Scam statistics 2026: latest FTC and FBI numbers

Key takeaways

People reported losing $15.9 billion to fraud to the FTC in 2025, across about 3 million fraud reports. The year before it was about $12.5 billion.
Investment scams cost the most: more than $7.9 billion, roughly half of all reported losses, with an average loss above $10,000.
Imposter scams are the most common: more than 1 million reports and $3.5 billion lost, nearly three times the 2020 figure.
The FBI's separate count of internet crime passed $20 billion in 2025 for the first time, and people aged 60 and over reported about $7.7 billion of it.
These are reported losses only. The FTC has estimated the true cost of fraud in 2024 could be as high as $195.9 billion.

The short version

Two U.S. agencies publish the numbers most people quote. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) counts fraud reports from consumers. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) counts complaints about internet-enabled crime. Both set records for 2025, and both say clearly that they only see a fraction of what happens.

Measure	2025	2024
Fraud losses reported to the FTC	$15.9 billion	about $12.5 billion
Fraud reports to the FTC	about 3 million	about 2.6 million
Imposter scam losses (FTC)	$3.5 billion	$2.95 billion
Investment scam losses (FTC)	more than $7.9 billion	$5.7 billion
Government imposter losses (FTC)	about $920 million	$789 million
Business imposter losses (FTC)	nearly $1 billion	$866 million
Total losses reported to FBI IC3	about $20.9 billion	$16.6 billion

The 2025 FTC figures come from testimony the agency gave to Congress on March 25, 2026 and from an FTC data release in June 2026. The 2024 figures come from the FTC's March 2025 data release. The IC3 figures are from the FBI's 2025 annual report, released on April 6, 2026.

What the FTC numbers show

Losses keep climbing faster than reports. The FTC told Congress that reported losses have risen every year for six years and are up nearly 430 percent since 2020. The agency says the rise is driven largely by more people reporting very large losses of $100,000 or more. In other words, the typical scam has not changed as much as the size of the worst ones.

Imposters are the most common problem. More than 1 million of the 3 million fraud reports were about someone pretending to be a bank, a company, a government agency, or a person the victim knew. The FTC says imposter scams have topped its list every year since 2020 and that nearly one in three fraud reports in 2025 was about an imposter. The costliest version starts with a fake security alert, often in the name of a bank, and ends with the victim moving money "to keep it safe". In the FTC's words, losses are often limited only by the funds the person has available.

Investment scams take the most money. People reported more than $7.9 billion lost to investment scams in 2025, about half of all reported fraud losses, with an average individual loss above $10,000. Most of these begin with a friendly contact on social media or a messaging app, not with a cold call from a stranger in a suit.

How people pay tells you where the risk is. By total dollars, the largest reported losses in 2025 went out through bank payments, followed by cryptocurrency. Credit cards were the payment method named most often in reports, but card payments are the easiest to dispute, so the losses are smaller.

Text messages are now the top contact method. When people said how the scammer first reached them in 2025, a text message was the most common answer.

What the FBI numbers add

The IC3 report covers crimes the FTC's consumer data does not, including attacks on businesses.

Total reported losses were about $20.9 billion across just over 1 million complaints, the first time the annual total passed $20 billion.
Cyber-enabled fraud made up about 85 percent of those losses, roughly $17.6 billion.
Investment fraud was the largest category at about $8.6 billion. Business email compromise, where a criminal redirects a payment by impersonating a supplier or an executive, was second at just over $3 billion. Tech-support fraud was third at about $2.1 billion.
Losses involving cryptocurrency were about $11.4 billion.
People aged 60 and over filed about 201,000 complaints and reported roughly $7.7 billion in losses, more than a third of the total.
For the first time the report counted complaints that mentioned artificial intelligence: about 22,000 of them, with roughly $893 million in losses.

We read these IC3 figures in coverage by The Record and CyberScoop, both linked below, and have rounded them.

Why the real total is much higher

Every figure above counts only people who filed a report. Many never do, because they are embarrassed, because they do not know where to report, or because they never realize what happened. The FTC's testimony says that once under-reporting is taken into account, the overall cost of fraud to consumers in 2024 could have been as high as $195.9 billion, more than fifteen times the reported figure for that year.

That gap is the most important number on this page. If you were scammed and said nothing, you are in the majority.

How to quote these numbers correctly

Say "reported". "Americans reported losing $15.9 billion" is accurate. "Americans lost $15.9 billion" understates the truth and misdescribes the data.
Name the source and the year. FTC and FBI totals measure different things.
Do not add the FTC and FBI totals together. The FBI shares IC3 data with the FTC's database, so they overlap.
Do not compare raw counts between states or age groups without adjusting for population. The agencies publish per-capita figures for that reason.
Be careful with averages. A small number of six-figure losses pulls the average far above what a typical person loses. Where a median is available, use it.

What the numbers mean for you

The first contact will probably be a text. Learn to read one: see how to tell if a text is a scam.
The biggest single risk is being told to move your money. No bank or agency will ask you to transfer savings to protect them.
Payment method decides whether you can get money back. Cards can be disputed. Bank transfers, payment apps, gift cards, and crypto mostly cannot. See how to get your money back after a scam.
Reporting matters even when the money is gone. These totals, and the enforcement cases built on them, exist because people filed reports. See how to report a scam.

Common questions

How much money is lost to scams each year in the United States?

In 2025, people reported $15.9 billion in fraud losses to the Federal Trade Commission, and the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded about $20.9 billion in reported losses from internet crime. The two figures overlap and neither counts unreported losses, so the real total is much higher.

What is the most common type of scam?

Imposter scams. The FTC says they have been the most reported fraud category every year since 2020, with more than 1 million reports in 2025. Nearly one in three fraud reports was about an imposter.

Which scam costs people the most money?

Investment scams. People reported losing more than $7.9 billion to them in 2025 according to the FTC, about half of all reported fraud losses, and the FBI reported about $8.6 billion in investment fraud losses for the same year.

Why are the FTC and FBI numbers different?

They are different databases. The FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network collects consumer fraud reports from the public and from partner organizations. The FBI's IC3 collects complaints about internet-enabled crime, including business crimes such as invoice fraud and ransomware. Add neither to the other.

Official sources and further reading

Published September 21, 2026, last updated September 21, 2026. This guide is general education for people in the United States. It is not legal or financial advice, and it cannot tell you whether a particular message or person is genuine. Spot an error? Tell us.

Scam statistics: what the latest FTC and FBI numbers actually say