Valuing Crypto in CAD: CRA Method and Bank of Canada Rates

17 October 2026 · en-CA · Educational information · No affiliate links

Educational information only. Not tax, legal or investment advice. We are not the CRA and are not affiliated with it. Check canada.ca and consider a qualified Canadian tax professional. Sources checked October 17, 2026. Anything marked expected should be re-checked. Examples use made-up numbers. This page contains no affiliate links.

Short answer: The CRA page on determining the value of crypto-assets says that you need the fair market value to work out cost and gains, that the CRA generally accepts a crypto-asset's fair market value for tax reporting, and that you must use a reasonable method, ideally the same method each year, and keep a record of how you calculated each value. Its examples are an exchange rate taken from the same exchange broker you use, or an average of high/low/open/close values across several high-volume exchanges. A CRA tax tip adds that in most cases the CRA accepts fair market value at the time a trade is made. The CRA's foreign-currency rule is about money, not crypto prices, and the $200 threshold is not stated to apply to crypto. But if the price you use is quoted in a foreign currency, the CRA says to convert each amount to Canadian dollars at the exchange rate in effect when it arose: the proceeds at the time of the sale, the ACB at the time of acquisition, and the outlays and expenses at the time they were incurred. For foreign money, the CRA's default is the Bank of Canada rate for that day.

What the CRA pages say

(The value and capital-gains pages were read on 17 October 2026; the Schedule 3 foreign-currency page was seen only as a search extract.)

Records to keep (CRA tax tip, read 17 October 2026)

Units and type, date and time, Canadian dollar value, description of the transaction and counterparty (even just an address), wallet addresses, and beginning and ending wallet balances (with cost) for each year (records page).

Made-up example

You buy $1,000 of a coin and later swap it for another. You record the swap's Canadian dollar value using one chosen price source, note the source and time, and use the same source each year.

Related

ACB average cost · Swaps · Trading on foreign exchanges

FAQ

Is there an official crypto price table? Not in the pages we read.

Does the $200 rule apply to my crypto swaps? Not according to the pages read; it concerns foreign currency money.

What we could not verify

Sources (official)