HM Revenue and Customs has published its first standalone breakdown of cryptoasset capital gains within the annual Capital Gains Tax statistics, giving a clearer picture of how much taxable profit is now being reported through Self Assessment. According to the accredited official statistics released on 27 August 2026, 240 individuals declared more than £1 million each in cryptoasset gains in the 2024 to 2025 tax year. That group accounted for £717 million of gains between them. Across the wider taxpayer population, 17,600 individuals made Capital Gains Tax-liable disposals of cryptoassets and reported total gains of £1.38 billion on disposal proceeds of £13.8 billion. HMRC notes that the published figures are rounded and may not sum exactly.
HMRC said this is the first time it has published this level of cryptoasset detail, following the introduction of a dedicated section of the Self Assessment return for cryptoasset capital gains. That change matters administratively because it separates crypto disposals from the wider capital gains population and gives the department a firmer evidence base for compliance work. The statistics put the average gain reported per individual at about £78,000. They also show that around 87% of individuals reporting cryptoasset gains were male and around 13% were female. For policy officials, the release begins to turn a broad compliance issue into a measurable tax base with identifiable reporting patterns.
Ministers are presenting the figures as part of the government’s tax gap programme. Treasury minister James Murray said gains on cryptoassets are taxable in the same way as other gains and linked the publication to the wider aim of securing revenue for public services. HMRC Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive John-Paul Marks said the department wants taxpayers to understand and meet their obligations before new reporting rules begin feeding data into UK enforcement. HMRC also said its upstream cryptoasset compliance work since late 2023, including social media activity and updated GOV.UK guidance, generated an estimated additional £168 million of Capital Gains Tax in 2024 to 2025. That suggests the department sees early contact and clearer guidance as revenue measures in their own right, rather than only as public information activity.
The next change is structural rather than statistical. Under the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework, or CARF, the UK began implementation from January 2026 of the OECD standard requiring cryptoasset service providers to report customer information to tax authorities. HMRC has said it will start receiving CARF data from 2027. Once those reports begin to arrive, the department will be able to compare provider data against Self Assessment returns and identify gains or income that may not have been declared. In practice, this moves crypto tax administration closer to the data-matching model already used in other parts of the tax system.
The compliance message also extends to firms. GOV.UK guidance states that service providers failing to meet the reporting requirement may face penalties of up to £300 per user. That gives providers a direct reason to review customer record quality, reporting processes and internal controls before routine exchange with tax authorities becomes established. For taxpayers, the signal is equally clear. HMRC is pairing publication of the new dataset with advance notice that third-party reporting will soon support its enquiries. The department is therefore not relying only on voluntary awareness; it is building a system in which non-disclosure becomes easier to detect.
The tax treatment itself remains wider than many users expect. HMRC guidance says Capital Gains Tax can arise not only when cryptoassets are sold for cash, but also when they are exchanged for a different type of cryptoasset, used to pay for goods or services, or given away to another person other than a spouse, civil partner or charity. Income Tax and National Insurance may also apply where cryptoassets are received through employment, self-employment, mining, staking or lending. HMRC notes that there is no equivalent Self Assessment box dedicated to cryptoasset income, which continues to be reported through existing Income Tax provisions.
For the current filing cycle, the key date is 31 January 2027. Anyone with taxable cryptoasset income or gains above the relevant tax-free allowance in the 2025 to 2026 tax year is expected to include those amounts on a Self Assessment return and pay any tax due by that deadline. HMRC has also directed taxpayers with unpaid historic liabilities to the Crypto Disclosure Service on GOV.UK. Taken together, the August 2026 release marks a shift in tone as much as a release of data: cryptoassets are being treated not as a specialist edge case, but as a routine part of mainstream tax administration, reporting and enforcement.