Australia has released draft legislation that would bring the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) into domestic law and set up automatic cross-border exchanges of crypto tax data, with the first international transfers expected to begin in 2028.

The Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2026: Tax information reporting is open for public comment until Oct. 28, according to the Australian Treasury. Beyond implementing CARF, the bill would also establish a standalone domestic crypto reporting regime for transactions inside Australia — a parallel compliance track that will affect how crypto service providers operating locally handle customer data.

What is CARF and why does it matter?

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development approved CARF in August 2022. Its stated purpose is to close the tax-evasion gap created by the growth of crypto assets, applying the same logic that the Common Reporting Standard applied to offshore bank accounts: financial intermediaries collect identifying and transaction data on their clients, and tax authorities pass that data to counterpart jurisdictions automatically.

Australia is one of 77 jurisdictions that have committed to adopting the framework. That commitment carries a hard operational consequence for crypto exchanges, brokers and custody providers serving Australian customers: once the regime is live, they'll be collecting and reporting user information to the Australian Taxation Office, which will then exchange it with tax authorities abroad.

What does the draft bill actually do?

According to the Treasury, the bill does two things at once:

• It implements CARF in Australian law, creating the legal basis for automatic international exchange of crypto tax information with the other committed jurisdictions.
• It introduces a domestic crypto reporting regime, extending reporting obligations to transactions that never cross a border.

The consultation window runs until Oct. 28. Feedback submitted in that period will shape the final text before the bill goes to Parliament.

A three-year runway to 2028

This draft didn't appear from nowhere. Australia first signaled its intention to implement CARF in November 2023, then consulted on its proposed approach in late 2024. The government formalized the plan in its 2025–26 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, committing to both CARF and the domestic regime, with international exchanges of crypto tax information expected to start in 2028.

That timeline gives industry roughly three years to build compliance infrastructure — but the consultation phase ending Oct. 28 is where the substantive design decisions get made. Reporting thresholds, due-diligence requirements and the definition of a reportable crypto-asset under Australian law are all settled in the legislative text, not in later guidance.

The bigger regulatory picture

The draft bill lands alongside a wider tightening of Australia's crypto rules. The government is separately seeking feedback on licensing rules for crypto platforms ahead of a 2027 rollout — meaning that by the time CARF's international exchanges begin in 2028, Australian crypto firms will likely already be operating under a formal platform regime with reporting obligations layered on top.

For global exchanges serving Australian users, the practical effect is straightforward: Australia joins the CARF network's data-sharing mesh, and transaction records that once stayed within a single platform's logs become visible to tax authorities across the 77 committed jurisdictions.

The comment period closes Oct. 28; the first cross-border data exchanges follow in 2028.