Corporate report

HMRC performance data 2025 to 2026: 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. 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. 

The compliance yield we brought in during quarter 2 was:

£5.8 billion

1.1 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.  

Compliance yield

Time period	Compliance yield (£ million)
Q1	9,321
Q2	5,829
Year to date	15,150
Target	50,400

Compliance yield breakdown (£ million)

Time period	Cash expected	Revenue loss prevented	Future revenue benefit	Upstream yield	— of which: product and process yield	— of which: operational yield
Q1	2,457	2,485	4,054	325	0	325
Q2	2,597	2,142	274	816	499	317
Year to date	5,053	4,628	4,328	1,141	499	642

Tackling fraud

Time period	Positive charging decisions	Prosecutions	Closed criminal investigations	Success rate at court	Recovered proceeds of crime (£ million)
Q1	151	76	121	93.4%	32
Q2	125	51	118	88.2%	45
Year to date	276	127	239	91.3%	77

Criminal sentences

Time period	Criminal sentences — custodial (years)	Criminal sentences — suspended (years)
Q1	45.8	26.3
Q2	72.3	18.4
Year to date	118.0	44.8

1.2 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

Time period	Debt balance (£ million)	— of which: managed debt (£ million)	— of which: debt available for pursuit (£ million)
Q1	42,592	6,512	36,080
Q2	43,833	6,657	37,176

New and resolved debt, and time to pay

Time period	New debt (£ million)	Debt resolved (£ million)	Customers in time to pay arrangements
Q1	22,401	24,115	870,601
Q2	26,464	25,485	830,906
Year to date	48,864	49,600	Not applicable

1.3 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

Time period	HMRC reviews concluded (related to automated penalties)	— of which: decisions upheld	Upheld rate	HMRC reviews concluded (all other matters)	— of which: decisions upheld	Upheld rate
Q1	16,963	6,261	36.9%	1,478	948	64.1%
Q2	15,295	5,921	38.7%	1,390	966	69.5%
Year to date	32,258	12,182	37.8%	2,868	1,914	66.7%

Litigation

Time period	HMRC litigation court and tribunal decisions [note 1]	— of which: litigation win	— of which: litigation part win	— of which: litigation loss	Litigation success rate [note 2]
Q1	668	535	19	114	82.9%
Q2	492	439	11	42	91.5%
Year to date	1,160	974	30	156	86.6%

Note 1: 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. 

Note 2: In 2025 to 2026, we successfully applied to the court to have thousands of appeals relating to one avoidance scheme struck off. We have not included those appeals in this table, to avoid our litigation performance being unfairly inflated.

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%

2.1 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. 

Time period	Digital self-serve interactions (%) [note 3]	Personal Tax Account — Sessions (million)	Business Tax Account — Sessions (million)	HMRC App — Sessions (million)	HMRC App — New users (million)
Q1	76.3%	37.246	11.742	41.856	0.759
Q2	79.6%	29.128	10.804	34.897	0.653
Year to date	77.8%	66.374	22.546	76.752	1.412

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. 

2.2 Customer experience measures — phone, webchat and digital services

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

Overall customer experience — phone, webchat and digital services

Time period	Customer satisfaction	Net easy	Once and done
Apr	79.5%	+62.6	84.6%
May	80.0%	+63.3	85.4%
Jun	81.0%	+64.8	86.3%
Jul	79.7%	+62.4	85.7%
Aug	80.3%	+63.5	85.8%
Sep	79.9%	+62.7	85.6%
Year to date	80.0%	+63.2	85.5%
Target	80%	+65	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. 

Customer satisfaction by channel

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

Net easy by channel

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

Once and done by channel

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

2.3 Webchat measures 

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

2.4 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. 

Telephony performance

Time period	Adviser attempts handled	Average speed of answer (mm:ss)	Call attempts handled	Calls waiting more than 10 mins	Average call handling time (mm:ss)
Apr	83.6%	13:31	89.4%	49.7%	16:00
May	84.6%	12:45	89.8%	48.8%	15:58
Jun	83.0%	13:24	88.5%	52.7%	15:48
Jul	82.8%	14:57	88.4%	57.1%	15:44
Aug	83.3%	13:25	88.8%	56.1%	15:58
Sep	85.4%	12:47	90.4%	52.3%	16:13
Year to date	83.8%	13:30	89.2%	52.8%	15:57
Target	85%	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable

Telephony volumes (millions)

Time period	Calls received (contacts)	Adviser attempts	Adviser attempts handled	Call attempts handled	Handled by automated systems	Not handled (abandoned, broadcasted messages or busies)
Apr	2.652	1.722	1.440	2.370	0.930	0.282
May	2.385	1.576	1.333	2.141	0.808	0.244
Jun	2.496	1.614	1.339	2.209	0.870	0.287
Jul	2.681	1.777	1.471	2.369	0.898	0.312
Aug	2.109	1.415	1.179	1.873	0.694	0.236
Sep	2.363	1.549	1.323	2.136	0.814	0.226
Year to date	14.685	9.653	8.085	13.098	5.013	1.587

2.5 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. 

Response rates

Time period	Correspondence cleared within 15 working days	Correspondence cleared within 40 working days [note 4]
Apr	68.3%	85.6%
May	68.6%	84.6%
Jun	69.0%	86.7%
Jul	69.4%	85.7%
Aug	81.0%	87.8%
Sep	87.0%	TBC
Year to date	73.6%	86.1%
Target	80%	95%

Note 4: Data is lagged by a month. 

Correspondence volumes (million)

Time period	iForms received	Post receipts	Post requiring a response	Total correspondence requiring a response
Apr	0.341	1.321	1.000	1.341
May	0.343	1.674	1.160	1.503
Jun	0.272	1.361	0.993	1.264
Jul	0.295	1.381	0.961	1.256
Aug	0.325	1.472	1.083	1.409
Sep	0.262	1.121	0.858	1.120
Year to date	1.837	8.330	6.056	7.893

2.6 VAT and Customs clearance rates and receipts

Time period	VAT registrations clearance rate (% cleared within 40 days)	Customs declarations clearance rate (% of route 1 declarations cleared within 2 hours)	Customs declarations receipts
Apr	98.3%	94.6%	23,828
May	97.9%	99.5%	22,615
Jun	97.6%	98.6%	23,593
Jul	97.4%	99.3%	24,217
Aug	95.4%	99.4%	22,378
Sep	88.0%	99.3%	16,767
Year to date	95.5%	98.4%	133,398

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

2.7 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. 

Complaints measures (tier 1)

Time period	Complaints received	Fully upheld	Partially upheld	Not upheld
Apr	7,732	26.8%	18.7%	54.5%
May	6,860	26.0%	19.0%	55.0%
Jun	7,146	26.3%	18.4%	55.3%
Jul	7,934	27.8%	19.4%	52.8%
Aug	6,099	25.4%	20.3%	54.3%
Sep	5,794	25.0%	20.0%	55.0%
Year to date	41,565	26.2%	19.3%	54.5%

Complaints measures (tier 2)

Time period	Number of complaints received	Fully upheld	Partially upheld	Not upheld
Apr	388	10.2%	34.4%	55.4%
May	407	15.4%	34.2%	50.4%
Jun	408	16.8%	38.1%	45.1%
Jul	457	16.7%	38.4%	44.9%
Aug	403	13.6%	42.3%	44.1%
Sep	341	14.0%	46.9%	39.1%
Year to date	2,404	14.6%	39.1%	46.3%