Trump administration supports de mininis tax exemption for crypto, will continue to 'explore legislative solutions'

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration still supports de minimis tax exemptions for cryptocurrency transactions in future legislation.

"The president did signal his support for de minimis exemption for crypto and the administration continues to be in support of that," Leavitt said Thursday during a media briefing. "We are definitely receptive to it to make crypto payments easier and more efficient for those who seek to use crypto as simple as buying a cup of coffee — of course, right now, that cannot happen, but with the de minimis exemption perhaps it could in the future, and we will continue to explore legislative solutions to accomplish that."

Leavitt also stated that the Trump administration is planning a signing party for the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act, which is expected to pass through Congress, and aims to make America "the crypto capital of the world."

Lawmakers have made numerous prior attempts to pass de minimis tax exemptions for minor crypto transactions as a way to remove barriers preventing individuals from using crypto for small, personal payments.

Current U.S. Internal Revenue Service rules state that individuals must report cryptocurrency transactions regardless of whether they result in a capital gain or loss. A de minimis tax exemption for crypto would ignore small, day-to-day crypto spending as a taxable event.

In 2020, two democratic lawmakers introduced a bill called the Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act of 2020 that would exempt cryptocurrency transactions from tax obligations if the gain was less than $200. A similar bill was introduced in 2022, but they both failed to reach a floor vote.

Five years later, pro-crypto Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-WY, sought to include a de minimis crypto tax exemption for gains below $300 in the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," a broad legislative package impacting tariffs, taxation, border defense, social programs, and other sectors. However, the amendment did not see enough votes to make it into the bill's final version, which President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, The Block previously reported.