UK Crypto Capital Gains: What HMRC's First Dataset Shows

The detail

This is new data. The Self Assessment return gained a dedicated cryptoasset section on the 2024/25 SA108 - gains in box 13.4, losses in box 13.5 - and on 27 August 2026 HMRC published the first statistics drawn from it, as Table 10 of its accredited Capital Gains Tax statistics. What the table reports is gains and disposal proceeds, not tax collected, which is a distinction worth holding onto: the gains below are before other losses and before the annual exempt amount.

The headline is concentration. 17,600 taxpayers reported gains on cryptoassets in the 2024 to 2025 tax year, totalling £1,377 million on disposal proceeds of £13,799 million. But 240 of them - about 1.4% - reported gains of £1 million or more, and between them accounted for £717 million, or 52% of every pound of crypto gain reported in the UK. Their share of disposal proceeds was similar, £7,580 million of £13,799 million. The average gain across all 17,600 was around £78,000; the average within that top group was closer to £3 million.

At the other end, the distribution is long and thin. 7,160 taxpayers - more than 40% of everyone reporting a gain - had gains under £10,000, contributing £33 million between them, about 2.4% of the total. A further 4,300 sat between £10,000 and £25,000. So the typical person reporting crypto gains is not making life-changing money; they are making a few thousand pounds. Note the band starts at £0, so it also contains people whose gains fell below the annual exempt amount (£3,000 for individuals in 2026/27) and who were reporting for some other reason, such as being in Self Assessment already.

The demographics are lopsided in a way few tax datasets are. 15,280 of the 17,600 taxpayers were male and 2,330 female - 87% to 13% - and the gap in money is wider still: £1,275 million of gains to male taxpayers against £102 million to female, so 93% of the value. By age, the largest group is 35 to 44 (5,990 taxpayers, £401 million of gains), followed by 45 to 54 (4,550, £396 million). The striking band is the youngest: taxpayers aged 24 and under numbered only 330, but reported £97 million of gains between them - an average of around £294,000 each, between three and five times the average in every other age band, which sits between £54,000 and £95,000.

HMRC also attributes £168 million of additional Capital Gains Tax in 2024 to 2025 to its own compliance and education work on cryptoassets - the guidance, nudge letters and social media activity it has run since late 2023. That is a large number set against £1,377 million of reported gains, and it is a reminder that the reported figure is what HMRC sees, not what exists.

Two caveats worth carrying. The statistics are provisional and exclude trusts. And the gains shown are net of in-year cryptoasset losses but before other losses and before the annual exempt amount, so they are not the amount actually taxed. What they do show reliably is the shape of the population: small at the top in number, dominant in value.