Romance scam statistics 2025-2026: global data and trends

Romance scams remain one of the most financially devastating forms of online fraud worldwide. The numbers are staggering, and they represent only a fraction of actual losses, since many victims never report. This article compiles the most current data from government agencies across the globe to paint a comprehensive picture of the romance scam landscape in 2025 and 2026.

United States: FTC and FBI data

Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

The FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network database remains the most comprehensive source of fraud data in the United States. In 2025, the FTC recorded 70,588 romance scam reports, with reported losses of $1.49 billion and a median individual loss of $2,050; 62% of the people who reported a romance scam said they lost money. In 2024, the figures stood at 60,916 reports and $1.21 billion. Reported losses have stayed above the billion-dollar mark every year since 2021 (source: FTC Consumer Sentinel interactive data, published July 28, 2026, data as of June 30, 2026).

Key FTC findings include:

• Median individual loss: $2,000 in 2024 and $2,050 in 2025. The average is far higher: spread over the people who reported losing money, 2024 losses come to more than $30,000 per victim, pulled up by a minority of very large losses.
• Payment methods: gift cards are the most frequently reported payment method (24% of people who lost money to a romance scam in 2022), while cryptocurrency and bank wires carry the largest sums: together, more than 60% of reported romance losses in 2022, according to the FTC's February 2023 Data Spotlight.
• Contact origin: per the FTC's April 2026 release, nearly 60% of people who lost money to a romance scam in 2025 said it started on a social media platform. Across all scams that started on social media that year, Facebook accounted for the most money lost, with WhatsApp and Instagram a distant second and third.
• Age: in 2025, people aged 60 to 69 reported the highest total romance losses ($174.9 million), and the median loss rose with age, from $500 for people in their twenties to $10,000 for those aged 70 to 79 and $11,000 for those 80 and over.

FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)

The FBI's IC3 recorded 23,159 complaints of confidence fraud and romance scams in its 2025 Internet Crime Report (published April 2026), with losses totaling $929.3 million, a 38% jump in one year (after $672 million in 2024 and $652.5 million in 2023). Victims aged 60 and over concentrated $584 million of those losses, 63% of the total, up 50% year-over-year. The IC3 figures are generally lower than FTC numbers because the two agencies use different reporting mechanisms and categorization systems.

The 2025 report also quantifies the convergence of romance scams with cryptocurrency: complaints with a crypto nexus account for $394.8 million of romance losses (42% of that total). By frequency of reported losses, prepaid and gift cards remain the most common transaction type in these frauds (31%), ahead of cryptocurrency (25%), wire and ACH transfers (21%) and peer-to-peer payments (15%). In hybrid "pig butchering" (sha zhu pan) schemes, the scammer first builds an emotional relationship and then steers the victim toward fraudulent cryptocurrency or forex investment platforms.

Australia: ACCC Scamwatch data

Australia's National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC), part of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), combines the reports made to Scamwatch, ReportCyber, banks (through the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange), ASIC and IDCARE. In its latest annual report, Australians reported AUD $139.9 million in romance scam losses in 2025, down 10.8% from AUD $156.8 million in 2024 and AUD $201.1 million in 2023 (NASC, Targeting scams report 2025, published March 2026).

Australian data reveals several notable patterns:

• Scamwatch alone: AUD $28.7 million in romance losses reported in 2025, up from AUD $23.7 million in 2024.
• Age: among people aged 55 to 64, romance scams caused the second-highest losses after investment scams, AUD $7.1 million reported to Scamwatch in 2025, 7.8% more than in 2024.
• Romance Scam Fusion Cell: in 2025, this NASC-led taskforce of government, law enforcement and private-sector partners referred 1,004 suspected scam transactions and 168 suspect cryptocurrency wallet addresses for investigation, blocking and blacklisting, and created an Online Relationship Health Check, a 20-question self-assessment tool.

The NASC has coordinated the national response since July 1, 2023, and the Scams Prevention Framework Act, passed in February 2025, sets common obligations for designated sectors, starting with banking, telecommunications and digital platforms.

United Kingdom: City of London Police and UK Finance

According to the City of London Police (May 2026), UK victims lost more than £102 million to romance fraud in 2025 (almost £280,000 every day) across 10,784 reports, a 29% surge compared with 2024. The average reported loss was £9,500, with individual cases reaching £1 million. People aged 55 to 74 accounted for almost half of the total amount stolen; men submitted more reports, but women suffered greater financial losses (just over 40% of the total value). The force notes that romance fraud consistently ranks among the most emotionally harmful crime types it encounters.

UK Finance, the banking industry body, tracks romance scams separately, through the authorised push payment (APP) fraud reported by banks. The UK's new mandatory reimbursement rules for APP fraud, introduced in late 2024, have changed the landscape: banks must now reimburse victims up to £85,000 unless the victim acted with gross negligence.

Global comparison: losses by country

The following summary compares reported romance scam losses across major English-speaking countries, for the latest year available:

• United States (2025): $1.49 billion and 70,588 reports (FTC); $929 million and 23,159 complaints (FBI IC3)
• United Kingdom (2025): £102+ million (~$130 million USD), 10,784 reports, +29% YoY
• Australia (2025): AUD $139.9 million in combined reported losses, down 10.8% from 2024 (NASC)

These figures represent only countries with robust reporting infrastructure. Romance scams are a global phenomenon affecting victims in every country. The European Union does not publish consolidated romance scam data: the figures, when they exist, are national. In Asia, romance scams are also a major concern, notably in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Demographics: who falls victim

One of the most persistent myths about romance scams is that victims are primarily elderly, lonely, and naive. The data tells a more nuanced story.

Age distribution

Romance scams affect every adult age group, but the financial impact varies dramatically by age. FTC romance scam reports for 2025, by age of the person reporting (FTC Consumer Sentinel, age details; only 46% of fraud reports that year included the person's age):

• 19 and under: 1,959 reports, median loss $200.
• 20-29: 5,140 reports, median loss $500, $17.5 million lost in total.
• 30-39: 5,055 reports, median loss $1,500, $48.4 million in total.
• 40-49: 4,591 reports, median loss $3,000, $71.5 million in total.
• 50-59: 4,425 reports, median loss $5,000, $102.6 million in total.
• 60-69: 5,454 reports, the most of any age group, median loss $6,000 and the highest total, $174.9 million.
• 70-79: 3,975 reports, median loss $10,000, $170.6 million in total.
• 80 and over: 1,028 reports, but the highest median loss, $11,000, and $38.6 million in total. Madeleine's story, a widow who lost 240,000 euros over eight years to a fake Canadian architect met on Facebook, shows how long these relationships can last.

Gender

Neither the FTC nor the FBI publishes romance scam figures broken down by gender. In the UK, the City of London Police reports that men submitted more romance fraud reports in 2025, while women suffered greater financial losses. Sextortion, a related but distinct scam type, overwhelmingly targets men and boys.

Other risk factors

Research published in the British Journal of Criminology and the Journal of Financial Crime identifies several factors that correlate with romance scam victimization:

• Recent life disruption (divorce, bereavement, relocation, job loss)
• Social isolation or limited local social network
• Higher levels of emotional empathy and trust
• Lower digital literacy, though many victims are technically competent, suggesting other psychological factors are more important
• Willingness to engage with strangers online (not inherently negative, but a necessary precondition for the scam)

Trending: AI, deepfakes, and pig butchering

AI-generated content

The most significant shift in romance scam methodology since 2023 has been the adoption of generative AI tools. Scammers now routinely use:

• AI-generated profile photos: tools like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney create realistic photos of people who have never existed, making reverse image search ineffective as a detection method.
• AI chatbots: large language models allow a single scammer to maintain convincing conversations with dozens of victims simultaneously, drastically reducing labor costs and increasing scale.
• Real-time deepfake video: applications like DeepFaceLive enable scammers to conduct video calls using another person's face, undermining what was previously considered the gold standard verification method.
• Voice cloning: AI voice synthesis requires only a few seconds of sample audio to generate convincing voice replicas, enabling phone-based scams with "verification" calls.

Pig butchering (Sha Zhu Pan)

Pig butchering has emerged as the dominant romance scam variant by dollar volume. The name comes from the Chinese metaphor of "fattening the pig before slaughter": building trust and emotional investment before guiding the victim to a fraudulent investment platform.

Key pig butchering statistics:

• Chainalysis estimates roughly $17 billion was stolen in crypto scams and fraud in 2025, with pig butchering a dominant category by volume
• The average crypto-scam payment jumped 253% in one year, from $782 in 2024 to $2,764 in 2025 (Chainalysis)
• AI-enabled scam operations extract about 4.5 times more revenue per operation than non-AI ones (Chainalysis)
• Many scam operations are run from compounds in Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines) using trafficked laborers forced to conduct scams
• Victims are directed to convincing fake trading platforms that initially show profitable returns to encourage larger deposits

Cryptocurrency dominance

Cryptocurrency now carries a large share of the money lost to romance scams. In 2021, the FTC found that cryptocurrency accounted for the highest reported romance losses of any payment method, $139 million; in 2025, the FBI linked $394.8 million of the romance losses reported to IC3, 42% of the total, to complaints with a cryptocurrency nexus. Scammers prefer cryptocurrency because transactions are irreversible, pseudonymous, and difficult for law enforcement to trace across international borders.

The reporting gap

Every statistic in this article dramatically understates the true scale of romance scams. No recent study reliably quantifies how many romance scam victims report the crime to an authority, but the agencies that publish these figures all stress that many victims never report, and the Global Anti-Scam Alliance found in 2025 that uncertainty over where to report is the main barrier. The agencies that take reports in the US, the UK, Australia and Canada are listed in our guide on what to do after a romance scam.

Reasons for non-reporting include:

• Shame and embarrassment: victims often blame themselves and fear judgment from family, friends, and authorities.
• Disbelief: some victims remain in denial that they were scammed, sometimes for months or years after the scam ends.
• Fear of not being taken seriously: many victims who do attempt to report describe dismissive or victim-blaming responses from police.
• Belief that nothing can be done: victims often (correctly) perceive that their money is unlikely to be recovered and that the scammer is unlikely to be arrested.
• Ongoing manipulation: in some cases, victims are still in contact with the scammer and have been convinced that any legal intervention will harm them both.

Year-over-year trends: 2020-2026

The trajectory of romance scam losses reported to the FTC (all Consumer Sentinel data sources) reveals clear patterns:

• 2020: $730 million (FTC). The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated online dating and created ideal conditions for romance scammers: isolated, anxious people spending more time on screens.
• 2021: $1.3 billion (FTC). The first year above the billion-dollar mark, as pandemic-era loneliness persisted and cryptocurrency became the payment method with the highest reported losses.
• 2022: $1.34 billion (FTC), from nearly 70,000 reports. Cryptocurrency and bank wires accounted for more than 60% of reported losses.
• 2023: $1.18 billion (FTC). A decline in reported losses; the figure first announced in February 2024, $1.14 billion, has since been revised upward in the FTC's data.
• 2024: $1.21 billion (FTC), from 60,916 reports. FBI IC3 counts $672 million.
• 2025: the AI-powered surge materializes. The FTC records $1.49 billion from 70,588 reports, its highest annual total; FBI-reported romance losses jump 38% to $929 million. The FBI's 2025 report attributes over $19 million of romance losses to schemes with a likely AI nexus, plus over $5 million to voice-cloning "distress scams", out of 22,364 AI-linked complaints across all fraud types ($893 million).
• 2026 (first half): $682 million from 30,152 reports (FTC, data as of June 30, 2026), with a median loss of $2,000.

What the data tells us

Several conclusions emerge from the global data:

1. Romance scams are not a niche crime. With over $1 billion in reported US losses every year since 2021, romance fraud is one of the most costly consumer fraud categories.
2. The convergence with investment fraud is the biggest emerging threat. Traditional romance scams that ask for gift cards or wire transfers, under pretexts such as a sudden medical emergency, travel fees to finally meet or an inheritance blocked abroad, are being eclipsed by pig butchering operations that extract far larger sums through fake investment platforms.
3. Technology is making scams more convincing, not less. AI-generated photos, deepfake video, and chatbot-driven conversations are raising the bar for detection. Methods that worked five years ago (reverse image search, demanding a video call) are becoming less reliable.
4. Demographic assumptions are dangerous. Anyone can fall victim. The belief that only elderly or uneducated people are susceptible prevents younger and well-educated victims from recognizing their vulnerability or seeking help.
5. The reporting gap makes evidence-based policymaking difficult. Without accurate data on the true scale of the problem, governments and platforms are making decisions based on reports that, in the FTC's own words, "reflect just a small fraction of the public harm", because the vast majority of frauds are never reported to the government.

Behind every statistic on this page is a person who was once told « it could never happen to me ». If you recognise yourself in any line of this report, talking to an expert is the cheapest first step you can take.

Cite this barometer

The figures in this report are published as open data (CC BY 4.0 licence), each value with its source, and archived under a permanent identifier (DOI). Reference to cite:

Le Normand, V. (2026). Romance Scam Statistics 2024-2026 (Baromètre 2026 des arnaques sentimentales) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22284080

Sources

• FBI IC3 Internet Crime Report 2025 (published April 2026), complaints, losses, elder fraud, AI and cryptocurrency data
• FTC Consumer Sentinel Network, interactive fraud data (published July 28, 2026, data as of June 30, 2026): romance scam reports, losses and median loss by year, quarter and age
• FTC Data Spotlights on romance scams of February 10, 2022 and February 9, 2023, and FTC business blog of February 2024 (2023 figures)
• FTC press release of April 27, 2026 (social media scams)
• City of London Police, romance fraud statistics for 2025, May 5, 2026 release
• Global Anti-Scam Alliance, Global State of Scams 2025 (October 7, 2025)
• Chainalysis, 2026 Crypto Crime Report, scams chapter (January 13, 2026)
• National Anti-Scam Centre (ACCC), Targeting scams report 2025 (March 2026), combined Australian scam losses for 2023-2025
• UK Finance, Annual Fraud Report, banking industry authorised push payment fraud data
• Whitty, M.T. (2018) "Do You Love Me? Psychological Characteristics of Romance Scam Victims", Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking
• Cross, C. & Kelly, M. (2016) "Where is the Fraud in Online Romance Scamming?", British Journal of Criminology