Kraken 1099-DA: what the 2025 form reports and leaves out

What Kraken says it issued

Kraken’s help pages are the source here, not the regulations and not a forum. The tax-forms FAQ says that beginning with tax year 2025, Kraken reports sales and dispositions of digital assets on the new Form 1099-DA [1]. The guide to the 2025 combined form goes further. A US tax resident with a US address on December 31, 2025 was issued a form, and a client without one was not [2].

The form is a combined statement, Form 1099-DA and Form 1099-MISC in one package, and it lives in the Tax Center on the website rather than the apps [2] [1]. The FAQ’s own banner, last updated March 16, 2026, apologises for delays and says forms were still being generated [1]. So the first year was not clean on the broker side either.

I read the pages the way I read any receipt. What does the form claim to know, and what does it hand back to the holder?

What the form reports

For 2025, Kraken lists what the form carries: name, account number, tax ID, address, sales proceeds adjusted for any fees, the date of the sale, the name and code of the asset sold, the number of units, and whether units were transferred in [1]. So the fee is already netted out of box 1f. That matches the IRS instructions, which tell a broker to reduce proceeds by the transaction costs of the sale [4].

Scope is the exchange only. The form covers activity on Kraken.com, Kraken Pro, and the related apps, and not the DeFi apps, Kraken Wallet and Ink [1]. A sale means a sale for fiat or a swap of one coin for another, and a send through Krak to another person counts as a disposition too [2]. Transfers between wallets the holder owns are not sales [2].

There is no minimum. Kraken’s guide says even a $1 transaction is reportable [2]. And the clock is UTC, so a trade made late on December 31 can land on the next year’s form, and the fix is the holder’s own trade records [2].

What went to the IRS, and what did not

Here’s the part worth reading twice. Kraken’s copy of the form shows a cost basis, an acquisition date, and a gain or loss, all worked out by FIFO. None of that went to the IRS. The IRS received gross proceeds only, and every transaction was reported as a noncovered security [2].

Kraken says why. It did not solicit a lot-relief election for 2025, and FIFO is the default when none is chosen [2]. The page also says the FIFO figures do not restrict the method used on the return [2]. Box 2, basis reported to the IRS, is not checked, and box 9, noncovered, is checked for every line [2].

On the IRS side, box 9 checked means the broker does not have to complete box 1g at all [4]. So the basis on the client copy is a courtesy calculation, not a filing. The one number both sides hold is proceeds.

The transferred-in gap

A coin bought elsewhere and moved to Kraken is where the form runs out. The Tax Center FAQ says it plainly: when an asset arrives from another platform, Kraken does not have the original purchase price, so it reports the sale and not the basis or a gain or loss [3]. The same page warns that this is not a zero basis, and that reading it as one means paying far too much tax [3].

The form shows the transfer as boxes 12a and 12b, the units transferred in and the date [2] [4]. Kraken’s guide says acquisition data for transferred assets may appear as missing or unknown [2]. The Tax Center lets a holder type in the original price and date, or split a lot, and the edit feeds the tax summaries, not the form the IRS already has [3].

What that means for dead bags

A rugged token sold on Kraken for dust is a line with proceeds in box 1f and no basis reported to anyone [2]. The loss is basis minus proceeds. Proceeds are on the form. Basis is in the holder’s records or nowhere.

On Form 8949, a sale from a 1099-DA that shows no basis reported goes under box H for short-term or box K for long-term, with the basis typed into column (e) [5]. If the token is still in a wallet, there is no sale, no form, and no loss on paper. The 1099-DA guide walks every box, and the Coinbase field note reads another broker’s first form.

The receipt

What Kraken’s pages say the 2025 form did: proceeds net of fees, dates in UTC, units, a transfer-in flag, and box 9 checked on every line. What went to the IRS: proceeds. What stayed on the client copy: a FIFO basis that Kraken itself says was not reported and does not bind the return.

The lesson is the same dull one. The broker reports what it saw. The basis for anything that arrived from outside is the holder’s to prove, and Kraken’s own page says a missing basis is not a zero basis. A loss you can’t document is a loss you can’t deduct.