On 27 August 2026 HMRC’s annual Capital Gains Tax statistics acquired a new table. Table 10 — “Estimated number of taxpayers reporting cryptoasset gains and amounts of cryptoasset disposal proceeds and gains” — marks the first time HMRC has published this data, per its own release, and the statistics page’s update history records it as new for 2026.
The figures, all for the 2024 to 2025 tax year: 17,600 Capital Gains Tax payers reported net gains on cryptoasset disposals, with £13.8 billion of proceeds and £1.38 billion of gains, averaging £78,000 each — figures HMRC labels provisional and later revises. Of those, 240 reported more than £1 million of cryptoasset gains, accounting for £717 million between them. The 240 is the number the press office put in the headline, as “240 crypto millionaires”.
Read the table rather than the headline. Those 240 are people who declared over £1 million of gains on one year’s Self Assessment return. It is not a census of British crypto millionaires, not a measure of anybody’s wealth, and not a count of holders. HMRC’s own methodology section is narrower still: Table 10 covers only individuals with a CGT liability who had net cryptoasset gains, trusts are excluded to avoid disclosing taxpayer information, and the tax charged on crypto does not appear at all, because those liabilities are not separated from other assets charged at the main rates.
The reason the data exists now is a form change, not a change in the law. Per the same published commentary, cryptoasset disposals are reported in a separate section of the SA108 pages, introduced for the 2024 to 2025 tax year; before that they sat in the return’s catch-all “Other property, assets, and gains”. Disposals were chargeable to Capital Gains Tax either way. What is new is that the return asks the question separately, so the statisticians can count the answer.
The shape of the 17,600 is the more interesting part. Over half of both proceeds and gains came from the under-2% who reported gains of £1 million or more, while the 65% reporting under £25,000 accounted for 7% of gains. Around 87% of the 17,600 were male, against 56% for CGT as a whole, and 81% were aged 54 or below.
The picture should sharpen. HMRC says it will start receiving cryptoasset service providers’ customer data from 2027, under the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework that had your exchange asking for your tax details back in January — data the department says will help identify gains and income that have not been declared. This table counts only what people declared.
Worth saying plainly: a taxable asset is not a protected one. Nothing in a statistical release brings a coin or a platform inside the FCA perimeter, and the FSCS says it cannot protect you if a crypto platform fails. A table of declared gains is not advice on your return; that question is for HMRC or a qualified adviser.