Koinly review: The best default crypto tax tool for most Australian investors

About Koinly

Koinly is a crypto tax software platform founded in 2018 and headquartered in London, with development and operations based partly in Norway. Australian users get an Australia-specific product with ATO rules hardcoded, the 50 percent CGT discount applied automatically, myTax report output, and integration support for every major AUSTRAC-registered Australian exchange.

Scale is genuine. Koinly has processed tax reports for more than 1 million users globally. Trustpilot shows 4.6 out of 5 on 2,252 reviews at the Australian domain.

Corporate facts worth knowing

Koinly is operated by Koinly AS and its UK group subsidiaries. The company holds SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications. Data is encrypted end-to-end. Koinly is GDPR compliant.

Koinly is not AUSTRAC registered because it is not a financial institution or exchange. It is a software service that reads your transaction data and produces tax reports.

Who Koinly is for

First, retail investors with 2 to 5 exchange accounts. If your crypto activity sits across Swyftx, CoinSpot, maybe Binance Australia, a hardware wallet, and one or two airdrops, Koinly's 800+ integrations mean everything imports cleanly.

Second, staking and yield earners. Australian tax rules treat staking rewards as ordinary income at AUD value on receipt, then CGT on disposal. Koinly automates the two-stage treatment correctly.

Third, investors using multiple cost basis methods. ATO permits FIFO, LIFO, or specific identification. Koinly supports all three and can re-run calculations to show which minimises tax legally.

Fourth, SMSF trustees with crypto exposure. Koinly handles the SMSF one-third CGT discount correctly and produces reports compatible with what most SMSF auditors expect.

Australian pricing tiers

Koinly prices in USD with AUD conversion at checkout. Check koinly.io/au for current pricing.

How to pick the right tier

Most new users overestimate their transaction count. A year of weekly DCA on Swyftx plus a handful of rebalances is 50 to 80 transactions, comfortably within Newbie. Once you add staking, LP activity, or multiple exchanges, count scales rapidly. Import on the free plan first, see the transaction count, then upgrade.

Exchange and wallet integrations

Koinly's integration breadth is the single biggest reason it ranks first in Australia. More than 800 exchanges, wallets, and blockchains are supported.

Australian exchanges with API integration

Swyftx, CoinSpot, Independent Reserve, CoinJar, Digital Surge, Binance Australia, Coinbase Australia, Crypto.com, Kraken, Cointree. Paste read-only API keys and Koinly automatically imports your full transaction history.

Wallet integrations

Every major self-custody wallet: Ledger, Trezor, MetaMask, Phantom, Trust Wallet, plus direct address-based import for any Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, or Avalanche wallet.

Where integrations get tricky

Some newer Layer 1 chains may have limited coverage at first. Bridges can double-count transactions if not configured carefully. Koinly flags suspected issues for manual review rather than silently failing.

ATO-specific features

50 percent CGT discount applied automatically. For assets held longer than 12 months by individuals and trusts.

SMSF one-third discount for long-term assets. Koinly handles this correctly when you configure the account as SMSF.

FIFO, LIFO, and specific identification cost basis. Koinly supports all three methods and can show the tax outcome under each.

Personal use asset exemption flagging. For small purchases potentially qualifying as personal use assets, Koinly flags candidates for review.

ATO myTax report format. Provides exact capital gains figures you enter into myTax lodgement screens.

Investor vs trader treatment. Default is investor (CGT). For traders, the tool can re-run on a business income basis. See our investor vs trader framework.

DeFi and advanced transaction coverage

What Koinly handles well: liquidity pools on major AMMs (Uniswap, Sushiswap, Curve), lending and borrowing (Aave, Compound), staking on major PoS chains, yield farming rewards as ordinary income plus CGT on disposal, CEX staking products, wrapping between major wrapped assets.

Where Koinly is adequate but not perfect: complex yield farm strategies with multiple compounding loops, very new DeFi protocols, NFT minting and royalty flows, some cross-chain bridges. Koinly imports the transactions but may require manual classification.

Where heavy DeFi users hit limits: if you are running dozens of LP positions across many protocols with thousands of transactions, CryptoTaxCalculator is purpose-built for this profile and is worth the premium.

The actual workflow

End-to-end, preparing an Australian tax return on Koinly for a typical retail portfolio takes about 30 minutes of active work.

Step 1: Add integrations. Generate read-only API keys in your exchange account and paste them into Koinly. Koinly pulls the full history automatically.

Step 2: Review flagged transactions. Koinly highlights transactions it has classified with uncertainty. Go through and approve or reclassify.

Step 3: Set cost basis method and confirm account type. FIFO, LIFO, or specific ID. Individual or SMSF.

Step 4: Generate reports. Download the myTax report and detailed capital gains report.

Step 5: Lodge or forward to accountant. Enter myTax figures into ATO lodgement, or send detailed report to your tax agent.

Security, privacy, and the Mixpanel exposure

Core platform security

Koinly holds SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications. Both are externally audited and annually renewed. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. No private keys, no exchange login credentials, no fund-transferring API keys are stored. Koinly reads data through read-only API keys.

The December 2025 Mixpanel exposure

In December 2025, Koinly disclosed that customer email addresses may have been exposed through a third-party breach at Mixpanel, an analytics service provider. The exposure was limited to email addresses only. No passwords, transaction data, or financial information were involved. Koinly notified affected users, published a disclosure statement, and terminated the Mixpanel integration.

Context: Mixpanel is widely used as analytics infrastructure by many SaaS products. The breach affected multiple companies, not just Koinly. Koinly's response (prompt disclosure, vendor termination) is appropriate incident handling.

Practical impact: if your email was in the affected set, you may see increased phishing attempts. Standard mitigations: never click unexpected email links claiming to be from Koinly, navigate directly to koinly.io, use strong unique password, enable 2FA.

My overall read: this is an analytics vendor incident rather than a Koinly platform compromise. It does not change the fundamental security assessment but pulled the Security and Privacy score from 4.7 to 4.5.

Koinly ratings breakdown

Koinly vs CryptoTaxCalculator vs Syla

Pick Koinly if: you want the broadest default support and a mid-price tier. Most widely used, so accountants already know the report format.

Pick CryptoTaxCalculator if: DeFi-heavy, or want Australian domicile for your tax software vendor.

Pick Syla if: you want the deepest Australian ATO feature set and local focus.

For most retail Australian investors, any of the three will produce an accurate tax report. Pick the one whose pricing matches your transaction count and move on.

Final verdict

Koinly is the best default crypto tax software for most Australian retail investors in 2026. The combination of broad integration support, correct Australian tax rule handling, reasonable tiered pricing, and strong external security certifications is not matched by any single competitor. For typical users with two or three exchanges, some staking, and one or two wallets, Koinly reduces tax preparation from a manual multi-hour ordeal to a 30-minute review process.

The cases where I would recommend a different tool are narrow. Heavy DeFi: CryptoTaxCalculator. Maximum Australian focus: Syla. For the retail majority, Koinly is the right choice.

The December 2025 Mixpanel exposure is worth knowing about but should not change the verdict. It was a third-party analytics vendor incident, not a platform breach. Koinly's disclosure and response were appropriate.

Koinly's report accuracy depends on the exchange you import from. AUSTRAC-registered Australian options including CoinSpot, Swyftx, Independent Reserve, and Binance all have working integrations; see Best Crypto Exchanges Australia for a side-by-side.

Frequently asked questions

About this analysis

Govind Satoshi

Former Institutional Trader. Founder, SatoshiMacro.

Sydney-based. Principal of Digital Empire Capital, a proprietary digital asset investment vehicle operating since 2017. Formerly traded allocated institutional capital at a Sydney proprietary trading firm. Active seed investor in early-stage protocols.