How many people pay crypto tax in the UK?

17,600 individuals reported taxable cryptoasset gains for the 2024 to 2025 tax year, the first year HMRC has published a dedicated crypto breakdown. They declared £13.8 billion in disposal proceeds and £1.38 billion in gains.

What is the average crypto gain reported to HMRC?

£78,000 per reporting individual for 2024 to 2025. The average is pulled up hard by the top end: 240 people declared over £1 million each, £717 million between them, roughly half of all reported gains.

How many UK crypto millionaires are there?

240 people reported more than £1 million in cryptoasset capital gains on 2024 to 2025 returns, per HMRC's statistics published 27 August 2026. That counts declared gains in one tax year, not holdings, so the true number of paper millionaires is higher.

Why did so few people report crypto gains?

Some of the gap is legitimate: no disposals, gains under the £3,000 allowance, or losses. Some of it is not, which is why HMRC sent 81,172 warning letters in the 2025 to 2026 year and collected £168 million in extra CGT through compliance work.

Do I need to report crypto if my gains are small?

Gains under the £3,000 annual exempt amount carry no CGT, but you must still report if your total disposal proceeds cross the reporting threshold on a return you already file, or if HMRC has asked you to file. Swaps and spends count as disposals, not just cashing out.

Where does HMRC get its crypto data?

Exchange information notices, which have run for years, and since January 2026 the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework, which makes identity and transaction reporting by platforms systematic and annual. The statistics themselves come from the crypto section added to the Self Assessment return.

Is HMRC's crypto data reliable?

It measures what was declared, not what happened. The 2024 to 2025 figures are the first from the return's dedicated cryptoasset boxes, so they are the cleanest read yet of declared activity, and the baseline HMRC will compare CARF exchange files against from 2027.

What should I do if I have gains I never reported?

Compute your real position first, every year, because losses and earlier allowances often shrink the bill. Then use HMRC's cryptoasset disclosure route before a letter arrives. The look-back runs four, six or up to twenty years depending on the behaviour involved.

HMRC crypto tax statistics, 17,600 filers and a gap

On this page

The figures, from the release
17,600 against 81,172
Why these statistics exist now
Where you stand in the numbers

For the first time, HMRC has published standalone statistics on crypto capital gains, and the headline numbers are these: 17,600 individuals reported cryptoasset gains for the 2024 to 2025 tax year, £13.8 billion in disposal proceeds, £1.38 billion in gains, an average of £78,000 each. The release of 27 August 2026 leads with its most quotable line, 240 people who each declared over £1 million. We think the more interesting number is 17,600 itself, and what it sits next to.

The figures, from the release

Measure, 2024 to 2025 returns	Figure
Individuals reporting crypto gains	17,600
Total disposal proceeds	£13.8 billion
Total reported gains	£1.38 billion
Average gain per reporting individual	£78,000
People declaring over £1 million	240
Their combined gains	£717 million
Extra CGT from HMRC compliance activity, 2024 to 2025	£168 million

Two structural facts hide in that table. Half of all declared gains, 52 percent, belong to 240 people. And the £78,000 average is a statistical artefact of that top end, the typical filer sits far below it. The release also notes the reporting population is about 87 percent male.

17,600 against 81,172

Here is the comparison the release does not make. In the 2025 to 2026 year, HMRC sent 81,172 warning letters, emails and texts to people its data suggested held crypto with something to declare. The two figures measure different years and different things, filings for one tax year against nudges sent in the next, so they do not divide into a neat compliance rate. But the shape is unmistakable: the number of people HMRC suspects is several times the number who filed.

Some of that gap is innocent. Plenty of holders made no disposals, or realised gains under the £3,000 annual exempt amount, or sit on losses they have not bothered to claim, which is its own mistake since losses bank against future gains. But £168 million of extra CGT extracted through compliance activity in a single year says a meaningful slice of the gap is not innocent at all, and HMRC now publishes the fact with evident satisfaction.

The Exchequer Secretary, James Murray, put the government’s position in one sentence: “Taxes are due on cryptoasset gains just like any other gains.” The Permanent Secretary’s line about making obligations “as easy as possible” to meet arrives alongside a £300 per user penalty for platforms that fail to hand over customer data under the reporting framework. Carrot and stick, published on the same page.

Why these statistics exist now

The return grew dedicated cryptoasset boxes from the 2024 to 2025 year, which is what makes a clean count of crypto filers possible at all. And the timing is not decoration. Since January 2026, exchanges collect verified identity and transaction data for HMRC under the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework, with the first annual files due in May 2027. These statistics are the before picture. From 2027, HMRC can lay platform files alongside 17,600 self-declarations and read the difference name by name.

If your first reportable crypto year is 2025 to 2026, the registration deadline is 5 October 2026, less than a fortnight from this post, and registering for Self Assessment is the step people miss. The deadline countdown keeps the dates in one place.

Where you stand in the numbers

The only question the statistics cannot answer is the one that matters to you, whether your own position belongs in next year’s 17,600. That takes a computation, not a guess: every disposal, including swaps and spends, matched under the section 104, same-day and 30-day rules, against current rates of 18 and 24 percent above the £3,000 allowance.

gains.tax runs that computation entirely in your browser, every disposal citing the HMRC rule that decides it, free under 1,000 transactions. Nothing you import leaves your machine, which matters when the subject is a complete record of your financial life. You can know your number tonight, before HMRC’s data pipeline makes it a conversation.

That is general information, not tax advice. Large sums, old years or deliberate gaps deserve a professional, and our directory lists independent ones.