Tax-Loss Harvesting in Europe: Year-End Guide by Country

Tax-loss harvesting means selling an investment that is below its purchase price before 31 December, so the realised loss reduces the tax on gains you made this year. In most of Europe it works. In the Netherlands it does nothing at all. And in Spain and Italy, two rules can turn a well-meant sale into a loss you can never use.

This guide covers the seven countries where most Degiro users live, what each one allows, and the order to do things in before the year closes.

Short version: You can only harvest a loss you have realised, and only against gains of the same type. Check that type first. Then check the repurchase rule in your country. Then sell.

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Why This Year-End Is Different

On 12 November 2026 the STOXX 600 closed at a record high. For a broad index investor, that means few red positions. But portfolios are rarely only broad index funds. A single AI name bought near the top, a small-cap that never recovered, a bond ETF bought before rates moved: many accounts hold two or three positions that sit well below cost while the total looks fine.

Those positions are where tax-loss harvesting lives. The total return of your portfolio does not matter here. Only the result per position, in euros, after currency, matters. A US stock that is up 4% in dollars can be down in euros, and the euro figure is the one your tax office uses.

If you track your Degiro account in a spreadsheet, this is the moment it usually breaks. FX at purchase date, partial sales and stock splits all change the cost basis. A tracker like Zune.Money shows the unrealised result per holding in your base currency, which is the list you need before you sell anything.

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What Is Tax-Loss Harvesting?

Tax-loss harvesting is the practice of selling an investment at a loss to offset taxable capital gains realised in the same tax year. You keep your market exposure by buying a similar, but not identical, investment with the proceeds. The loss is real for tax purposes. Your portfolio barely changes.

A simple example. You sold shares of one company in March with a €4,000 gain. Another stock you hold is €1,500 below its purchase price. If you sell that stock before 31 December, your net taxable gain for the year drops to €2,500. At Germany's 26.375% rate, that is about €396 less tax.

The money is not free. You lower your cost basis on whatever you buy next, so a part of the tax comes back when you sell that later. What you gain is time, and in some countries a lower rate in a future year.

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Tax-Loss Harvesting Rules by Country

The table is a starting point. Each country has details below it.

Germany: Two Loss Pots and No Wash-Sale Rule

Germany taxes capital income at 25% plus solidarity surcharge (26.375%), or about 28% with church tax. The first €1,000 per person is tax-free through the Sparerpauschbetrag.

The trap is the split between stocks and everything else. Losses on individual shares can only offset gains on individual shares. A loss on Nvidia does not reduce the tax on a gain from an MSCI World ETF. Losses on ETFs, bonds and funds go into the general pot and can offset almost anything.

At a German bank, the bank runs those pots for you. If you hold losses at bank A and gains at bank B, you must request a Verlustbescheinigung from bank A by 15 December to combine them. Degiro does not withhold German tax, so Degiro users declare everything in Anlage KAP and the Finanzamt does the netting. The 15 December deadline then matters only for your German bank accounts.

Germany has no wash-sale rule. The Federal Fiscal Court (BFH IX R 60/07) found that selling and buying back the same securities on the same day is generally not abuse. Note that Germany sells your oldest lots first (FIFO), so a partial sale after averaging down uses the oldest purchase price. For equity ETFs, remember that the 30% Teilfreistellung also cuts the usable loss: a €1,000 loss counts as €700.

France: Ten Years to Use a Loss

French residents pay the 31.4% prélèvement forfaitaire unique on gains from a compte-titres in 2026 (12.8% income tax plus 18.6% social charges), unless they opt for the progressive scale. Net losses offset gains of the same kind in the same year and carry forward for ten years. They never offset dividends.

You report it on form 2074, and form 2074-CMV tracks the losses you carry forward. Degiro sends no IFU, so Degiro users file the 2074 themselves. France also uses the weighted average price of all your lots, so you cannot choose to sell the most expensive one.

Two warnings. First, losses inside a PEA stay inside the PEA. Selling a red position there does nothing for your compte-titres. Second, France has no written wash-sale rule, but a sale and same-day repurchase with no reason other than tax can be challenged as abuse of law. Waiting a few days, or switching to a different ETF on the same index, is the safer path.

Spain: The Two-Month Rule

Spain taxes savings income at 19% to 30% depending on the amount. Net capital losses can offset other gains without limit, and up to 25% of the positive balance of your dividends and interest in the same year. What is left carries forward four years.

The rule that catches people is the regla de los dos meses. If you sell a security admitted to a regulated market at a loss and buy homogeneous securities within two months before or after the sale, you cannot claim the loss until you sell those new shares. The CNMV tax guide for 2026 sets the window at two months for listed securities and one year for unlisted ones.

The two-month window runs backwards too. If you bought more of the same ETF in November to average down, selling the older lot at a loss in December triggers the rule. And you cannot pick the lot: Spain applies FIFO, so the oldest shares are sold first. Offsetting is also mandatory up to the yearly limit, so you cannot save a loss for a better year.

Italy: The ETF Trap

Italy taxes gains at 26%. Losses (minusvalenze) are "redditi diversi" and carry forward four years. Here is the catch: gains on UCITS ETFs are "redditi di capitale", so they can never absorb a loss. A loss on an ETF can offset a gain on individual stocks, bonds or certificates. A gain on an ETF is always taxed in full.

For harvesting, that flips the usual logic. The useful move in Italy is to realise stock gains in the same years you hold unused losses, not to sell more ETFs.

Degiro does not act as a sostituto d'imposta in Italy, so Degiro users are in regime dichiarativo. Stock gains and all losses go in quadro RT of the Modello Redditi, while ETF gains go in quadro RM. Italy has no written wash-sale rule, but a same-day sale and repurchase done only for the loss can be challenged as abuse of law. The tax date is settlement, and Borsa Italiana is closed on 24 and 31 December, so Italian residents should sell by about 23 December.

Portugal: Losses Only Count If You Englobar

Portugal taxes the net gain on shares and ETFs at a flat 28%, unless you opt to add it to your other income (englobamento). The carry-forward rule depends on that choice. A net loss carries forward five years only if you opt for, or are required to use, englobamento in the year of the loss (CIRS art. 55). Many investors skip englobamento because their marginal rate is above 28% and lose the carry-forward without knowing it. Opting in also pulls all your capital gains of that year into the progressive scale.

Holding time matters too. Since mid-2024, 10% of the result is excluded after two years, 20% after five and 30% after eight, and that cut applies to losses as well. A €1,000 loss on a position held six years counts as €800. Portugal also sells your oldest units first, per broker.

With Degiro, foreign-held securities go in Anexo J of the IRS return.

Netherlands: Harvesting Does Nothing

Box 3 taxes a deemed return on your wealth on 1 January. Whether you sold at a loss in December changes nothing about that number. If you use the counter-evidence route (tegenbewijs) to show a lower actual return, that return already includes unrealised price changes, so selling still makes no difference.

The Box 3 reform would tax shares, bonds and funds only on sale and introduce a loss carry-forward. It is not law yet. An amendment the Tweede Kamer adopted on 12 November 2026 moves the start to 1 January 2029. The Eerste Kamer still has to vote. For holdings you already own, the starting value would be their value on the start date, so a paper loss from before then would not count. Until the law changes, a Dutch investor has no tax reason to sell a losing position in December.

Belgium: A New Tax With No Carry-Forward

Since 1 January 2026, Belgium taxes realised gains on financial assets at 10%. The first €10,000 a year is exempt, and part of an unused exemption carries over to later years. Gains are measured from the value on 31 December 2025, so older gains stay untaxed.

Losses work differently from the rest of this list. A loss only offsets gains in the same year and the same asset category, with no carry-forward. That makes December the only month that matters: a loss you do not use against this year's gains is gone. Degiro does not withhold the tax, so Belgian users declare it themselves. See the FOD Financiën page on the capital gains tax for the official rules.

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How to Harvest Losses Before 31 December

Follow this order. Skipping step two is how most mistakes happen.

1. List every position below cost, in euros. Use the result after currency conversion, not the price change in the stock's own currency.
2. Check the type of each loss. Single stock, equity ETF, bond fund or other. In Germany and Italy, the type decides what the loss can offset.
3. Add up the gains you already realised this year, by the same types. A loss with no matching gain only carries forward.
4. Check your repurchase window. In Spain, look back two months for purchases of the same security as well as forward.
5. Sell with a margin before the last trading day. Trades settle two business days later (T+2 in most EU markets), and the date that counts for tax can differ by country. Do not leave it to 31 December.
6. Reinvest in a similar, not identical, position if you want to stay invested. Another ETF on a different index provider, for example.
7. Save the trade confirmations. The annual Degiro report shows realised results, but you file the numbers.

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When Not to Harvest

Harvesting is not always worth it.

• Your gains are already under the tax-free amount. In Germany, the first €1,000 of all capital income, dividends and interest included, is tax-free. If your total stays under it anyway, harvesting only uses up a loss you could carry forward.
• The trading costs are bigger than the saving. On a €300 loss, two Degiro trades and a bid-ask spread can eat most of a €80 tax saving.
• You are in a tax-advantaged account. Losses inside a PEA, a PIR or a Portuguese PPR follow the account's own rules. See our guide to tax-free investment accounts in Europe.
• You would sell a position you still believe in and not buy it back. A tax saving of a few hundred euros does not justify a change to your plan.

Harvesting also interacts with other year-end moves. If you plan to rebalance your portfolio anyway, do it in December and sell the losing lots first. And if foreign dividends are part of your return, the withholding tax guide covers the separate rules for those.

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The Records You Need

Every country in this guide puts the burden of proof on you. If the tax office asks how you got to a €1,500 loss, "Degiro said so" is not an answer. You need the purchase date, price, quantity, fees and the exchange rate on both dates, for every lot you sold.

That is the strongest reason to keep a real record of your transactions instead of a running total. If you want that record without retyping it, import your Degiro CSV into Zune.Money. It takes a few minutes, it is free, and you get the per-position result in euros that this whole exercise starts from.

This guide describes general rules for 2026 and is not tax advice. Rules change and personal situations differ. Check with a tax advisor in your country before you sell.