RaydiumDEX
How are Raydium swaps taxed in Germany?
In short
Raydium is an exchange on Solana where you swap a token directly against a pool. For tax, each of these swaps does two things: you dispose of the token you give up and acquire the one you get. That goes for stablecoins like USDC too.
If no more than a year passes between buying the token you give up and the swap, the gain is taxable under § 23 of the Income Tax Act (EStG), unless your gains from all private sales together stay under €1,000 for the year. A loss is offset. The network fee counts as deductible expenses (Werbungskosten).
- As of:
- 5 November 2026
- Based on:
- § 23 EStG, BMF letter of 6 March 2025
What is Raydium?
Raydium is a decentralized exchange. Instead of matching buyers and sellers, it holds pools of two tokens each, say SOL and USDC. You put one token into the pool and get the other out, at a price the program works out from the ratio of the two tokens in the pool.
People usually mean one of two things by "Raydium": the app at raydium.io, where you pick the tokens and the amount, or the programs on the Solana blockchain that carry out the swap. There are three of those, for three kinds of pool: AMM v4, the oldest; CLMM, where providers put up their tokens within a price range; and CPMM, the newer one, which also trades tokens on the Token-2022 standard.
Plenty of swaps end up in Raydium pools without you ever visiting raydium.io, because Jupiter, wallet apps and trading bots route them there. Until March 2025, Pump.fun tokens also moved to Raydium as soon as they left the bonding curve.
- The app raydium.io You pick what you want to swap and confirm in your wallet.
- The program 675kPX…1Mp8 Raydium AMM v4 carries out the swap, as CLMM and CPMM do in their pools.
- The pool SOL and USDC This is where the two tokens being swapped sit.
For tax, only the swap counts: one token leaves your wallet and another arrives. Going through raydium.io, Jupiter or a bot changes nothing about that, and neither does the kind of pool.
Raydium at a glance
- Type
- DEX on Solana
- App
- raydium.io
- Token
- RAYa crypto asset like any other
A Raydium swap on the blockchain
Here's a real swap on a Raydium pool from a public wallet, the way TaxMaxi reads it. Next to each item the wallet gives up or receives, you can see what it means for tax.
- −10 USDC Disposalat the euro value of what was received
- +0.094035848 SOL Acquisitionstarts the one-year period
- −0.000105 SOL Network feedeductible expenses (Werbungskosten) of the swap
Programs called
- Raydium AMM675kPX…1Mp8the pool the swap went against
The wallet called the AMM v4 program directly, with no aggregator in front. The SOL comes out of the pool as Wrapped SOL first and is unwrapped in the same transaction. For tax, only what ends up in your wallet counts.
An example in euros
You buy USDC and swap it for SOL on Raydium a few months later. USDC follows the dollar, not the euro, and the dollar lost value over that time. This is how TaxMaxi works out the swap:
- 15 January 2025Bought 1,000 USDC for €971.00
- 15 September 2025Swap: 1,000 USDC given up
- 15 September 2025Received: 4.35 SOL, worth €850.00
- 15 September 2025Fee: 0.000105 SOL
- Proceeds value of the SOL received
- €850.00
- Cost basis 1,000 USDC from 15 January 2025
- − €971.00
- Deductible expenses (Werbungskosten) the network fee
- − €0.02
- Loss after 243 days, counts for tax
- −€121.02
The fee in SOL is itself a small swap, so the year 2025 comes to −€121.02. The loss is set against gains from private sales in the same year, even gains under the exemption limit of €1,000. What is left can be carried forward or back to other years.
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 a swap from USDC to SOL taxable?
Yes. A stablecoin is a crypto asset too, so this is a swap like any other. Because USDC is pegged to the dollar, you get a gain or loss in euros as soon as the dollar's rate has moved.
Does it matter whether the swap runs through AMM v4, CLMM or CPMM?
No. The three programs work out the price differently, but either way one token leaves your wallet and another arrives. TaxMaxi reads swaps in all three kinds of pool.
What about my liquidity positions on Raydium?
If you put tokens in a pool to earn fees, TaxMaxi counts that as a swap for your position: the tokens count as disposed of at market value, and that value is the position's cost. When you withdraw, you swap the position back, and the tokens start a new one-year holding period. Fees you collect are income from other services under § 22 Nr. 3 EStG.
The finance ministry's letter doesn't mention liquidity pools. The swap is the cautious reading; the other sees the position as a mere receipt, with no disposal. Both are on the liquidity pools page.
What if I swap on Raydium through Jupiter or a trading bot?
Then it's the same swap. The app or bot only finds the route. For tax, what counts is what your wallet gives up and what it receives.
What if I held the token for more than a year?
Then the gain on 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.