2026-09-16 · USD estimated annual revenue loss

Profit shifting hides billions in tax gaps

Corporate tax losses from profit shifting — lower-bound estimates still huge.

An estimated $500 billion in corporate tax revenue goes missing worldwide every year — and profit shifting by multinationals accounts for roughly 60% of the loss, about $300 billion. The rest stems from other evasion and tax gaps. These are lower-bound 2026 estimates, so the true cost to public budgets could be even larger.

1 cell = 500 million USD estimated annual revenue loss (0.1% of global corporate tax loss estimate) · 1,000 cells

Context

Figures are rounded, lower-bound estimates drawn from EU Tax Observatory and IMF corporate tax gap work. The EU Tax Observatory is an EU-funded research initiative producing research and data resources to inform tax policy debate and decision-making in the European Union.

Profit shifting — multinationals booking profits in low-tax jurisdictions — makes up roughly three-fifths of the estimated global loss, with other evasion and tax gaps accounting for the remaining 40%.

The Observatory's EUTO Gap workstream, led by the International Tax Observatory — a laboratory of the Paris School of Economics — focuses specifically on the tax gap: tax evasion, fraud, avoidance, and aggressive tax planning.

EU Tax Observatory / IMF corporate tax gap estimates, rounded.