Help Guide

Log in to Coinbase and go to Account > Statements (or Reports > Transaction history in the newer layout). Select your date range, click Generate Report, download the CSV, and import it into Sovereign Tax.

Log in to Kraken and go to History > Export. Select "Ledgers" or "Trades" for your date range and download the CSV. Sovereign Tax handles Kraken's separate Received and Sent columns automatically.

Strike: Settings > Transaction History > Export. Cash App: open the Activity tab, tap the download icon, and choose a date range. Swan: History > Download CSV. All three formats are detected automatically.

One or more required columns haven't been mapped. You need Date, Amount, and either Price or Total. Use the dropdown next to each field to pick the matching column from your CSV. Once every required field is mapped, the warning clears and you can import.

Yes. Import each exchange's or account's CSV separately, each under its own Wallet / Exchange Name. Sovereign Tax combines them and tracks cost basis per wallet. A file that was already imported is rejected, and duplicate transactions are skipped.

Under the per-wallet rules that apply from 2025, every transaction has to belong to a specific wallet or account. The name you enter becomes the wallet for every row in that CSV, and it also remembers your column mapping for next time. Use one exact name per account every time you import: names aren't case-sensitive, but "Coinbase" and "Coinbase Pro" are two different wallets. See Wallets and exchanges.

No. Sovereign Tax is Bitcoin-only by design. Rows for other assets (ETH, SOL and so on) are skipped when you import; only BTC and XBT rows are processed.

Moving bitcoin between your own wallets isn't taxable (IRS FAQ 81): the cost basis and holding period stay the same. Under the 2025 per-wallet rules, though, the lots have to move to the receiving wallet so the right lots are there when you sell from it. That happens when you assign a source wallet on the Transfer In. See Recording a transfer, step by step.

A Transfer In records bitcoin arriving in a wallet. Assign tells the app which of your wallets it came from, so it can move those lots. For example, if you withdrew from Swan to your Trezor, click Assign on the Trezor's Transfer In and choose "Swan". The lots move to the Trezor with their original cost basis and purchase dates. Transfer Ins without a source wallet show a red Assign button.

It's what happens when you assign a source wallet: the app takes lots from the source wallet (oldest first, or the lots you pick) and moves them to the receiving wallet. A partial transfer splits a lot. Cost basis per BTC and the original purchase date carry over; only the wallet changes. This is how the app follows the 2025 per-wallet rules (Treasury Reg. §1.1012-1(j)) and IRS FAQ 81.

Yes. When you assign a source wallet, tick Choose specific lots to transfer and pick the lots that moved; the picker's Optimize button can pick for you. Any amount you don't pick is filled oldest-first (FIFO). This is useful when you want to follow a particular lot to cold storage and back to an exchange for a sale.

If you withdrew bitcoin to cold storage but only imported the exchange's CSV (which shows a Transfer Out), add the Transfer In on the receiving side. In Add Transaction, choose Transfer In, enter the date and the amount received, and set Wallet to your cold storage wallet. Then click Assign on that row and choose the exchange as its source wallet. Without it the lots stay on the exchange, and later sales from cold storage show wallet mismatch warnings.

Exchange CSVs don't say where a withdrawal went, and hardware wallets often have no CSV at all, so your records can't prove which of your wallets the coins came from. The Reconciliation page pairs withdrawals with deposits by amount and date, and those pairs mark a wallet as Suggested when you click Assign. The app never assigns a source wallet on its own: you confirm it, because that choice moves your cost basis.

It means Reconciliation paired this deposit with a withdrawal from that wallet: the amounts agree (the deposit can be slightly lower, for the miner fee) and the deposit arrived 0–7 days later. A yellow Possible match badge means a pair was found but flagged, usually because the implied fee is unusually high. Wallets without a badge are there for you to choose manually.

Wallet balances are built from your records: buys and deposits add; sells, donations and withdrawals subtract. A negative balance means your records show more bitcoin leaving that wallet than arriving. That usually points to a missing buy (for example an older CSV you haven't imported) or a transfer recorded against the wrong wallet. See The Reconciliation page.

A wallet mismatch (⚠️) means a sale used lots from another wallet because none were found in the wallet it was sold from. Usually a Transfer In is missing its source wallet. In Transactions, find the Transfer In that brought the coins into the selling wallet, click its red Assign button, choose the wallet the coins came from, and save. Once the lots are in the right wallet, the warning clears. If you use Specific ID, re-run Optimize for that year.

For one sale, click Lots on the sell or donation in Transactions, or choose Specific ID when you add the sale. For a whole year, Optimize (N) assigns the lowest-tax lots to every sale that doesn't have an election yet, and shows the FIFO and optimized totals before you apply anything. Compare Methods shows the difference, and Simulate Sale lets you try a sale first. See FIFO, Specific ID and Optimize.

Yes. In Transactions, click Lots on any sell or donation. You'll see the lots that were available at the time of that sale; select your lots, preview the tax impact, and save. To remove an election, use Revert to FIFO in the same window.

IRS note: under Treas. Reg. §1.1012-1(c) and IRS FAQ 82, Specific ID must be elected at or before the time of sale. Assigning lots afterwards may not satisfy the IRS unless you identified the lots before the sale. For 2025 and 2026 transactions, IRS Notice 2025-07 (extended through 2026 by Notice 2026-20) lets you record the identification for bitcoin held on an exchange in your own records instead of with the exchange — but it still has to be made by the time of the sale. For earlier years, FIFO applies to any sale without a contemporaneous election.

Keep prior years as FIFO. If you filed using FIFO, or never made Specific ID elections at the time of sale, leave those years as FIFO in the app: retroactively assigning lots to past sales is generally not permitted (Treas. Reg. §1.1012-1(c)(1)). You can use Specific ID for current and future sales by making the election at or before the time of sale. For 2025 and 2026 transactions, IRS Notice 2025-07 (extended through 2026 by Notice 2026-20) lets you record the identification for bitcoin held on an exchange in your own records instead of with the exchange — but it still has to be made by the time of the sale. Use the year selector to check each prior year.

FIFO is the default for every sale; Specific ID applies only to the sales where you've chosen lots. Your figures update as soon as you add or remove an election, and Revert to FIFO removes a whole year's elections if you change your mind. Explore freely, but when you file, the IRS expects one method to be applied consistently per wallet within a tax year.

A sale that uses both short-term and long-term lots. For example, selling 1 BTC where 0.6 BTC was held 8 months (short-term) and 0.4 BTC was held 2 years (long-term). Sovereign Tax splits it into separate short-term and long-term lines on Form 8949 automatically.

Yes. In Transactions, click Del on the sell and confirm. The lots it used are restored exactly as they were, because cost basis is recalculated from your remaining transactions. The deletion is recorded in the Audit Log.

If an edit changes which lots exist (a lower amount, a different wallet or a different type), or you delete the Buy, any Specific ID elections that used its lots are removed. Those sales go back to FIFO until you choose lots again with Lots. This keeps stale lot references out of your tax figures.

Under the 2025 per-wallet rules, a sale must use lots from the wallet it's made in, so harvesting opportunities are per wallet. Choose a wallet to see its opportunities; All Wallets gives a portfolio-wide overview, but each actual sale has to come from one wallet.

Review is a checklist for the selected tax year: assign a source wallet on every Transfer In, resolve wallet mismatches, classify the wallets you sold from for Form 8949 (2025 and later), and optionally optimize lot selections. When every check is green it shows Ready to File with a link to the Tax Report. See Review checklist.

For 2025 and later, bitcoin sales use boxes G/H/I (short-term) and J/K/L (long-term). Sales on an exchange whose Form 1099-DA shows basis go in G/J; exchange sales without reported basis (usually coins you moved onto the exchange) go in H/K; self-custody and other sales with no 1099-DA go in I/L. Mark your wallets in Settings → Wallets and the exports group sales by box. See Tax Report and exports.

In Add Transaction, choose Donation and enter the date, the BTC amount and the fair market value per BTC on the donation date. Use FIFO or pick lots with Specific ID, check the preview of which lots are used, and save. Donations appear in the Tax Report with a Form 8283 CSV export; they aren't reported on Form 8949.

Donating bitcoin to a qualified charity isn't a taxable sale: no capital gain or loss is recognized, and you may be able to claim a charitable deduction instead. If you held the bitcoin for more than one year, the deduction is generally its fair market value (limited to 30% of AGI); if you held it one year or less, it's limited to your cost basis. Sovereign Tax records these details and exports them for Form 8283.

FMV is the price the bitcoin would sell for on the open market on the donation date. The IRS uses it to work out your deduction, so enter the FMV per BTC for that date. With Live BTC Price turned on in Settings, the Fetch FMV button fills in the historical price from CoinGecko.

Only on your computer, encrypted with AES-256-GCM using a key derived from your PIN. Your data is never sent to any server: there's no cloud, no account and no telemetry.

The data stored in the app can't be recovered without your PIN. That's by design: there's no back door, no cloud recovery and no "forgot PIN" option, so keep your PIN somewhere safe. Backups are protected by their own backup password, not your PIN, so with a backup file and its password you can restore your data once the app has been reset. If you're locked out, email support for help resetting the app.

Go to Settings → About → Check for Updates. If a new version is available, you'll see what's new and a link to download it from sovereigntax.io.

In Settings, click Clear All Data and type DELETE to confirm. This permanently erases all your transactions, lot elections, mappings and history, so create a backup first. To redo only one year's lot choices, see Starting over for a tax year.