How are Flash Trade perps taxed in Germany?

What is Flash Trade?

Flash Trade was an exchange for perpetuals on Solana: you bet with leverage that a price would rise or fall, with Flash Trade's pools on the other side. Unlike on Jupiter Perps, you opened and closed every position yourself, with no order waiting for a keeper to execute it. A keeper only closed take profits and stop losses.

In August 2026 Flash Trade announced it would shut down. The transactions from the years before are still on the blockchain, and TaxMaxi reads them there.

1. The app Flash Trade's app, shut down You chose the market, direction, leverage and collateral and confirmed in your wallet.
2. The program FLASH6…fgBn Flash Trade runs your position and settles it when you close.
3. The pools Flash Trade's pools They're the other side of your position and pay out your gain.

For tax, only the position counts: the collateral goes in and comes back, and the result in between is capital income.

A Flash Trade position on the blockchain

Here's a real position being closed, from a public wallet, as TaxMaxi reads it: a long on SOL with SOL as collateral, closed in the night of 3 to 4 March 2025.

The night before, the same wallet reopened its position twice without having closed it first. On Flash Trade that could only happen if the old position had been liquidated. A liquidation like that doesn't show up in the wallet. TaxMaxi reads it from the new opening, as a loss of the collateral on that day.

An example in euros

You buy USDC in January 2025, pay it in as collateral for a Flash Trade position in March, and four days later the position is liquidated. Here's how TaxMaxi works it out:

Capital income from positions comes to −€92.00 in 2025. It counts under § 20 EStG, separately from private sales: there is no holding period here, and the exemption limit for private sales doesn't apply. The loss is set only against other capital income, such as interest or dividends, and otherwise carried forward to the next year, never against gains from private sales. There is no longer a cap on this. Under § 23 EStG, 2025 shows a loss of €3.00, which is set against gains from private sales in the same year.

Worked out by TaxMaxi's tax engine, on the same principles as for your wallet.

The legal basis

Whether a leveraged position costs tax is set by § 20 EStG on capital income: a perp is a forward transaction (Termingeschäft). How tax offices treat forward transactions is in the finance ministry's letter on capital income of 14 May 2025. For the tokens you deposit as collateral, § 23 EStG on private sales and the letter on crypto assets of 6 March 2025 still apply. Tax offices are bound by both letters.

Both letters are divided into numbered paragraphs (Randnummern). Each principle below says where to find it; a click on a paragraph of the letter on crypto assets opens it at that spot, and the letter on capital income opens on the ministry's site.

1. 1

   Leveraged positions

   A perp or another position with leverage is a forward transaction (Termingeschäft). Its result is part of capital income under § 20 EStG: what came back, minus what you paid in, in euros on the day of closing, and it counts in the year you close. There's no holding period here and no €1,000 exemption limit (Freigrenze).

   See § 20 Abs. 2 Satz 1 Nr. 3 a EStG, § 20 Abs. 4 Satz 5 EStG and BMF letter on capital income of 14 May 2025, paragraphs 9 and 36

2. 2

   Fees in the result

   Fees for opening and closing, the borrow fee and funding are part of the position's result. They're taken from your collateral, so less comes back, and they don't count a second time.

   See § 20 Abs. 4 Satz 5 EStG and BMF letter on capital income of 14 May 2025, paragraph 36

3. 3

   Liquidated position

   If your position is liquidated, the rest of your collateral is lost. That's a loss under § 20 EStG on that day, even if everything is gone, and the collateral counts as disposed of at its value on that day.

   See § 20 Abs. 2 Satz 1 Nr. 3 a EStG and § 20 Abs. 6 EStG

4. 4

   Losses from positions

   A loss from leveraged positions is only offset against other capital income, such as interest or dividends, and otherwise carried forward to the next year. It isn't offset against gains from private sales under § 23 EStG. Since 2024 there's no longer an upper limit on such losses.

   See § 20 Abs. 6 Satz 1 und 2 EStG, Annual Tax Act 2024 (Jahressteuergesetz 2024, BGBl. 2024 I Nr. 387) and § 52 Abs. 28 Satz 25 und 26 EStG

5. 5

   Collateral

   Tokens you pay into a position as collateral stay yours. That's not a disposal, and they keep their acquisition date and cost basis. If more tokens come back, the extra ones are acquired at their value on that day. If fewer come back, the missing ones paid for the loss and are disposed of at their value on that day.

   See § 20 Abs. 2 Satz 1 Nr. 3 a EStG and § 23 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 2 EStG

6. 6

   A swap is a disposal

   A swap disposes of the token you give up and acquires the one you receive. A gain is taxable if there's no more than one year between the acquisition and the swap.

   See the BMF letter on crypto assets, paragraphs 53 and 54

7. 7

   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.

   See the BMF letter on crypto assets, paragraphs 55 and 63

Common questions