Cybercrime statistics: what the FBI and FTC numbers for 2025 show

Two US agencies publish the most-cited numbers. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) counts complaints about internet crime filed with it. The FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network collects fraud reports from consumers and partner organizations — including IC3 — so the two overlap and shouldn't be added together. All figures below are as published; we note the year each one covers and where to find it.

The headline numbers

Which internet crimes cost the most

Phishing generates the most complaints; investment fraud does the most damage. Cyber-enabled fraud as a whole — 452,868 complaints and $17,697,074,980 — made up 45% of all complaints and 85% of all losses in 2025. IC3 also counted 22,364 complaints with an AI connection, reporting $893,346,472 in losses.

Cryptocurrency

• 181,565 complaints involved cryptocurrency in 2025, up 21%, with $11.366 billion in losses, up 22%. The average loss was $62,604.
• Crypto investment fraud alone accounted for about $7.2 billion. The report gives $7.228 billion in one place and $7,277,868,919 in its detailed table.
• Cryptocurrency ATMs: 13,460 complaints and $389 million in losses, up 58%.

Older adults

• People aged 60 and over filed 201,266 complaints, up 37% from 2024.
• They reported $7.748 billion in losses, up 59%, with an average loss of $38,500.
• 12,444 of them reported losing more than $100,000.

What the FTC's 2025 data adds

• 3 million fraud reports and $15.9 billion lost in 2025, up from 2.6 million reports and over $12 billion in 2024. In a June 2026 release the FTC rounded the 2025 total to about $16 billion, up about 25%.
• Investment scams: over $7.9 billion — about half of all reported losses — with an average loss over $10,000.
• Imposter scams: over 1 million reports and over $3.5 billion. Business impersonators took nearly $1 billion and government impersonators about $920 million.
• Bank payments had the highest losses, followed by cryptocurrency; credit cards were the payment method reported most often.
• Text messages were the most common way scammers made first contact; social media brought the highest losses. Nearly 30% of people who lost money said the scam started on social media.

The FTC hasn't published its full 2025 Data Book yet — the newest edition on its reports page covers 2024 — and it didn't collect reports during the 2025 government shutdown. For a fuller breakdown, the 2024 edition is the latest.

For context: the FTC's 2024 Data Book

• 2,600,678 fraud reports with $12,537,194,708 in reported losses; 38% of people who reported fraud lost money, and the median loss was $497.
• 1.1 million identity theft reports. Credit card fraud was the top type, with 449,032 reports — most of them new accounts opened in someone else's name.
• Text scams: $470 million in reported losses in 2024, more than five times the 2020 figure.

Why the real numbers are higher

• Both agencies count only what people report. The FTC estimates that just 4.8% of fraud victims complain to the Better Business Bureau or a government agency.
• Adjusting for underreporting, the FTC estimated the cost of fraud in 2024 at $195.9 billion — an estimate, not a reported total.
• IC3's ransomware losses leave out lost business, time, wages, files and equipment.
• IC3 complaints come from more than 200 countries, and its figures may change as complaints are de-duplicated.

What the numbers mean for you

• Phishing and scam texts are the most common first contact. Don't use links in unexpected messages — go to the company's site or app yourself.
• The biggest losses come from investment pitches, often starting on social media or with a "wrong number" text. Treat unsolicited investment advice, especially in cryptocurrency, as a red flag.
• Older relatives are hit hardest. Talk with them about tech-support and imposter scams, and about never paying by gift card, wire or crypto ATM.
• Report what happens to you at ic3.gov or ReportFraud.ftc.gov — the statistics, and the investigations behind them, depend on it.

One million complaints and twenty billion dollars is only what people reported. The habits that stop the most common scams cost nothing.