The Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI), an industry advocacy group, projects a target period of March to August 2026 for Congress to pass a de minimis tax break for Bitcoin, warning that time is running out to pass meaningful legislation.
BPI he said over the past three months, it has partnered with 19 congressional offices in the House and Senate to propose to US lawmakers that Bitcoin (BTC) transactions below a certain threshold be tax-free.
Expanding de minimis tax exemptions beyond dollar-pegged stablecoins has bipartisan support, but BPI warned that the “window is narrowing” for tax rules on Bitcoin. BPI stated:
“As summer approaches, Congress will become increasingly preoccupied with mid-term dynamics, and the scope of complex tax rules shrinks by the week. Senator Lummis, the issue’s most powerful champion, is leaving the Senate in January 2027.
If a package is not developed in the next few months, the opportunity may not return for years,” BPI continued.
Under current US tax laws, using BTC to pay for goods and services triggers a taxable event and a tax report to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), preventing Bitcoin from being used as a medium of exchange.
The de minimis exemption would allow small cryptocurrency transactions, typically below a set dollar threshold, to be excluded from capital gains reporting, allowing users to spend Bitcoin without calculating gains or losses on small purchases.
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Wyoming state senator Cynthia Lummis introduced a bill in July 2025 proposing a de minimis tax exemption for cryptocurrency transactions worth $300 or less, up to a maximum of $5,000 per year.
However, the bill failed to gain traction in the Senate, and a competing bill focusing entirely on tax breaks for stablecoins was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Max Miller and Steven Horsford in 2025.
According to Pierre Rochard, a board member of Strive, a BTC treasury company, Bitcoin payments are being held up due to the current treatment of digital assets under the US tax code.
“The biggest obstacle to the adoption of Bitcoin payments is tax policy, not scaling technology” – Rochard he said on X
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