Kalshi Taxes 2026: Why There's No 1099-B and How to Track It Yourself

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This article is for educational and record-keeping purposes only. It is not tax, legal, or financial advice. Tax rules are complex and change frequently — always consult a qualified tax professional about your specific situation.

Introduction

If you traded on Kalshi during 2025 and you're now staring at your account waiting for a tidy brokerage tax form to arrive, you may be in for a surprise. Kalshi does not report your activity the way a traditional stock broker does. There is generally no 1099-B with cost-basis details waiting in your inbox, and that catches a lot of traders off guard at tax time.

That doesn't mean your trades are invisible to the IRS, and it doesn't mean you have nothing to report. It means the burden of keeping a complete, accurate record falls on you. This guide explains why Kalshi reports differently, what forms you might (or might not) receive, and exactly what to log so that tax season is a non-event instead of a scramble.

Why Kalshi Doesn't Send a 1099-B

A 1099-B is the form a conventional securities broker (think a stock or options brokerage) issues to report proceeds from sales, along with your cost basis and resulting gain or loss. Kalshi operates as a federally regulated event contract exchange (a designated contract market under the CFTC), not as an equities broker. Event contracts are a different animal than shares of stock, and the reporting framework that applies to them is not the same one that produces a 1099-B for your brokerage account.

In practice, this leads to a few realities traders should plan around:

• No automatic cost-basis reporting. Nobody is calculating your gain or loss per contract and handing it to you on a form.
• You may receive a different form, or none at all. Depending on your activity and the rules in effect for the year, you might receive a different information return — or you might receive nothing and still be responsible for reporting income.
• The absence of a form is not the absence of a tax obligation. Income is reportable whether or not a third party documents it for you.

Because the form situation is genuinely murky and can change year to year, this is exactly the kind of question to bring to a tax professional. Your job as a trader is to walk into that conversation with complete records.

What "Complete Records" Actually Means

When you don't get a clean 1099-B, the safest position is to be able to reconstruct every contract you traded. That means keeping a running ledger you control — independent of whatever the platform does or doesn't send you.

Here's what to capture for each position:

Field	Why it matters
Date opened	Establishes the holding period and the tax year
Date closed / settled	Determines when the gain or loss is realized
Market / event	Identifies the contract (e.g., "Fed rate decision — March")
Side (Yes/No)	Clarifies your position direction
Number of contracts	Needed to compute totals
Entry price	Your cost per contract
Exit or settlement price	What you received (or $0 / $1 at settlement)
Fees	Trading and settlement fees affect net result
Net result	Your realized gain or loss on the position

If you can produce a spreadsheet or ledger with these columns for the year, you've done the hard part — and you've given your accountant everything they need to determine the correct treatment.

A Concrete Example

Say you bought 100 "Yes" contracts on a market at $0.42 each, paying $42.00 plus a small fee. The event resolves "Yes," so each contract settles at $1.00, returning $100.00. Your net result is roughly $58.00 before fees, a little less after.

Multiply that by dozens or hundreds of markets across a year — some winners, some losers, many partially closed before settlement — and you can see why a manual record kept as you go is far more reliable than trying to reverse-engineer the whole year in April.

Why Manual Record-Keeping Beats Waiting for a Form

There are three practical reasons to keep your own ledger rather than relying on whatever Kalshi provides:

1. You control the data. A ledger you maintain doesn't disappear, change format, or get delayed.
2. It captures fees and partial exits. Real trading is messy — you close some contracts early, let others ride to settlement. Your own record reflects that nuance.
3. It's reconcilable. When a form does arrive, you can check it against your own numbers instead of trusting it blindly.

A simple manual tracker is ideal here. With a tool like Manage Bankroll, you record each contract by hand — date, market, contracts, entry, exit, fees, settlement — and the running profit-and-loss total is calculated for you. Nothing is synced or imported; you type in your own numbers and stay in full control of every entry, editing or deleting anytime. That manual, you-own-it approach is exactly what you want for tax record-keeping.

A Simple Monthly Routine

You don't need to log every contract in real time, but waiting a full year is asking for trouble. A light monthly habit works well:

• Once a month, open your account, review the markets you traded, and enter each closed or settled position into your ledger.
• Reconcile the running total against your account balance changes and deposits/withdrawals.
• Flag anything unclear (an ambiguous settlement, an odd fee) with a note so you can ask your accountant later.

Twelve short sessions across the year beat one panicked all-nighter in April.

Tools to Help

• Gambling & event-contract tax calculator — an educational tool to help you understand how winnings and losses might factor into your tax picture (again: confirm everything with a professional).
• Prediction market tracker — a manual ledger for recording your Kalshi and Polymarket positions, deposits, withdrawals, and P&L throughout the year.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Kalshi send a 1099-B?

Generally no. Kalshi does not issue a traditional brokerage 1099-B with per-contract cost basis. You may receive a different information return or none at all, which is why keeping your own records is essential. Confirm your specific situation with a tax professional.

If I didn't get a tax form, do I still owe tax on my Kalshi profits?

Receiving no form does not eliminate a tax obligation. Income is generally reportable whether or not a third party documents it. Talk to a qualified preparer about how your activity should be reported.

How should I track Kalshi trades for taxes?

Keep a manual ledger capturing date opened, date settled, market, side, number of contracts, entry price, exit/settlement price, fees, and net result for every position. A prediction market tracker makes this straightforward.

How are prediction-market contracts taxed?

The treatment of event contracts can be nuanced and may differ from stocks or traditional gambling. This is genuinely a professional-advice question — bring your complete records to a tax advisor.

The Bottom Line

The missing 1099-B isn't a loophole — it's a responsibility shift. Because Kalshi doesn't hand you a cost-basis form, you are the system of record. Build a simple manual ledger, update it monthly, and you'll turn the most stressful part of trading into a five-minute formality. For the actual filing, let a tax professional do what they do best — armed with the clean records you kept all year.

For tracking across both major platforms, see our guide on tracking prediction-market P&L for tax season.