Archive ACFE Report to the Nations

The Report to the Nations is the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ leading global study on occupational fraud. When we talk about occupational fraud, we are simply referring to the use of one’s position at work to gain personal benefit through the misuse or misappropriation of the organisation’s resources or assets. In other words, fraud committed from within: by employees, executives, managers, partners, directors or other individuals who have access, trust or the authority to act within an organisation.
The report was first published in 1996, initiated by the ACFE to address a very clear need: to move from the scattered experience of anti-fraud professionals to a structured, comparable and useful knowledge base. At that time, research, case studies and professional practice already existed, but there was a lack of a common framework that would allow us to explain, using data, how occupational fraud impacts organisations.

The 2026 edition is particularly significant as it marks the 14th edition of the report and coincides with the 30th anniversary of this series of studies. Since the first edition, the ACFE has analysed tens of thousands of cases of occupational fraud. From 2004 onwards, the report has been published biennially, enabling comparisons of fraud trends over time and an assessment of what changes and what remains the same.
The report is not a perception survey. It does not simply ask whether we believe there is more or less fraud. It is based on real cases investigated by Certified Fraud Examiners – professionals who have been directly involved in those investigations. This is why the report has particular practical value: it goes beyond theory to reflect accumulated investigative experience.

Specifically, the 2026 Report to the Nations analyses 2,402 real-life cases of occupational fraud from 143 countries and territories. These cases were investigated between January 2024 and September 2025. The information was obtained through the ACFE’s Global Fraud Survey, an online survey open to CFEs, conducted between July and September 2025.
For a case to be included in the report, it had to meet four basic conditions: it had to be a case of occupational fraud, i.e. fraud committed by an individual against the organisation for which they worked; the investigation had to have taken place between January 2024 and September 2025; the investigation had to have been completed; and the responding professional had to be reasonably certain that the perpetrator or perpetrators had been identified.
This methodological point is important because it explains the report’s robustness, but also its limitations. It does not aim to cover every instance of fraud in the world – something that would be impossible, as fraud, by its very nature, is concealed and often goes undetected. What the report does is analyse a very broad sample of investigated cases and identify useful patterns for prevention, detection and response.

The report itself organises the analysis into six main areas: how fraud is committed, what economic impact it has, how it is detected, the characteristics of the organisations affected, the profiles and behaviours of the perpetrators, and what happens after detection, including internal measures, legal action and recovery of losses.
This structure is one of the reasons why the report is so useful. It does not merely state how much is lost. It helps to understand where to look, which controls to review, which communication channels work, which warning signs to watch out for, and what decisions organisations typically take once fraud has been uncovered.
It also enables organisations to do something of great value: benchmark themselves. An organisation can review its own anti-fraud programme and ask itself whether its controls, reporting channels, internal audits, training, investigation mechanisms and disciplinary response are reasonably aligned with international best practice.