UK HMRC: 17,600 People Report £1.38 Billion in Capital Gains from Crypto Assets
The UK HMRC has released data on capital gains from crypto assets for the first time: for the 2024-2025 tax year, 17,600 individuals reported capital gains tax on crypto disposals, totaling £1.38 billion, averaging about £78,000 per person.
During the same period, the total income from crypto asset disposals was £13.8 billion, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin. 240 individuals reported gains exceeding £1 million each, totaling £717 million, accounting for approximately 52% of all taxable gains, while representing only about 1.4% of the filers.
Among the filers, about 87% were male and 13% were female, with the majority aged between 35 and 44. This is the first official breakdown since a dedicated section for crypto asset capital gains was added to self-assessment tax forms, as previously such earnings were mixed with total capital gains and could not be itemized separately.
The total capital gains tax collected in the UK was £24.2 billion, an increase of 89% year-on-year, marking the highest annual collection since 1987; the number of taxpayers was 584,000, a 45% increase year-on-year. Former Chancellor Rachel Reeves proposed raising the capital gains tax rate from 10%-28% to 18%-32% in the 2024 budget. The total reported gains across all asset classes amounted to £127 billion, an 82% increase year-on-year. London and the South East contributed about half of the tax revenue; less than 1% of taxpayers with gains of £5 million or more contributed about 45% of the total collection.
The tax authority stated that compliance and outreach efforts are expected to generate an additional £168 million in capital gains tax for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, with crypto not itemized separately. For the 2025-2026 fiscal year, over 81,000 warning letters have been sent to taxpayers suspected of underreporting or failing to report crypto gains, approximately three times the number from the previous year. The OECD's crypto asset reporting framework requires service providers to submit client information to tax authorities, and the UK will begin receiving and cross-referencing self-assessment submissions starting in 2027.
In this context, sellers are holders cashing out, while buyers are market counterparties taking over; the tax authority collects capital gains at the disposal stage, not on holding. Funds move from on-chain positions into fiat tax forms, then into the treasury. Beneficiaries include the fiscal system and the upcoming data from exchanges; those under pressure are high-concentration whales and accounts not yet covered by service providers. This is the first exposure after the system's rollout, not a total survey of on-chain amounts.
Source: Public Information
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The UK's capital gains tax has long relied on real estate, private businesses, and listed stocks, with crypto assets previously hidden under the "other assets" category. The HMRC first added a dedicated section to self-assessment forms, then sent out tens of thousands of reminder letters, effectively re-registering profits in pounds from the bull markets of 2017 and 2021 that had already exited. This follows the same administrative path as the U.S. requirement for brokers to report via 1099 forms and the OECD's push for a crypto asset reporting framework: first compel reporting, then reconcile with platform data.
The £1.38 billion in gains corresponds to £13.8 billion in disposals, indicating that a significant amount of cost basis is recognized, rather than being taxed on paper market value. The concentration of £717 million among 240 individuals shows that the ability to cash out is held by accounts capable of passing anti-money laundering checks and filling out complex tax forms, rather than retail wallets. After the service provider reporting goes live in 2027, platforms will become a second tax authority: those withdrawing from licensed exchanges will have their cost basis aligned; those mixing coins on-chain and using offshore brokers will face upgraded correspondence rather than the average £78,000 bracket.
This is similar to the UK's disclosure initiatives for Swiss accounts and offshore trusts in the 2010s, as well as the U.S. FATCA provisions for overseas accounts: first providing a voluntary reporting window, then closing it with third-party data. The crypto industry is currently transitioning from "technological lawlessness" to a control phase where "disposal equals tax base"; it is not about expansion, but rather about filling regulatory gaps. Coinbase and others selling both crypto and stocks in the UK will simply report two types of capital gains for the same customer on the same tax form.
Essentially, this is a regulatory change. The mechanism is that the definition of the tax base precedes on-chain transparency: as long as disposals occur at identifiable fiat exits, the gains fall into the capital gains tax rate bracket. Raising the rate from 18% to 32% changes the timing of cashing out, not the elimination of transactions; the concentration figures indicate that the truly collectible tax comes from a small number of addresses capable of compliant large withdrawals. When service provider reporting replaces voluntary filling, the pricing power shifts from "whether to report" to "whether the cost basis can be proven by the platform."
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
There must be a tax form box before there can be wealth statistics.
Where profits are concentrated is the true entry point for the tax authority.
Once platform reporting begins, anonymity will only remain in terms of cost basis.