Compliance improves when there is clarity, enforcement, and easier reporting, but even in strong administrative systems it remains limited.

What DAC8 and CARF change

This report measures crypto tax compliance as it stands today, but it does so at a moment when the reporting environment is changing quickly.

In the EU, DAC8 will apply from January 1, 2026, requiring crypto-asset service providers to collect data on user transactions. According to the European Commission’s DAC8 overview, this information will be reported to national tax authorities in 2027, with exchanges of data between countries following shortly after.

These rules are based on the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). As outlined in the OECD’s 2025 implementation update, crypto service providers will be required to report user transactions in a standardized way, including cross-border activity. The OECD has also confirmed that first exchanges of CARF data are expected from 2027.

For the Nordics, this shift is particularly relevant. These are countries with strong tax systems, yet the data in this report still suggests relatively low levels of crypto tax reporting. As DAC8 and CARF take effect, the gap between crypto activity and tax visibility is likely to narrow significantly.

That is what makes this moment important.

The figures in this report reflect compliance around the 2025 tax year, just before large-scale reporting begins to feed into tax authority systems. If reporting levels still appear limited at this stage, they provide a baseline for how significant the gap was before visibility increases across the Nordics and beyond.

Any tax-related information provided by us is not tax advice, financial advice, accounting advice, or legal advice and cannot be used by you or any other party for the purpose of avoiding tax penalties. You should seek the advice of a tax professional regarding your particular circumstances. We make no claims, promises, or warranties about the accuracy of the information provided herein. Everything included herein is our opinion and not a statement of fact.