Reference · 39 figures · Updated July 2026
The numbers
What UK consumers are owed, how much of it goes unclaimed, and who is holding it. Every figure below carries the period it covers and the source it came from, because a statistic without either is worth nothing to anyone.
Free to quote with credit. Where a number is a company's own estimate rather than an official statistic, it says so in the source column, and you should weigh it accordingly.
Transport for London
The figures for incomplete journeys come from a Freedom of Information response and cover the 2023 calendar year. Most published writing on this still quotes numbers from 2016.
| Figure | What it counts | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30.9 million | Incomplete journeys on the contactless network, where a tap in or a tap out was missing The Forgotten Tap | 2023 calendar year | Transport for London, FOI-4311-2324Freedom of Information |
| £164.7 million | Maximum-fare revenue charged on those incomplete journeys The Forgotten Tap | 2023 calendar year | Transport for London, FOI-4311-2324Freedom of Information |
| £8.90 | The maximum fare ceiling on pay as you go | 2025 fares | Mayor of London, fares package 2025Official statistic |
| 8 weeks | Window to claim an incomplete journey refund. Service delay refunds run to 28 days instead TfL refunds | Current | Transport for London refunds guidanceOfficial statistic |
Trains
Delay Repay outcomes across 24 operators, reconciled from the regulator’s own tables for the 2024-25 financial year. The full table is downloadable.
| Figure | What it counts | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 81.6% | Closed Delay Repay claims approved, industry-wide The Rail Index | Financial year 2024-25 | Office of Rail and RoadOfficial statistic |
| 0.39 | Approved Delay Repay claims per 100 passenger journeys, across all 24 operators The Rail Index | Financial year 2024-25 | Untap Rail Index, from Office of Rail and Road tablesOur reconciliation |
| £150.6 million | Delay Repay paid, across the 15 operators the department discloses. Nine operators are not disclosed The Rail Index | Financial year 2024-25 | Department for Transport transparency dataOfficial statistic |
| 5.75% | Trains cancelled or significantly late, weighted by passenger journeys The Rail Index | Financial year 2024-25 | Office of Rail and RoadOfficial statistic |
Flights
Compensation amounts are set in law and do not depend on what the ticket cost. The last two figures are a claims firm’s own estimates rather than official statistics, and are marked as such.
| Figure | What it counts | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| £220, £350, £520 | UK261 compensation per passenger, by flight distance. Long-haul delays of three to four hours pay half UK261 explained | Current | Civil Aviation AuthorityOfficial statistic |
| 6 years | Limit for bringing a claim in England and Wales. Five years in Scotland Claiming it yourself | Current | Dawson v Thomson Airways [2014] EWCA Civ 845Official statistic |
| 700,000 | Passengers affected by the air traffic control system failure, which cancelled around 1,500 flights Three Hours, Six Years | 28 August 2023 | NATS CP1 Major Incident ReportOfficial statistic |
| about £1.7 billion | Flight compensation left unclaimed by UK passengers each year. Derived: roughly 8.7 million eligible passengers at the £300 average claim, against a take-up rate of about one in three Three Hours, Six Years | Annual, 2024 basis | Untap derivation from CAA passenger and take-up dataOur reconciliation |
| about £300 | Average successful UK261 claim per passenger | Reported 2024 | Bott and CoCompany estimate |
| about £5.2 billion | Cumulative unclaimed flight compensation since 2005 | Since 2005 | Bott and CoCompany estimate |
Parking
Private operators do not publish ticket totals, so the keeper-data lookups they buy from the DVLA are the standard proxy. Our figures are reconciled from the source spreadsheets.
| Figure | What it counts | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| £962 million | Surplus English councils made from on-street and off-street parking Worth a Letter | 2023-24 | RAC Foundation, from CIPFA returnsOfficial statistic |
| 14.4 million | Vehicle-keeper data lookups bought by private parking operators, the proxy for notices posted out The Parking Index | 2024-25 | Untap Parking Index, from DVLA registers statisticsOur reconciliation |
| 6.9 million | The same lookups six years earlier The Parking Index | 2018-19 | Untap Parking Index, from DVLA registers statisticsOur reconciliation |
| 45.8% | Completed private parking appeals that ended in the motorist’s favour, counting appeals allowed plus those the operator dropped The Parking Index | October 2024 to September 2025 | Untap Parking Index, from the appeals service’s own appendixOur reconciliation |
| 104,349 | Appeals received by the private parking appeals service The Parking Index | October 2024 to September 2025 | POPLA annual reportOfficial statistic |
| £70, or £35 if paid early | Higher-band council penalty charge outside London. The amounts have not changed since 2008 UK parking fines | Current | Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions (England) General Regulations 2007Official statistic |
Council Tax
All from the local authority returns that make up the England council taxbase, which records who is claiming which discount.
| Figure | What it counts | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8.4 million | Households claiming the Single Person Discount in England Money Owed · Councils | 2024 taxbase | MHCLG, Council Taxbase 2024Official statistic |
| 114,200 | Properties with a full exemption for severe mental impairment, where everyone in the household is disregarded Money Owed · Councils | 2024 taxbase | MHCLG, Council Taxbase 2024Official statistic |
| 138,000 | Households claiming the Disabled Band Reduction | 2024 taxbase | MHCLG, Council Taxbase 2024Official statistic |
| 279,870 | Recorded second homes in England | 2024 taxbase | MHCLG, Council Taxbase 2024Official statistic |
| £2,392 | Average Band D council tax in England The Band You Are In | 2026-27 | MHCLG, Council Tax levels set by local authoritiesOfficial statistic |
| 944,000 | UK adults living with dementia, the population the severe mental impairment discount is largely meant for | 2025 | Alzheimer’s SocietyOfficial statistic |
Renting
Deposit protection has been compulsory since 2007 and a court must order a penalty of one to three times the deposit when a landlord gets it wrong.
| Figure | What it counts | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.7 million | Private rented households in England, 19 per cent of all households Money Owed · Renters | 2024-25 | MHCLG, English Housing SurveyOfficial statistic |
| 7% | Private renters who report their deposit was never properly protected Money Owed · Renters | July 2025 | Generation Rent, sample of 2,000 renters, Opinium fieldworkSurvey |
| 22% | Private renters who report unfair deductions from a deposit | July 2025 | Generation Rent, sample of 2,000 renters, Opinium fieldworkSurvey |
| 30 days | Time a landlord has to protect a deposit and give you the prescribed information Deposit protection | Current | Housing Act 2004, sections 213 to 215Official statistic |
Tax
Reliefs that have to be claimed rather than applied automatically, and which the National Audit Office has criticised the department for not tracking.
| Figure | What it counts | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.2 million | Couples eligible for Marriage Allowance, against a take-up rate of about 48 per cent Money Owed · HMRC | May 2025 | House of Commons Library, briefing SN00870Official statistic |
| £252 | Marriage Allowance transfer per year, backdatable four tax years Marriage Allowance | Current | GOV.UK, Marriage AllowanceOfficial statistic |
| 880,000 | Higher-rate taxpayers who do not declare relief-at-source pension contributions, and so never get the higher-rate portion Money Owed · HMRC | 2023-24 | LCP Freedom of Information requestFreedom of Information |
| over £1 billion | Aggregate higher-rate pension relief left unclaimed each year | 2023-24 | LCP Freedom of Information requestFreedom of Information |
| £60, £125, £140, £1,022 | Flat rate expense allowance for uniform upkeep: the standard rate, then nurses, police and airline pilots Uniform tax relief | Current | HMRC Employment Income Manual EIM32712Official statistic |
Money nobody claimed
Two of the largest pots of money in the country that are owed to named individuals, sitting unclaimed because claiming is an active step and nothing prompts it.
| Figure | What it counts | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 730,000 | Tax refunds that went unclaimed in a single year. HMRC now requires you to actively claim rather than issuing a cheque automatically, which is the change behind the number | Reported June 2026 | HMRC Employer Bulletin, June 2026Official statistic |
| £855 | Average value of each of those unclaimed tax refunds | Reported June 2026 | HMRC Employer Bulletin, June 2026Official statistic |
| £1.7 billion | Sitting in matured Child Trust Funds belonging to almost a million young adults, at an average of roughly £1,900 each | Public Accounts Committee report | House of Commons Committee of Public AccountsOfficial statistic |
| 42% | Of 18 to 20 year olds who have not claimed the savings in their matured Child Trust Fund. Around half of all such accounts were opened for children in low-income families | Public Accounts Committee report | House of Commons Committee of Public AccountsOfficial statistic |
Using these figures
Quote them freely. We ask only that you credit Untap and link back, which is the same thing we do to the bodies these figures came from. If you are writing something and want the working behind a number, ask and we will send it.
Two of these datasets are published in full as spreadsheets on our open data page, covering 31 parking operators and 24 train operators row by row.
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