Revenue and Customs: Telephone Services
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will implement a review of HMRC helplines to (i) lower hold times and (ii) improve customer service.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson
Improving day-to-day performance is a key priority for HMRC.
In 2024-25, HMRC handled 71.5% of adviser attempts across their helplines and had an average call answer time of 18 minutes 38 seconds. So far this year (April –September 2025), they have handled 83.8% of adviser attempts and call wait times have decreased to 13 minutes 30 seconds.
HMRC are taking steps to make sure more of their services are digital, so customers can self-serve online. HMRC online services and the HMRC app are convenient to access and receive high customer satisfaction ratings. As more people use HMRC online services, advisers are freed up to support those with more complex queries and those who are digitally excluded.
The below table provides details of abandoned calls on the Self Assessment helpline over the past five years. Abandoned calls refers to calls that reach the queue for the helpline and the customer hangs up before their call is answered. Customers may hang up before their call is answered for a number of reasons – for example, they may have had their query answered by HMRC’s recorded messages, they may have found the information they require online or they may have decided to call back another time. So far in 2025-26, there have been 192,659 abandoned calls on the SA helpline (8.8% of overall calls)
Financial year | Number of abandoned calls on the Self Assessment helpline | Percentage of abandoned calls as a proportion of overall calls on the Self Assessment helpline |
2020-21 | 611,544 | 11.2% |
2021-22 | 689,007 | 14.4% |
2022-23 | 1,144,135 | 20.3% |
2023-24 | 704,546 | 16.8% |
2024-25 | 523,645 | 11.1% |
2025-26 – Year to date | 192,659 | 8.8% |
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