Your crypto is in your estate. HMRC already knows about it.
Most holders have never thought about inheritance tax. Most estate planners can't help with crypto. That gap is where families lose money — and increasingly, where they lose the assets entirely.
Eleven questions, about five minutes. No cost, no obligation.
The part most people get wrong
Crypto is treated as property for inheritance tax. It sits in your estate at its market value on the day you die, and it's taxed at 40% above the available allowances — exactly like a house, a pension or a share portfolio.
And the visibility argument has gone. UK cryptoasset service providers have been collecting and reporting user data to HMRC under the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework since January 2026, with international exchange of that data beginning in 2027. Several major exchanges were already sharing UK customer information before that.
Any plan that quietly depended on holdings being hard to see is a plan with a very short remaining life.
There is no crypto exemption. There never was one.
Four things that go wrong, in order of cost
- 01The valuation trap
Your crypto is valued on the date of death. The tax is due six months after the end of the month in which you died. Between those two dates, the price can do anything. And unlike property or a trading business, there is generally no facility to pay the bill in instalments. A family can be left owing tax calculated on a peak valuation, payable in cash, on an asset now worth considerably less — and forced to sell at exactly the wrong moment to fund it.
- 02Taxed on assets nobody can reach
If the keys die with you, the coins don't disappear. They sit on-chain, visible, provably yours, and permanently inaccessible. Your executors may still have to account for an asset the family can never touch. This is the single most expensive mistake in crypto estate planning, and it is entirely preventable.
- 03The seed phrase in the will
Never do this. A will becomes a public document once probate is granted — anyone can order a copy. A seed phrase written into a will is a seed phrase published to the world, with a helpfully itemised list of what it unlocks. The same applies to exchange passwords, wallet PINs and recovery details. They need secure custody with a controlled release process, kept entirely separate from the will itself.
- 04An executor who can't do it
Naming your brother as executor is fine, right up to the point where he needs to recover a hardware wallet, navigate a multi-signature setup, or prove ownership to an exchange's bereavement team. Most executors have never done any of this. Most solicitors haven't either.
Ben, 48. Married, two children.
Their combined allowances come to £1 million, so £250,000 falls above them. The bill is £100,000. His wife inherits and the spouse exemption applies, so on the first death there is no immediate charge. The problem arrives on the second.
Now assume the market halves before the estate can sell. The tax is calculated on £600,000; the holdings are now worth £300,000. The bill has not moved.
Nothing about the family's circumstances changed. Only the timing did.
His estate
What actually helps
A complete asset inventory
Everything you hold, where it’s held, custodial or self-custody, and how each is accessed. Most people cannot produce this from memory, and no one else can produce it at all.
An access plan separate from your will
Secure custody of what’s needed to recover the assets, with a defined release process on death — never in the will itself.
Executors who can actually execute
Either name someone technically capable, or make sure the people you have named know exactly who to call.
Liquidity for the tax bill
The bill is payable in cash on a fixed date. Life cover written into trust can provide that cash without forcing a sale at a bad price. The most overlooked step and often the most valuable.
Clean records for compliance
Acquisition dates, costs and disposals — for your own reporting now, and for your executors later. Reporting obligations have tightened significantly and continue to.
And the wider strategy
Where your wider estate warrants it, planning options are considered as part of your overall strategy — properly, on your actual circumstances, in a conversation.
What doesn't work
Assuming nobody will find out
Exchange data is reported to HMRC and internationally exchanged. That door is closed.
Leaving instructions in a will
Public after probate. Worth repeating because people still do it.
A memorised seed phrase
Memory does not survive you, and it does not survive a stroke either. This is also why powers of attorney matter as much here as wills do.
Assuming your solicitor will handle it
Most estate practitioners have no crypto experience whatsoever. That is not a criticism of them; it is the reason this page exists.
Experienced in crypto estates. Globally.
Crypto doesn't respect borders. Holdings sit across exchanges in several jurisdictions, counterparties are anywhere, and custody arrangements rarely match the client's postcode. We've been dealing with that since [year].
Global experience. UK advice. We advise on your UK tax position, however far your holdings reach. Where another country's domestic tax is engaged, we say so and bring in local counsel rather than guessing.
[Named specialist], [credentials] leads this work.
What we've handled
[n] crypto estates DeFi positions NFTs Staking and mining income Multi-signature arrangements Exchange failures Frozen and disputed accounts Lost-key situations Probate on crypto estates Holdings across [n] jurisdictions
How we'd approach it
A solicitor drafts. An accountant calculates. An adviser invests. Here, they're all in the same practice, working to one standard set by our TEP-led technical team.
Most relevant to this situation
Or speak to someone directly
For individuals and families with assets over £2 million, and for business owners. A senior practitioner completes your review with you, by phone. Same eleven questions, same report; you just don't have to type it.
Questions we get asked
Do I have to declare crypto in my estate?
Yes. It’s property, and executors are required to report the estate accurately. Underdeclaring is a problem for them personally, not just for the estate.
What if the assets can't be recovered?
Difficult, and better prevented than argued. This is exactly why the access plan matters more than the tax planning for most holders.
Does it make a difference where the exchange is based?
Less than people expect, and the direction of travel is towards less still. HMRC’s position focuses on where the beneficial owner is, and international data exchange is now operating. Anything built on the location of a platform needs looking at again.
I hold through a company. Does that change things?
It changes what we’re looking at, yes — but not necessarily in the direction people assume, and the answer depends entirely on the structure and what the company actually does. Worth a conversation.
Can you help if my situation is unusual?
Usually. Complex and unusual is the part of the market most firms avoid, which is why we built for it.
Who you'll speak to
Crypto sits awkwardly between three things — property law that predates it, a tax treatment that has moved several times, and a custody problem that is purely practical. Nadim takes the digital-asset enquiries here because that combination needs someone comfortable with all three.
You won't be asked to explain what a seed phrase is, and you won't be told the holdings should simply be cashed out. Both are more common than they should be.
Find out where you stand
Eleven questions and you'll have a report written for your situation — what's exposed, what it means, and what would change it. Checked before it reaches you, and no obligation to go further.
Start your Clarity ReportNo obligation. We'll never share your details.