Crowdlending tax in Europe: residence, platform withholding, losses and reporting for private investors
How 13 European countries tax crowdlending interest in 2026, what Mintos, Debitum, PeerBerry, Go & Grow, Estateguru and Maclear withhold, and when losses count.
Updated: 1 October 2026
A private investor's country of tax residence decides how crowdlending interest is taxed. Withholding by the platform may come first, and the investor's country sets the rate, the loss rules and the return fields. This guide covers 13 countries, six platforms, loss relief, wrappers and exchange of information, with sources and rate years as of 1 October 2026.
Residence, source and credit in the tax chain on crowdlending interest
Your Europe explains that tax residence normally determines taxation of total worldwide income and that two states can both claim residence (Your Europe). Under the OECD model, interest taxing rights go to both the residence and the source state. Its 1977 annex limits the source state's tax to 10% of the gross amount for a beneficial owner (OECD). That ceiling is a model provision, and each bilateral treaty sets its own rate. Within the same model, the source of interest follows the payer's residence unless a permanent establishment bears the debt. So the country where a website operator is registered does not settle the source.
The EU Interest and Royalties Directive of 2003 exempts qualifying cross-border payments between associated companies from source-country tax and covers group companies only (European Commission).
Foreign tax credit is limited by the domestic tax. HMRC's helpsheet HS263 for 2025 to 2026 covers foreign tax credit relief on the overseas income. It states that the relief "can never be more than the UK tax liability" (HMRC HS263). Irish Revenue requires individual P2P lenders to declare gross interest and claim credit for the withholding suffered (Revenue manual 08-03-05).
A worked example with assumed inputs: €1,000 of gross interest from a platform that withholds 5% leaves €950 paid out and €50 withheld. A German resident faces 25% on the €1,000, which is €250 before surcharges. If the €50 is credited in full, €200 remains due, and where a country caps the credit the remainder is higher.
Tax on crowdlending interest in 13 countries
| Country | Rate and year | Where reported |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Income tax of 20%, 40% and 45% in 2026/27 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with separate Scottish bands (GOV.UK). HMRC taxes P2P interest in the same way as any other interest received (HMRC). GOV.UK's savings-interest allowance is £1,000 (basic rate), £500 (higher rate) and £0 (additional rate) (allowance) | SA101 boxes 1 to 3 for P2P interest (HMRC); foreign interest on the SA106 pages (SA106 notes for 2025-26) |
| Ireland | 20% and 40% income-tax rates, with 2026 examples (Revenue); the P2P manual classifies individual interest under Schedule D Case IV or III, outside bank DIRT | Form 12 through myAccount for PAYE taxpayers whose non-PAYE income stays below €5,000 taxable and €30,000 gross (Form 12). Above that, Form 11 through ROS (registration). Irish and foreign interest reported gross with credit for withholding |
| Germany | 25% plus solidarity surcharge and church tax, where it applies (Finanzamt NRW). Saver allowance of €1,000, or €2,000 for jointly assessed partners, since 1 January 2023 (Finanzamt NRW) | Annual return for capital income without domestic withholding, with a Günstigerprüfung on request when the personal rate is below 25% plus surcharge (Finanzamt NRW) |
| France | 31.4% from January 2026, made of 12.8% income tax and 18.6% social levies (Service Public) | Annex 2047 with transfer to the 2042 fields for foreign income, reported gross (impots.gouv.fr) |
| Spain | 2025 savings scale, state and regional components combined: 19% to €6,000, 21% to €50,000, 23% to €200,000, 27% to €300,000, 30% above (state, regional) | Annual IRPF return |
| Netherlands | Box 3 in 2026: 36% on a taxable benefit calculated from deemed returns. The deemed returns are 6.00% on investments and other assets, 1.28% on deposits and 2.70% on debts (provisional). €59,357 exempt per person (Belastingdienst) | Box 3 return; the actual return is used when it is lower and reported (Belastingdienst) |
| Belgium | 30% base rate on taxable interest for income year 2024 (assessment year 2025); qualifying Belgian withholding is final (FPS Finance) | Frame VII A.2 for non-exempt interest received from a foreign institution without Belgian withholding |
| Austria | BMF treats interest on loans without an underlying banking transaction, such as private loans, at the progressive tariff. The 2026 tariff runs 0% up to €13,539, then 20%, 30%, 40%, 48%, 50% and 55% above €1 million (BMF, tariff) | Annual assessment |
| Portugal | 28% autonomous rate under CIRS Article 72(1)(d) for capital income without the preceding withholding (Portal das Finanças) | Model 3, annex J, table 8; specified foreign accounts in table 11 (Portal das Finanças) |
| Estonia | 22% in the 2026 table with a basic exemption of €8,400 a year (EMTA). Parliament cancelled the planned rise to 24% on 3 December 2025 (Riigikogu) | Declared for the calendar year of receipt, including interest reinvested on the platform (EMTA) |
| Latvia | 25.5% on capital income, which VID lists as including dividends and bank interest, plus 3% on annual income above €200,000 (VID) | Declaration D, annex D2 for income abroad (VID) |
| Lithuania | 15% on the specified income basket up to 12 VDU (€27,745.80 in 2026), with the main progressive rates above (VMI). Up to €500 a year of qualifying P2P consumer-credit and crowdfunding interest received outside the investment-account regime is exempt (VMI, interest guidance). VMI says the relief is applied after year-end through the annual return (tax payment) | GPM311, annex GPM311E, in the guidance for 2025 interest (VMI) |
| Poland | 19% flat tax on loan interest, page updated 15 December 2025 (podatki.gov.pl) | PIT-38 for 2025: position 47 for flat-rate tax on foreign capital income under Article 30a(1)(1) to (5), loan interest included. Position 48 for tax paid abroad and position 49 for the difference. Foreign income also goes on the PIT/ZG attachment (brochure) |
Rates apply by year and by product. Cells for Germany, Spain, Austria and Latvia cite each authority's capital-income or private-loan rules. Those pages do not name crowdlending platforms, so classification follows the instrument the investor holds. Spain's scale is the 2025 manual, and the Lithuanian exemption depends on the product and platform conditions. For the Netherlands, 36% applies to a calculated benefit of deemed returns.
Withholding and reporting on six platforms
| Platform | Withholding on private investors | Tax report |
|---|---|---|
| Mintos | Withholds on Notes and Fractional Bonds: 25.5% for Latvian residents. Eligible EU and EEA private residents who confirm their tax details pay 5% (Latvia and Lithuania excluded) (5% page). Lithuanian residents with a current-year certificate pay 0%. Other investors pay 25.5%, with treaty reductions through a residence certificate. Legal entities: none (Mintos help, updated 7 March 2025) | Annex 3 for claims and annex 4 for Notes. Capital gains and losses, bonuses and cashback in the income section. Expenses listed separately with a warning that not all are deductible. English only (Mintos, updated 24 March 2026) |
| PeerBerry | States that it does not deduct investor taxes and points investors to the legislation of their country of tax residence (PeerBerry help) | Statement section: choose dates, generate, download; Account Summary filtered by timeline |
| Go & Grow | Help page ties tax reporting to gross interest received and the investor's tax residence (help, updated 22 April 2026) | Tax Report on the Reports page |
| Debitum | 25.5% for Latvian investors, 5% for other EU and EEA investors, 0% for Lithuanian residents with VMI form FR0254 (help, 17 March 2026). Treaty reductions need a residence certificate and a signed application for the same tax year. They apply from approval and are renewed each year (help, 23 April 2026) | PDF or Excel statement from My balance, with interest payments and tax withheld. Debitum notes that the statement does not meet the needs of all tax authorities (help, 14 April 2026) |
| Estateguru | Estateguru's help page states that the platform does not deduct tax from investor returns (help, 11 March 2025) | Dashboard, Account value, Reports (help, 27 February 2025) |
| Maclear | States that interest, referral rewards and bonuses are credited in full without platform tax withholding (Maclear FAQ, 3 August 2026) | PDF tax statement under Statements, Tax, listing interest, cashback, referrer rewards, bonus investments and secondary-market profit, loss and sale fee (Maclear FAQ, 3 August 2026) |
Maclear's FAQ adds that local legislation determines the tax treatment of bonuses, referral rewards and secondary-market profit (Maclear FAQ). Mintos does not accept a German exemption order (Freistellungsauftrag) to offset the tax it remits to Latvia (Mintos help).
A Go & Grow withdrawal guide treats amounts above the total invested principal as returns and leaves their tax treatment to local rules (help). Go & Grow's other help page, cited in the table, ties reporting to gross interest received. So investors should apply the rule for their own tax residence and product. For Estonian residents the platform has a separate help page, which says Go & Grow cannot be used through the investment-account regime (help).
Losses and defaults: where relief exists
An overdue amount or a platform write-off is not a deduction by itself. Each rule below sets the trigger, the basket and the cap for the loss.
| Country | Rule |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | P2P bad-debt relief covers qualifying loans made through a regulated UK platform at normal market terms. The relief needs no reasonable prospect of repayment and does not apply to late payment. Later recoveries count as new P2P income (HMRC manual, HMRC guidance) |
| France | Principal losses on qualifying crowdfunding loans from 2017 are deductible up to €8,000 a year against eligible interest. The deduction applies in the year the loss is irrecoverable and the five following years. The social-levy base is set without deducting that loss (BOFiP, version of 15 May 2023) |
| Germany | The special €20,000 limit for worthless capital claims was abolished by the 2024 annual tax act for all open cases. Remaining losses carry forward within their category with no carryback (Finanzamt NRW) |
| Estonia | Claim losses of licensed crowdfunding providers in an EEA state offset securities-type gains, retroactively from 2024, and cannot be deducted from interest income (EMTA) |
| Spain | A matured unpaid credit becomes a loss in the year a restructuring plan or insolvency composition with a write-down takes effect. It also becomes a loss when an insolvency proceeding ends without payment. A court proceeding to collect it (other than insolvency) starts without payment, and the loss arises one year later (Article 14.2(k), AEAT 2025 manual) |
| Austria | The BMF loss-offset rule covers disposal losses on capital assets, derivatives and crypto-assets against similarly taxed capital surpluses of the same year. The page does not address defaulted private loans (BMF) |
| Netherlands | A negative total actual return in the box 3 comparison is set to €0, with no offset against another year (Belastingdienst) |
| Ireland | No chargeable gain accrues on a disposal of a debt by the original creditor. A debt on a security such as loan stock is the exception (section 541 of the Taxes Consolidation Act, Revenue notes, December 2025) |
France's cap covers principal only, and fees and unpaid interest are excluded. Estonia's rule applies to claims of providers licensed in the EEA.
ISA wrapper, allowances and special regimes
HMRC sets a shared annual ISA subscription limit of £20,000 for 2026/27 and lists the Innovative Finance ISA among the available types (GOV.UK). Eligible P2P lending and crowdfunding debentures have to meet platform and manager conditions, so a European product cannot be assumed to qualify (HMRC).
Estonia treats qualifying crowdfunding assets as financial assets for its investment-account system retroactively from 1 January 2024. Conditions apply to the licensed provider and the account. Lithuania's €500 exemption and the Dutch €59,357 exempt wealth sit in the country table above. The Dutch figure is an exemption of wealth and does not make interest tax-free.
Foreign-account reporting and automatic exchange
France requires residents to declare bank, digital-asset and life-insurance accounts held abroad with the annual return on form 3916 or 3916-bis (impots.gouv.fr). Portugal handles income in table 8 of annex J and foreign deposit or securities accounts in table 11.
The Commission lists four reportable DAC7 activities: rental of immovable property, personal services, sale of goods and rental of any mode of transport. Loan interest is not on that list (European Commission). OECD's CRS defines an Investment Entity. Such an entity primarily conducts as a business investing, administering or managing financial assets or money on behalf of other persons (CRS, Section VIII.A.6). Mintos states that it reports eligible investors' year-end balances and gross income from financial instruments to Latvia's revenue service under CRS. Reporting happens in the first half of the following year. Latvian residents are an exception unless their tax residence is in another CRS country (Mintos help, updated 1 October 2024).
Crowdlending tax FAQ
Do I pay tax where the platform is based?
By residence, the country table above applies. A platform may withhold first. On Notes and Fractional Bonds, Mintos does so, and Debitum on the rates listed above. PeerBerry and Maclear state that they do not deduct tax.
Does platform withholding settle my tax?
Not by itself. Mintos presents its 5% as a withholding rate, separate from the investor's final tax. In Ireland, lenders report interest gross and receive credit for the tax withheld. Belgium treats qualifying Belgian withholding as final, which covers Belgian withholding only.
Is interest I reinvest on the platform taxable?
In Estonia, yes. EMTA counts reinvested interest as income received in the year the platform credits it.
Can I deduct a loan that went into default?
Only where the national rule is met. UK relief requires a qualifying regulated platform loan that cannot reasonably be repaid. France caps the deduction at €8,000 a year and leaves social levies unchanged. Estonia excludes deduction from interest income.
Can crowdlending go into an ISA?
In the UK, eligible P2P loans and crowdfunding debentures can sit in an Innovative Finance ISA within the shared £20,000 allowance for 2026/27. HMRC attaches conditions to the platform and the arrangement, so each product needs checking.