UK HMRC crypto tax recovery actions: over £8 million recovered in two years

Deep Tide TechFlow news, on July 23, according to a report by The Financial Times, the UK’s Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) disclosed through a freedom of information request that since it launched a cryptocurrency tax compliance task force in November 2023, it has reached disclosure settlements with 502 cryptocurrency investors over the past two years, cumulatively recovering more than £8 million in taxes, with an average settlement amount of about £16.6 thousand per case. Of these, in the 2024/25 fiscal year, settlements involved 280 people, totaling £3.54 million; in the 2025/26 fiscal year, settlements involved 222 people, and the amount rose to about £4.78 million.

Meanwhile, the number of “reminder letters” sent by HMRC to crypto investors has surged significantly. In the 2024/25 fiscal year, there were 64,982 letters, up 680% compared with three to four years earlier. As the UK joins the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), starting from January 2026, crypto service providers will be required to collect users’ identity and transaction information and report it to the authorities, further squeezing investors’ space to conceal gains. Currently, about 8% of UK adults (about 4.5 million people) hold crypto assets.