Crypto loss set-off calculator
List each virtual digital asset you held this year and what it made or lost overall, and this page sets the taxable total beside the net result. You do not need a full transaction history — the result of each position is enough.
Positive position results count toward taxable income under s.115BBH; negative results do not reduce that total.
Inputs
Five position rows are available without JavaScript.
- Positions counted
- Net result for the year
- Losses not set off
- Difference between the two totals
- Tax at 31.2%
Totals from the rows filled in so far, added up in your browser as you type. Only positive results are added into the charge. A half-filled position may appear in this preview, but the server rejects it on submit rather than using an incomplete row. Submit for the validated figures this page stands behind.
Economic vs taxable result
The submitted calculation appears here.
Enter complete asset-and-amount positions to compare the economic net with taxable positive results.
What section 115BBH(2)(a) says
no deduction in respect of any expenditure (other than cost of acquisition, if any) or allowance or set off of any loss shall be allowed to the assessee under any provision of this Act in computing the income referred to in clause (a) of sub-section (1)
The words that do the work here are or set off of any loss, and where they sit. They sit inside the rule for computing the VDA income itself — the income referred to in clause (a) of sub-section (1) — which is why a loss on one virtual digital asset cannot reduce a gain on another one. That is a separate restriction from the better-known one in sub-section (2)(b), which stops a VDA loss going against income under any other head. Both apply, and they are two rules rather than one.
A loss that is not set off here is not carried into a later year either. Section 115BBH(2)(b) closes with the words that such loss shall not be allowed to be carried forward to succeeding assessment years, so at the end of the financial year it is gone.
The rule as arithmetic, in CBDT's own words
The clearest confirmation of what that means in practice is not in the statute but in the validation rules CBDT publishes for the return forms. Schedule VDA is transaction-level, one row per transfer, and the total is specified as the Sum of all Positive Incomes of Capital Gain in Col. 7.
Only the positive rows are added up. A row that computes to a loss contributes nothing to the total — not a negative number, nothing. That is the set-off rule expressed as arithmetic, and it is exactly what this page reproduces: the taxable total above is the sum of the positive results only, and the tax is charged on that.
CBDT e-Filing ITR-2 Validation Rules AY 2026-27, rule 189 (ITR-3 rules 501-503 say the same)
A worked example
Take a year with Rs 10,00,000 of gains on one coin and Rs 9,00,000 of losses on another. The net result for the year is Rs 1,00,000. The income charged under section 115BBH is Rs 10,00,000, because the loss is not set against the gain — so the tax is Rs 3,12,000, on a year in which Rs 1,00,000 was made.
The arithmetic scales in the uncomfortable direction: the larger the losses sitting alongside the gains, the wider the two totals separate. A year that finishes down overall can still carry tax, because the gains are charged whatever the losses did. Enter your own positions above to see where the two totals fall for you.
What this page does and does not do
It states what the provision does and shows the arithmetic that follows from it. It has no view on whether the rule is a good one, and it does not suggest anything you might do in response to what it shows — that is a conversation for a registered Chartered Accountant who can see your whole return, not for a calculator that has seen a handful of figures.
It also computes only the positions you type in. If you have a full transaction history rather than a set of per-position totals, the Schedule VDA generator works the same rule across every transfer in a file and produces the Schedule VDA rows alongside it.
These figures are generated automatically from the information you provide, based on our reading of the applicable tax rules. They are for reference only and do not constitute tax advice. Please consult a registered Chartered Accountant before filing any return or relying on these numbers.