Form 8949 for crypto: what each column means

Software, not tax, legal or investment advice. Estimates may be wrong. Verify with a tax professional.

This guide covers US federal reporting for individuals with crypto held as capital assets. It uses the 2025 Form 8949 for returns filed in 2026. For tax year 2026, check the applicable final form and instructions when preparing that return; do not assume every 2025 box or instruction stays unchanged.

Form 8949 organizes disposition records. It does not reconstruct missing wallet history or establish a token's acquisition cost. Before entering rows, gather the dates, quantities, proceeds, basis, and evidence for each figure. A software export is a working document that needs review.

Start with the correct part and category

On 2025 Form 8949, Part I handles short-term transactions and Part II handles long-term transactions. Under 26 USC 1222, the general distinction is one year or less versus more than one year.

For ordinary digital-asset reporting on the 2025 form, the newer categories are:

Information-return situation	Short-term	Long-term
Form 1099-DA, basis reported to IRS	G	J
Form 1099-DA, basis not reported to IRS	H	K
No Form 1099-DA or Form 1099-B	I	L

Use separate parts for different categories. Digital-asset transactions without those information returns do not go in the older C/F categories. If you received Form 1099-B for an unusual tokenized instrument, follow the actual form and instructions with a tax professional rather than forcing it into this simplified table.

Columns (a), (b), and (c): identify the event

Column (a) describes the property. Column (b) is the acquisition date, and column (c) is the disposition date. The form's date fields are not wallet-import dates. Preserve the supporting lot record when an asset came through another account.

In your worksheet, include a mint address and transaction reference beside the readable description. You may need more detail in your supporting records than fits comfortably into the printed description. A preparer should be able to find the precise event without guessing which token shared a particular ticker.

If one disposal consumes several acquisition lots, keep a calculation showing how each lot contributed. Do not replace unknown dates with arbitrary dates just because the export requires a value. Ask your preparer about the permitted presentation for multiple acquisition dates and incomplete records.

Columns (d) and (e): proceeds and basis

Column (d) reports proceeds and column (e) reports cost or other basis. These are dollar figures, not token quantities. Gross proceeds are not automatically profit. A missing basis field on a broker statement does not prove that acquisition cost was zero.

The 2025 Form 8949 instructions explain how to reconcile reported proceeds and basis. In particular, when basis reported to the IRS is wrong, retain the reported amount in column (e) and make the prescribed correction through the adjustment columns. Do not overwrite every broker number without checking the instructions.

Keep a reconciliation sheet with three columns of your own: broker amount, supported amount, and explanation. Attach source references to the explanation. This makes a correction easier to review than a final report containing unexplained differences.

Columns (f), (g), and (h): adjustments and result

Column (f) contains adjustment codes from the instructions. Column (g) contains the adjustment amount. Column (h) is the gain or loss: column (d) minus column (e), combined with column (g). Leave adjustment fields blank when none is required; do not invent a code for a missing price.

The sign of an adjustment matters. Ask a tax professional to check the applicable code and whether the amount should increase or decrease the reported result. The same dollar difference can have a different explanation depending on which source figure was wrong.

Worked row with no adjustment

Assume Sam bought 1,000 tokens with US dollars on March 10, 2025, paying $300 plus a $5 transaction cost, for a supported $305 basis (for a cash purchase, transaction costs are included in basis). Sam disposed of the whole lot on August 20, 2025, for $500 proceeds, with no disposal fee. No information return was received, and no adjustment is required.

The working row describes 1,000 tokens, records those two dates, enters $500 in (d) and $305 in (e), and leaves (f) and (g) blank. Column (h) is a $195 gain. Under the stated assumptions, this is a short-term digital-asset transaction in category I.

This example assumes the classification and basis have already been established. Had Sam paid with SOL instead, that would be a crypto-for-crypto exchange: the SOL disposal needs its own row, and under the IRS digital-asset FAQs the transaction cost is allocated to the SOL given up rather than added to the new token's basis. The token row cannot stand in for that earlier event.

Form 1099-DA is a reconciliation input

2026 Form 1099-DA is the broker information return. According to IRS broker reporting guidance, gross-proceeds reporting starts with 2025 transactions. The 2026 Form 1099-DA instructions require covered-asset basis reporting after 2025, while older and transferred-in assets can remain noncovered.

Match each broker entry to your transaction ledger. A self-custody event may have no matching form; do not omit it for that reason. Conversely, a broker statement and an imported wallet event may refer to one disposal. Counting both as separate trades inflates the report.

Finish the return workflow carefully

The Form 8949 instructions explain qualified exceptions for direct Schedule D reporting and statements in place of individual rows. Do not assume a single annual wallet-profit number qualifies. Preserve the detailed records even when an exception applies.

Transfer the applicable totals into the Schedule D workflow and reconcile them with the preparer's final return. The separate digital-asset question still needs an answer under the 2025 Form 1040 instructions: digital assets. Ordinary income receipts, gifts, and disputed worthless-token claims require their own analysis; this form is not a universal destination for every wallet event.

Before finalizing, review unresolved costs, unknown dates, duplicated trades, and any manual corrections with a tax professional. Keep the version of the export that actually supported the filed return, alongside the evidence used to correct it.

Sources

Updated 2026-10-31 · US federal rules only · Software, not tax, legal or investment advice. Estimates may be wrong. Verify with a tax professional.