09 July 2026

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has released the 2025-26 Annual Report and Accounts, a review of its performance against the strategic objectives.

Here is a summary of the highlights presented in this report:

 

Strategic Objective 1: Close the Tax Gap

Reducing the difference between the tax owed and the tax actually collected:

  • generated £50.2 billion in compliance yield, the highest level achieved by HMRC, but below the annual target of £50.4 billion
  • raised £966.4 billion in tax revenue
  • the provisional tax gap remains at 6.4%
  • hired over 1,600 new compliance colleagues, progressing toward the goal of adding 5,500 frontline compliance officers by 2030.

 

Strategic Objective 2: Improve day-to-day performance and the overall customer experience

Making it easier for individuals and businesses to interact with HMRC:

  • 78% of interactions with customers was through their digital or automated channels
  • overall customer satisfaction was 79.4%, below the target of 80%
  • the average call answering time was 12 minutes and 35 seconds
  • telephony ‘advisor attempts handled’, which is the proportion of callers who got through to an advisor after hearing the automated messages, was 85.1%, up from 71.5% last year
  • answered 95.6% of webchats with an average wait time of 1 minute and 21 seconds.

 

Strategic Objective 3: Reform and modernisation of tax and customs administration

Investing heavily in digital services and technology to create a modern, digital-first tax system:

  • its customer facing systems were available 99.948% of the time
  • Unique Customer Record programme will bring together all records held on a customer in one place. By the end of 2025-26, 97 million unique records were entered into the new Central Customer Registry (CCR)
  • using AI to improve customer experience, whilst adopting this technology responsibly
  • 10,450 customers and 62 software providers signed up for public testing of the MTD for Income Tax. At the launch in April 2026, there were 76 software providers offering 94 products to help customers manage their tax obligations.

 

Strategic Objective 4: Build a high-performing organisation with a skilled and engaged workforce

Workforce growth and capability-building are central to delivering its transformation plans:

  • 80% of HMRC colleagues have completed at least one digital, data technology course, completing more than 10 courses on average
  • 5000 colleagues have accessed the Leadership and Management Capability Academy
  • continue to support the Places for Growth programme, aiming to strengthen the government’s presence across the country by basing half of all UK senior civil service roles outside London by 2030, by opening 12 of the 14 new regional centres
  • recruited 1,824 tax specialists in both permanent and secondment roles, doubled the intake of candidates on the Tax Specialist Programme from 250 to 500, and recruiting a further 84 to expand HMRC’s Fraud Prevention Centre.

 

Strategic Objective 5: Supporting wider government economic aims

Extending its role beyond tax collection to support economic growth and delivering government policy effectively:

  • opened enquiries on around 32,000 Child Benefit cases, costing around 16,000 of these being found to be non-compliant in failing to notify HMRC the Child Benefit payments should have stopped, saving around £46 million in taxpayers money
  • work with other UK government departments and devolved governments to understand the tax, National Insurance and child support scheme implications of a range of policies, including support and compensation schemes for people, to ensure that all liabilities are understood during the policy making process
  • completed 2,749 interventions and spoke directly with 4,482 employers about their business practices and potential risks to NMW compliance. HMRC identified £11.6 million in wage arrears for more than 62,000 workers.

 


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