The full guide
Not tax advice. This page summarizes IRS instructions and Cash App’s own help pages as of October 1, 2026. Cash App may change its process before forms go out. Check with a tax professional for your situation.
Short version: If you sold bitcoin on Cash App, or paid a Square merchant from your bitcoin balance, Cash App sends you a Form 1099-DA and files a copy with the IRS. For 2025 it reported no cost basis to the IRS and issued a separate form for every sale. The proceeds box is not your profit. Cash App’s Gain Loss CSV gives a FIFO cost basis per sale, but not for every account, and Cash App itself warns it may not match your past filings.
What Cash App sends you
From Cash App: Bitcoin & Taxes:
- Form 1099-DA if during the year you “sold Bitcoin or made a lightning payment to a Square merchant using bitcoin balance on Cash App.” Cash App provides it “by February 15th of the following year.”
- A copy goes to the IRS. Asked “Will the IRS receive a copy of my Form 1099-DA?”, Cash App answers “Yes.”
- One form per sale for 2025: “Cash App will issue a separate Form 1099-DA for every sale of bitcoin in 2025.” Many small sales mean many forms, and each is a row on Form 8949.
- Before tax year 2025, Cash App issued Form 1099-B instead.
Why there’s no cost basis
Cash App says it plainly: “Cash App does not report a cost basis to the IRS for your bitcoin sales made in 2025.” The proceeds box “shows the net cash proceeds of your Bitcoin sale but does not account for your cost basis” (Cash App). If you file the proceeds as if they were profit, you pay tax on money you put in.
For 2026 sales, the IRS rule is that brokers report basis for covered assets: acquired after 2025 in an account where the broker provided custody and held there until the sale (IRS, Instructions for Form 1099-DA). Bitcoin you received from another wallet, or bought before 2026, is noncovered. Cash App’s help pages (checked Oct 1, 2026) don’t yet describe its tax-year-2026 form.
What’s left off the form
“Your IRS Form 1099-DA from Cash App will not include any peer-to-peer transactions involving bitcoin on Cash App (including with other Cash App users or involving an external bitcoin wallet)” (Cash App). Cash App adds that those transactions “may give rise to a taxable gain, loss, gift or other reportable event,” and that it only has records of your activity on Cash App. Bitcoin bought or sold elsewhere needs that platform’s records.
The IRS rule is the same either way: “Whether or not you receive a Form 1099-DA, you must report all income, gains and losses from digital asset transactions on your federal income tax return” (IRS).
Where to find the form and your history
All three files live in the same place in the app: profile icon > Documents > Bitcoin (Cash App: Bitcoin & Taxes; Cash App: Gain Loss CSV).
| File | What it is | Desktop |
|---|---|---|
| 1099-DA | The tax form | cash.app/account/documents/bitcoin |
| Transactions CSV | Your bitcoin transactions; Cash App says it may include peer-to-peer and external wallet activity | cash.app/account |
| Gain Loss CSV | Per-sale cost basis and gain or loss, using FIFO | In the app |
The Gain Loss CSV: useful, with limits
Cash App pre-calculates “Per transaction Cost Basis using FIFO accounting” and “Per transaction Gain or Loss using FIFO accounting.” It defines the cost basis as what you paid “plus any Cash App fees,” and the sales price as what you received less fees (Cash App: Gain Loss CSV). Three limits, all from the same page:
- Not every account gets it. It “won’t be available to customers who have sent or received bitcoin on the Bitcoin Network, Lightning Network, have sponsored accounts, or have sent bitcoin to other cashtags.”
- FIFO only. To use another method, download the Transactions CSV and calculate it yourself. Cash App notes other methods “may require certain record keeping of the lots of Bitcoin deemed sold at or prior to the time of your sale.”
- It doesn’t know your history. The FIFO figures “may not be accurate based on your prior year tax reporting of your sales of bitcoin, of which Cash App has no knowledge.”
Long-term means held more than one year (IRS Topic 409); Cash App counts the holding period “beginning the day after purchase.”
Filling in Form 8949
Form 8949 has digital-asset boxes (IRS, Instructions for Form 8949):
| Your 1099-DA row | Held 1 year or less | Held more than 1 year | Column (e), basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basis reported to the IRS | G | J | The basis shown. Corrections go in (g) with code B |
| Basis not reported (every 2025 Cash App row) | H | K | Your correct basis |
| No 1099-DA (for example, a taxable peer-to-peer send) | I | L | Your correct basis |
Column (d) is the proceeds on the form. For a sale reported without basis, enter “the correct basis of the property in column (e)” (IRS i8949). To check Cash App’s FIFO numbers or try LIFO or HIFO on your own buys, use the free cost basis calculator.
Sources (checked 2026-10-01)
- Cash App, “Bitcoin & Taxes”: https://cash.app/help/us/en-us/3104-bitcoin-taxes
- Cash App, “Accessing your Cash App Gain Loss CSV”: https://cash.app/help/us/en-us/31042-accessing-your-cash-app-gain-loss-csv
- IRS, Understanding your Form 1099-DA: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/understanding-your-form-1099-da
- IRS, Instructions for Form 1099-DA: https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1099da
- IRS, Instructions for Form 8949: https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i8949
- IRS, Topic 409, Capital gains and losses: https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc409