Corporate report

Performance report 2025 to 2026: September and quarter 2

Published 13 November 2025

Our priorities are to close the tax gap, improve day to day performance and the overall customer experience and modernise tax and customs administration. These are enshrined in our departmental strategic objectives, which you can read about in our latest HMRC annual report and accounts.

This publication shows how we are performing against our key performance measures within each strategic objective. Some measures are updated each month, others each quarter.

1. Close the tax gap

Our lead measures for this priority are the tax gap and compliance yield. In 2023 to 2024, the tax gap was:

5.3%

Maintaining the long-term reduction from 7.4% in 2005 to 2006. The absolute value was £46.8 billion [note 1].

The compliance yield we brought in during quarter 2 was:

£5.8 billion

Note 1: The tax gap is the difference between the amount of tax that should, in theory, be paid to HMRC, and what is actually paid. For the latest tax gap statistics, please see Measuring tax gaps 2025 edition: tax gap estimates for 2023 to 2024.

Our compliance work

Each year, we collect and protect billions of pounds of revenue that would have been lost to the Exchequer without our interventions. Our compliance work helps to keep the tax gap low.

Key Performance Indicators	Q1	Q2	Year to date	Target
Total compliance yield (£ million)	9,321	5,829	15,150	50,400

Compliance yield breakdown	Q1	Q2	Year to date
Cash expected from compliance (£ million)	2,457	2,597	5,053
Revenue loss prevented (£ million)	2,485	2,142	4,628
Future revenue benefit (£ million)	4,054	274	4,328
Upstream yield (£ million)	325	816	1,141
– of which: upstream product and process yield (£ million)	0	499	499
– of which: upstream operational yield (£ million)	325	317	642

Tackling fraud	Q1	Q2	Year to date
Positive charging decisions	151	125	276
Total prosecutions	76	51	127
Success rate at court	93.4%	88.2%	91.3%
Criminal sentences – custodial (years)	45.8	72.3	118.0
Criminal sentences – suspended (years)	26.3	18.4	44.8
Closed criminal investigations	121	118	239
Value recovered from proceeds of crime and Code of Practice 9 civil investigations (£ 000’s)	31,867	45,002	76,870

Debt

We want to collect more of the tax that is due, whilst supporting customers who are in financial difficulty to manage their way out of debt with our flexible Time to Pay arrangements. The measures below show the trends on various debt measures. Our lead metric for debt is the tax debt balance as a proportion of tax receipts, which we report annually in HMRC’s annual report and accounts.

Debt balance and time to pay	Q1	Q2
Total debt balance (£ million)	42,592	43,833
– of which: managed debt (£ million)	6,512	6,657
– of which: debt available for pursuit (£ million)	36,080	37,176
Number of customers in time to pay arrangements	870,601	830,906

New debt and debt resolved	Q1	Q2	Year to date
Value of new debt (£ million)	22,401	26,464	48,864
Value of debt resolved (£ million)	24,115	25,485	49,600

Reviews and litigation

We know there will be occasions where customers disagree with us on the amount of tax that is due. We seek to resolve any dispute as quickly and cost-effectively as possible, in accordance with the law, using our Litigation and Settlement Strategy and our Code of Governance for resolving tax disputes.

Dispute resolution measures	Q1	Q2	Year to date
Number of HMRC reviews concluded (related to automated penalties)	16,963	15,295	32,258
– of which: number of HMRC decisions upheld (related to automated penalties)	6,261	5,921	12,182
Upheld rate (related to automated penalties)	36.9%	38.7%	37.8%
Number of HMRC reviews concluded (related to all other matters)	1,478	1,390	2,868
– of which: number of HMRC decisions upheld (related to all other matters)	948	966	1,914
Upheld rate (related to all other matters)	64.1%	69.5%	66.7%
HMRC litigation court and tribunal decisions [note 2]	668	492	1,160
– of which: HMRC litigation win	535	439	974
– of which: HMRC litigation part win	19	11	30
– of which: HMRC litigation loss	114	42	156
Litigation success rate	82.9%	91.5%	86.6%

Note 2: Not all litigation cases are finalised through a court judgment. Some are resolved through mutual agreement between the parties involved, without the need for a formal ruling. As a result, the overall volume of cases is higher than the court and tribunal outcomes reported here.

2. Improve day-to-day performance and the overall customer experience — monthly and quarterly measures

Our lead metrics for this priority are the proportion of customer interactions using automated or digital self-serve channels and the customer satisfaction score.

In quarter 2, the proportion of our customer interactions through automated or digital self serve channels was:

79.6%

Our overall customer satisfaction score in quarter 2 was:

79.9%

Digital channel adoption

Our digital-first customer service strategy aims to enable as many customers as possible to self-serve online. This frees up our advisers to support those customers who will need to contact us by phone or post — for example, those who are vulnerable, those who struggle to get online or those who have complex queries. The figures below show the progress we’re making.

Digital channel adoption	Q1	Q2	Year to date
Customer interactions through automated or digital self-serve channels (% of all customer interactions) [note 3]	76.3%	79.6%	77.8%
Personal Tax Account – Sessions	37,246,322	29,127,987	66,374,309
Business Tax Account – Sessions	11,741,524	10,804,463	22,545,987
HMRC App – Sessions	41,855,623	34,896,747	76,752,370
HMRC App – New users	758,623	653,160	1,411,783

Note 3: The digital channel self-serve % includes several types of interaction with customers that are not all covered in this publication, such as digital tax return submissions.

Customer experience

We are committed to meeting our customer service standards, including our targets for customer satisfaction and how easy customers find interacting with us.

Customer experience measures – phone, webchat and digital services	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Year to date	Target
Overall customer satisfaction	79.5%	80.0%	81.0%	79.7%	80.3%	79.9%	80.0%	80%
Net easy	+62.6	+63.3	+64.8	+62.4	+63.5	+62.7	+63.2	+65
Once and done	84.6%	85.4%	86.3%	85.7%	85.8%	85.6%	85.5%	Not applicable

Annual customer survey results for:

• ease of dealing with tax issues
• overall experience of dealing with HMRC over the last 12 months
• ease of finding information from HMRC
• HMRC is an organisation I can trust

These measures are recorded annually and are reported in HMRC’s annual report and accounts and our customer survey publications.

Customer experience breakdown by channel

When we break down our customer experience metrics for some of our key channels – phone, webchat and digital – we can see that the increasing number of customers using our online services to manage their tax affairs are generally satisfied with them, find them easy and can do what they need to.

Overall customer satisfaction

Channel	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Year to date
Phone	55.5%	56.9%	55.1%	53.6%	58.0%	58.9%	56.0%
Webchat	72.6%	73.1%	72.4%	70.8%	72.4%	72.5%	72.3%
Digital services	82.3%	82.9%	84.0%	82.9%	83.1%	82.8%	83.0%

Net easy

Channel	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Year to date
Phone	+3.1	+6.2	+2.1	-0.7	+8.2	+9.9	+4.1
Webchat	+45.6	+47.2	+44.6	+42.0	+44.1	+44.5	+44.6
Digital services	+69.5	+70.5	+72.0	+70.3	+70.6	+70.0	+70.5

Once and done

Channel	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Year to date
Phone	61.2%	62.7%	60.8%	59.9%	63.4%	64.1%	61.7%
Webchat	72.0%	73.1%	72.4%	71.2%	72.2%	72.2%	72.2%
Digital services	87.3%	88.3%	89.2%	89.0%	88.6%	88.6%	88.5%

Webchat measures

Webchat measure	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Year to date
Webchats submitted	59,384	71,288	74,990	77,642	64,507	76,797	424,608
Webchats — average speed of answer (mm:ss)	01:15	00:59	01:01	00:59	01:01	01:10	01:04
Webchats adviser attempts handled	94.6%	95.8%	95.6%	96.4%	96.3%	96.7%	95.9%

Telephony

A digital self-serve experience remains our ambition for the majority of our customers, but we recognise that this will not be appropriate for all, and that some customers will need a period of adjustment to build familiarity and trust in them, and some customers are unable to use digital services or have complex queries. The measures below show the level of demand for our telephony services, call handling and wait times and how we’ve performed against our telephony target.

Due to the amount of data presented, only part of the table below is visible. Please use the scrollbar at the bottom of the table to view all the columns.

Telephony performance	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Year to date	Target
Telephony adviser attempts handled	83.6%	84.6%	83.0%	82.8%	83.3%	85.4%	83.8%	85%

Other telephony measures	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Year to date
Number of calls received (contacts)	2,651,525	2,385,404	2,495,745	2,680,666	2,108,912	2,362,932	14,685,184
Number of call attempts handled	2,369,766	2,140,910	2,208,844	2,369,028	1,872,981	2,136,454	13,097,983
Call attempts handled	89.4%	89.8%	88.5%	88.4%	88.8 %	90.4%	89.2%
Number handled by automated systems	929,527	807,747	869,620	898,059	693,954	813,666	5,012,573
Number of adviser attempts	1,721,859	1,576,141	1,614,184	1,776,722	1,414,577	1,549,202	9,652,685
Number of adviser attempts handled	1,440,239	1,333,163	1,339,224	1,470,969	1,179,027	1,322,788	8,085,410
Calls not handled (abandoned, broadcasted messages or busies)	281,759	244,494	286,901	311,638	235,931	226,478	1,587,201
Average speed of answer (mm:ss)	13:31	12:45	13:24	14:57	13:25	12:47	13:30
Customer calls waiting more than 10 mins	49.7%	48.8%	52.7%	57.1%	56.1 %	52.3%	52.8%
Average call handling time (mm:ss)	16:00	15:58	15:48	15:44	15:58	16:13	15:57

Correspondence

The measures below show the volume of correspondence we receive, how we’ve performed against our targets to clear correspondence within 15 and 40 working days and VAT registration and customs measures.

Due to the amount of data presented, only part of the table below is visible. Please use the scrollbar at the bottom of the table to view all the columns.

Correspondence performance	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Year to date	Target
Correspondence received by HMRC that has been cleared within 15 working days of receipt	68.3%	68.6%	69.0%	69.4%	81.0%	87.0%	73.6%	80%
Correspondence received by HMRC that has been cleared within 40 working days of receipt [note 4]	85.6%	84.6%	86.7%	85.7%	87.8%	TBC	86.1%	95%

Note 4: Data is lagged by a month.

Other correspondence measures	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Year to date
iForms received	340,725	343,446	271,568	294,889	325,062	261,630	1,837,320
Post receipts	1,321,286	1,674,174	1,360,858	1,381,332	1,471,724	1,120,909	8,330,283
Post where customers require a response	999,998	1,159,910	992,804	961,047	1,083,486	858,345	6,055,590
Total correspondence where customers require a response	1,340,723	1,503,356	1,264,372	1,255,936	1,408,548	1,119,975	7,892,910
VAT registrations clearance rate (% cleared within 40 days)	98.3%	97.9%	97.6%	97.4%	95.4 %	88.0%	95.5%
Customs declarations clearance rate (% of route 1 declarations cleared within 2 hours)	94.6%	99.5%	98.6%	99.3%	99.4 %	99.3%	98.4%
Customs declarations receipts	23,828	22,615	23,593	24,217	22,378	16,767	133,398

Our Agents Service Dashboard shows current service levels for post and online requests, for tax advisers.

Complaints

We aim to get things right for customers first time, but when this doesn’t happen, we seek to provide a straightforward and accessible complaints process to say sorry and put things right. The measures below show complaint receipts and the proportion that were fully and partially upheld. The figures can change retrospectively, as complaints are not always delivered directly to our complaints team in the first instance, causing a delay in reporting.

Complaint measures	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Year to date
Tier 1 number of complaints received	7,732	6,860	7,146	7,934	6,099	5,794	41,565
Tier 1 fully upheld	26.8%	26.0%	26.3%	27.8%	25.4%	25.0%	26.2%
Tier 1 partially upheld	18.7%	19.0%	18.4%	19.4%	20.3%	20.0%	19.3%
Tier 1 not upheld	54.5%	55.0%	55.3%	52.8%	54.3%	55.0%	54.5%
Tier 2 number of complaints received	388	407	408	457	403	341	2,404
Tier 2 fully upheld	10.2%	15.4%	16.8%	16.7%	13.6%	14.0%	14.6%
Tier 2 partially upheld	34.4%	34.2%	38.1%	38.4%	42.3%	46.9%	39.1%
Tier 2 not upheld	55.4%	50.4%	45.1%	44.9%	44.1%	39.1%	46.3%

3. Support wider government economic aims through HMRC’s work

HMRC does much more than collect taxes. We support wider government aims, for example, by ensuring that everyone follows the rules and by protecting the system from those who seek to exploit it to gain an unfair advantage.

Protecting society from harm

We monitor performance and report externally:

• the number of workers paid arrears via National Minimum Wage employer checks
• the value of financial penalties issued for non-compliance with money laundering regulations

These metrics are published annually in HMRC’s annual report and accounts.