![Online Fraud Statistics 2026: $36.8B in Reported Losses [FBI & FTC Data] Americans lost $20.9B to online fraud in 2025 per FBI IC3 — up 26% YoY. Axis Intelligence analysis of every fraud category, AI scams, and original data.](https://axis-intelligence.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/online-fraud-statistics-1340x638.webp "online-fraud-statistics")
Online Fraud Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research Desk | Co-authored with Marcus Chen, Cybersecurity Editor
Last updated: June 2, 2026 | Next scheduled update: September 2026 (Q3 refresh)
American consumers and businesses reported $36.8 billion in fraud losses to federal authorities in 2025 — a figure combining the FBI’s IC3 total of $20.9 billion and the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network total of $15.9 billion, representing two partially overlapping datasets that together constitute the most comprehensive picture of US fraud exposure available. According to Axis Intelligence’s cross-agency analysis, investment fraud alone accounted for at least $8.6 billion in FBI-tracked losses and $7.9 billion in FTC-tracked losses, making it unambiguously the dominant fraud category by dollar loss for the fourth consecutive year.
Download the dataset: Online Fraud Statistics 2026 — Axis Intelligence Research Dataset (.csv) | License: CC BY 4.0
Key Findings
- $20.877 billion in losses reported to the FBI’s IC3 in 2025 — a 26% increase year-over-year and the first time the FBI’s annual tally has surpassed $20 billion, up from $4.2 billion in 2020.
- $15.9 billion in losses reported to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network in 2025, representing a 27% increase from $12.5 billion in 2024 and a 430% increase since 2020.
- Investment fraud ($8.65B via IC3; $7.9B via FTC) is the single most financially destructive online fraud category in the United States, generating roughly 41% of all IC3-tracked losses.
- Social media was the contact method behind $2.1 billion in FTC-reported fraud losses in 2025 — eight times the figure from 2020 — with Facebook alone generating more reported losses than text and email scams combined.
- Americans 60 and older reported $7.748 billion in losses to the IC3 in 2025, a 59% increase from 2024, at an average loss of $38,500 per victim.
- AI-related fraud was formally tracked by the FBI for the first time in 2025, logging 22,364 complaints and $893 million in losses — a figure experts widely regard as a significant undercount.
Table of Contents
The Axis Intelligence Fraud Severity Index™ (Q2 2026)
Original cross-source analysis — not published elsewhere
To enable cross-year and cross-category comparisons that neither the FBI IC3 nor the FTC publish independently, Axis Intelligence Research built the Fraud Severity Index (FSI) — a composite score that weights each fraud category by three factors: (1) reported financial loss, (2) complaint volume (frequency), and (3) year-over-year growth rate. Each dimension is normalized on a 100-point scale and averaged into an FSI score. Higher scores indicate categories that are simultaneously high-loss, high-volume, and fast-growing.
| Fraud Category | 2025 Loss (IC3) | Complaints | YoY Loss Growth | Axis FSI Score™ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Investment / Crypto | $8.648B | 72,984 | +31.6% | 97 |
| Business Email Compromise | $3.047B | 24,768 | +9.9% | 74 |
| Tech/Customer Support | $2.135B | 47,794 | +45.8% | 82 |
| Personal Data Breach | $1.315B | 67,456 | −9.5% | 58 |
| Confidence/Romance | $929M | 23,159 | +38.3% | 71 |
| Government Impersonation | $798M | 32,424 | +96.7% | 88 |
| Phishing/Spoofing | $216M | 191,561 | +208% (loss) | 76 |
| Identity Theft | $186M | 31,675 | +6.6% | 43 |
| Non-Payment/Non-Delivery | $503M | 56,478 | −35.9% | 39 |
| Extortion | $122M | 89,129 | −14.5% | 52 |
Source: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report (primary). FSI methodology: Axis Intelligence Research, Q2 2026. Scores are proprietary derived metrics; do not appear in source documents.
According to Axis Intelligence, Government Impersonation (FSI: 88) is the fastest-escalating fraud category by severity in 2025, nearly doubling in loss volume while also nearly doubling in complaint frequency — a simultaneous growth pattern that is rare and signals a structural shift in criminal tactics, not a statistical anomaly.
The Scale of Online Fraud in 2025
The numbers reported by US federal agencies represent only what victims choose to report — and reporting rates are low. A 2021 study cited by the FTC found that only 4.8% of mass-market fraud victims ever file a complaint with a government entity or the Better Business Bureau. Applying that ratio to the FTC’s own 2025 reported loss figure of $15.9 billion produces an estimated true loss range that the FTC itself calculates at up to $195.9 billion for 2024 alone (the most recent year for which this projection was published in congressional testimony).
This is the core structural problem with online fraud data: what we can measure is a fraction of what is happening.
| Year | FBI IC3 Reported Losses | FTC CSN Reported Losses | IC3 YoY Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $4.2 billion | ~$3.3 billion | — |
| 2021 | $6.9 billion | $5.8 billion | +64.3% |
| 2022 | $10.3 billion | $8.8 billion | +49.3% |
| 2023 | $12.5 billion | $10.0 billion | +21.4% |
| 2024 | $16.6 billion | $12.5 billion | +32.8% |
| 2025 | $20.877 billion | $15.9 billion | +25.8% |
Sources: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report (primary); FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024 (primary); FTC Congressional testimony March 25, 2026 (2025 FTC figure, pre-Data Book).
According to Axis Intelligence’s five-year trend analysis, cumulative cybercrime losses reported to the FBI from 2020 through 2025 reached $71.3 billion — a 397% increase from the $4.2 billion recorded in 2020 alone. The average annual growth rate over this period is approximately 37.8%.
The IC3 received 1,008,597 complaints in 2025 — the first time in the center’s 25-year history that annual complaint volume has exceeded one million, averaging nearly 3,000 complaints per day. The average reported loss per complaint was $20,699.
Investment Fraud — The Dominant Loss Category
Investment fraud has been the highest-loss fraud category in the US for the fourth consecutive year. In 2025, the FBI logged $8.648 billion in investment fraud losses — more than double the second-place category (Business Email Compromise at $3.047 billion) and 41.4% of all IC3-tracked losses.
The primary mechanism driving these losses is cryptocurrency investment fraud, often referred to as “pig butchering” (shā zhū pán). These are long-duration confidence scams in which criminals, operating primarily from forced labor compounds in Southeast Asia, build fabricated relationships with victims over weeks or months before redirecting them to fraudulent investment platforms.
| Investment Fraud Metric | 2025 Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Total IC3 investment fraud losses | $8.648 billion | FBI IC3 2025 Report |
| Crypto investment fraud specifically | $7.228 billion | FBI IC3 2025 Report |
| Crypto investment fraud complaints | 61,559 | FBI IC3 2025 Report |
| Crypto investment fraud YoY (complaints) | +48% | FBI IC3 2025 Report |
| Crypto investment fraud YoY (losses) | +25% | FBI IC3 2025 Report |
| Investment fraud losses among 60+ victims | $3.519 billion | FBI IC3 2025 Report |
| Investment fraud share of total IC3 losses | 41.4% | Axis Intelligence calculation |
Source: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report (ic3.gov), pages 8, 11, 53.
The Axis Intelligence cross-reference note: The FBI’s IC3 figure of $7.228 billion in cryptocurrency investment fraud and the FTC’s 2025 figure of $7.9 billion in total investment fraud losses — while tracked through different reporting pipelines — both point to the same approximate scale. Neither agency separately calculates global pig-butchering losses, but Chainalysis and ScamWatchHQ estimate global crypto scam losses reached approximately $12.4 billion in 2025, with the US the most heavily targeted single nation.
Who Investment Fraud Targets
The FBI data reveals a counter-intuitive age pattern: investment fraud is not primarily a crime against older or technologically naive victims.
| Age Group | Investment Fraud Complaints | Investment Fraud Losses |
|---|---|---|
| Under 20 | 629 | $12.6 million |
| 20–29 | 4,627 | $117.4 million |
| 30–39 | 8,576 | $412.6 million |
| 40–49 | 10,750 | $924.6 million |
| 50–59 | 9,856 | $1.383 billion |
| 60+ | 13,685 | $2.764 billion |
Source: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report, p. 53 (Cryptocurrency Investment Fraud by Age Group).
According to Axis Intelligence’s analysis, adults aged 40–59 collectively accounted for $2.307 billion in crypto investment fraud losses in 2025 — a figure that exceeds the entire investment fraud loss total recorded by the FBI as recently as 2020. This age cohort represents the segment with the largest combination of accumulated financial assets and active digital platform use.
Operation Level Up, an FBI-led proactive intervention program, notified 3,780 identified victims of cryptocurrency investment fraud in 2025 before they completed their final transfers. Of those notified, 78% were unaware they were being scammed at the time of contact, and estimated savings reached $225.9 million.
Business Email Compromise (BEC)
Business Email Compromise is the highest-loss fraud category targeting organizations specifically, and in 2025 it generated $3.046 billion in reported losses from just 24,768 complaints — an average of approximately $123,000 per incident.
The complaint-to-loss ratio tells its own story. Phishing generated nearly 192,000 complaints in 2025 but only $216 million in losses. BEC generated one-eighth the complaint volume but 14 times the financial loss. Criminals have optimized BEC for high-value single targets rather than mass volume.
| BEC Metric | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total losses | $3.047 billion | $2.770 billion | $2.947 billion |
| Complaint count | 24,768 | 21,442 | 21,489 |
| Average loss per complaint | ~$123,000 | ~$129,000 | ~$137,000 |
| 60+ victim losses | $568 million | $385 million | $382 million |
| AI-attributed BEC losses | $30.3 million | N/A | N/A |
Sources: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report (primary); Red Sift BEC analysis, April 2026 (derived figures); Association for Financial Professionals 2025 Fraud Survey.
86% of BEC-related funds move via wire transfer or ACH, according to FBI IC3 transaction data — meaning these attacks are landing inside standard financial workflows, not exotic payment channels.
The FBI’s Financial Fraud Kill Chain (FFKC) — a rapid-response mechanism that freezes fraudulent transfers when victims file IC3 reports promptly — initiated approximately 3,900 interventions in 2025, freezing $679 million at a 58% success rate. For healthcare-sector BEC specifically, the success rate rose to 65%.
According to Axis Intelligence, an underreported structural vulnerability in BEC is the latency problem: the typical detection window is approximately 28 days from initiation to discovery. Within 72 hours of a fraudulent wire transfer, recovery probability drops sharply. The FFKC data suggests that victims who report immediately at ic3.gov give investigators a realistic chance of recovery; those who delay past three business days rarely recover funds.
Social Media as the Dominant Fraud Contact Method
The FTC’s April 2026 Data Spotlight on social media fraud provides the most current primary data on contact method distribution. In 2025, nearly 30% of consumers who reported losing money to a scam said it originated on social media — more than any other contact method — with aggregate reported losses reaching $2.1 billion.
| Contact Method | Share of Fraud Reports (with loss) | 2025 Reported Losses |
|---|---|---|
| Website/App | 31% | Not separately disclosed |
| Social Media | 28% | $2.1 billion |
| Phone Call | 11% | Not separately disclosed |
| 10% | Not separately disclosed | |
| Text Message | 7% | Not separately disclosed |
Source: FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Spotlight, April 6, 2026 (ftc.gov). Percentages exclude reports with no stated contact method.
The trajectory is stark. Social media fraud losses reported to the FTC have grown from $261 million in 2020 to $2.1 billion in 2025 — a 706% increase in five years, or an eight-fold increase as the FTC characterizes it. This growth rate significantly outpaces overall fraud loss growth (430% over the same period), indicating that social media has become disproportionately more dangerous as a fraud vector relative to other channels.
| Year | Social Media Fraud Losses (FTC) |
|---|---|
| 2020 | $261 million |
| 2021 | $789 million |
| 2022 | $1.2 billion |
| 2023 | $1.5 billion |
| 2024 | $1.9 billion |
| 2025 | $2.1 billion |
Source: FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Spotlight, April 2026 (primary). Note: Reports were not collected during the 2025 government shutdown.
According to Axis Intelligence, investment scams accounted for $1.1 billion — more than half of all social media fraud losses in 2025 — despite being numerically outranked in complaint volume by shopping scams. This means a small number of high-value investment fraud victims are driving the majority of monetary harm in the social media channel.
Platform Breakdown
The FTC data confirms that Facebook generated more reported fraud losses than any other social media platform in 2025 — and more than text or email scams combined. WhatsApp and Instagram ranked second and third. The FTC does not publish platform-specific dollar figures in its current Data Spotlight, but it confirms Facebook’s dominance across all reported loss-related contact methods.
Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram) were also identified by ScamWatchHQ as driving 38% of reported cryptocurrency scam leads globally in 2025 — the single largest platform-origin share.
Romance scams on social media: In 2025, nearly 60% of consumers who reported losing money to a romance scam said the initial contact occurred on a social media platform.
Job scams on social media: One in three people who reported losing money to a job or business opportunity scam in 2025 said it began on social media.
Age distribution: Social media fraud was the most costly contact method for every age group under 80 in 2025. For those 80 and older, it ranked second after phone calls. The 18–29 age group had the highest share of social media-origin fraud reports (40%), challenging the assumption that social media fraud primarily targets older adults.
AI-Enabled Fraud — The 2025 Debut in Federal Statistics
In 2025, the FBI formally recognized artificial intelligence as a fraud descriptor for the first time in IC3’s 25-year history. The initial accounting logged 22,364 AI-related complaints and $893.3 million in associated losses.
| AI Fraud Category | 2025 Complaints | 2025 Losses |
|---|---|---|
| Investment (AI-nexus) | 4,356 | $632.0 million |
| Business Email Compromise | 135 | $30.3 million |
| Tech/Customer Support | 574 | $19.5 million |
| Confidence/Romance | 626 | $19.0 million |
| Personal Data Breach | 1,204 | $18.8 million |
| Employment (deepfake interviews) | 691 | $12.6 million |
| Phishing/Spoofing | 803 | $10.3 million |
| Government Impersonation | 260 | $7.1 million |
Source: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report, pp. 41–42 (primary).
The most important caveat in the FBI report: Over $8 billion in total investment fraud losses were logged in 2025, but only $632 million of those were AI-attributed. The FBI itself acknowledges this gap, noting that “many victims do not realize the extent AI may be involved in scams.” The $632 million figure reflects only cases where victims or investigators specifically identified AI involvement.
According to Axis Intelligence’s cross-source calculation, applying the Chainalysis finding that AI-enabled crypto investment scams are 4.5 times more profitable than non-AI fraud, and cross-referencing with the $7.228 billion in crypto investment fraud losses logged by the FBI in 2025, the implied AI-linked share of crypto investment fraud losses would range from approximately $2.8 billion to $4.1 billion — far exceeding the $632 million figure currently attributed to AI in IC3 data. This is an inherently uncertain estimate, but it illustrates the degree to which official AI-fraud figures are likely to be revised upward in coming years as reporting methodology matures.
This cross-source calculation does not appear in either the FBI IC3 Report or the Chainalysis Crime Report; it is an original Axis Intelligence Research derivation.
Deepfake Fraud
Global deepfake-related fraud losses reached an estimated $1.28 billion to $1.56 billion in 2025, according to Kroll’s financial compliance research (May 2026). This figure is separate from — and largely uncaptured by — the FBI’s $893 million AI-fraud figure, which is complaint-driven rather than estimated.
Deloitte’s Center for Financial Services projected that generative AI would drive up to $40 billion in annual fraud losses by 2027, at a 32% compound annual growth rate.
The 60+ AI victim profile is particularly concerning. Among Americans 60 and older, AI-related complaints to the FBI generated $352 million in losses in 2025 — representing 39.4% of all AI-attributed losses despite this group filing only 14% of AI-related complaints. This concentration of dollar harm in the oldest age group mirrors the broader pattern in investment fraud.
Elder Fraud — The Highest-Loss Demographic
Americans aged 60 and older filed 201,266 complaints with the FBI in 2025 — representing 20% of all IC3 complaints — and reported $7.748 billion in losses, a 59% increase from 2024. Their average reported loss was $38,500, compared to the overall IC3 average of $20,699.
| Elder Fraud Metric | 2025 | 2024 | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total complaints (60+) | 201,266 | 146,947 | +37% |
| Total losses (60+) | $7.748 billion | $4.866 billion | +59% |
| Average loss per victim | $38,500 | ~$33,100 | +16.3% |
| Complainants losing >$100K | 12,444 | Not separately disclosed | — |
| Crypto losses (60+) | $4.347 billion | $2.839 billion | +53.1% |
Source: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report, pp. 44–50 (primary).
According to Axis Intelligence, the 60+ cohort accounts for 56.2% of all cryptocurrency-related losses tracked by the IC3 in 2025 ($4.347B of $7.748B total crypto losses), despite representing only 24.5% of crypto-related complaints. The per-complaint loss for victims 60+ in the crypto category ($102,812) is nearly double the average for all age groups ($62,604).
| Crime Type | 60+ Losses | % of IC3 Category Total |
|---|---|---|
| Investment | $3.519 billion | 40.7% |
| Tech/Customer Support | $1.041 billion | 48.8% |
| Confidence/Romance | $584 million | 62.8% |
| Business Email Compromise | $568 million | 18.6% |
| Government Impersonation | $413 million | 51.7% |
| Cryptocurrency (descriptor) | $4.347 billion | 38.2% |
Source: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report pp. 46, 55 (primary). Column “% of IC3 Category Total” calculated by Axis Intelligence Research.
The Gold Courier scam — in which criminals posing as government officials direct victims to withdraw cash or precious metals and hand them to a courier — generated an estimated $311.8 million in losses from approximately 725 complaints in 2025. The average loss per Gold Courier complaint: $430,069 — the highest per-complaint loss of any fraud sub-type tracked by the FBI in 2025.
Cryptocurrency-Related Fraud
Cryptocurrency was referenced in 181,565 IC3 complaints in 2025, a 21% increase from 2024, generating $11.366 billion in losses — or approximately 54.4% of all IC3-tracked losses.
This is the single most important statistic that most fraud statistics articles fail to compute: more than half of every dollar lost to online fraud reported to the FBI in 2025 involved cryptocurrency somewhere in the transaction chain.
| Cryptocurrency Fraud Metric | 2025 | 2024 | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Complaints with crypto nexus | 181,565 | 150,386 | +20.7% |
| Losses with crypto nexus | $11.366 billion | $9.300 billion | +22.2% |
| Average loss per crypto complaint | $62,604 | $61,840 | +1.2% |
| Complainants losing >$100K | 18,589 | ~15,800 | +17.6% |
| 60+ crypto losses | $4.347 billion | $2.839 billion | +53.1% |
Source: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report, pp. 52–57 (primary).
Crypto ATM/Kiosk fraud is an emerging sub-category that warrants particular attention. In 2025, 13,460 complaints involved crypto ATM or kiosk transactions, generating $389 million in losses — a 58% increase in losses year-over-year despite only a 23% increase in complaints. The average loss per crypto ATM complaint ($28,900) is far below the overall crypto average, indicating that while per-victim losses are moderate, the frequency of targeting has accelerated sharply.
Recovery scams compound the original crime. Once someone has been victimized by cryptocurrency investment fraud, they are frequently targeted by a second wave of scammers offering to recover lost funds — for a fee. In 2025, 10,516 recovery scam complaints generated $1.4 billion in additional losses, with the 60+ age group losing $540 million in this secondary victimization.
Phishing — High Volume, Rising Value
Phishing and spoofing remained the most frequently reported crime type to the FBI in 2025, with 191,561 complaints — though complaint volume barely changed from the 193,407 logged in 2024. What changed dramatically was the financial harm.
| Phishing Metric | 2025 | 2024 | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Complaints | 191,561 | 193,407 | −1.0% |
| Losses | $215.8 million | $70.0 million | +208% |
| Average loss per complaint | $1,127 | $362 | +211% |
Source: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report, p. 26 (primary).
This is one of the most striking data points in the 2025 IC3 report, and it has no adequate explanation in the report itself. According to Axis Intelligence’s analysis, a near-flat complaint volume combined with a tripling of losses per incident is consistent with one interpretation: the composition of phishing attacks is shifting from high-volume, low-value credential harvesting toward lower-volume, high-value spear-phishing attacks — exactly the pattern that Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) platforms and AI-generated targeting enable.
This is an original analytical conclusion that does not appear in the IC3 report, the FTC’s data, or competitor reporting.
Ransomware — The Misleading Numbers
The FBI logged 3,611 ransomware complaints in 2025, with reported losses of $32.3 million — a 259% increase in losses from $12.5 million in 2024. These numbers are almost universally cited without the critical caveat the FBI embeds in its own report.
The FBI’s explicit disclaimer: Ransomware loss figures “do not include estimates of lost business, time, wages, files, or equipment, or any third-party remediation services acquired by an entity. In some cases, entities do not report any loss amount to the FBI, thereby creating an artificially low overall ransomware loss rate.”
According to Axis Intelligence’s cross-source analysis, the $32.3 million figure represents only the direct ransom payment amounts reported through IC3 — a fraction of the true cost. IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach 2024 Report found that the average total cost of a ransomware breach (including operational disruption, forensics, remediation, and legal exposure) reached $4.88 million per incident. Applying this figure to IC3’s 3,611 ransomware complaints would imply a true total cost of approximately $17.6 billion — roughly 545 times the IC3 reported figure.
This cross-source derivation is an Axis Intelligence original calculation. The $17.6 billion figure should be treated as an illustrative order-of-magnitude estimate, not a verified total.
| Ransomware Metric | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| IC3 complaints | 3,611 | 3,156 | 2,825 |
| IC3 reported losses | $32.3 million | $12.5 million | $59.6 million |
| New variants identified | 63 | ~40 | ~38 |
| Top variants by volume | Akira, Qilin, INC/Lynx | LockBit, BlackCat | LockBit, ALPHV |
| Healthcare ransomware attacks | 460 | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
Source: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report, pp. 13–16 (primary).
Healthcare and Public Health was the most-targeted critical infrastructure sector in 2025, with 460 ransomware attacks and 182 data breaches reported to IC3 — ahead of Critical Manufacturing, Financial Services, Information Technology, and Government Facilities.
Geographic Distribution — The Fraud Burden Per Capita
The IC3 state-level data reveals a fraud geography that standard coverage ignores. Absolute loss rankings (California #1 at $3.67B, Texas #2 at $1.83B) are determined more by population than by fraud intensity. The more analytically useful metric is losses per 100,000 residents.
| Rank | State | Losses per 100K Residents | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | $14,037,165 | Outlier — high fraud reporting density |
| 2 | California | $9,337,282 | Highest absolute losses |
| 3 | Nevada | $9,208,347 | High crypto-hub exposure |
| 4 | Arizona | $8,272,766 | High 60+ population |
| 5 | Hawaii | $7,429,222 | |
| 6 | New Jersey | $6,916,601 | |
| 7 | Florida | $6,802,930 | High 60+ population |
| 8 | Rhode Island | $6,456,625 | |
| 9 | Maryland | $6,228,591 | |
| 10 | New York | $6,130,795 |
Source: FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report, pp. 30–31 (primary).
According to Axis Intelligence, states with both high per-capita fraud loss and high 60+ population shares (Arizona, Florida, Nevada) represent the confluence of two amplifying risk factors: high crypto investment fraud targeting and high tech support/government impersonation fraud targeting — the two crime types most disproportionately affecting older adults.
Oregon stands out as a notable outlier: it ranks 27th in total loss ($193M) but 5th in cryptocurrency losses by state ($545.9 million), suggesting a concentration of high-value crypto investment fraud cases relative to its population and overall fraud exposure. This anomaly does not appear in any other fraud statistics resource.
Methodology
Data collection: Axis Intelligence Research aggregates primary source data from federal reporting bodies: the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) 2025 Annual Report (published April 2026, ic3.gov), the FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Spotlight on Social Media Fraud (April 6, 2026, ftc.gov), FTC Congressional testimony before the Joint Economic Committee (March 25, 2026), and the FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024 (the most recent fully published annual edition as of this article’s publication date).
What we measure: Reported losses only. All figures reflect what victims voluntarily submitted to US federal reporting systems. The FBI IC3 and FTC Consumer Sentinel are the two primary US federal complaint repositories; they receive overlapping but not identical sets of reports.
What we do not measure: Axis Intelligence does not conduct instrumented tests, direct victim surveys, or independent audits. We do not produce primary data. Our original analytical contributions — the Fraud Severity Index, the cross-source loss derivations, and the per-capita calculations — are derived metrics computed from published primary source data using disclosed methodology.
Limitations:
- IC3 and FTC data represent reported incidents only. Multiple independent studies estimate that fewer than 5–15% of fraud victims file official reports.
- FBI IC3 loss figures for ransomware explicitly exclude indirect costs (downtime, remediation, reputational harm).
- FTC Consumer Sentinel 2025 figures cited in this article are from pre-publication congressional testimony (March 2026); the full 2025 Data Book had not been formally published as of this article’s last-updated date.
- The 2025 government shutdown created a data gap in FTC reporting during the affected period.
- AI-attribution in IC3 data depends on victims or investigators identifying AI involvement; the true AI-related fraud share is likely significantly higher than the $893 million figure.
Update cadence: This dataset is reviewed and refreshed quarterly. Source data is re-checked against ic3.gov and ftc.gov for any corrections or supplemental publications.
About This Dataset
Title: Online Fraud Statistics 2026 — Axis Intelligence Research Dataset Coverage: United States federal fraud reporting data, 2020–2025 Primary sources: FBI IC3 Annual Reports, FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Books, FTC Congressional testimony Derived metrics: Axis Intelligence Fraud Severity Index™, cross-agency loss totals, per-capita state rankings, AI-attributed loss estimates Update schedule: Quarterly (next: September 2026) License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You are free to share and adapt this data for any purpose with attribution. Citation format:
APA: Axis Intelligence Research Desk, & Chen, M. (2026, June 2). Online Fraud Statistics 2026. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/online-fraud-statistics/
MLA: Axis Intelligence Research Desk and Marcus Chen. “Online Fraud Statistics 2026.” Axis Intelligence, 2 June 2026, axis-intelligence.com/online-fraud-statistics/.
Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research Desk and Marcus Chen. “Online Fraud Statistics 2026.” Axis Intelligence. June 2, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/online-fraud-statistics/.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How much money is lost to online fraud each year in the US?
Americans reported $20.877 billion in losses to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2025, and $15.9 billion in losses to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network in the same year. These two databases overlap partially, and together represent the most comprehensive view of reported US fraud losses available. The true total — accounting for the roughly 95% of fraud that goes unreported — is estimated by the FTC at potentially $195.9 billion for 2024 alone.
What is the most common type of online fraud?
By complaint volume, phishing and spoofing is the most common, with 191,561 reports to the FBI in 2025. By financial damage, investment fraud is the most costly by a wide margin at $8.648 billion in reported losses — 41% of all IC3-tracked losses.
What percentage of online fraud is reported to authorities?
Research cited by the FTC suggests only approximately 4.8% of mass-market consumer fraud victims ever file a complaint with a government body. This is why official statistics represent a fraction of actual losses.
Which age group loses the most money to online fraud?
Americans aged 60 and older reported $7.748 billion in losses to the FBI in 2025 — the highest of any age group and 59% more than in 2024. Their average reported loss of $38,500 per victim is also the highest of any age cohort.
How much of online fraud involves cryptocurrency?
The FBI logged $11.366 billion in fraud losses with a cryptocurrency nexus in 2025 — representing approximately 54.4% of all IC3-tracked losses. More than half of reported online fraud losses involve cryptocurrency somewhere in the transaction chain.
What is AI fraud and how much does it cost?
AI-related fraud was formally tracked by the FBI for the first time in 2025, logging $893 million in officially attributed losses from 22,364 complaints. The true AI-linked share is likely far higher; investment fraud experts estimate that AI-enabled crypto scams are 4.5 times more profitable than non-AI equivalents (Chainalysis), suggesting AI involvement in billions of dollars in losses not yet formally attributed.
Is social media fraud increasing?
Yes. Reported losses to fraud originating on social media grew from $261 million in 2020 to $2.1 billion in 2025 — a 706% increase — according to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network. Social media is now the most costly contact method for fraud victims in every US age group under 80.
What is Business Email Compromise (BEC)?
BEC is a targeted scam in which criminals impersonate executives, vendors, or attorneys via email to trick employees into authorizing fraudulent wire transfers. In 2025, BEC generated $3.046 billion in losses from just 24,768 complaints — an average of roughly $123,000 per incident — making it the second-highest loss category after investment fraud, and the highest-loss category targeting businesses specifically.
Which US states have the highest per-capita online fraud losses?
The District of Columbia ($14.0M per 100K), California ($9.3M), Nevada ($9.2M), and Arizona ($8.3M) rank highest in per-capita fraud losses, according to FBI IC3 data. Arizona and Florida’s high fraud intensity partly reflects their large 60+ populations, who are disproportionately targeted by investment, tech support, and government impersonation scams.
What is the Axis Intelligence Fraud Severity Index?
The Fraud Severity Index (FSI) is a proprietary composite metric developed by Axis Intelligence Research to enable cross-category fraud severity comparisons that federal agencies do not publish. It weights each fraud category by financial loss, complaint volume, and year-over-year growth rate — each normalized on a 100-point scale and averaged. The FSI is recalculated quarterly as new data becomes available. It is an Axis Intelligence original metric, not a figure from any government report.