What is the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF)?

CARF is a global standard, approved by the OECD in August 2022, requiring crypto exchanges and intermediaries to report user transaction information to tax authorities, which then share it with partner countries.

What does Australia's draft bill do?

The Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2026: Tax Information Reporting would adopt CARF into Australian law, create a domestic crypto reporting regime, and update the Common Reporting Standard. It is open for consultation until 28 October 2026.

When will crypto tax information start being exchanged?

Australia plans its first CARF exchanges in 2028, in line with other participating jurisdictions. Reporting obligations would be phased in after the bill passes Parliament.

Does CARF create a new tax on crypto?

No. It creates reporting obligations, not a new tax. Australia already taxes capital gains on crypto. CARF makes reporting automatic and cross-border, so unreported activity is more likely to be detected.

How will this affect ordinary crypto investors?

Investors who already report their gains may notice more identity and tax-residence checks. The main change is that exchanges will automatically report transaction data to the tax office, which will share it internationally.

Australia Drafts OECD Crypto Tax Reporting Law (CARF)

Australia has taken a major step toward bringing cryptocurrency into the mainstream tax reporting system, releasing draft legislation that would adopt the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, known as CARF. The draft law, titled the Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2026: Tax Information Reporting, is now open for public consultation until 28 October 2026. If passed, it would require crypto platforms and intermediaries operating in Australia to collect and report information about their users' crypto transactions to the tax office, which would then share that information with tax authorities in other participating countries. The international exchange of crypto tax information is expected to commence in 2028.

To understand why this matters, it helps to start with the problem CARF was designed to solve. Cryptocurrencies were originally created to operate outside traditional financial intermediaries. Unlike a bank account, which is tied to a verified identity and reported to tax authorities under long-standing rules, a crypto wallet can be created by anyone, anywhere, without going through a bank. That made it possible, in the early years of crypto, for people to buy, sell and hold digital assets without any automatic reporting to tax authorities. Some used that privacy for legitimate reasons, but others used it to hide income, evade taxes, or move money across borders without detection. As crypto grew from a niche experiment into a market worth trillions of dollars at its peak, tax authorities around the world concluded that the old reporting rules had a gap, and that crypto needed its own version of the system that already applies to bank accounts.

That system is the Common Reporting Standard, or CRS, which the OECD developed after the 2008 financial crisis. Under the CRS, banks and financial institutions report information about accounts held by foreign residents to their local tax authority, which shares it with the account holder's home country. The system now covers more than 100 jurisdictions and has made it far harder to hide money in offshore bank accounts. CARF is essentially the crypto equivalent. The OECD approved CARF in August 2022, aiming to address the tax evasion risks arising from the growth of crypto assets. It extends reporting to crypto exchanges, brokers, ATM operators and other intermediaries that facilitate crypto transactions. Australia first expressed its intention to implement CARF in November 2023, consulted on the proposed scheme in the second half of 2024, and announced plans to implement CARF and a domestic crypto-asset reporting regime in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2025-26.

The draft legislation does two things at once. First, it incorporates CARF into Australian law, creating the legal basis for collecting and exchanging information about crypto transactions involving foreign residents. Second, it introduces a domestic crypto-asset reporting regime, which would apply to transactions involving Australian residents as well. The draft would also amend the Common Reporting Standard to address developments in financial products and reporting practices. The OECD issued CARF technical formats in October 2024 and updated its exchange guidance in July 2025, explaining how participating tax authorities can prepare and transmit information electronically. The practical effect is that crypto exchanges operating in Australia would need to verify the identity and tax residence of their users, track their transactions, and report that information to the Australian Taxation Office, which would share it with partner jurisdictions.

For ordinary crypto investors, the change is more about reporting than about new taxes. Australia already taxes capital gains on crypto assets, and the Australian Taxation Office has been running data-matching programmes with crypto exchanges for years. What CARF changes is the completeness and automaticity of that reporting. Instead of relying on exchanges to cooperate voluntarily or on audits to catch discrepancies, the system would make reporting routine and standardised across countries. An Australian resident who trades on an exchange in another CARF jurisdiction would have that activity reported back to Australia, and vice versa. For people who already report their crypto gains honestly, the practical impact may be limited, although they may face additional identity verification requirements. For people who have not been reporting, the era of relying on the absence of automatic reporting is coming to an end.

For crypto businesses, the compliance burden will be significant. Exchanges and other reporting crypto-asset service providers will need to build systems to collect customer information, classify transactions, and transmit reports in the standardised format required by the OECD. That means investment in compliance technology, staff training, and data security. Smaller platforms may find the burden particularly challenging, and some may consolidate or exit the market. At the same time, the legislation could benefit the industry in the long run by providing regulatory clarity and by bringing crypto into line with the rest of the financial system, which may encourage institutional investors who have been cautious about the sector's regulatory uncertainty. The consultation period, which runs until 28 October, gives industry and other interested parties the chance to comment on the draft legislation and explanatory material, which Treasury has published in PDF and Word formats.

Australia is not acting alone. Dozens of jurisdictions have committed to implementing CARF, with the first exchanges expected from 2027 or 2028 depending on the country. Australia's target of 2028 for its first CARF exchanges places it in the mainstream of that timeline. The move also fits into a broader programme of digital asset regulation in Australia. Separately from the tax reporting bill, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has sought feedback on licensing standards for digital asset exchanges and custody businesses, covering financial resources, customer assets and trading practices. That consultation runs until 27 November 2026 and follows a separate regulatory schedule. The two tracks, tax reporting and licensing, together represent the most comprehensive attempt yet to bring Australia's crypto sector within the regulatory perimeter.

There are also important privacy and security considerations. CARF involves the collection and cross-border sharing of sensitive financial information about millions of people. That raises questions about data security, about who can access the information, and about how it will be protected. The OECD's framework includes safeguards, and the CRS experience shows that large-scale automatic exchange can be operated securely, but the stakes are high: a breach of tax data would expose detailed financial information. Critics of automatic exchange also argue that it gives governments too much visibility into citizens' financial lives. Supporters respond that the system applies to financial intermediaries, not to private wallets, and that it is necessary to ensure that people who use crypto pay the same taxes as people who use traditional investments.

What happens next is procedural. Treasury is accepting submissions on the draft legislation until 28 October 2026, and has identified its MNE Tax Transparency team as the contact for questions. After the consultation closes, the government will consider feedback, finalise the bill, and introduce it to Parliament. If passed, the reporting obligations would be phased in, with the first international exchanges in 2028. Crypto platforms will need to prepare their systems in the meantime, and investors should expect more requests for identity and tax residence information. The broader lesson is that crypto is moving from its early, lightly regulated phase into a world where it is treated like any other financial asset for tax purposes. For an industry that began with the promise of operating outside the state, that is a profound shift, and Australia's draft bill is one of the clearest signs yet of how far that shift has come.

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Australia Releases Draft Bill for OECD Crypto Tax Reporting, With Exchanges Starting 2028

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