KPMG Issues Clean Audit Opinion on Tether’s 2025 Accounts

KPMG U.S. issued an unqualified audit opinion on the 2025 financial statements of Tether International, S.A. de C.V., signed Aug. 13, 2026. The audited statements show reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.814 billion at Dec. 31, 2025.

The engagement covered the complete balance sheet, income statement, statement of changes in equity and cash flow statement prepared under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. KPMG examined the full financial statements rather than a single-date reserve snapshot.

Audit procedures included testing transactions and systems, verifying ownership records, reviewing asset valuations, examining counterparties and supporting documentation, and independent substantive testing across account balances. KPMG also physically counted and inspected each individual gold bar in Tether’s holdings; the company reported holding more than 146 metric tons of physical gold.

Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s chief executive, wrote that critics had long claimed a full audit was impossible and that the company had refused rigorous scrutiny, adding, ‘We have once again proven them wrong.’

The opinion is limited by date and entity. It applies only to Tether International’s financial position as of Dec. 31, 2025, and covers the issuing entity named in the report. KPMG did not audit later reporting periods or other group entities, and the announcement does not state that any affiliates were audited.

Tether’s quarterly attestations for 2026 were prepared by BDO Italia and were not part of KPMG’s work. Those attestations reported a reserves surplus of $8.23 billion at March 31, 2026, and $4.11 billion at June 30, 2026. Tether’s Q2 2026 attestation also referenced about $184.6 billion in USDT circulation and roughly $1.5 billion in net operating profit for the quarter; those figures were not examined by KPMG.

The company has taken several steps since 2021 regulatory actions, when it settled with the New York Attorney General for $18.5 million and paid a $41 million CFTC civil penalty related to statements about its reserves. In 2022 Tether changed its reserve report provider. The company completed a SOC 2 Type 1 examination of IT and security controls in 2024 and announced the KPMG engagement earlier in 2026.

An unqualified audit opinion states that the audited financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the company’s financial position and results under applicable accounting standards. The opinion does not provide assurance about periods after the audit date, the wider corporate group beyond the audited issuer, or the company’s ability to meet redemption requests under stress.