Flipping Guides

How to Avoid Common Flipping Taxes and Transfer Losses

Every flip you make in Hypixel Skyblock comes with costs beyond just the purchase price. Understanding and minimizing these taxes and fees is essential to maintaining healthy profit margins.

Understanding Hypixel Taxes

Bazaar Tax (1.25%)

Every item sold on the Bazaar is subject to a 1.25% tax on the sell price. This is automatically deducted when you collect your coins from a sell order. This can be reduced to 1.125% by claiming a free cummunity upgrade and further via a paid cumminity upgrade option with the NPC Elisabeth.

Example: If you sell an item for 1,000,000 coins, you'll receive 987,500 coins (1.25% = 12,500 coins in tax).

Auction House Tax (Variable)

The Auction House has a more complex tax structure that depends on the sell price, for BIN auctions its:

  • Items selling for under 10M coins: 1%
  • Items selling for 10M - 100M coins: 2%
  • Items selling for over 100M coins: 2.5%

During Derpy Mayor events, Auction House claiming taxes increase. This affects the claim portion of AH fees (typically on higher-value items), so be sure to account for the higher claiming cost when estimating net profit on items above 1M in price.

Use the /cofl ahtax <sellAmount> command to calculate the exact tax for any sell amount (BIN auctions). The command automatically accounts for Derpy's extra costs (it assumes that auctions are claimed within derpy). See the full command reference.

How to Minimize Tax Impact

1. Always Calculate Net Profit

Never look at the gross margin alone. Always factor in taxes before deciding if a flip is profitable.

Formula for Bazaar:
Net Profit = (Sell Price × 0.9875) - Buy Price

Formula for Auction House (simplified for over 10M):
Net Profit = (Sell Price × 0.97) - Buy Price

Our Bazaar Flips and AH Flipper tools automatically calculate net profit after taxes, so you always see accurate profit estimates.

2. Use Buy/Sell Orders Instead of Instant Transactions

While using buy and sell orders doesn't reduce taxes, it dramatically improves your margins by getting better prices. The improved margins more than compensate for the tax:

  • Don't instant buy: Place a buy order slightly above the current top buy order.
  • Don't instant sell: Place a sell offer slightly below the current top sell offer.

This strategy alone can improve your margins by 5-15%, which far exceeds the 1.25% Bazaar tax.

3. Be patient

Allow time for your buy and sell orders to fill rather than rushing to instant trades. The longer you wait, the better prices you can often achieve, further offsetting tax costs.

  • Prices often swing intra day so you may want to place both buy and sell orders at repeating peaks
  • Each time you log on you just collect the coins from sold items and items from filled buy orders and set up new orders

Noteable Risks

1. Cancelled Orders

If you cancel a Bazaar buy or sell order before it fills, you get your coins/items back with no penalty. However, you lose time and opportunity cost. To minimize cancelled orders:

  • Don't place orders too far from the current price—they may never fill.
  • Check volume estimates on our Bazaar page to ensure the item has enough daily trades.
  • Use the SkyCofl Mod's automatic tracking to see average fill times for your orders.

2. Price Crashes During Holds

The biggest transfer loss comes from buying an item and then having its price crash before you can sell it. To minimize this risk:

  • Flip high-volume, stable items rather than volatile ones.
  • Check our Top Movers page or use /cofl bzmove to see recent price trends.
  • Set price alerts using /cofl reminder for items you're currently holding.
  • Don't hold items overnight unless you're confident in their stability (eg not related to planed skyblock updates).

3. Coin Transfers and Trading

Direct player-to-player trades and coin transfers have no tax, but they carry significant risk of scams. Only trade directly with players you trust completely, and always double check prices to verify items before accepting. See our scam prevention guide for more details.

Track Everything Automatically

The SkyCofl Mod automatically tracks all your flips and calculates the exact profit after taxes. Use /cofl flips to review your flip history and see which items are actually profitable after all fees. The mod also tracks any losses from price crashes or auction relisting fees, giving you a complete financial picture.

Learn more in our profit tracking guide and mod commands reference.

Advanced: Profit calculation examples

Bazaar flip (high volume, low margin)

  • Buy 64 × Sugar Cane @ 1,000 coins = 64,000 coins spent
  • Sell 64 × Sugar Cane @ 1,100 coins = 70,400 coins gross
  • Bazaar tax (1.25%): 70,400 × 0.0125 = 880 coins
  • Net profit: 70,400 − 880 − 64,000 = 5,520 coins (8.6% net margin)
  • Coins/flip: 5,520 (fast, maybe 20 min)

Auction House flip (unique item, high margin)

  • Buy rare pet @ 50M coins (mid-tier)
  • Sell rare pet @ 65M coins
  • AH tax (2.5% for >10M): 65M × 0.025 = 1.625M coins
  • Net profit: 65M − 1.625M − 50M = 13.375M (26.75% net margin)
  • But holds 2–5 days (lower coins/hour)

Example: Smart order placement (beats fees)

  • Place buy order @ 990 coins (1% below instant-buy wall)
  • Wait 10–20 min for fill
  • Place sell offer @ 1,120 coins (2% above instant-sell wall)
  • Wait 15–30 min for fill
  • Gross margin: 13% = 130 coins per unit
  • Tax (1.25%): −14.4 coins per unit
  • Net: 115.6 coins per unit = 11.7% net margin
  • Improvement: +34% more profit than instant trades!

Common flipping tax mistakes

❌ Mistake 1: Ignoring the 1.25% Bazaar fee

Wrong thinking: "5% margin = 50k profit on 1M sale"
Correct thinking: "5% margin − 1.25% tax = 3.75% net = 37.5k profit on 1M sale"
Impact: Flipping "breakeven" items (2% margin) actually loses money after fees!

❌ Mistake 2: Instant-buying + instant-selling (giving away 10%+ of margin)

Using instant trades is convenient but expensive. You're paying the market's bid-ask spread on entry and exit.
Fix: Slow down. Place orders. Wait 10–30 min for fills. Capture the spread instead of losing it.

❌ Mistake 4: Holding during price crashes

You bought sugar cane @ 1,000 with plan to sell @ 1,100. Then a new farming event makes sugar cane crash to 900.
Loss: −100 coins per unit + 1.25% tax on whatever you finally sell it for = −11.25 coins/unit minimum = −13.75 coins/unit total impact.
Prevention: Avoid holding during unknown events. Use Top Movers to spot early crashes.

Tax optimization checklist

Before every flip, ask:

  • ☐ Have I calculated net profit after taxes? (Use our tools—they auto-calculate)
  • ☐ Is my net margin above 2% (Bazaar) or 3% (AH)? If not, skip.
  • ☐ Can I use buy/sell orders instead of instant? (Usually +5–10% profit)
  • ☐ Is Derpy mayor active? (If yes you can still buy and resell the flip but you may want to wait for claiming)
  • ☐ Have I checked Top Movers? (Avoid items with >5% volatility in 24h)
  • ☐ Will this item hold its value overnight? (If not, finish flip before log off)

FAQ: Taxes and losses

Is the 1.25% Bazaar tax unavoidable?

Almost. You can reduce from 1.25% to 1.125% by claiming orders manually via Mod, but it's marginal (0.125%). The primary way to "beat" taxes is through better order placement, which increases margins by 3–10%.

When should I use Auction House despite higher taxes?

When the margin opportunity exceeds the tax penalty. Also most expensive items are only sellable on the AH.
Example: 50% AH margin (tax 2.5%) = 47.5% net >> 5% Bazaar margin (tax 1.25%) = 3.75% net
Rule: AH wins when margin > 2× Bazaar available margin. At 5M+ capital, this flips.

What's the biggest source of loss: taxes or price crashes?

Price crashes. Taxes are 1–2.5%. Crashes can be 20–50%. Avoid volatility >> optimize taxes.

If I cancel an order, do I lose money?

No direct fee, but if you relist an item on the auction house you will have to pay the listing fee again. On the bazaar you have a maximum amount of coin value that you can create orders for per day, so replacing orders will be impossible if you do it a lot. Only cancel if item is tanking or order won't fill in reasonable time (>1h).

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