Private ruling: Cryptocurrency
Date of advice: 16 April 2026
Published: 13 July 2026
Ruling period: Year ended 30 June 20YY
Date scheme commenced: DD MM YYYY

Ruling: Q1: Is your use of cryptocurrency in the 20XX income year, considered a personal use asset? | A1: Yes.

Relevant facts and circumstances: From DD MM - DD MM 20YY, your spouse and you travelled to Country A. You bought some vehicle engine parts over from Australia as a favour to the people we were staying with because they could not buy them directly in Country A. You bought the engine parts for $X,XXX and bought them with you to City A. In order to pay you back, your friend insisted that you use cryptocurrency A as they wanted to avoid international banking fees. You set up a crypto account and received their transfer and disposed of the assets within XX hours on DD MM YYYY solely as a means to receive payment for the vehicle engine parts. You have not done any other cryptocurrency trading and deleted the app straight after the transaction. You have attached the Cryptocurrency history (Excel sheet) and relevant bank statements as part your private ruling application.

Relevant legislative provisions: Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 section 6-5 | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 section 6-10 | Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 subsection 108-5(1)

Reasons for decision: Detailed Reasoning - Detailed reasoning: Section 108-20 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997) states that personal use assets are Capital Gains Tax (CGT) assets, other than collectables, that are used or kept mainly for the personal use or enjoyment of you or your associates. The Commissioner's view of when a crypto asset may be considered a personal use asset is contained on our webpage 'Crypto asset as a personal use asset' which can be found by searching for 'QC 69954' on ato.gov.au. It states: The relevant time for determining if a crypto asset is a personal use asset is when you dispose of it: • A crypto asset you acquire and use in a short period of time to buy items for personal use or consumption is more likely to be a personal use asset. • A crypto asset you acquire and hold for some time before you use it, or only use a small proportion of it, to buy items for personal use or consumption is less likely to be a personal use asset. During a period of ownership, the way you keep or use a crypto asset may change. For example, you may originally acquire a crypto asset to buy items for personal use and enjoyment, but ultimately keep it as an investment or use it in carrying on a business. It is the main use, determined at the time when you dispose of a crypto asset, that dictates whether it is a personal use asset. For record keeping purposes, evidence of your original intention at the time you acquired the crypto asset may be relevant but is not determinative of whether your crypto asset is a personal use asset. Instead, you will need to demonstrate how you actually kept or used the crypto asset from the time of acquisition up until the time you disposed of it. | Detailed Reasoning - Mainly used or kept: The Australian Taxation Office Interpretive decision ATO ID 2002/795 - Are unused marble floor tiles 'personal use assets' as defined in subsection 108-20(2) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (ITAA 1997)? states it does not matter if the assets are actually used for the purpose for which they had acquired, it is the intent of the purchase and the purpose for which an asset is mainly kept that is key to if an asset is a 'personal use' asset. The definition of mainly is predominantly, chiefly, principally, or for the most part (ATO ID 2002/795). ATO ID 2011/37- Income Tax CGT small business concessions: maximum net asset value test - disregarded assets - asset being used solely for personal use and enjoyment explains that the entire ownership period is taken into account and if regard was had only to an asset's use at a single point in time, the result would not necessarily reflect the true nature of the use of the asset. | Detailed Reasoning - Personal use or Enjoyment: An asset has to provide an individual with a source of pleasure or relate directly to that individual to be a 'personal use' asset. An asset cannot be a personal use asset if it is mainly acquired, kept or used as an investment, as part of a business or for a profit-making purpose. The two categories are mutually exclusive. Where an individual keeps cryptocurrency for a number of years with the intention of selling them at opportune times based on favourable rates of exchange this is not personal use. TD 2014/26 Income tax: is cryptocurrency a 'CGT asset' for the purposes of subsection108-5(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997? confirms that cryptocurrency that is kept or used mainly to make purchases of items for personal use or consumption ordinarily will be kept or used mainly for personal use. However, if the cryptocurrency were instead purchased to facilitate the purchase of income producing income producing investments, they would not be personal use assets. ITAA 1997 does not provide a definition of investment, however, generally it's the allocation of a resource (money) in the expectation of some benefit in the future. In Favaro's case (Favaro v FC of T 96 ATC 4975), Italian currency, which was converted to Australian currency and invested, was held not to be a personal use asset (under section 160B(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (ITAA 1936)). In this case a significant portion of the currency was seen to be invested. It was held that the purpose of holding the currency was that it was to be exchanged for Australian currency at a favourable rate and therefore was not personal use. | Detailed Reasoning - Intangible Assets: The definition of personal use includes the right or option of the Taxpayer to acquire a CGT asset that would be a personal use asset. In most cases, an intangible asset would not be considered to be a personal use asset. An exception to this may be where an intangible asset is used to directly acquire an asset held mainly for personal use and enjoyment. That is, the intangible asset can take on the character of another asset. For example, where you are provided an option to purchase a boat for personal use; the option would itself be an intangible personal use asset. TD 2014/26 states where an individual taxpayer purchased cryptocurrency from a cryptocurrency exchange and uses the cryptocurrency to make online purchases for their personal needs, for example clothing or music, that would be considered to be a personal use asset. | Detailed Reasoning - Investment: TD 2014/26 goes on to say that cryptocurrency that is kept or used mainly for the purpose of profit-making or investment, or to facilitate purchases or sales in the course of carrying on business is not used or kept mainly for personal use. Further, the inherent nature of cryptocurrency means that it is generally either used as a means of exchanging it for something of value, or it is kept as a speculative investment. | Detailed Reasoning - Disposal: We take into account the nature of the property acquired when the cryptocurrency is disposed of (for example, whether the cryptocurrency is used to purchase an investment) when considering if cryptocurrency is a personal use asset (TD 2014/26). If you have to exchange a cryptocurrency you own to Australian dollars (or to a different cryptocurrency) to purchase or acquire the items for personal use or consumption, then this strongly indicates the cryptocurrency you own was acquired, held and used for a purpose other than personal use or enjoyment. Therefore, when we consider personal use of an asset, we consider the following aspects: • the initial intention, • the use and intention during the period owned, • the length of time the asset was owned, and • the subsequent disposal. | Detailed Reasoning - Your circumstances: In your case, you received the cryptocurrency in exchange for purchase and delivery of vehicle engine parts worth $X,XXX. The payment was a one-off private reimbursement for expenses incurred in the purchase and delivery of the vehicle parts because of their lack availability in Country A. The exchange was one time only exchange of this type occurring over a short period of 24 hours, with all the cryptocurrency, being exchanged and disposed of almost as soon as you received them on DD MM 20YY. You have subsequently deleted the cryptocurrency app used for the exchange and have not traded any cryptocurrency since and do not intend to trade any further cryptocurrency in the future. Considering the facts that have already occurred and based on the Commissioner's view as expressed in QC 66954 , it is considered the crypto exchanged would be determined to be personal use assets when you disposed of it.