Kalshi Tax Guide: 1099 Forms and Trade Records (2026)

If you are making money on Kalshi, you need a plan for taxes. The honest 2026 picture: Kalshi issues a specific and fairly narrow set of 1099s, none of which is described as reporting your event-contract trading profit; income is reportable whether or not a form arrives; and how event contracts are characterized is still an open question. This guide tells you what is documented, what is not, and where to stop and call a professional.

What tax forms does Kalshi provide?

Kalshi's help center lists four information returns, issued to users who meet IRS-defined reporting thresholds:

Read that list carefully, because the omission matters more than the entries. None of the four is described as a form that reports your event-contract trading profit. The 1099-B on that list is scoped to broker transactions such as crypto transfers, not to your YES/NO positions closing or settling.

Kalshi also states that if no 1099 forms appear in your account, it is likely because you did not meet the IRS thresholds required for issuance. It does not publish the dollar thresholds on that page, and we are not going to guess them — that is a question for your preparer, per form.

Where your Kalshi tax documents live

Per the same help-center article, tax documentation sits in the Account tab, under the Tax Info page, alongside a downloadable Profit and Loss statement by year. Three details from that page are worth writing down:

• FIFO. Kalshi says it uses the First-In-First-Out accounting method to compute profits and losses.
• Monthly refresh. Trading activity is segmented by year and updated monthly, on the first morning of each month — so a mid-month P&L review may not reflect the latest data.
• Fees are already in the P&L figure. Kalshi describes the Profit and Loss number as including fees and any rebates. If you are also reconstructing fees yourself from a trade log, know which number you are looking at so you do not subtract them twice. Our Kalshi fees guide covers how the trading fee is computed in the first place.

No form arrived. Do you still owe tax?

Probably — and the absence of a form is not the test. IRS Topic no. 419 is explicit for gambling income: you must report all gambling winnings, including winnings that are not reported on a Form W-2G. The capital-gains framework in Topic no. 409 works the same way; a gain is a gain whether or not a broker files an information return about it.

So the question a Kalshi trader should bring to a CPA is not "did I get a 1099?" It is "given that I had this much realized profit and no information return, on which schedule does it go?"

How Kalshi winnings are taxed: what is settled, what is not

This is where most articles overreach. Here is the actual state of play.

Section 1256 and the 60/40 rule. IRS Publication 550 describes the mark-to-market rule and the 60/40 split for section 1256 contracts, and lists what qualifies: regulated futures contracts, foreign currency contracts, nonequity options, dealer equity options and dealer securities futures contracts. Gains and losses on those are reported on Form 6781. CFTC-regulated event contracts are not named in that list. Some practitioners argue they should qualify; that is an argument, not published IRS guidance, and we found none that resolves it. Do not apply a 60/40 split to Kalshi positions because a forum post told you to.

The gambling frame. Topic no. 419 covers gambling winnings and losses: all winnings reportable, losses deductible only if you itemize on Schedule A, capped at the winnings you reported, and only with records to back them.

The capital-gains frame. Topic no. 409 covers ordinary capital treatment: more than one year held is long-term, one year or less is short-term, a net capital loss is deductible against ordinary income up to $3,000 ($1,500 if married filing separately), and the excess carries forward.

Three plausible regimes, materially different outcomes, and no source we could find that settles which one applies to a Kalshi event contract for your facts. That is not a hedge — it is the finding. Take it to a CPA with your actual numbers.

How to pay taxes on Kalshi, step by step

1. Pull the primary documents. From the Tax Info page: any 1099s Kalshi issued, plus the Profit and Loss statement for each year you traded. Remember the monthly refresh — pull after the first of the month.
2. Pull your own trade record. Your export or bot log, at the individual-trade level. The summarizer below will total it for you without sending it anywhere.
3. Reconcile the two. If your net differs from Kalshi's P&L figure, find out why before filing. Fee double-counting and FIFO lot matching are the usual culprits.
4. Hand both to a tax professional and ask, specifically: which regime applies to these contracts, which schedule and form, and how to treat losses.
5. Ask about estimated payments. Nothing is withheld from trading profit. The IRS says individuals generally must pay estimated tax if they expect to owe $1,000 or more when the return is filed. If that is you, find out before the year ends, not in April.
6. Ask about your state. State treatment of prediction-market gains is not uniform and is not covered by anything above.

Summarize your Kalshi export (in your browser)

Paste or drop your Kalshi CSV export below and this page will total it for you: gross proceeds, cost, fees, net, broken out by month and by market. It is a summary of your export to hand to a tax professional, not a tax computation — it applies no tax rule, picks no regime, and calculates no liability.

Nothing leaves your browser. The file is read locally by JavaScript on this page. There is no upload, no network request, and no storage — reload the page and it is gone. You can confirm that in your browser's network tab.

Kalshi does not publish the column layout of its export, and the format has changed over time, so this tool guesses the columns from your header row and then lets you correct every mapping before it totals anything.

Records to keep

Whatever the eventual characterization, the record you need is the same:

• Every trade: entry date, exit or settlement date, ticker, price, quantity, fees, outcome
• Total deposits and withdrawals
• Net gain or loss by tax year
• Every 1099 and Profit and Loss statement Kalshi issued you

If you are running bots, your trading activity log is your tax record. Export it regularly rather than reconstructing it in April. And when you compare the approaches in our Kalshi trading strategies guide, judge them on after-tax results — the same gross edge can net out very differently.

Deductions to ask about

Whether any of these are deductible depends on whether your activity rises to a trade or business and on the regime that applies — both professional questions. Worth raising:

• Data subscriptions and research costs
• Software and hosting for trading bots
• Bot for Kalshi subscription fees
• Home office, if applicable

Common mistakes

1. Treating "no 1099" as "no tax". The form is a reporting mechanism, not the test for whether income is reportable.
2. Assuming a classification. Applying the 60/40 split, or the gambling rules, because someone online said so. Neither is settled for event contracts.
3. Double-counting fees. Kalshi's P&L figure already includes fees and rebates; a hand-built log may subtract them again.
4. Pulling the P&L mid-month. Kalshi updates trading activity on the first morning of each month.
5. Reconstructing records in April. Five hundred contracts a year is not a weekend project.
6. Ignoring state treatment. It varies and it is not covered by the federal sources above.