How are perps on Jupiter taxed in Germany?

What is Jupiter Perps?

Jupiter Perps is Jupiter's exchange for perpetuals on Solana. You bet with leverage that the price of SOL, ETH or BTC will rise (long) or fall (short). Your counterparty is the JLP pool, where other people provide their tokens. You put up collateral, and when you close, the pool pays it back to you with your gain or minus your loss.

Often you only sign an order, and seconds later a Jupiter keeper, a program that works through orders, carries it out. Take profit and stop loss are closed by a keeper too. Your wallet shows both: collateral going out, then collateral and result coming back.

1. The app jup.ag/perps You pick the market, direction, leverage and collateral and confirm in your wallet.
2. The program PERPHj…qQJu Jupiter Perps keeps your position and settles it when you close.
3. The pool the JLP pool It's the counterparty to your position: it pays your gain and receives your loss.

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

A Jupiter Perps position on the blockchain

The closing of a real position from a public wallet, as TaxMaxi reads it. The wallet had opened it an hour earlier, the same morning: a long on SOL with 4 SOL as collateral.

A Jupiter keeper closed the position, so the keeper paid the network fee and the wallet didn't. The 4 SOL of collateral come back as the same tokens, with their purchase date. Anything above that is the result, paid out in SOL.

An example in euros

You buy 1 SOL in January 2024, put it up as collateral for a long on SOL in June, and close the position at a gain in September. In February 2025 you sell the SOL. Here's how TaxMaxi works it out:

Capital income from positions comes to +€150.00 in 2024. 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 saver's allowance (Sparer-Pauschbetrag) of €1,000 covers all your capital income together, and your bank may already be using it. Above it, the income costs 25% tax, plus the solidarity surcharge and church tax where it applies. The gain of €150.00 from the sale in 2025 is tax-free and doesn't count toward the exemption limit either.

The SOL sat in the position as collateral and kept their purchase date of 10 January 2024: at the sale on 1 February 2025 they had been held for more than a year, so the gain on them is tax-free.

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

   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

4. 4

   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

5. 5

   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

6. 6

   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