Contents
Why the crypto page you found doesn't answer thisThe boxes HMRC describes, in orderWhy a crypto perpetual is the hard caseWhat this means for your losses, fees and fundingRecords to keep from your very first tradeThe UK access question sits alongside the tax oneWhy the crypto page you found doesn't answer this
Most UK crypto tax articles are built on one GOV.UK page, "Check if you need to pay tax when you sell cryptoassets" (last updated 5 October 2026). Its own description tells you what it covers: Capital Gains Tax on gains from selling, exchanging or giving away cryptoasset tokens such as bitcoin, XRP or ether. That is about owning a token and then disposing of it.
A futures or perpetual trade is a different thing. You hold a contract, you may never own the coin at all, and your result comes from the price difference plus funding payments. For contracts rather than tokens, the relevant HMRC material is its derivatives guidance, and the page written for someone who is not a company is CFM50070 in the Corporate Finance Manual (last updated 5 August 2026). That page is where this answer starts.
The boxes HMRC describes, in order
You are not a company, so the main derivatives rulebook — Part 7 of the Corporation Tax Act 2009 — is not written about you. HMRC has one page for exactly your situation, CFM50070, and it works through the possible answers in order.
It starts by asking whether your dealings add up to a trade in themselves. If they do, that is trading income. If they don't, two answers are left — miscellaneous income or capital gains — plus one rare case where there may be nothing to tax at all. Here is what the page says about each.
- Trading income. HMRC accepts that an individual may argue their dealings in derivatives amount to a trade in their own right. A derivative held for the purposes of a trade produces trading profits, with the rules that go with running a business.
- Capital gains. Gains on financial futures, and on traded or financial options, are charged as capital gains under TCGA92/S143. The same applies to commodity futures held by an individual outside a trade.
- Miscellaneous income. If the contract is not a financial future — HMRC's own example is a swap — profits and losses are likely to be taxed as miscellaneous income instead.
- Nothing to tax. In rare cases there is nothing to tax at all — and nothing to claim back if you lose. The example HMRC gives is a pure bet: an individual's spread bet placed as a wager. The page adds that this does not apply if the bet has a commercial purpose, such as protecting something you own.
Capital gains or miscellaneous income — which of those two you end up in changes your tax rate and what you can do in a losing year. Capital gains means your profit is treated like a profit on something you sold, under the capital gains rules; the current rates and allowances are on GOV.UK and they change. Miscellaneous income means it is taxed more like ordinary income, and losses follow income rules instead.
The same page also sets out an ordering rule, and that rule decides which of the two applies. Miscellaneous income would normally come first, but the law takes gains on financial futures and on traded or financial options out of the income charge. In plain words: if your contract is a financial future, it is pushed out of the income box and into capital gains. If it is not, income is the likely answer.
Everything in this section comes from that one HMRC page. If your accountant wants the full chain of references — the manual numbers and the legislation behind each box — they are all listed in the last question at the bottom of this page.
Why a crypto perpetual is the hard case
Everything above turns on one question: is your contract a financial future? That is exactly where the published guidance stops helping. CFM50070 does not mention cryptoassets, perpetual contracts, or contracts without an expiry date anywhere. It gives no rates, no allowances, and nothing about how fees or funding payments are handled.
A perpetual has no expiry and is kept near the spot price by funding payments between traders rather than by a settlement date — which is one of the real differences between perpetual and dated contracts. Whether that still counts as a future under TCGA92/S143 is not something any HMRC page states. HMRC's capital gains manual does say elsewhere that in some situations the law pushes a disposal out of capital gains and into income; the example there involves a company, so it does not settle your case, but it shows the line is drawn by law rather than by what the exchange calls the product on your screen.
The useful thing you can do with this is turn it into one precise question: "For my contracts, am I within TCGA92/S143 as a financial future, or is this miscellaneous income?" An accountant who has never seen a perpetual can answer that question with the manual pages in front of them. They cannot answer "how is crypto taxed" in any useful way.
What this means for your losses, fees and funding
Picture a simple year, with made-up numbers: you finish 400 USDT up on BTC perpetuals. Or you finish 400 USDT down. The number is the same either way, but what you can do with that loss — carry it forward, set it against something else, or nothing at all — depends on which box you are in, because capital losses and income-type losses follow different rules and different claim procedures. A guess is expensive in both directions: it can mean paying tax you did not owe, or claiming relief you were never entitled to.
None of the HMRC pages above set out how trading fees, funding paid and funding received are treated for an individual's crypto positions, so treat anyone who states a confident rule about funding as giving you their opinion rather than HMRC's. Record the amounts now and let the adviser slot them into whichever answer applies.
One more thing often missed: moving money in and out can create separate events on the token side. If you sold or exchanged crypto to fund the account, or converted your result back into another coin, that sits under the ordinary cryptoasset disposal rules rather than the derivatives ones. Working out what you actually made in the first place is a different job — how to calculate your real profit including fees and funding covers that.
Records to keep from your very first trade
Whatever the answer turns out to be, every version of it needs the same underlying data. Collecting it as you go takes minutes; rebuilding it two years later from an app that has changed its export format is painful.
Export your history regularly
Download trade history, the funding or transaction history, and the deposit and withdrawal list from the exchange. Do it monthly rather than once at the end of the year.
Write one line per closed position
Date and time opened and closed, contract, long or short, size, entry price, exit price, realised result and the trading fees on entry and exit.
Keep funding separate
Each funding payment you made or received, with the date and amount, rather than a single net figure. If the treatment of funding ever gets clarified, you will want it broken out.
Record money in, money out and conversions
Deposits, withdrawals and any time you sold or swapped crypto to fund the account, with the GBP value at the time of each one.
A country-neutral walkthrough of what a usable record looks like is in which futures records to keep for a tax report.
The UK access question sits alongside the tax one
In October 2020 the FCA published final rules banning the sale of derivatives and exchange traded notes that reference certain types of cryptoassets to retail consumers. In practice that shows up when you try to sign up: several large venues do not offer derivatives to UK users at all, and others serve UK customers through a separate entity with a different product list. The UK access page goes through what that looks like in the app. Access and tax are separate questions, but both are worth settling before you put money anywhere.
This page is not tax advice. It describes what specific HMRC and FCA pages say, with their dates. Guidance and legislation change, and your own circumstances decide the answer. Check the current pages on GOV.UK, contact HMRC, or speak to a qualified UK tax adviser before you file anything.
Do I pay capital gains tax on crypto futures in the UK?
Possibly. HMRC's CFM50070 says gains on financial futures are charged as capital gains under TCGA92/S143, and that derivatives which are not futures are likely to be miscellaneous income instead. No HMRC page says which side a crypto perpetual falls on, so that specific point needs checking with HMRC or an adviser rather than being assumed.
What does miscellaneous income actually mean here?
It is HMRC's catch-all income category for profits that are taxable but are not a trade, a job or a capital gain. Being in that box means your profit is taxed more like ordinary income than like a gain on something you sold, and losses follow income rules rather than capital loss rules. That difference is the whole reason the category question matters.
Are crypto perpetuals tax free in the UK like spread betting?
Do not assume that. CFM50070 does describe a rare case where there is nothing to tax, but its example is an individual's spread bet placed purely as a wager, and it says this does not apply where the bet has a commercial purpose such as protecting something you own. The page says nothing at all about perpetual contracts on crypto exchanges.
Can I use my futures losses against other gains?
That depends on which regime applies, because capital losses and income-type losses follow different rules and different claim procedures. The honest step is to settle the regime question first with a qualified adviser, keep full trade-by-trade records in the meantime, and avoid claiming relief based on a guess.
How is funding treated for tax in the UK?
None of the HMRC pages that deal with derivatives outside Part 7 say how funding payments on a perpetual are treated for an individual. Record every payment you made and received with its date and amount, so that whichever answer applies, the numbers are already there.
Which HMRC pages should I show my accountant?
Start with CFM50070, "Derivative contracts: introduction: contracts outside of Part 7", and CFM50080 for the Tax Bulletin 66 material it refers to. For the trading-income route it points to BIM56880, and for the wager point to BIM22020. For capital gains, TCGA92/S143 and CG55400 onwards, plus CG56004 on when a disposal is pushed from capital gains into income; the priority rule between income and gains comes from ITTOIA05/S779. Bring your own export of closed positions and funding, and ask one question: is this a financial future under TCGA92/S143, or miscellaneous income?
Sources and fact-check
Exchange terms were checked against official documents on October 20, 2026. Terms change — before you trade, check what matters to you in the exchange app and in your contract’s specs.
HMRC Corporate Finance Manual: CFM50070 — Derivative contracts: introduction: contracts outside of Part 7GOV.UK: Check if you need to pay tax when you sell cryptoassetsFCA: FCA bans the sale of crypto-derivatives to retail consumers
