Can you offset an entire salary income with trading loss?

 Author: DamienATO(Community Support)Community Support

5 Sept 2025

Hi @DoodlebotAsks,

Whether you can claim your trading loss against your salary depends on whether your trading is classed as a business or is simply investing. This depends on factors like how often you trade, the size of trades, and whether you operate it like a business.

If it’s considered a business and you meet one of the four non-commercial loss tests (like the income test), you might be able to offset the loss against your salary. This would reduce your taxable income.

But if it’s investing, the rules are different:

• losses from shares or crypto can only offset capital gains (not salary)
• unused capital losses can be carried forward to future years.

For your specific situation, we recommend speaking with our tailored technical team or applying for a private ruling.

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