DFlowDEX aggregator
How are DFlow swaps taxed in Germany?
In short
DFlow is a program on Solana that wallet apps and trading apps use to execute your swaps. For tax, each of these swaps is a trade of one token for another: you dispose of the token you give up and acquire the one you receive. DFlow sitting in between changes nothing.
If no more than a year passed between buying the token you gave up and the swap, the gain is taxable under § 23 of the Income Tax Act (EStG), unless your gains from all private sales add up to less than €1,000 for the year. A loss is offset. The network fee counts as deductible expenses (Werbungskosten).
- As of:
- 16 October 2026
- Based on:
- § 23 EStG, BMF letter of 6 March 2025
What is DFlow?
DFlow is an aggregator with no pools of its own: the program looks for the best route for your swap through other protocols' pools, such as Raydium, Orca or Meteora, and executes it there.
Most people whose swaps run through DFlow have never heard of it. You swap in your wallet app or a trading app, and the app sends the swap to the DFlow program in the background. All your wallet shows is that one token left and another arrived.
- The app your wallet or trading app You pick what to swap and confirm.
- The program DF1ow4…7QBH DFlow finds the route and executes the swap.
- The pools Raydium, Orca, Meteora and others This is where the tokens you swap against sit, often across several pools at once.
For tax, only the swap counts: one token leaves your wallet, another arrives. Which app you used and which pools DFlow went through make no difference.
DFlow at a glance
- Type
- DEX aggregator on Solana
A swap through DFlow on the blockchain
A real swap through DFlow from a public wallet, as TaxMaxi reads it. Next to each item the wallet gives up or receives, you can see what it means for tax.
- −5 USDC Disposalat the euro value of what was received
- +0.058809018 SOL Acquisitionstarts the one-year period
- −0.00000501 SOL Network feedeductible expenses (Werbungskosten) of the swap
Programs called
- DFlowDF1ow4…7QBHfinds the route and runs the swap
- Raydium CLMMCAMMCz…rWqKthe pool the swap went against
Of the 5 USDC, 4.9595 reached the pool. The other 0.0405 USDC went to a different address as a fee for the swap. That changes nothing for tax, because the fee is part of the price: the wallet gave up 5 USDC and got the SOL in return.
An example in euros
You buy SOL and, less than a year later, swap part of it for USDC in your wallet app. The app sends the swap through DFlow. Here's how TaxMaxi works it out:
- 1 January 2024Bought 2 SOL for €200.00
- 1 September 2024Swap: 1 SOL given up
- 1 September 2024Received: 150 USDC, worth €150.00
- 1 September 2024Fee: 0.001 SOL
- Proceeds value of the USDC received
- €150.00
- Cost basis 1 SOL from 1 January 2024
- − €100.00
- Deductible expenses (Werbungskosten) the network fee
- − €0.15
- Gain after 244 days, taxable
- +€49.85
The fee in SOL is itself a small swap, so the year 2024 comes to +€49.90. That is under the exemption limit of €1,000: if it's your only gain from private sales in the year, you pay no tax on it.
If you had bought the SOL before 1 September 2023, more than a year before the swap, the same gain would be tax-free.
Worked out by TaxMaxi's tax engine, on the same principles as for your wallet.
The legal basis
Whether a swap costs tax is set by the Income Tax Act (EStG), above all § 23 EStG on private sales. How tax offices apply this to crypto is set out in the finance ministry's letter of 6 March 2025, which binds them.
The letter is divided into numbered paragraphs (Randnummern). Each principle below says where to find it; a click opens the letter at that spot.
- 1
-
2
One-year holding period
The year runs from the day of acquisition to the swap, and each swap starts it again for the token you receive. There's no extension to ten years. For tokens you acquire from 2027, a finance ministry draft would drop the holding period: What is set to change from 2027.
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
-
7
The exemption limit (Freigrenze)
If the sum of all your gains from private sales in the year stays under €1,000 (up to 2023: €600), it's tax-free. Above that, all of it is taxable, not only the part over the limit.
See the BMF letter, paragraph 53
-
8
Rent for token accounts
When you receive a token for the first time, the swap creates an account for it and puts down a small amount of SOL as rent. That isn't a swap: the SOL stay yours and come back when the account is closed.
See the BMF letter, paragraph 54
Common questions
How do I know whether my swap went through DFlow?
Usually the app won't tell you. The blockchain will: the transaction calls the DFlow program. For tax it makes no difference anyway which program you swapped through.
Why did some extra SOL leave my wallet with the swap?
When you swap into a token your wallet has no account for yet, DFlow opens a new token account for it. That takes a deposit in SOL, the rent. It stays yours and comes back when the account is closed, so it isn't a swap. Some apps also send a small tip in SOL from your wallet so the transaction goes through quickly. Like the network fee, that counts as deductible expenses. TaxMaxi reads both this way when the amounts add up exactly, and asks you when they don't.
What if what I receive goes to another address?
Some apps swap your token and send the result straight to another address, such as a second account or someone you're paying. In your wallet it looks as if you only gave something up. Only you can say whether the address is yours, so TaxMaxi puts these transactions in front of you in the review.
What if I held the token for more than a year?
Then the gain from the swap is tax-free, however large it is. For the token you receive, the one-year holding period starts again with the swap.
More Solana protocols
This page explains how TaxMaxi calculates. It is not tax advice and does not replace a tax advisor.