Invoice Fraud Statistics
Last updated: 2026-10-28 · 12 sourced statistics
Invoice fraud takes two main forms. External criminals impersonate a supplier, often by compromising or spoofing email, and persuade the payer to send a genuine invoice payment to a new bank account. Insiders submit fictitious or inflated invoices so their own employer pays them. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded $3.05 billion in business email compromise losses in 2025, and 74% of US organizations in the AFP's 2026 survey were affected by business email compromise. In the UK, invoice and mandate scams fell to £41.3 million, the lowest UK Finance has recorded. On the insider side, billing schemes made up 21% of the occupational fraud cases in the ACFE's 2026 study. This page keeps to invoice-related fraud; card and wider payment fraud are on the payment fraud statistics page, and check fraud on the check payment statistics page.
Key takeaways
- Business email compromise caused $3.05 billion of reported losses in 2025 across 24,768 complaints to the FBI's IC3, up from $2.77 billion and 21,442 complaints in 2024.
- 74% of US organizations were affected by business email compromise in 2025 (AFP, 465 respondents).
- Vendor imposter fraud was cited by 45% of AFP respondents in the 2025 survey, up 11 percentage points.
- UK invoice and mandate scam losses fell to £41.3 million in 2025, the lowest on record; 68% of the losses hit business accounts and 48% was returned to victims (UK Finance).
- Billing schemes are 21% of occupational fraud cases, with a $90,000 median loss and a 14-month median duration before detection (ACFE 2026).
At a glance.
Every figure on this page in one table, each linked to its named source. Scroll down for the full context behind each number.
| Figure | What it measures | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| $3.05B | Business email compromise caused $3,046,598,558 of reported losses in 2025, the second-largest loss category for cyber-enabled fraud after investment fraud. | FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Internet Crime Report 2025 | 2025 |
| 24,768 | IC3 received 24,768 business email compromise complaints in 2025, up from 21,442 in 2024 and 21,489 in 2023. | FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Internet Crime Report 2025 | 2025 |
| ~$123K | Dividing IC3's 2025 business email compromise losses by its complaint count gives an average reported loss of about $123,000 per complaint (calculated from the FBI's totals). | FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Internet Crime Report 2025 (calculation) | 2025 |
| $30M+ | Businesses reported more than $30 million of losses in 2025 to business email compromise scams involving AI, such as generated emails or cloned voices. | FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Internet Crime Report 2025 | 2025 |
| 58% | When fraudulent transfers were reported quickly, IC3's Recovery Asset Team froze $679 million of $1.16 billion in attempted theft across 3,900 incidents in 2025, a 58% success rate (all crime types; historically most were business email compromise). | FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Internet Crime Report 2025 | 2025 |
| 74% | 74% of US organizations were affected by business email compromise in 2025, a significant increase from 2023 and 2024 (survey of 465 treasury practitioners, January 2026). | Association for Financial Professionals, 2026 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey | 2026 |
| 45% | Vendor imposter fraud was cited by 45% of respondents, an 11-percentage-point increase on the previous survey; business email compromise was the No. 1 avenue for attempted and actual payments fraud, cited by 63% (521 respondents, data for 2024). | Association for Financial Professionals, 2025 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey | 2025 |
| £41.3m | UK invoice and mandate scam losses were £41.3 million in 2025 across 2,305 cases, down 4% in value and the lowest loss and case totals UK Finance has reported (2020: £68.8 million, 4,721 cases). | UK Finance, Annual Fraud Report 2026 | 2025 |
| 68% | 68% of UK invoice and mandate scam losses in 2025 (£28.0 million) occurred on business (non-personal) accounts, across 1,217 cases. | UK Finance, Annual Fraud Report 2026 | 2025 |
| 48% | 48% of UK invoice and mandate scam losses (£20.0 million) were returned to victims in 2025. | UK Finance, Annual Fraud Report 2026 | 2025 |
| 21% | Billing schemes, where an insider submits invoices for fictitious goods or services, inflated invoices or invoices for personal purchases, made up 508 of 2,402 occupational fraud cases (21%), with a median loss of $90,000. | Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Occupational Fraud 2026: A Report to the Nations | 2026 |
| 14 months | Billing schemes ran for a median 14 months before detection, against a 12-month median for all occupational fraud cases. | Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Occupational Fraud 2026: A Report to the Nations | 2026 |
The statistics
Business email compromise caused $3,046,598,558 of reported losses in 2025, the second-largest loss category for cyber-enabled fraud after investment fraud.
Source:FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Internet Crime Report 20252025
IC3 received 24,768 business email compromise complaints in 2025, up from 21,442 in 2024 and 21,489 in 2023.
Source:FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Internet Crime Report 20252025
Dividing IC3's 2025 business email compromise losses by its complaint count gives an average reported loss of about $123,000 per complaint (calculated from the FBI's totals).
Source:FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Internet Crime Report 2025 (calculation)2025
Businesses reported more than $30 million of losses in 2025 to business email compromise scams involving AI, such as generated emails or cloned voices.
Source:FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Internet Crime Report 20252025
When fraudulent transfers were reported quickly, IC3's Recovery Asset Team froze $679 million of $1.16 billion in attempted theft across 3,900 incidents in 2025, a 58% success rate (all crime types; historically most were business email compromise).
Source:FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, Internet Crime Report 20252025
74% of US organizations were affected by business email compromise in 2025, a significant increase from 2023 and 2024 (survey of 465 treasury practitioners, January 2026).
Source:Association for Financial Professionals, 2026 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey2026
Vendor imposter fraud was cited by 45% of respondents, an 11-percentage-point increase on the previous survey; business email compromise was the No. 1 avenue for attempted and actual payments fraud, cited by 63% (521 respondents, data for 2024).
Source:Association for Financial Professionals, 2025 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey2025
UK invoice and mandate scam losses were £41.3 million in 2025 across 2,305 cases, down 4% in value and the lowest loss and case totals UK Finance has reported (2020: £68.8 million, 4,721 cases).
Source:UK Finance, Annual Fraud Report 20262025
68% of UK invoice and mandate scam losses in 2025 (£28.0 million) occurred on business (non-personal) accounts, across 1,217 cases.
Source:UK Finance, Annual Fraud Report 20262025
48% of UK invoice and mandate scam losses (£20.0 million) were returned to victims in 2025.
Source:UK Finance, Annual Fraud Report 20262025
Billing schemes, where an insider submits invoices for fictitious goods or services, inflated invoices or invoices for personal purchases, made up 508 of 2,402 occupational fraud cases (21%), with a median loss of $90,000.
Source:Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Occupational Fraud 2026: A Report to the Nations2026
Billing schemes ran for a median 14 months before detection, against a 12-month median for all occupational fraud cases.
Source:Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Occupational Fraud 2026: A Report to the Nations2026
When these numbers don't apply
Aggregate statistics hide a lot. Read these caveats before quoting a figure as if it describes your specific situation.
- No source counts "invoice fraud" as one category. Business email compromise (FBI, AFP) includes CEO impersonation and other payment redirection, not only fake or altered invoices; UK Finance's invoice and mandate scams include consumers paying builders and conveyancers.
- FBI IC3 and UK Finance figures are reported losses. Victims who never report, or report only to their bank or local police, are missing, so true losses are higher.
- The AFP survey covers treasury and finance professionals at US organizations (465 respondents in January 2026, 521 in January 2025). It leans toward mid-size and large organizations and says little about sole traders and micro businesses.
- ACFE cases are frauds by employees, managers and owners against their own organizations, investigated by Certified Fraud Examiners. They are not a random sample of all occupational fraud, and billing schemes are insider fraud, not external scams.
- The average BEC loss per complaint is a simple division of IC3's totals. A few very large losses pull it up, so a typical complaint is likely smaller.
How we compiled this data
Reviewed 28 October 2026. Each figure was re-read in the primary publication: the FBI IC3 Internet Crime Report 2025 (PDF, complaint and loss tables, the AI section and the Recovery Asset Team section), the AFP's own press releases for its 2026 and 2025 Payments Fraud and Control Surveys, UK Finance's Annual Fraud Report 2026 (page 41, read through the Internet Archive capture of 11 July 2026 because UK Finance blocks automated requests), and the ACFE's Occupational Fraud 2026 report (Figure 5 and the scheme-duration text). The per-complaint average is our own division of IC3's totals and is labelled as such. Overall payment fraud rates, card fraud and consumer imposter scams were left to the payment fraud statistics page, and check fraud to the check payment statistics page. On 2026-10-28 the IC3 Recovery Asset Team figure was removed from the payment fraud statistics page, so it now appears only here. Older figures, including an ACFE 2024 median and an IC3 figure linked only to the IC3 homepage, were replaced by the latest editions.
We hand-collected each figure from its original publisher rather than recycling secondary round-ups, cross-checked the headline numbers against the source documents in 2026-10-28, and link every statistic to the report it came from so you can verify it yourself. Where a publisher issues annual updates, we cite the report edition and flag the year inline.
Frequently asked questions
What is invoice fraud?
It is any scheme that uses a real, altered or fake invoice to get paid money the payer does not owe. The two most measured forms are payment redirection, where a criminal posing as a supplier asks for payment to new bank details (counted as business email compromise by the FBI and AFP, and as invoice and mandate scams by UK Finance), and billing schemes, where an employee submits fictitious or inflated invoices (counted by the ACFE).
How much money is lost to business email compromise?
The FBI's IC3 recorded $3,046,598,558 in reported business email compromise losses in 2025 across 24,768 complaints, up from $2.77 billion in 2024. That works out to about $123,000 per complaint on average, though a few very large losses raise the average.
How common is vendor impersonation?
In the AFP's 2026 survey, 74% of US organizations were affected by business email compromise in 2025. In the 2025 survey, vendor imposter fraud was cited by 45% of respondents, 11 percentage points more than the year before.
Are invoice scams rising or falling in the UK?
Falling. UK Finance recorded £41.3 million of invoice and mandate scam losses in 2025 across 2,305 cases, the lowest totals it has reported, compared with £68.8 million and 4,721 cases in 2020. Businesses still carry most of the loss: 68% of 2025 losses were on non-personal accounts.
Can money sent to a fraudster be recovered?
Sometimes, if it is reported fast. UK Finance says 48% of 2025 invoice and mandate scam losses were returned to victims. In the US, IC3's Recovery Asset Team froze $679 million of $1.16 billion in attempted theft across 3,900 incidents in 2025, a 58% success rate. The FBI advises contacting your bank immediately to request a recall and filing a complaint at ic3.gov.
How long do internal billing schemes go undetected?
The ACFE's 2026 study found a median of 14 months for billing schemes, longer than the 12-month median for all cases. Billing schemes were 21% of the 2,402 cases studied, with a median loss of $90,000.
Put these figures to use
- Payments hub: Guides on payment methods, terms and getting invoices paid.
- Accounts payable automation guide: Includes the payer-side controls that stop duplicate and redirected payments.
- Business bank accounts for freelancers: Covers sharing remittance details and confirming bank detail changes by phone.
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