# How common is identity fraud in the UK? What Cifas, the ONS and UK Finance count

Cifas members filed 242,003 identity fraud cases in 2025, 54 per cent of all filings. What the UK figures show, how identities are taken, and the limits.

**In short:** Identity fraud is the most common case type on the UK's National Fraud Database: Cifas members filed 242,003 cases in 2025, 54 per cent of all filings, and 129,490 in the first half of 2026, up 9 per cent.

Identity fraud is the most common type of fraud that UK organisations record through Cifas. In 2025 members of Cifas, the fraud prevention service, filed 242,003 identity fraud cases to the National Fraud Database. That was 54 per cent of everything filed, and the figure is rising again: 129,490 cases in the first six months of 2026, up 9 per cent on the same period of 2025.

How common it is for individuals is a different question, and no single source answers it. The ONS crime statistics for England and Wales estimate 4.5 million fraud incidents in the year to March 2026, with 3.8 million victims, but they don't count identity fraud as a category of its own. What follows is what each source counts and where it stops.

## Three ways of counting

The three main sources measure different things, and their figures shouldn't be added together.

**Cifas** counts cases that its members, nearly 800 organisations across banking, retail, insurance and telecoms, file to the National Fraud Database. A case records a fraud risk an organisation has identified, such as an application made in someone else's name. It is a count of filings by organisations, not of people affected.

**The ONS** estimates how many fraud incidents people in England and Wales experienced in the previous 12 months, and how many people were victims, from interviews. Its estimates cover a broad range of fraud. The ONS calls this its preferred source for fraud, and notes that many victims never report to the police.

**UK Finance** counts payment fraud confirmed by its members. Its card figures count confirmed cases where a loss occurred, by card defrauded rather than by customer.

## What the National Fraud Database shows

Over four years the identity fraud count has come down from its peak, while account takeover, its close relative, has more than doubled. Cifas reported a record 277,234 identity fraud cases in 2022. Its latest published figures are 237,682 for 2023, 249,430 for 2024 and 242,003 for 2025. Over the same years, facility takeover cases, where a criminal takes control of an existing account rather than opening a new one, rose from 37,285 to 78,387.

Cifas reads the two together. Its view is that the dip in identity fraud filings in 2025 reflects "a shift in criminal tactics rather than a reduction in harm", with fraudsters moving towards account takeover, particularly of mobile phone accounts. Identity fraud and facility takeover together made up 72 per cent of all cases filed in 2025.

The first half of 2026 shows identity fraud rising again. Cifas members filed 129,490 cases between January and June, against 118,740 a year earlier. The increase was driven by plastic cards, up 33 per cent (14,955 more cases, more than the net rise because other sectors fell), largely personal credit cards. Loans rose 49 per cent. Telecoms filings fell 28 per cent to 9,055, which Cifas again links partly to criminals moving to account takeover. Total filings of all types, at 220,041, were the highest Cifas has recorded for the first half of any year.

Account takeover is also still growing: 39,878 cases in the first half of 2026, up 5 per cent. Unauthorised SIM swap cases rose 402 per cent against the first half of 2025, or 4,109 more cases. That implies a base of about 1,000 cases a year earlier (our arithmetic, not a Cifas figure), so the percentage describes a small starting point. Cifas describes SIM swaps being used to intercept authentication codes and get round security measures.

## Which products are targeted

Plastic cards are the largest single target. In 2025 they accounted for 87,818 identity fraud cases, 36 per cent of the total, and personal credit cards made up 92 per cent of those. Bank accounts came next with 63,678 cases, up 10 per cent. Within banking, personal instant and easy-access accounts rose 455 per cent (7,131 more cases), which Cifas reads as criminals turning to basic banking products "using stolen or synthetic identities".

![Bar chart: plastic cards had 87,818 identity fraud cases in 2025 and bank accounts 63,678, up from 57,946; communications fell to 27,659.](https://unforged.ai/media/17ee44637a9f-id-fraud-by-sector-1280.webp)

Identity fraud cases by sector, 2024 and 2025. Source: Cifas, Fraudscape 2026

Communications, which includes telecoms, fell 24 per cent to 27,659 cases. Insurance went the other way, up 26 per cent to 16,461, driven by motor insurance. Online retail held roughly steady at 17,794.

The people impersonated skew older. Victims over 61 made up 29 per cent of identity fraud cases in 2025, with filings for that age group up 13 per cent, and those aged 51 to 60 a further 21 per cent. In the first half of 2026 the largest rise was among 21 to 30-year-olds, up 32 per cent, mostly involving personal credit cards.

## How identities are obtained and used

Most identity fraud on the database is impersonation of a real person rather than an invented one. In 2024, impersonation using the victim's current or previous address accounted for 82 per cent of identity fraud cases, and 86 per cent of cases came through online channels. In the first half of 2026 impersonation using the victim's current address was still the leading reason, up 12 per cent, while filings for false identities fell 35 per cent.

On where the personal details come from, Cifas points to several routes. In its report on 2024 it named phishing as the most common method of taking control of existing accounts, with members reporting spoofed websites and brand impersonation. The rise in SIM swaps in 2025 "appears to be driven by the growing availability of stolen personal data" and by more automated attacks. Some of the supply is voluntary: Cifas reports that more people are selling or sharing their identity documents under financial strain, and that some are selling personal information to criminal networks, which use it to build credit profiles and open accounts.

Cifas also describes synthetic identities "becoming industrialised", with criminals building convincing profiles over long periods, and expects AI-powered impersonation and synthetic media to keep identity fraud and account takeover among the main threats.

UK Finance's card figures look at the same crime from the card side, and there both forms fell in 2025. Card ID theft, where a criminal uses stolen personal information to open or take over a card account in someone else's name, cost £54.0m across 103,171 cases in 2025, down from a peak of 142,445 cases in 2023. Most of it was account takeover (82,030 cases, £37.8m). The rest was third-party application fraud (21,141 cases, £16.1m).

## Where forged and stolen documents fit

The sources are specific about documents, and the documents they name are identity papers and proofs of address and income.

UK Finance defines third-party application fraud as a criminal using "stolen or fake documents to open a card account in someone else's name", with the information typically gathered through data hacks and social engineering. In its report on 2023, Cifas said higher-quality falsified identity documents, particularly UK driving licences, were being reused by different groups "at high velocity". Its report on 2022 described synthetic identities supported by false driving licences and utility bills, and by photo editing. In its first-half 2026 update it lists false bank statements, wage slips and identity documents as continuing problems in bank account, loan and asset finance applications.

Some of this sits outside identity fraud as Cifas counts it. Fake documents from "realistic fake document websites", AI-enabled document forgery and documents reused across multiple applications appear in Cifas' 2025 report under false application, a first-party fraud in which applicants misrepresent themselves rather than impersonate someone else. Even there the trend is mixed: false document filings for personal current accounts fell 41 per cent in 2025, which members attributed to better controls.

None of these sources measures forged signatures as part of identity fraud. The one place a forged signature is counted is UK Finance's cheque figures, where a forged cheque is a genuine cheque "stolen from an innocent customer and used by a fraudster with a forged signature". There were 364 such cases in 2025, with losses of £1.7m.

## What the ONS figures add

The ONS crime statistics for England and Wales are the closest thing to a measure of how often fraud reaches people. For the year ending March 2026 they estimate 4.5 million fraud incidents, which the ONS says is not a statistically significant change from 4.2 million a year earlier. The number of victims did rise, by 10 per cent to 3.8 million, and the share of people who were victims rose 0.7 percentage points to 7.8 per cent.

The category nearest to identity fraud is bank and credit account fraud, which the ONS describes as falsely obtaining or using someone's bank or payment card details, and which "can involve using a false identity" or a deceitful credit application. It rose 15 per cent to about 2.8 million incidents, the highest estimate in the series, which begins in the year to March 2017.

![Bar chart: ONS estimates of bank and credit account fraud rose to 2.81 million incidents in the year to March 2026, from 1.89 million two years earlier.](https://unforged.ai/media/bb323d28c35c-ons-bank-credit-fraud-1280.webp)

Bank and credit account fraud incidents, England and Wales, years ending March. No estimates for 2021 or 2022. Source: ONS, Crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2026

That category is broader than identity fraud. It includes fraudulent transactions made with someone's card details, which is not the same as opening or taking over an account in their name. And the ONS publishes no police recorded fraud in this release: the City of London Police replaced Action Fraud with a new service, Report Fraud, on 4 December 2025, and supply of recorded fraud data has been suspended while the old data is aligned with it.

## What the numbers do and don't tell you

Every database figure here is shaped by who reports and how. Cifas says as much about rising case numbers.

> Rising cases reflect both the scale of offending and improved reporting by organisations.
>
> — Stephen Dalton, Director of Intelligence, Cifas

Some of Cifas' sector movements are driven by a small number of members, and figures are revised between editions: the 2024 identity fraud total was 249,417 in last year's report and 249,430 in this one, and the 2023 total was 237,642 in the report on that year and 237,682 in the next. The 2022 figure appears only in Fraudscape 2023; the 2024 edition describes 2023 as a 14 per cent fall. Changes in the categories also matter. A fall in identity fraud alongside a rise in account takeover may describe the same criminals changing method rather than less fraud.

With those caveats, the sources point the same way. Identity fraud remains the largest category on the National Fraud Database, it rose again in the first half of 2026, and the ONS records both more fraud victims and more bank and credit account fraud. The weight is moving towards existing accounts, through takeover, and towards cards and basic bank accounts.

> If you think your personal details have been stolen, Cifas offers Protective Registration for £30 for two years. It places a warning flag against your name on the National Fraud Database, so member organisations carry out extra checks when your details are used to apply for something. It does not affect your credit score.

## Checking the signature

Identity fraud as Cifas records it centres on impersonation: someone using another person's details to obtain a product or service. Signature checking applies at a different point, when a mandate, an instruction or a cheque arrives on an existing account and the question is whether the account holder signed it. [Unforged Nib](https://unforged.ai/nib/product) is a signature verification API for that check. It compares a signature with the person's own reference signatures and returns one of six verdicts, with reasons. A FAILED result always goes to a person; it is never an automatic rejection.

Try Nib on your own documents: [Start free](https://unforged.ai/signup)

## Sources

- Cifas, [Fraudscape 2026](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/69946792023beb5fb744fcac/69b13cee7b378c6f222168d6_dd4bcd9908f6fefcb523ad4031e24490_Fraudscape%202026%20Report.pdf), National Fraud Database filings for January to December 2025, and [press release](https://www.cifas.org.uk/newsroom/fraudscape2026), 12 March 2026
- Cifas, [Fraudscape 2026: six-month update](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/69946792023beb5fb744fcac/6a8c08a2f9660b238e22904c_Fraudscape%202026%20-%206%20month%20update%20-%2024.08%20-%20Low%20Res.pdf), filings for January to June 2026, and [press release](https://www.cifas.org.uk/newsroom/fraudscape-2026-6-month-update)
- Cifas, [Fraudscape 2025](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/69946792023beb5fb744fcac/69946792023beb5fb744fd12_Fraudscape%202025.pdf), covering 2024
- Cifas, [Fraudscape 2024](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/69946792023beb5fb744fcac/69946792023beb5fb744fcea_Fraudscape%202024%20Downloadable%20Report%20-%20AUG24.pdf), covering 2023
- Cifas, [Fraudscape 2023](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/69946792023beb5fb744fcac/69946792023beb5fb744fce9_Cifas%20Fraudscape%202023%20Report.pdf), covering 2022
- Cifas, [Protective Registration](https://www.cifas.org.uk/pr)
- Office for National Statistics, [Crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2026](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2026), 23 July 2026
- UK Finance, [Annual Fraud Report 2026](https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/2026-06/UK%20Finance%20Fraud%20Report%202026.pdf), covering 2025