Blog

The State of Fraud in 2026 – Part One

David Anderson is principal of David Anderson & Associates, a Philadelphia forensic accounting firm that provides a full range of forensic accounting services including fraud investigation, fraud deterrence, business valuation, and marital dissolution in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley.

This blog is the first in a series of four posts.

Every two years, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) commissions a survey of fraud in the United States and abroad. The ACFE recently released its 2026 study entitled “Occupational Fraud 2026 – A Report to the Nations”. Over the next several weeks, I will discuss some of the key findings from the 2026 report. Up first: Some general observations regarding fraud:

  • The ACFE study estimates that the typical business/organization (including non-profit organizations) is losing about 5 percent of revenue each year to fraud.
  • The median loss from fraud is $104,000. This is down 28 percent from the $145,000 median loss identified in the 2024 Report;
  • Twenty-five percent of all frauds result in a loss of over $600,000;
  • The median duration of reported frauds is 12 months, the same as in 2022 and 2024;
  • Fraud losses spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, they have resumed the downward trend which had begun prior to 2020;
  • Smaller businesses (those with fewer than 100 employees) experienced a median loss of $126,000, surpassing all other organization sizes, including very large businesses (those with more than 10,000 employees);
  • Asset misappropriation schemes (frauds involving the theft of cash, inventory, supplies, equipment, or other company assets) remained the most common scheme and rose to 91 percent of all fraud schemes (versus 89 percent in the 2024 Report). Median asset misappropriation losses fell to $100,000 (versus $120,000 in the 2024 Report and $100,000 in the 2022 Report);
  • Financial statement fraud remains the least common scheme at 6 percent (versus 5 percent in the 2024 Report and 9 percent in the 2022 Report), but results in the highest median losses – $1,000,000 (up 31 percent from the $766,000 median loss per fraud in the 2024 Report).
  • Internal control weaknesses, including inadequate separation of duties, were responsible for over 50 percent of all fraud reported in the 2026 Report (the same as for the 2024 Report);
  • 4 percent of fraud discussed in the 2026 Report involved cryptocurrency (the same as the 2024 Report) with 39 percent of those frauds involving bribes and/or kickbacks paid in cryptocurrency and 22 percent of those frauds involving misappropriated assets being converted to cryptocurrency.
  • The 2026 Report identified 18 different anti-fraud controls that companies had implemented (I’ll discuss these in greater detail in a later blog article). It found that every control implemented resulted in a reduction in both the duration and amount of fraud.

My next blog article will discuss how fraud is detected and the characteristics of the people who commit fraud.

If you have any questions about potential fraud in your business, you should speak with a Certified Fraud Examiner from an experienced firm that provides forensic accounting services in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley. The Philadelphia forensic accounting firm of David Anderson & Associates can be reached by calling David Anderson at 267-207-3597 or emailing him at david@davidandersonassociates.com.

About David Anderson & Associates

David Anderson & Associates is a Philadelphia forensic accounting firm that provides a full range of forensic accounting services in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley. The experienced professionals at David Anderson & Associates provide forensic accounting, business valuation, fraud investigation, fraud deterrence, litigation support, economic damage analysis, business consulting, and outsourced CFO services. Company principal David Anderson is a forensic accounting expert who has more than 30 years of experience in financial and operational leadership positions and is a Certified Public Accountant, a Certified Fraud Examiner, and a Certified Valuation Analyst.