MarinadeLiquid staking
How is liquid staking with Marinade taxed in Germany?
In short
With Marinade you hand over SOL and get mSOL, a token that's worth a little more in SOL every epoch. For tax, that's a swap: you dispose of the SOL and acquire the mSOL. When you later swap the mSOL back into SOL, that's another swap.
While you hold mSOL, nothing is credited to you, so the growth isn't income. It only shows up when you swap back, as a gain on the mSOL. That gain is taxable under § 23 of the Income Tax Act (EStG) if you held the mSOL for no more than a year, unless your gains from all private sales in the year add up to less than €1,000. After more than a year it's tax-free.
- As of:
- 17 October 2026
- Based on:
- § 23 EStG, BMF letter of 6 March 2025
What is Marinade?
Marinade is a liquid staking protocol on Solana. Instead of staking your SOL with a validator yourself and locking it up there, you give it to Marinade. The program spreads it across many validators and gives you mSOL in return. The staking rewards stay in the pool, so the value of one mSOL in SOL rises with every epoch, roughly every two days. You can pass your mSOL on, swap it or lend it at any time.
There are two ways back: right away, from Marinade's liquidity pool for a small fee, or delayed, without that fee. On the delayed route you hand over your mSOL for an unstake ticket worth a fixed amount of SOL, and you collect the SOL after the epoch ends. The swap counts when the SOL arrives in your wallet.
- The app marinade.finance You choose how much SOL to deposit or withdraw and confirm in your wallet.
- The program MarBms…q7aD Marinade takes the SOL and issues mSOL, or the other way round.
- The validators many, chosen by Marinade The SOL is staked with them, and their rewards make the mSOL grow in value.
For tax, only the swap counts: SOL leaves your wallet and mSOL arrives. It makes no difference whether you deposit through marinade.finance, a wallet app or Jupiter.
Marinade at a glance
- Type
- Liquid staking on Solana
- Token
- mSOLa crypto asset like any other
SOL for mSOL on the blockchain
A real deposit at Marinade 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.
- −2.162826494 SOL Disposalat the euro value of what was received
- +1.531931556 mSOL Acquisitionstarts the one-year period
- −0.00148844 SOL Rent depositedfor a new token account of your wallet, not a swap
- −0.000015943 SOL Network feedeductible expenses (Werbungskosten) of the swap
Programs called
- MarinadeMarBms…q7aDthe stake pool that takes the SOL and issues its token
Just over 2.16 SOL brought in just over 1.53 mSOL. One mSOL was worth just over 1.41 SOL that day, because the rewards since Marinade started have built up in it. That's why you get less mSOL than the SOL you deposit, and more SOL than the mSOL you swap back.
An example in euros
You've held SOL for more than a year. You swap it into mSOL at Marinade and, a few months later, back into SOL. The price of SOL is the same on both days, and only the mSOL has become worth more in SOL. This is how TaxMaxi works out the two swaps:
- 1 March 2024Bought 10 SOL for €1,000.00
- 1 April 2025Swap: 10 SOL given up
- 1 April 2025Received: 8 mSOL, worth €1,150.00
- 1 December 2025Swap: 8 mSOL given up
- 1 December 2025Received: 10.4 SOL, worth €1,196.00
- Proceeds value of the mSOL received
- €1,150.00
- Cost basis 10 SOL from 1 March 2024
- − €1,000.00
- Gain after 396 days, tax-free
- +€150.00
Swap on 1 April 2025: SOL given up
- Proceeds value of the SOL received
- €1,196.00
- Cost basis 8 mSOL from 1 April 2025
- − €1,150.00
- Gain after 244 days, taxable
- +€46.00
Swap on 1 December 2025: mSOL given up
The year 2025 comes to +€46.00. 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.
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
Common questions
Is swapping SOL into mSOL taxable?
Yes, it's a swap like any other: you dispose of the SOL. If you held it for more than a year, the gain on it is tax-free. If not, the gain counts in the year of the swap. For the mSOL, the one-year holding period starts fresh on the day of the swap.
Do I have to report the growth of my mSOL as income every year?
No. Staking rewards are income when extra tokens are credited to you (the finance ministry's letter of 6 March 2025, paragraph 48). With mSOL nothing is credited: you hold the same amount of mSOL, and only its value in SOL rises. So the growth only counts when you swap the mSOL, as part of the gain. The BMF letter doesn't name liquid staking tokens explicitly. TaxMaxi follows what it says about swaps and about staking.
What if I unstake with a delay?
Then you hand over your mSOL and get an unstake ticket that only you can redeem. For tax, you've swapped on the day the SOL arrives in your wallet: the mSOL for that SOL, at that day's prices (BMF letter, paragraph 55). The year for the SOL also runs from that day.
The small amount of SOL you put down as rent for the ticket comes back when you collect. If your wallet shows only the collection and not the order, TaxMaxi puts it to you in the review.
What about Marinade Native?
With Marinade Native your SOL stays in your own stake account, and Marinade only picks the validators. That's native staking, not a swap: the SOL stays yours, and each epoch's reward counts as income on the day it's credited. TaxMaxi reads this like any other staking on Solana.
What doesn't TaxMaxi read at Marinade yet?
An existing stake account that you swap directly for mSOL, and liquidity you withdraw from Marinade's old mSOL-SOL pool. TaxMaxi puts transactions like these to you in the review, and you say what happened.
What if I've held the mSOL for more than a year?
Then the gain on the swap back into SOL is tax-free, however much the mSOL grew in that time. For the SOL you receive, the one-year holding period starts again.
More Solana protocols
This page explains how TaxMaxi calculates. It is not tax advice and does not replace a tax advisor.