HMRC’s First Crypto Tax Data: 1.4% Reported Half The Gains

HM Revenue & Customs has published a crypto-specific distribution of Capital Gains Tax data for the first time. Table 10 of its annual statistics records 17,600 individuals, £13.799 billion of cryptoasset disposal proceeds and £1.377 billion of gains for the 2024–25 tax year. Those are the underlying rounded values; HMRC presents them in its commentary as £13.8 billion and £1.38 billion.

The release is possible because the SA108 Capital Gains summary introduced a dedicated cryptoasset section for 2024–25. Before then, taxpayers combined crypto disposals with other property, assets and gains. The new boxes separately record the number of disposals, proceeds, allowable costs, gains and losses, giving HMRC a structured crypto dataset that it did not previously publish.

That reporting change is essential context. The figures do not show that crypto gains suddenly appeared in 2024–25, and there is no earlier crypto-only table against which to measure growth. This is a first baseline created by a clearer classification. A year-on-year percentage would compare unlike records and suggest a trend the official series cannot yet support.

The table also describes disposals, not ownership. HMRC guidance treats selling, exchanging one cryptoasset for another, spending cryptoassets and most gifts as potential disposal events. Consequently, £13.799 billion is not the value of the included people's portfolios, new money entering exchanges or UK trading volume. It is the aggregate disposal-proceeds field reported within this defined tax population.

The most striking split sits at the top. HMRC's £1 million-or-more band contains 240 people, £7.580 billion of proceeds and £717 million of gains. Calculated from the rounded table, those people represent about 1.36% of the 17,600 included individuals but account for 52.1% of the recorded gains and 54.9% of proceeds. Their average gain was approximately £2.99 million.

At the other end, the two bands below £25,000 contain 11,460 people—about 65.1% of the total. Together they reported £94 million of gains, approximately 6.8% of Table 10's total, and their average was about £8,200. The top band reported more than seven times their combined gains despite containing nearly 48 times fewer people.

This is why HMRC's publicised average of about £78,000 needs care. It is the arithmetic mean of £1.377 billion divided across 17,600 included individuals. HMRC does not publish a median, and the top band pulls that mean upwards. Outside the £1 million-plus group, the remaining reported gains average roughly £38,000, making the top group's mean about 79 times larger.

HMRC's demographic breakdown is also concentrated but cannot explain why. Men account for about 87% of included taxpayers and 93% of gains. People aged 25 to 44 account for roughly 54% of individuals and 71% of proceeds, but 45% of gains. These are descriptive return statistics; they do not establish differences in trading frequency, skill, wealth or investment performance.

Table 10 is not a census of Britain's crypto owners. HMRC includes individuals who had an overall CGT liability and whose crypto gains exceeded their crypto losses under the table's definition. People with net crypto losses are absent. Trusts are excluded from Table 10, while companies are not part of this individual CGT return population.

The gain measure has another important boundary. HMRC calculates it from crypto gains in SA108 box 13.4 minus crypto losses in box 13.5, before deducting losses from other kinds of asset and before applying the Annual Exempt Amount. The quality report says a small number of included people may therefore have no liability on the crypto gains themselves after the wider return is resolved.

That is also why £1.377 billion cannot be described as a crypto tax bill. HMRC does not publish a crypto-specific liability in Table 10 because liabilities charged at the main CGT rates are not separated by asset. The figures support analysis of reported gains, not an estimate of tax paid, tax avoided or revenue attributable to particular tokens.

Nor do the labels establish wealth. HMRC's press release calls the highest band crypto millionaires, but the evidence is narrower: 240 people reported gains in a £1 million-or-more band during one tax year. The data contains no balance-sheet view of their debts, other assets, remaining crypto holdings or gains and losses outside the period. Million-pound-gain filers is the more accurate description.

Finally, these figures remain provisional. HMRC included late and amended Self Assessment returns received through May 2026 and says recent provisional taxpayer and gain totals are typically revised by around 2%, although unusual processing problems can produce larger changes. Published counts and amounts are rounded, so derived percentages should be read as approximate rather than precision measurements.

The dedicated SA108 section improves what taxpayers declare. The Cryptoasset Reporting Framework adds a separate source of information. From 1 January 2026, UK reporting cryptoasset service providers became responsible for collecting identifying details and in-scope transaction data. Their first reports must be submitted between 1 January and 31 May 2027 and will cover the 2026 calendar year—not the UK tax year.

HMRC says providers collect information about individual and entity users and cryptoasset transactions, including transaction value, asset type, transaction type and units. Reports cover relevant users resident in the UK or another participating CARF jurisdiction. Information about UK residents may also reach HMRC from providers in other jurisdictions implementing the framework.

That gives HMRC a stronger way to connect activity with a tax record and test whether a declaration is complete. It does not amount to an automatic gain calculation. Provider summaries cannot necessarily see every self-hosted wallet movement, private transaction or activity across an out-of-scope service, and they do not by themselves reconstruct each person's pooled costs, same-day matching, 30-day matching, other losses or reliefs.

Existing responsibilities therefore remain separate from CARF. HMRC's current guidance says an individual gain calculation normally uses sterling values and requires transaction records; an exchange report is not itself a tax calculation and may not track pooled costs. For 2026–27, HMRC lists a £3,000 individual Annual Exempt Amount and individual main rates of 18% and 24%, but a person's result depends on the whole return and their circumstances.

The next phase should be judged by evidence rather than enforcement slogans: whether the reporting service opens on time, whether providers submit usable data by May 2027 and how HMRC explains matching or discrepancies. CARF can increase visibility and support compliance work. The official material does not justify a claim that it captures every wallet, guarantees correct returns or identifies every case of undeclared tax.