WELLINGTON - Inland Revenue will receive a stream of automated transaction data on cryptocurrency users of New Zealand-registered virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and many overseas exchanges - starting today under the new OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework.
The shift introduces a direct pipeline of user identities, tax residencies and aggregated records to the tax authority for the first time on a systematic basis.
The data will be sent to Inland Revenue once a year, with the first report covering 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 due by 30 June 2027, and subsequent annual reports due by 30 June each year.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a group of developed countries that sets common international tax rules. It created CARF (Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework) so governments can automatically share information about crypto transactions in the same way they already do with regular bank accounts overseas. New Zealand adopted the framework to improve visibility over crypto income and conform to more than 47 other jurisdictions that begin exchanging this data in 2027.
For many of New Zealand’s ~350,000 crypto users, the change marks the end of patchy oversight, where authorities relied on manual requests or tip-offs.
Although local exchanges have already handed over customer data when asked, CARF makes the flow routine and cross-border.
Inland Revenue will exchange collected user data with jurisdictions that have implemented the framework, while receiving details on Kiwi residents who use covered overseas platforms.
The framework does not alter the underlying tax rules - crypto remains property taxed as income when bought, sold, or exchanged - but it closes off easy non-reporting for anyone who interacts with registered service providers captured under the new program.
Data Included in CARF Reports
- Full legal name
- Residential address
- Date of birth
- Jurisdiction(s) of tax residence
- Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) or Inland Revenue number
- Controlling persons (for entities where applicable)
- Aggregated acquisitions of relevant crypto-assets
- Aggregated dispositions of relevant crypto-assets
- Crypto-to-fiat exchanges (buys and sells)
- Crypto-to-crypto exchanges (swaps)
- Transfers of relevant crypto-assets (including to external wallets)
- Reportable retail payment transactions above de minimis thresholds
- Number of units per crypto-asset type
- Total value or amount per crypto-asset type
- Number of transactions per category
No IP address, device information, login details or technical metadata is included in CARF reporting.
However separate from routine CARF tax reporting, exchanges must file suspicious activity reports with the New Zealand Police Financial Intelligence Unit when they have reasonable grounds to suspect money laundering or other serious offending, and those reports routinely include additional details such as IP addresses, device information, and other investigative data collected.
Blockchain Forum New Zealand's Crypto Winter, where NZ service providers link up to discuss industry, regulation and policy changes
Scope of CARF: Which Exchanges are Caught
All New Zealand-registered virtual asset service providers (VASPs) that qualify as Reporting Crypto-Asset Service Providers (RCASPs) must collect user data and report under CARF from 1 April 2026.
This includes domestic exchanges, brokers, and trading platforms that facilitate crypto-to-crypto or crypto-to-fiat transactions as a business.
Examples of NZ VASPS include:
- Swyftx (home to former Easy Crypto customers)
- Pay It Now - PIN
- Lightning Pay NZ
- Sharesies
CARF reporting applies only to centralized platforms and intermediaries that operate as a business; genuine decentralized exchanges (DEXs), non-custodial protocols and pure on-chain self-custody activity fall outside scope because there is no central operator required to collect or report the data.
The scope also excludes direct peer-to-peer activity between individuals.
Internationally, the rules capture RCASPs located in the 47 jurisdictions committed to first information exchanges in 2027.
These include all European Union member states, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, and others that have aligned with the OECD framework.
Many major global exchanges fall outside the initial CARF jurisdictions such as Australia, Canada, Singapore and Switzerland, with a target 2028 commencement, while the United States plans alignment from 2029.
Easy Crypto NZ's volentary disclosure of IRD requesting customer info, 2020.
Already One Foot in the Door
New Zealand exchanges did not start from zero.
Easy Crypto, one of the country’s longest-running platforms and now merged into Swyftx, has been legally obliged to comply with Inland Revenue information requests for years.
A 2020 Reddit thread in r/NZBitcoin from Easy Crypto detailed how the tax office required all domestic crypto companies to supply customer and transaction records, prompting privacy debates at the time.
Easy Crypto complied, as it must under existing law.
In a recent press release from Swyftx on Scoop, Paul Quickenden said that:
“None of this is about platforms overreaching - it’s simply the regulatory framework that the global industry now operates within. For platforms - you either choose to be compliant or you can’t operate here.”
Pay It Now, another home-grown exchange and payment processor, operated differently until now.
When asked if the IRD had ever approached PIN for customer data, founder Craig Duffield responded:
“IRD has never approached us, other than a few months ago when they contacted us to provide information about CARF and distribute related material. We have never been asked to provide tax information by the IRD”
As a registered virtual asset service provider under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act, both exchanges are reqired to report suspicious activity to the DIA and conducts customer due diligence.
CARF changes that for tax purposes: PIN and every other RCASP must now feed standardized transaction data directly into the automated system.
The distinction matters because VASP status under the DIA regime focuses on money-laundering risks rather than routine tax reporting.
Over recent years, high-volume NZ-based traders have been receiving letters from the IRD in the mail.
In that time, at least one trader on the NZ P2P Crypto Marketplace received a letter to cease P2P trading.
Users see Both Upside and Practical Headaches
Community reaction is pragmatic rather than panicked.
Josh Hawkey, crypto tax specialist and founder of Tax Hawk, told Cryptocurrency NZ he had received no meaningful communication from exchanges or Inland Revenue about the changes.
“In practice, I don’t think this changes behaviour much for most users,” he said.
“It’s already very difficult to remain non-KYC unless you’re exclusively using P2P and cash. NZ-based exchanges already report to IRD in various forms, so CARF feels more like an expansion than a step change.”
He flagged risks around messy data.
“Crypto data is messy - transfers, internal wallet movements, bridging, staking etc can all be misclassified. That creates a real risk of incorrect tax positions and unnecessary audits, even for compliant users.”
Aggregate reporting of buys and sells without context could generate false positives when matched against returns.
Another user active in local forums expected a delayed impact.
“Hobby traders are unlikely to read into it and may not know it’s even happening, then get a surprise come tax season.”
Longer term he predicted some would exit if they had treated crypto as a tax-free sideline, while privacy-focused participants might shift toward non-KYC options or privacy coins.
Attitudes toward the existing tax system remain mixed.
Most accept that income from crypto is taxable, yet note the absence of a capital-gains discount available in other OECD countries and the compliance burden on high-volume, low-value traders.
One participant summed it up: “While some may not like it, taxes are essential for so many things.”
Crypto tax accountant Matt Shallcrass has previously observed that the complexity of tracking cost bases across wallets, bridges and staking leaves many users reliant on specialist help.
Inland Revenue has been consulting on how existing tax rules should apply to DeFi activities such as wrapping, bridging, lending, borrowing and staking.
The new data flow may reduce some guesswork but could also flood Inland Revenue with raw figures that still require human reconciliation.
Penalties for non-compliance remain the same as for any tax shortfall: interest and shortfall penalties ranging from 20 per cent for lack of reasonable care up to 150 per cent for evasion.
Providers face separate fines for failing to report.
Late penalties can also apply for each year for failure to file a return.
Until now, many crypto users have felt there were "bigger fish to fry".
Significant portions of global crypto activity remain harder to track automatically.
For everyday Kiwi users, the message is simpler: the era of casual non-reporting on covered platforms is over, and the paperwork just got harder to ignore.